Marvel Comics blabbery

I was thinking of that exact story, too. This big secret re: death is being referenced in-universe more and more frequently.

pretty sure he came back during the x-force thing where the dead remained half-dead, but allied with selene xp

tbf the reaction from almost every character running into a "reanimated" character in that plot was "aw, hell no"

xpost Yeah, he did. Don't recall what ultimately became of those resurrected Horsemen.

I wish it were at least treated in some manner similar to Buffy's death and resurrection. Like, there are at least consequences or things lost from being brought back from the dead.

I guess they kinda went there with Nightcrawler's resurrection, but it doesn't really have as much gravity as a one-off thing.

iirc peter david did something interesting back in the pantheon-era hulk days, where rick jones' gf marlo was brought back from the dead but was basically in a vegetative state for a while xp

Yeah, for like maybe a year at most, iirc. Nothing like that ever lasts.

Did they fix Nightcrawler's problem of not having a soul yet? :(

Why does Bendis still have the keys to the Marvel Universe, I thought everyone was bored of him already? At least Hickman did something cool and imaginative with those keys. Bendis' previous big story (Age of Ultron) was one of the most tired, needless crossovers I've ever read, can't imagine this one being any better?

Oh this one is much much worse. Ultron was at least dumb fun, and had two really great Vic F crossovers.

On the other hand this one has taken Al's Ultimates team (i.e. the optimistic, hopeful ones) and turned them into The Bad Guys.

I wonder if time will out whose idea Civil War II was. My guess is that it wasn't a writer. Could be that Bendis took the job cuz no one else wanted it.

I was a Bendis fan back in his earlier Marvel days but kinda feel these days like he needs to focus on maybe like the Miles Morales book and otherwise just relax and enjoy the big money he surely has at this point. Pass that baton, bruh.

https://twitter.com/JHickman/status/752939781684797440

I'm not even caught up to the point where he left but I miss Hickman already.

It feels like Bendis has been churning out plot long enough that everything is kind of bland. I'd rather see some whimsical or really weird ideas fall flat than another by-the-book plot trickle through.

When I was thinking about "Road to road to Civil War 2.5" or whatever is going on had its "shocking" character death, and how as readers we're primed to disbelieve it's permanent, it reminded me of what Hickman did with the Human Torch. He's lost, presumably dead, in the Negative Zone for a reasonable amount of time but never shown to die on panel. I don't think, as a reader, I was ever supposed to believe he was dead, but his absence meant something to the plot.

...and his return meant even more! The reveal that he was killed _many times_ and rebuilt for these drudging fights (which is, at its root, what comic superheroes are put through, although not as literally) was commentary on superhero death, and when he finally reappears, it's one of the main events that turns the tide in a much larger battle! The Negative Zone portal popping open, and Johnny Storm standing there with Annihilus on a leash, was.. fun? Comics can be fun!

Yeah, good call. Too bad that, again, his grueling time in the Negative Zone didn't seem to affect his personality for long.

I guess that's my main complaint about Bendis, nothing seems fun or novel, just a slog through ideas that could be interesting but come off like checkmarks on a list of plot progression waypoints.

I picked up a few of Al's new Ultimates issues in a comic shop and the cashier hadn't been reading them and the cover with the golden Galactus on it kind of gave him pause, because he actually wanted to read it to figure out what was going on. I'm not sure "oh, I guess Doom is Iron Man now" gives the same sort of sense of curiosity.

But...it's a different suit of armor! The possibilities!

for sure, this one has green eyes

feels like Bendis has been churning out plot long enough that everything is kind of bland

Bendis comics have been bland since 1994

where'd I post that anecdote about overhearing dudes talking about Bendis? still funny

I definitely went through a period of wading back into comics and picked up the collected crime fiction works and gave them away not long after

Contrarian take: I like Bendis! Sure, not 100% of his stuff is good (agreed on the pointlessness of Age of Ultron) but the quality of his good stuff outweighs the bad easily imo

I'm with you. The pre-Marvel stuff, though...not recommended. A large part of the reason it took me a while to get around to his Marvel stuff.

The two Iron Man titles were fun until recently when the Civil War stuff kicked in.

Aside from usual gripes (annoying panel layout, too much talking, his only idea for action scenes is "a big thing explodes") I do think he's a very good writer for a certain type of enjoyable, base-level Marvel comic. But he has no discipline, and everything he does becomes a slog after six issues.

A slog?
A slog.
You're saying his work becomes a slog.
Yes, a slog. After six issues.
Six issues?
Six issues.
Why six?
Because it's more than five.
More than five?
More than five.
...A slog?

[Hellicarrier explodes.]

