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So Phantom Stranger...this comic sucks. And it's providing the initial lead up to the next big event with Pandora's Box?

Is this really a good idea?

Probably a good idea in terms of making people buy a comic they probably would have never tried. I'm not entirely sure how DCs events work new52. It feels like they have been hyping up "third war" since the beginning of the year yet no sign of it yet. Same with the Pandora character.

As for mouse guard - if people like the anthropomorphic set up then Image's "Mice Templar" has a better story but has more cartoony/traditional comic art.

Newsarama are positively gushing with their praise of Marvel's number 1s this week and while I thought All New X-men was decent their reviewer was clearly reading a different comment based on their comments about Bendis' skill. they also seem to have been brainwashed into "cyclops is bad" too as I didn't catch him doing anything in the first issue other than saving mutants who were about to be imprisoned or already were.

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I think if Phantom Stranger had someone other than Didio writing it this might be a good thing. Even an English major sophomore intern could pen better script than this.

Mind you, the whole giving an origin to the Stranger, and one has heavy handed as the one they decided on, makes the whole story so over the top corny. Judas! Pandora! That...guy who did something or other and at some point and became Question...

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So, this might be the "Superior" Spider-Man (spoilers, naturally) http://imageshack.us...1063314819.jpg/

Of course, this might be a dream, illusion, or even something that is reversed within the story itself, but if it isn't, then Marvel clearly lost the plot entirely. Although I think they will just put a teenager that was never married in the costume instead and hope people forget Peter.

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So, this might be the "Superior" Spider-Man (spoilers, naturally) http://imageshack.us...1063314819.jpg/

Of course, this might be a dream, illusion, or even something that is reversed within the story itself, but if it isn't, then Marvel clearly lost the plot entirely. Although I think they will just put a teenager that was never married in the costume instead and hope people forget Peter.

I'm sure I posited this very theory quite a while back when the big event was hinted at. It fits with Slott's claim that it's not Peter anymore but is Spider-man. It seemed like the obvious outome given the massive build-up to Otto's death and the name "superior".

The weird thing is that it's just Peter's memories and, if that page is genuine, Octavius is possessing Peter's body. Seems easy enough for them to reverse it - either by a psychic helping him out or Peter's memories taking over Octavius. It doesn't explain the mutations but Spidey seems to have them whenever the writer feels like it.

It's clearly only going to be temporary (look how well the clone saga went down) - until the next spidey film is released at most and it will be interesting to see what Octavius does ass Spider-man. Will he be evil, evil posing as good, or proper good?

the icky thing is going to be how they handle the fact Octavius once dated Aunt May. ewwww

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eta: formatting

Nemo:Heart of Ice – Cover Revealed!

From Amazon:

In the grim cold of February 2013 a new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book will surface: Nemo: Heart of Ice, a full-color 48-page adventure by the inestimable Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. It's 1925, fifteen years after the death of Captain Nemo, when his daughter Janni Dakkar launches a grand Antarctic expedition to lay the old man's burdensome legacy to rest. Accompanied by Nemo's shipmate Ishmael, a ration of rum, and her father's log, Janni embarks on a perilous journey to the bottom of the world pursued by employees of the megalomaniacal Charles Foster Kane, who seek the return of plundered loot. Jules Verne meets H.P. Lovecraft in the final showdown beneath the Mountains of Madness - the uncharted gap in the map where time is broken and our hero's reality is about to crack! Ready the Nautilus! She's going back to the South Pole!--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Also, this is the original plan for AvX, the final act that is:

http://files-cdn.formspring.me/photos/20121120/n50ab925dbf25e.jpg

I never thought I would say this, but clearly the event that was published was much better.

Notice there's no mention of the X-men with the "good guys", and the pathetic "Cap falls last" BS that seems written by an 8-year-old.

Makes even more clear to me how much this event was driven by Breevort as a reaction to the X-men books surpassing the Avengers ones in sales again, as much as it was for 52 kicking Marvel's ass.

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I think Marvel will be kicking itself. Marvel For Now is going to get boring real quick, like all post event comics do. This time however the organic story lines were all cut off before completion - no AoU for Avengers, no organic resolution to X-men saga via Hope.

