Comics VII: 7 Soldiers of Victory

[red snow]

Was all for grabbing X-men 1 mainly because I quite enjoyed some of Wood's vertigo work and apparently has an old school feel to it (and it isn't by Bendis) but bad weather prevented me. Has anyone checked it out?

[Sci-2]

Was all for grabbing X-men 1 mainly because I quite enjoyed some of Wood's vertigo work and apparently has an old school feel to it (and it isn't by Bendis) but bad weather prevented me. Has anyone checked it out?

Having read it now, I'd say it's worth getting. It's intriguing, and the all female team feels natural rather than forced.

Interesting use of Sublime, though it might be a retcon as I thought the sentient virus was killed by Jean Grey. In fact I thought it was her last act before leaving the 616 reality behind?

[Lady Octarina]

X-Men #1: this went better than I expected. Good to see Sublime back. It seems this will become an adequate old-school team-book, which is great, I love how so many Marvel books are bringing back the one thing they shouldn't have abandoned in the past ten years. And, of course, Coipel's art, as gorgeous as usual.

Wolverine and the X-Men #30: Quentin's shirt this issue is the most perfect thing. Other than Dog the villains in this series are so random it's hard to take them seriously.

Captain America #7: I really like what Remender is doing to explain why Cap is Cap, and the impossible situations he puts him through. He's certainly being successful in making the guy more relatable. Looking forward to see the part of this story on Earth. I'm not that sure the thing with Jet was convincing enough, but oh well, plot devices...

New Avengers #6: the Mapmakers seem to have been the idiotic addition to the story. Good, it means this title will never look this silly again, though I'm willing to forgive that if Hickman actually uses them for something other than background fight. But yay, Doom is in!

Scott Pilgrim is pretty fun, I actually saw the movie first and the trades deviate enough from that plot that I think both mediums complement each other and are worth reading.

How many have you read? Because I really liked the first, but the second was such a disappointment that it's been two years and I haven't resumed reading, though I have bought them all ages ago.

[red snow]

that's two "yays" for x-men. I'll try and grab a copy today (weather looks more promising). The X-men do have some of the best female superheroes anyhow so it's good to showcase them. Although there's still the ridiculous same character on multiple teams thing going on I can let it slide as i don't read uncanny x-force.

I'm also pretty sure there must be all make superhero teams out there and no-one has commented before? I guess they may throw in a boobtastic bikini heroine for balance in those cases. It could possibly be just because of the title "X-men" but i think Wood's explanation for why it would be offensive to call it "x-women" is valid.

[Sci-2]

New Avengers #6: the Mapmakers seem to have been the idiotic addition to the story. Good, it means this title will never look this silly again, though I'm willing to forgive that if Hickman actually uses them for something other than background fight. But yay, Doom is in!

Ouch. I thought they were kinda cool.

How many have you read? Because I really liked the first, but the second was such a disappointment that it's been two years and I haven't resumed reading, though I have bought them all ages ago.

All of them. I thought it was worth a read, though I think it's a book that appeals to partiuclar tastes. I found the arcs enjoyable, but another friend of mine would burst out laughing.

[Lady Octarina]

Ouch. I thought they were kinda cool.

The only cool thing about them is how they can legitimately cause two opposing reactions on readers :cool4:

But, as I said, if Hickman decides to explore them better my opinion could change.

All of them. I thought it was worth a read, though I think it's a book that appeals to partiuclar tastes. I found the arcs enjoyable, but another friend of mine would burst out laughing.

I think I'll give it another chance later, but right now I mean to read those first fifty issues of X-Factor v.3, and earlier today I just bought this new translation of Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment that's just too good to sit on the shelf for long.

[Sci-2]

The only cool thing about them is how they can legitimately cause two opposing reactions on readers :cool4:

Speaking of opposing reactions, what is up with the supposed mutant population explosion following AvX?

I get the feeling Bendis realized that Cyclops would, in fact, be correct - a bunch of new mutants appearing the world would likely be beaten to death and [or] quickly rounded up in many places in the world to serve as weapons and/or scientific fodder.

Realizing his entire storyline was garbage, even when you accept the dubious railroaded plot of AvX, Bendis then sent his characters into Limbo and zany time adventures to distract from this obvious truth.

[Lady Octarina]

:rofl:

Well, I guess all the new mutants were either killed by the Red Skull or recruited by the Hellfire brats, so Bendis only got those four, one of which is the lamest thing since Beak.

