Comics IV

[Kalbear]

So given the ending of X-Force and the great convoluted mess of the apocalypse seeds and the way that all worked - a small thought crossed my mind.

It would have made AvX so much neater if this - Hope, the Celestial Dreamer, the phoenix, all of it - was part of the Celestial and Apocalypse's grand design. It was almost hinted at at the beginning of XForce 34, but chronologically it wouldn't work. However, think of this plot twist: Scott is being slowly corrupted by Apocalypse. He was already possessed by En Sabah Nur. Wolverine can be similarly manipulated as well, given his Death horseman role. Slowly but surely, events were pushed so that Apocalypse could have one of the most powerful forces in the universe, and use it in a way that the Celestials wanted - to wipe out the humans and give rise to the mutants.

And it requires almost no retconning. you could hint a bit more here and there, but it makes xforce's arc into a great arc and a necessary one - the wheels go in motion first when kid apocalypse dies and then when archangel is restored. As soon as that happens, the 'there must always be an heir to apocalypse' comes in, and it's Scott. Right about that time Scott is doing his extinction team, dealing with the Celestial and Unit and Hope more than ever. Knowing the force is coming soon.

Then it comes, he expects it to go to him (because he is making sure Hope is scared of that power, subliminally), and eventually he takes out the rest of the 5 and gets the power himself. He isn't even fighting the Apocalypse persona at this point; what he wanted at the end was the rise of all mutants and the wiping out of the world - basically, just like Apocalypse himself.

of course, they could actually use this now. There's no reason that Scott needs to be changed by this; he could still be Apocalypse, and it would be a great twist.

[Nephrite]

Bleeding cool has an article on Snyder doing a Riddler story and I couldn't help but yawn/laugh at Snyder's claim. He’s indicated that the next arc after Death would be his most daring.

He is the Head Batman writer.

It must be so hard being Snyder and looking back on all that inferior work he's done in comparison to his next.

I wonder how Red Hood is going to force itself into a tie-in.

Now, lets do what we do best. Talk how much of a shithead Beast is.

You furry fat fuck way to not mess with the timeline.

And just so you know that Bendispeak is going to outlive you:

This and this. I love Sgt. Exposition.

In Uncanny Avengers Thor is still the only decent member of the team. And I love Daredevil overlooking the place.

[Winterfell is Burning]

In Uncanny Avengers Thor is still the only decent member of the team. And I love Daredevil overlooking the place.

Yes, of all the characters you could have overlooking the place, they put the blind man. You couldn't make this shit up...

[red snow]

and i thought Snyder only hyped up his work for hire comics "Scott Snyder: Yeah, we have our biggest, craziest issue coming up [this week] with the finale of "The Blacklist," which is a game changer for every character" My Snyder-sense is tingling.

Beast is indeed a FFF. Where does he have any evidence of causing an apocalypse? Has he traveled to the future because no suc thing has happened yet? Doesn't this make Beast no better than Bishop?

Now if Beast had read Kalibear's post he may have a good reason. It seems like posters on this thread would make pretty good retcon editors for Marvel aside from the fact that it works organically something marvel abhors.

[Lady Octarina]

Tom Brevoort answering a question on formspring:

Q: What's the most important thing to you sales or reviews ?For example if a series sell but gets 70% negative reaction from critics and fans would you tweak it in response or do say "it's selling well leave it alone" ?

A: We operate under a very simple philosophy: good, strong, accessible stories will sell better than bad, weak, impenetrable stories. So there's a correlation between sales and fan response--even if the vocal majority may not be in line with it. Honestly, I think the quality of most "reviews" is pretty abominable--the Internet allows anybody with an opinion to become a reviewer rather than just a reader with an opinion. So I don't take individual reviews all that seriously, positive or negative, but I do pay attention to what the audience as a whole does. For example, every reader under the sun will tell you that they've got "Event Fatigue", but every time an Event series comes out, it handily outsells everything else. There's a real disconnect between what people say and what they do. And since the job is ultimately so sell comics, I'm going to follow the money.

Well, at least he's sincere...

[Sci-2]

Honestly, I don't ever recall anyone in an actual comic shop complain about events. Maybe there was one guy?

[red snow]

I totally agree with Brevoort's attitude. If people don't like something, stop buying it and there's absolutely no point having the best comic in the world if only 1000 people buy it. Comic publishing is a business.