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I think Marvel will be kicking itself. Marvel For Now is going to get boring real quick, like all post event comics do. This time however the organic story lines were all cut off before completion - no AoU for Avengers, no organic resolution to X-men saga via Hope.

I agree with not ending things properly but Age of Ultron is out in February. It seems like it might be an alternatie world scenario so it doesn't need to fit in continuity as much.I also get the impression it has been expanded beyond the Bryan Hitch issues. This is probably tagged on to make it more of an "event". They can always use it to reboot their entire line. A lot of their titles will be growing stale when they hit those issue 6 sky high numbers.

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Ah, good to see AoU come to fruition. [Thanks for the news!]

I'll also note that I hope Thor: God of Thunder doesn't get dragged into For Now's mess. This may be one of the few books that is really showing potential.

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I also get the impression it has been expanded beyond the Bryan Hitch issues.

Carlos Pacheco and Brandon Peterson are finishing up the series. Cause, I guess Hitch is no longer under contract and they can't get him back.

And, I bet there are some rewrites to fit this thing in.

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I'm reading through some of the X-titles via trade:

X-Factor: Reading the arc with Wolfsbane being preggers at the moment, but got the next volume as well. Everything about this book feels like it's from another era. The dialogue is way too expositiony and the plot itself is just ridiculous.

Every mythological beast known to man is after Rhane's baby, and she ends up giving birth through he mouth, really? God knows the Marvel universe is a strange place, but this, this is just... stupid.

Also, how did this thing win a GLAAD award? Okay, I get Rictor and Shatterstar are in a relationship, but instead of portraying a real loving relationship between two people, they go out of their way to make Shatterstar this strange, omnisexual outsider who places no weight in their relationship whatsoever. It seems like their entire purpose for being in the title is so Peter David has an excuse to make the type of awkward, not so-funny jokes that (some) straight people make around their gay peers to prove that they're not homophobic. I guess that's progress... sorta?

Wolverine and the X-Men: Man these Marvel trades are getting thin. 4 issues a trade, each issue 20 pages: Yup, that sounds like a $25 trade right there.

I do love Aarons work on this though. It's the most fun I've had on an X-title since the golden days of Generation X. I have kind of mixed feelings on Morrison's X-Men run as he seemed to to forsake much of X-Men canon in order to make everything more zany and whimsical, but with Aaron it's a bit different: He seems to be picking up the zany and whimsical fragments that people like Morrison left, and somehow making it all work in a way that doesn't alienate me as a fan of the serious stuff as well.

As big of a fan as I am of Bachalo, this definitely isn't his best output by any means. I think my real issue is with the colouring (which apparently he did himself): There are definitely places where the colours go outside the lines, and it almost looks like there's this blurred mask over everything.

Generation Hope: Schism - Just started this one, but so far I'm actually enjoying this more than I thought I would. The Hope team did nothing for me when I read them in Uncanny and elsewhere, but here I'm starting to get a better sense of their characters. I know this comic wasn't particularly well recieved, but I certainly wouldn't say it's Young X-Men levels of bad.

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Carlos Pacheco and Brandon Peterson are finishing up the series. Cause, I guess Hitch is no longer under contract and they can't get him back.

And, I bet there are some rewrites to fit this thing in.

I think there must have been rewrites and/or it has been expanded as Bryan Hitch seemed to be pretty clear that he'd finished it (although I guess he could have only ever been contracted for half the series). I guess Marvel aren't concerned about how well the trade of this will be selling in 10 years time - or more far more likely they were caught with their pants down with Cassaday's uncanny avengers and didn't even have time to get a fill in artist.

The previews of Hitch's work looks good but it's as if no-one told him he wasn't drawing the Ultimates.

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Daredevil #20- Solid as usual, with a few nice twists along the way. Waid seems incapable of writing a bad issue, but this wasn't the best book by him this week.

Indestructible Hulk #1- Well, I'm sold. Best Hulk issue in years. Waid is seemingly ignoring everything Aaron did, and I can't complain about that.

Hawkeye #4- Somewhat of a stepdown from #3, but still pretty good. Loved the "search" a certain character is forced to do on him, specially considering the twist at the end.