I think Brevoort answered a question related to this on Tumblr the other day. He said the reason why there aren't more mutants filling their pages is because they wouldn't feel like a minority if that was the case.

[red snow]

:rofl:

Well, I guess all the new mutants were either killed by the Red Skull or recruited by the Hellfire brats, so Bendis only got those four, one of which is the lamest thing since Beak.

I think Brevoort answered a question related to this on Tumblr the other day. He said the reason why there aren't more mutants filling their pages is because they wouldn't feel like a minority if that was the case.

Reading through that link (I never found the x-men one) but I was intrigued by a mention of GRRM doing a marvel comic. A fan thought a Dr strange Max would be a good fit but Brevoort replied he wanted to do something completely different. We all know he's a FF fan.

I don't buy Brevoort's reasoning for lack of new mutants though. The whole point of "no more mutants" was to keep them as a minority. I think Bendis wanted 4 new characters and so they removed the rule for him. Now, no-one wants to create new mutants because they'd either be giving away a potential movie character away OR marvel would have to risk paying out more royalties.

[Lord of Rhinos]

Just read Avatar: The Promise. It did a very good job of capturing the flavor of the animated series. Anyone who has seen Legend of Korra knew how the series was going to play out which drained a lot of the tension out of the proceedings. Art maintained the series look very well. For being aimed at a younger audience I felt it actually did a good job of tackling the themes of cultural appropriation, assimilation, blending, and pride.

[Lady Octarina]

Reading through that link (I never found the x-men one) but I was intrigued by a mention of GRRM doing a marvel comic. A fan thought a Dr strange Max would be a good fit but Brevoort replied he wanted to do something completely different. We all know he's a FF fan.

I don't buy Brevoort's reasoning for lack of new mutants though. The whole point of "no more mutants" was to keep them as a minority. I think Bendis wanted 4 new characters and so they removed the rule for him. Now, no-one wants to create new mutants because they'd either be giving away a potential movie character away OR marvel would have to risk paying out more royalties.

I never thought from that angle, but it makes sense that this could be the reason they haven't created more new mutants. I don't think that's why they did AvX and the whole Phoenix thing, though; it seems to me the stories they created around the 198 or less mutants left in the world were getting repetitive, not to mention they had already given up on exploring the impact losing their power had on all the relevant characters years before (Magneto and his kids got their powers back through the most absurd ways, Dani Moonstar is a Valkyrie, Jubilee is a vampire, and so on). They had that whole thing about Hope as the mutant messiah and yet she was pretty useless overall, especially after Generation Hope was cancelled, so AvX was an adequate way to have a closure on that while she was still relevant. Finally, after Wanda's return on Children's Crusade they had to rehabilitate her enough to put her back on an Avengers title.

On GRRM, I remember reading many months ago something where he said he would love to write Doctor Strange, but only if whatever he wrote wasn't retconned later. That's probably why the fan asked specifically about Strange and why Brevoort answered that would likely not be possible, since Marvel can't guarantee they wouldn't mess with whatever GRRM made with that.

[Sci-2]

@Lady O:

I don't think that's why they did AvX and the whole Phoenix thing, though; it seems to me the stories they created around the 198 or less mutants left in the world were getting repetitive, not to mention they had already given up on exploring the impact losing their power had on all the relevant characters years before (Magneto and his kids got their powers back through the most absurd ways, Dani Moonstar is a Valkyrie, Jubilee is a vampire, and so on).

IIRC, AvX was done to compete with Nu-52. I recall at least one of the X-men authors saying no one knew AvX was coming.

They had that whole thing about Hope as the mutant messiah and yet she was pretty useless overall, especially after Generation Hope was cancelled, so AvX was an adequate way to have a closure on that while she was still relevant.

I think the idea with Hope was to bring new mutants back, but not to magically return everyone's powers back immediately. I get the feeling some actual world building and pacing were being done in the mutant storyline.

@Red Snow:

I don't buy Brevoort's reasoning for lack of new mutants though. The whole point of "no more mutants" was to keep them as a minority. I think Bendis wanted 4 new characters and so they removed the rule for him. Now, no-one wants to create new mutants because they'd either be giving away a potential movie character away OR marvel would have to risk paying out more royalties.

Yeah, this is a good point. Why give Marvel a cool mutant when you can make your character later on? Even Bendis's new mutants aren't anything really special.

