Comics VII: 7 Soldiers of Victory

[Lady Octarina]

Age of Ultron #7:

Age of Stark? Well, that's disgusting... Colonel America is somehow incredibly sexy, and Cyclops is Cable? This issue makes me think I should finally read Kree-Skrull War

Interesting, and a mess, I like it so far. I liked it better on the first 5 issues, though.

All New X-Men #11: I love those panels where Jean has to deal with everyone's thoughts. This issue was so chaotic it was probably the best one so far. Confrontation with the Uncanny Avengers next issue, I like that. But Mystique and her Brotherhood are getting this close to fighting for the prize of most annoying villains with the Hellfire brats.

Superior Spider-Man #9: well, that was an interesting way to kill Peter Parker... I wonder exactly what they're going to do to bring him back now that the obvious answer appear to be no longer available.

Thanos Rising #2 and Hawkeye #10 were as good as usual. I was thinking about reading The Movement, but the reviews I've read so far were unremarkable. Did any of you like it?

[Sci-2]

Hawkeye was good.

All New X-men was pretty good, though we've yet to see any of the backlash against mutants in these pages. I also agree that Mystique's little gang is getting a bit silly.

I also liked Iron Man #9, Suicide Risk, and X-men Legacy. I think Legacy is one of the more underrated books out right now.

[GallowKnight]

Hawkeye was good.

I think that's the whole theme of the comic.

[red snow]

Superior Spider-Man #9: well, that was an interesting way to kill Peter Parker... I wonder exactly what they're going to do to bring him back now that the obvious answer appear to be no longer available.

Well there's always Mephisto at hand for Peter Parker to make another deal with. I'm assuming he may have gone to Marvel Hell after the first deal he made. Crazier yet, Aunt May discovers what happened to Peter and makes a deal with Mephisto where Peter comes back in exchange for her getting married to the restored Doctor Octopus. And for shits and giggles she is de-aged to a hot 20 year (along with Octavius).

I love that I can write these things and no-one can be certain it's not something a comic book would contemplate. I'm just hoping HArras reads the thread and can see a young Lobdell ripe for breaking into comics. Then again he's probably banned all DC staff from associating with this forum as we sometimes call him names.

[Sci-2]

I think that's the whole theme of the comic.

Heh, if this is a joke I gotta admit I don't get it.

Well there's always Mephisto at hand for Peter Parker to make another deal with.

Wasn't there a robot with Parker's brain patterns? I actually don't know if this is a good move, since Peter's commentary was what made this interesting at first. Guess we'll see.

[Little Valkyrie]

The Doctor Fate redesign is one that actually works, in Earth 2. If you're looking for good solid cape comics with a lot of heart, it's still one of the best things out there.

[Lady Octarina]

Have you seen the list Bendis showed on Tumblr of what would be different with Pym's death? I have to say I'm slightly disappointed that he didn't answer the question as to how each character died before Age of Ultron #1, but someone certainly had a lot of work putting this together, and it does help put things in perspective as to Pym's role in the Marvel U, even though many of the things here would probably never happened because something else would take its place, and other times some other Marvel scientist would step in to fix one thing or another (Firestar's cancer, for example).

[GallowKnight]

Heh, if this is a joke I gotta admit I don't get it.

I Just meant that Hawkeye has been a consistently great comic book so far.

Superior Spider-Man: Well, since I always hated ghostParker I'm kinda glad to see that particular element of the book gone. The issue did however remind me of the fact that I still really liked not-ghostParker, which I assume was the point and therefore well done. All in all a good issue and it's going to be fun to see what contrived way they now are going to use to bring Peter Parker back from the dead. They have also technically killed Peter Parker twice in less tha a year, well done Dan Slott. Also it was fun to see Spider-Man's villians in their old school costumes again. Old School Scorpion 4 teh Win!

All New x-Men: Over all a pretty boring issue. But it was nice to see Beast being called out on his idioty and I actaully look forward to the confrontation between Havok and his teenaged older brother.

Star Wars Legacy v.2: While I would rather have preferred to see the characters from v.1 as the protagonists this could shape up to be a worthwhile follow up and I assume more familiar characters will pop up. The addition a IG-88 style killer robot didn't hurt at all either.

Hellheim: Cullen Bunn can be able to think up some really nice fantastic stuff and ideas for his comcis, so this one starring a Frankenstein's Viking as well as demons, regular vikings and witchcraft could develop to something really fun. The fight scenes are kind poor though.

[red snow]

I hope the Marvel free comic book wasn't launching the next 6 months of their titles (I'd be surprised if it wasn't) as my store was completely out of them. Even worse they were completely out of ALL the free comics. Kinda pissed I didn't get a single one. I think the problem was that they were giving bags of them so it was an all or nothing deal (although i hope the mature reader comics were separate from the all ages ones). The stores in London handled this better by just having a free for all on a table as it was only really marvel/DC anyone wanted - you literally couldn't give some of the comics away for free.

I picked up "ten grand" mainly for the Templesmith art but a part of me is hoping straczynski has got his shit back together, Will have to read and see.

[red snow]

I feel dirty for helping Mark Millar make the claim that this is the first time in a long time that a creator-owned title broke the top3 in sales. Luckily Bleeding cool pointed out that his claim wasn't as strong as he initially made out but it's still 10 years since it happened. Like the guy's head needs to get any bigger.

I guess I will be contributing to the sales drop for issue 2 at least as I'm at best waiting for the trade (sometime before 2016 hopefully) and not at all at worst.