Uncanny X-force #34- Well, no surprises there (in part because this book is very behind in the chronology), but it was well-done. Sabretooth specially was hilarious. The pacing didn't work well in this arc (felt too big, but the final issue too rushed), but it was mostly good, although not in the level of the Opeña arcs.

X-factor #247- Meh. PAD has done better meta jokes, and there's no actual fallout from the M & M marriage yet. I liked the Necrosha joke, but that's it- one of the worst issues of his run, easily.

Iron Man #2- Slightly better than last issue, but I'm still not feeling this arc- Gillen seems ill-suited for this book, and Land doesn't help at all. Still, I'm giving this a chance until the end of the arc, even because it looks like Danger and/or Unit might show up.

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Wolverine and the X-Men #21: just when you think this can't get any sillier, Jason Aaron comes and surprises us. I did like that the Hellfire kid will be the prey this time, and, oh, Quentin Quire! He makes this book worth reading. And, the "Cyclops was right" t-shirt everyone was looking forward to.

Hawkeye #4: this is probably the only one among Marvel's lighter comics in which I can rarely find any problems - though I still think Kate Bishop fits better with the Young Avengers than with Clint Barton. And I was expecting the twist in the end the moment we were presented with a dark haired masked villain. :cool4:

Avengers #34: kind of lame, but not entirely a bad ending for Bendis' run. I just love how some heroes simply popped out of nowhere just to give the impression of stability or whatever that was. Still, I think they could have done better than simply making this last arc a prequel to what they clearly mean to do with Uncanny Avengers starting on issue 5...

Journey Into Mystery #646: I already miss Loki. I think it's important that they're trying to give women (both characters and writers) more space in their comics, but Sif is hardly a sympathetic enough character for that, especially after something as successful as Gillen's run on JiM. It doesn't help that they try to emulate Gillen's style, but it only feels a bit too confusing half the time and uninteresting the rest of it.

Uncanny X-Force #34: Average. I think this series was much better before Final Execution, tbh. But hey! We got rid of Daken, let us hope that lasts at least for a couple of years.

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Daredevil #20- Solid as usual, with a few nice twists along the way. Waid seems incapable of writing a bad issue, but this wasn't the best book by him this week.

i had no idea that this run was capable of the above statement. i am intrigued. i am still plugging through a horrendous backlog of comics at the moment but DD is now on the radar. most of what i've been reading hasn't been capes stuff, so it is nice to have a solid rec.

speaking of which. any DC stuff i should be reading right now? gave justice league a go but is fizzled for me. the only DC i'm currently reading are backlogs of gotham central, american vampire and scalped. that isn't necessarily to ask for more of the same, just a statement of fact.

i'm open to any book by any creator so i can't really narrow it down for you. if it is really good to you, i'd consider giving it a whirl. getting back into comics is hard work ;)

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i had no idea that this run was capable of the above statement. i am intrigued. i am still plugging through a horrendous backlog of comics at the moment but DD is now on the radar. most of what i've been reading hasn't been capes stuff, so it is nice to have a solid rec.

speaking of which. any DC stuff i should be reading right now? gave justice league a go but is fizzled for me. the only DC i'm currently reading are backlogs of gotham central, american vampire and scalped. that isn't necessarily to ask for more of the same, just a statement of fact.

i'm open to any book by any creator so i can't really narrow it down for you. if it is really good to you, i'd consider giving it a whirl. getting back into comics is hard work ;)

Well, Waid's Daredevil also won pretty much every major comic award out there, including the Eisner, so I'm not the only one recommending it.

From Marvel, I'd also recommend Hawkeye, which is still at the beginning (issue #4 this week). They are beginning a lot of new stuff recently, so you might check them out. From the recently ended runs, you might check Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four & FF run, specially because it's entirely major crossover free (apart from crossing over between the two books, obviously)

As for DC, I'm not reading anything currently, but people are saying good things about Scott Snyder's Batman. And Scalped, and specially Gotham Central are truly fantastic stuff.

And in Image, I read recently the first Prophet trade and was pretty good, Manhattan Projects is also great, and Saga is perhaps the best book out there in any publisher.