What was the first egregious resurrection/retcon that started this trend? Did it happen before Jean Grey/X-Factor?

http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/uncanny_x-men_65.shtml

Although Xavier's behavior is consistent with his explanation for why he was pretending to be dead all this time. It turns out an alien race called the Z'Nox are heading to Earth on their planet/spaceship.

Their MO is to fly close enough to a planet that they intend to invade and let their planets' gravitational pull do all the work.

Xavier became aware of the Z'Nox while "engaged in telepathic star-scanning" and was "desperately seeking a means of countering it" when the Changeling showed up. Changeling had been diagnosed with a sickness that gave him 6 months to live, and he wanted to make up for the bad things he'd done in his life.

Xavier had him mimic him and "divide[d] some of my powers between him and Jean".

Well, i guess that settles why Xavier had to fake his death, putting his poor students through all that heartache (and forcing Jean, who knew about it, to lie to her friends), right? No? You say that if he needed some time to prepare, Xavier could have just asked his students to give him some alone time? Hrmm. I guess he hadn't thought of that. Also not even a token explanation as to why he wouldn't have reached out to the Fantastic Four or Avengers for help (even though the Avengers were providing minor support to the X-Men during the time period that Xavier was thought dead, and even though the FF are shown in this issue).

Captain America returning in Avengers 4 seems like the start of this kind of thing, at least for Marvel (tho of course Cap hadn't actually died in the comics previously, just been cancelled - a fate worse than death for any comics character). Things like 'The Death of Superman' from 1961 also addressed the idea of superheroes being mortal; even tho it was an imaginary story, it clearly had a big effect on comic book readers of the time, and helped to establish the death/resurrection parallels between superheroes and Jesus.

And here it's confirmed that the intention was really to kill Xavier:

Per Roy Thomas in the intro to Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men vol. 4 (written in 2004):

"At the time, I believe it was our intention that he was really dead - as dead as Bucky Barnes, and that's dead, my friend - but I recall mentally leaving myself an "out" to bring him back, if we ever wanted to."

The "out" is using the Changeling, and that's what ultimately is used to bring Xavier back.

(xpost)

Captain America returning in Avengers 4 seems like the start of this kind of thing, at least for Marvel (tho of course Cap hadn't actually died in the comics previously, just been cancelled - a fate worse than death for any comics character).

I'm not sure if this really counts since, as you said, it hadn't been established earlier that he was dead, and the "death" was introduced as a retcon in the same story he was resurrected. Later on they even had to do another retcon to explain why Cap had been active in the '50s, if he died in WWII.

Possibly the Green Goblin?

Wasn't he revealed to be alive only in the mid-90s, i.e. a decade after the Jean Grey retcon?

I get confused about Harry Osborn. Didn't JM DeMatteis kill him off in the early 90s?

Yeah, he didn't come back until that Spidey super-retcon Brand New Day.

I'll have to have a flip through the old OHOTMU book of the dead to confirm, but my recollection is that not many major characters died before, like, the '80s, and when they did die (and it wasn't a one-issue feint or something) they generally stayed dead.

Uncle Ben, Bucky, Osborns Norman and Harry, Gwen Stacy, Captain Marvel, Kraven...most of those deaths were Big Deals (some with storylines/graphic novels specifically dedicated to the event), and most have stuck or at least weren't undone until much later.

Is that not just a factor of the fact that no-one was planning in the mid-term? And of course that no-one was planning, with those deaths, for their return at all.

(xp Tuomas completely OTM about Jean Gray prededeceasing Norman Osborne)

Preressurrecting, I assume you meant.

On the rare occasions I dip into Marvel continuity since I stopped reading comics in like 1988 or so*, it strengthens my resolve to discount anything that happened in comics since I stopped reading in like 1988 or so. In my head, Gwen is still dead, etc, and it's a better place to be.

* Loved the Morrison and Whedon runs on X-men tho. I am corny.

Isn't the "real" Gwen Stacy still dead tho? AFAIK Spider-Gwen is a parallel universe version of her or something?

I think Captain Marvel proved that the best way to kill a character and ensure he stays dead is to have him succumb to a real-life mortal illness. Because having someone come back from that would be considered bad taste, even if it makes no sense that Reed Richards or any of the other Marvel super-scientists haven't come up with a cure for cancer yet.

don't tempt millar

Deadpool has cancer, and his rogue super-healing factor keeps him from dying - in theory without the cancer his cells would keep growing and kill him.

And that, I've just found out, is why Normal Osborne found a cure for cancer, put it in a bullet, and fired it at Deadpool.

See, these are plots I would have rejected for being too ridiculous back when I was a six-year-old playing with action figures.

I... kind of like that idea for taking out Deadpool, particularly coming from Osborne.

help

http://i.imgur.com/AcsCubh.jpg

Sauron makes a valid point

all we are is rice paper puppies

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/comics/2010-09-01-onemonth-marvel01-ST_N.htm