I bought the first issue of AVX and then ditched it. I never read fear itself or Secret invasion as i don't like events for the sake of having them. Plus i'd been underwhelmed with some of the other marvel events too.

I'm not even sure if something is an event if it happens every year (or 3 months in some cases). Isn't that just standard publishing almost?

But it does indeed seem like the events always sell - especially if Marvel compares event sales to standard issues. They would have been outsold by DC monthlies all summer otherwise. what's interesting is that DC are outselling Marvel (in top 10) without having to resort to crossovers (with the exception of BAtman). I imagine it's healthier for you monthlies to always be strong rather than when you just have an event. So I think it's shaky ground for Marvel to follow the easy dollar - especially with regards to variant covers. Basically Aquaman should not be outselling every marvel title when it's not an issue 1.

[Sci-2]

I remember Grack once noting that for all the online griping about subbed anime, people actually buy a lot of it.

I feel like event fatigue is a similar phenom.

[Kalbear]

Well, when an event is good it's usually really good. Messiah complex and second coming we're both well done with a lot of status quo changes. The original event with Cameron hodge was pretty neat (xtinction agendas?).

But when they are bad - or worse, when they randomly fuck up totally ancillary comics for no reason or force you to buy comics you don't want to read just to get the story - that sucks. And I saw a lot of grousing.

[Sci-2]

Oh, people hate specific events, but I don't recall anyone in a comic shop saying they wish there were no more events. Maybe one or two people?

[red snow]

Yeah - I guess no-one has a problem with something being handled well. I think it's just rare for a massive event to fully satisfy (I guess I was a sucker in enjoying onslaught and Final Crisis). I think the smaller ones are usually fine - the x-men ones mentioned are good examples. The problem I have is with the sprawling ones where not even the publishers can honestly tell you what order they should be read in. Take AvX for example - I wouldn't have had a clue what order all the tie-ins should have been read in.

[Lady Octarina]

Well, when an event is good it's usually really good. Messiah complex and second coming we're both well done with a lot of status quo changes. The original event with Cameron hodge was pretty neat (xtinction agendas?).

But that's the thing, events can be good, mostly when they are limited to a few titles, to a section of the Marvel U. The ones you mention were good because they were only about the X-Men and they made sense within those series. The same with Disassembled for the Avengers titles, and I'm sure there must be such examples for Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, etc. Imagine the mess they would have made if they tried to drag Iron Man into Messiah Complex!

And then we have those "epic" events that try to bring all the titles to it, no matter what unnatural changes must be made for that to make sense. I tried to read Fear Itself and Dark Reign, but I couldn't get past the first issue. AvX wasn't perfect, it wasn't the best closure they could have come up with for the post-Scarlet Witch madness era, but considering how rushed it was, it wasn't unbearable either - though I only read it because my favorite character, the one all of you hate, was in it, otherwise I would stay as far away from it as possible. Age of Ultron might prove to be good, but only because it seems it will be more like House of M than recent events - AU, tie-ins generally independent of each other, and, even better than anything they've made recently, it will only disturb the pace of the regular series for one issue each! I do hope that will be the only mega-event of 2013...

[Sci-2]

AoU isn't alternate universe though. According to Bendis, the world is in ruins from the first issue.

Of course, from what I've seen, "ruins" is a relative term. There's some sort of giant robot thing above the NYC skyline, but it seems to me that post AoU the world won't be in a post-apocalyptic state.

eta:

FWIW, I like Scarlett Witch as a character. What I disliked was how AvX twisted things to redeem her while condemning Cyclops. Though it seems AoU will negate most of the impact AvX had anyway.

[red snow]

wait a sec, does this mean age of ulton will spin out of the main series too? motherfuckers - they've taken a 6 issue series extended that past the Hitch issues (I don't believe they'd get Hitch to just do part of it unless he quit half-way through) and now they are doing 1 issue tie-ins too? I hope I'm misreading this.

[Lady Octarina]

AoU isn't alternate universe though. According to Bendis, the world is in ruins from the first issue.

Of course, from what I've seen, "ruins" is a relative term. There's some sort of giant robot thing above the NYC skyline, but it seems to me that post AoU the world won't be in a post-apocalyptic state.

eta:

FWIW, I like Scarlett Witch as a character. What I disliked was how AvX twisted things to redeem her while condemning Cyclops. Though it seems AoU will negate most of the impact AvX had anyway.