[WillWork4NinjaPowers]

My son picked up the first 3 The Fearless Defenders. I figured it was because it's full of hot chicks, then I realized it is written by Cullen Bunn, who he loves. We haven't had a chance to read them yet.

[Lady Octarina]

My son picked up the first 3 The Fearless Defenders. I figured it was because it's full of hot chicks, then I realized it is written by Cullen Bunn, who he loves. We haven't had a chance to read them yet.

The story is okay, nothing special, though I must admit I finally started liking it after Hippolyta shows up. The problem is the art, it's ridiculously sexist, what with all the brokeback poses that make it deserve to be featured on the Hawkeye Initiative, not to mention the proportions are all wrong (and I'm not just talking huge boobs here; the characters' arms seem deformed half the time).

[red snow]

The story is okay, nothing special, though I must admit I finally started liking it after Hippolyta shows up. The problem is the art, it's ridiculously sexist, what with all the brokeback poses that make it deserve to be featured on the Hawkeye Initiative, not to mention the proportions are all wrong (and I'm not just talking huge boobs here; the characters' arms seem deformed half the time).

I take it the cover artist is different as the one that looked like it had an action figure on it was pretty good.

[jagilki]

Got all the Hawkeye (maybe behind one or two as my subscription seems to take forever to get here in the mail) and my, I love this series.

[red snow]

Got all the Hawkeye (maybe behind one or two as my subscription seems to take forever to get here in the mail) and my, I love this series.

I really should give this title a chance. It sounds like it shouldn't be a Marvel book which is a pretty good sign and I still love that Fraction jokingly calls it a "Marvel THEN!" title.

Read "ten grand". I get the impression Templesmith is the real author in everything he does as his style seems to permeate through whoever the actual author is leaving me to think Templesmith books are just Templesmith books. "30 days of night", "fell" and this all seem the same to me. I really like the art but the story so far doesn't have anything that original going on. It could easily be "fell" or "constantine" at the moment,

[Ouroboros]

I take it the cover artist is different as the one that looked like it had an action figure on it was pretty good.

Mark Brooks the cover artist doesn't currently do the interiors, but he will for a couple of upcoming issues. And frankly those covers are some of the best work of his career.

[red snow]

Mark Brooks the cover artist doesn't currently do the interiors, but he will for a couple of upcoming issues. And frankly those covers are some of the best work of his career.

google imaging his name does suggest he has been a lot more inventive with his cover design of late. It'll be interesting if his interior storytelling has also improved.

[Lady Octarina]

For some reason, I stopped reading X-Factor around issue 210; today I decided to fix that mistake. Ten issues later, I'm still amazed at how much I missed it and didn't realize, and how much it sucks that Peter David's run is ending soon.

Have you seen this article? While I don't necessarily agree with his 'apocalyptic' predictions, he has a point, and hells, how could I not agree with some of his solutions, particularly cutting back on the amount of books per team/sub-universe and how superhero comics should just stick to providing the best possible stories with some of their hundreds of established characters instead of trying to create new ones that will have any relevance twenty years from now.

[Kalbear]

Because that won't make them money. I mean, think about what he's saying:

-reduce how many comic books the really dedicated people buy

-reduce the cost of the ones they already buy

How, precisely, is this going to make up for that lost revenue? He doesn't really indicate other than hoping that it will now bring in new users. Sorry - it isn't. Comics as a medium need to evolve - slashing prices and reducing the titles isn't going to do that evolution, and all that would do is kill the big companies that much faster.

Comics as a medium suffer greatly from the drive-by effect. Essentially no one really cares about any characters other than the big ones, which drastically limits what you can actually do in stories. You can't bring in new readers if your stories are too heavy with backstory. You can't do anything new with the characters without resetting all the time. Your best bet is alternate worlds stories or retellings, or (if you're Remender) references to previous content that people are familiar with and preying on the nostalgia factor. None of that is going to get new people interested in comics, but what is? It's a mostly non-digital medium with slow production of stories in a world where people want their content all at once. Graphic novels on e-book? That might work.

What else might work is having weekly story updates. Have fewer titles but release them all the friggin time (with different artists). That would allow getting to graphic novelization faster as well.

[Fenryng]

My own two cents - I am speaking from a DC comics perspective, because the only issues I have purchased from Marvel in years were appearances of Doctor Doom. I have thought for years that the amount of titles were ridiculous. I would truly like to know the board room logic behind the decisions that gave some of the titles a green light. And I say this not in contempt, but in confusion, because I would have bet the money I didn't spend on various titles that they were going to be cancelled. I have not bothered to keep score; I do know enough have gone under to make me think I am right more often than not. On the other hand, some of the titles that were started two years ago that I thought would have failed by now, haven't. This isn't to say they won't; but I consider myself to have guessed wrong, as I consider my successes to be when one goes under in less than a year.

I also have to say that the price is becoming a factor for me. Comics are inarguably a luxury, and when a title goes under now, I do not start reading a new one, because it isn't worth the money to me.

I haven't a clue how comics can evolve, other than saying that I hope they do not go completely digital, because I hate reading in that format. I want something printed on paper, and I understand that makes me archaic as hell.

The one thing I can say makes a difference, even more so than the artwork, is the storyline. Storylines that are interesting, however it is achieved, do well. I think that DC has done on more than one occasion by having writers of books or other mediums write storylines for this medium.