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Unwritten #43 - This finally got back to being interesting. Probably cause I care more for all this land of stories stuff than Lizzie fucking Hexam.

Wonder Woman #14 - Years from now when we look back at comics from these days, Wonder Woman will be the only thing from DC we look upon fondly. That's how shitty DC is in 2012. So shitty that Wonder Woman is the best there is. Actually this run on Wonder Woman could stand on its own in any era of DC. It's that good. And it's better than Wonder Woman ever was or has any right to be.

Also, Orion is in this and he is swag as hell.

Uncanny X-Force #34 - Reading this thing I was basically going: "Fuckin' Daken. Fuckin' Nightcrawler. Fuckin' Skinless Man. Fuckin' Nightcrawler again. Daken's claws are stupid. Fuckin' Sabretooth."

The only person in this thing that deserves to live and not die horribly is fuckin' Deadpool. Not only because he is cool, but also 'cause his is the only dialogue in the book that doesn't come of as totally devoid of inspiration. It feels like Remender wrote this by scribbling it on a piece of napkin sitting on a stool in a hotel bar while his head was resting on the counter. Which is how I imagine Frank Miller draw DK2. Or how I wrote my homework. And all those things were half-assed.

And seriously, it seems that Jeph Loeb did us a favor by killing Sabretooth a few years back. That comic might have been horrible shit, but GREATER GOOD PEOPLE! Think of the children! We should've hailed that abomination as the greatest thing ever! So what if Loeb's drunken rant included some bullshit about Italian wolves and a magical sword? That smelly troll was dead. This is why we can't have nice things.

Now, Sabretooth is running away laughing like that little thief/Zorro guy from McDonald's and Wolverine isn't killing him cause killing is bad, m'kay? It's like in those Superman comics from 2001 or so when all the villains just wanted Superman to kill them cause that would be the ultimate victory or something.

Here it's even dumber cause Logan's been killing all along, so the plan is to get him to kill some more? This moral bullshit is especially fucked up since Wolverine just killed a guy, but now five seconds later all this shit he's been doing for 34 issues (and 50 years) is wrong. Don't you get it how wrong this is? Suddenly everybody grew a conscience at the point in time where they actually had to kill some people that really deserved to die. Fuckin' comicbook morality. Only Batman with his infinite moral superiority approves of this thing and he's an idiot that gave us Brother Eye.

Jesus, if you aren't going to kill him, maybe, I don't know, CAPTURE THE HAIRY ASSHOLE! You still do that, right? Or is that also wrong? Were your personalities overwritten by ones of a really extreme hippie? Don't just let him go while he swears to get you next time.

But, what pisses me the most is that you just know this "growth" is going to be ignored pretty much YESTERDAY. Wolverine is going to be his happy-snikty-stabby-bubby-self in the next comic I have the misfortune to read.

Rocketeer - Cargo of Doom #4 - A fun conclusion to a decent mini. It won't blow your mind, but it won't destroy it either.

Daredevil #20 - Mark Waid keeps bringing his A-game here. Coyote is a great villain, so I'm sure he'll be forgotten after Waid is gone in favor of more Kingpin or whatever.

Indestructible Hulk #1 - Most be some kind of Mark Waid week.

First off, Marvel how can you forget to credit the inker? Fuckin' sloppy.

Still a pretty great introduction issue that sets up the new status quo. And it's great to see the old Birthright team back together. Along with the inker.

Maria Hill? Still a dumb sack of shit.

Steed and Mrs. Peel #3 - Seriously, are all Mark Waid comics coming out today?

Hawkeye #4 - A pretty decent issue. Not as good as the first three. Kate Bishop seems to be omnipotent and apparently everybody is upset that good ol' USA killed a bad guy.

Justice League #14 - Jeez, Geoff, Cheetah is not faster than The Flash, okay? You should know this. Than again, based on the back-up story you don't really understand the concept of magic either, so it might be... above your paygrade.

Wolverine and the X-Men #21 - God, it feels like I'm talking about this thing every week. Take it easy on the schedule Marvel. There are better ways to get market share than flooding the market with bi-weekly books.

Well, this thing keeps chugging along, not giving more than five pages to any character so they don't get in danger of building a personality.

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