It's not, in an alternate universe? Why the hell did I think it was? lol

Well, since that's not the case I'm less inclined to believe any good will come out of it, too soon into NOW! for ll those series to establish any identity before it comes to "change everything".

But you really think AvX intended to redeem her? I think that was the function of Children's Crusade, but redeeming her only of her attacking the Avengers, but my sense was that one of AvX's function was to remind everyone of what she had done, of how she was, in a way, directly responsible for the main tragedies behind the event. And though Cyclops lost in the end and Wanda helped bring mutants back, I do believe, if anything, AvX actually reinforced Cyclops role as the leader of the outcasts and Wanda's role as, as many fans put it, "the crazy bitch who ruined everything".

I blame that on Bendis - though Disassembled and House of M were amazing, he absolutely ruined the Scarlet Witch, could never write her in a way that made any sense with the strong character she was in Avengers v.3, for example.

[Sci-2]

Good point. Disassembled mucked stuff up, though I admit I loved the art at the time. I largely dislike the go insane stories, whether its Hal Jordan or Scarlett Witch though sometimes the aftermath is worth reading.

AvX was a mess slapped together to compete with New 52 so I think it was a bit all over the place. I thought that cheesy Yin-Yang nonsense at the end was supposed to show fate wanted Scarlett Witch and Hope to combine their powers for the sake of giant deux-ex-machina, thereby redeeming SW.

But it was so haphazard (the meteors at the end for example) that I think they just improved improvised 80-90% of it.

[Nephrite]

Sigh, remember when I had a minor fit about Wolverine's new found morality in regards to stabbing assholes and how it will last about as long as it takes for me to get drunk?

Well, I fucking told you, didn't I?

It looks to me, Logan, like you are trying to kill your former teammate and unrepentant fuckface Nightcrawler. Unless you are trying to hug him with your arm-knives as a gesture of brotherly love and forgiveness. What about "killing is bad, m'kay"? Isn't that why you spent 12 hours drowning your own son in a fuckin' puddle of dolphin piss? You see that, Logan? For the love of God tell me you can see that?

[red snow]

Sigh, remember when I had a minor fit about Wolverine's new found morality in regards to stabbing assholes and how it will last about as long as it takes for me to get drunk?

Well, I fucking told you, didn't I?

It looks to me, Logan, like you are trying to kill your former teammate and unrepentant fuckface Nightcrawler. Unless you are trying to hug him with your arm-knives as a gesture of brotherly love and forgiveness. What about "killing is bad, m'kay"? Isn't that why you spent 12 hours drowning your own son in a fuckin' puddle of dolphin piss? You see that, Logan? For the love of God tell me you can see that?

I think whoever's responsible for that school enrolled at the Liefeld school for comic artists (and cap wearing) but failed to graduate. The sword through the arm is clearly an afterthought with no consideration for how a sword would actually pass through a 3D arm and not simply a drawing on a piece of paper.

I really wouldn't be using this as promo material - although the dynamics of the other sword being cut are interesting. Liefeld must have expelled the artist before they got to that section (and the need for guns and pouches).

[Nephrite]

So, another All New X-Men page.

Another school. It seems that Bendis truly doesn't read other people's stuff, cause it seemed really simple that Logan is gonna do the school stuff while Scott was gonna be the do what I gotta do guy. It was kind of explicitly stated in an issue that was published 5 weeks ago.

And now everybody seems to be opening schools for mutants. Even Hellfire Babies. Makes sense, new market and all. These people have to go to school somewhere.

Still, the name. New Xavier School? Really, Scott? We know you can do better than that.

Like for example:

Mariko Yashida School For Higher Learning

Cause if the the theme of school naming is "women I did not have sex with" that's the best one there is.

I would give Bendis real money and maybe even provide some minor sexual favors if he did that. Even put a giant ass statue of this chick as an ultimate fuck you to that hairy ass. Maybe ask Beast to give guest lecture on how to be a passive aggressive bitch all the time. Or maybe get a 5-year old girl to do that.

[Sci-2]

I really wouldn't be using this as promo material

Have you seen the promo cover for Age of Ultron #1? That gold dude...looks ridiculous.

@Nephrite: Yeah, Scott having his own school seems really lame. I think it's going to be easy to only buy Hickman's Avenger's stuff from Marvel until AoU hits.