I think you have to give credit to Remender -> at least he's trying to tie his story into the global picture with the Red Skull.

[Kalbear]

I still think Remender is the bee's knees. It's pretty phenomenal how he's able to mine continuity and create some seriously big stories. I do kind of wish he'd get off the celestial angle for a while and work on other stories, but I think that'll come with the Red Skull as Onslaught arc. In the meantime I like Uriel and Eimin and it's great to see Thor's past catch up with him - as well as see stories of the old Thor and Apocalypse.

I also really like the dialog; for some reason it strikes me as particularly GRRM like. As does the names of people.

[red snow]

I quite enjoyed x-men #1. Reminds me of the days I used to like reading the x-men. I think I like how the all female team isn't really mentioned, it just happens to be a squad without any men in it. The art is decent too - reminds me of the kuberts from the 90s.

In the back of the comic I counted the amount of titles from the x-men family out in May. There were 20 of them! Just how many comics does Marvel release in a given month these days? Looking at DC's release schedule in september it looks like they are experimenting with multi-shipping titles. Looks as though they want to keep the "52" brand but that doesn't mean there can't be 3 "flash" books in one month.

[Lady Octarina]

Age of Ultron #9: spoiler-tagging just in case.

okay, I suppose Stark's last words are the cue to Angela's introduction in the Marvel U? So, no one is going to remember the Age of Stark Morgana Le Fey? That sucks. And there doesn't seem to be any consequences to this mess beyond Angela, how nice...

All New X-Men #12: Jean X Scarlet Witch was great, but someone forgot to give Bendis and Immonen the memo on how Wanda and Rogue are anything but BFFs. An understanding Logan, the man really must be getting old, but nice to see he's teaching the O5 (O4?) to defy Cap's orders this soon.

Avengers Arena #10: oh, they killed one of the best characters. A good issue, though.

X-Factor #257: not that good. But then, Layla was only an interesting character as a kid.

Astro City #1: I'm not familiar with the original stuff, which I have yet to hunt down, but I really liked this issue. Busiek still got it.

Cable and X-Force #9, Avengers #13, Superior Spider-Man #11, Thanos Rising #3 were all their usual level of good.

[Sci-2]

I still think Remender is the bee's knees. It's pretty phenomenal how he's able to mine continuity and create some seriously big stories. I do kind of wish he'd get off the celestial angle for a while and work on other stories, but I think that'll come with the Red Skull as Onslaught arc. In the meantime I like Uriel and Eimin and it's great to see Thor's past catch up with him - as well as see stories of the old Thor and Apocalypse.

I also really like the dialog; for some reason it strikes me as particularly GRRM like. As does the names of people.

Heh, I'm the opposite of you - loving the celestial stuff and sort of dreading the return of Onslaught. Though Remender has earned the chance to drag something cool out of that character.

AoU #9: Pretty good issue, though it seems unclear why Angela is going to arrive at the end of AoU. I'm still waiting to see if Pym slapping Janet gets erased. But seeing as he's not in Avengers 2 maybe they don't care yet.

Iron Man #11: Creepy but definitely interesting. It sort of fits, but I'm curious to see if it's all 100% true.

Avengers #13: Nice issue. I was actually worried about the tiger-striped kids!

Clive Barker's Next Testament #1: Great issue. Creepy, sensual antagonist definitely penned in the Barker style. Very interested to see where this goes.

All New X-men: Nice to see Bendis coming around and have Jean respond to learning what the Scarlet Witch did. Also a bit of a relief to see Mystique having some kind of plan.

Bedlam #7: New arc. I wouldn't jump on here though, get the first six issues which are awesome.

[Lady Octarina]

AoU #9: Pretty good issue, though it seems unclear why Angela is going to arrive at the end of AoU. I'm still waiting to see if Pym slapping Janet gets erased. But seeing as he's not in Avengers 2 maybe they don't care yet.

When Stark says something like "Hey Wolvie we're not alone in the universe so if you keep going back and forth in time there will be consequences", I think Angela is the consequence.

I think it will be such poor writing if they erase the slap now. I mean, nothing will be altered up until the point where Ultron tries to take the world leading to this mess, so nothing justifies that retconning.

[Sci-2]

When Stark says something like "Hey Wolvie we're not alone in the universe so if you keep going back and forth in time there will be consequences", I think Angela is the consequence.

I think it will be such poor writing if they erase the slap now. I mean, nothing will be altered up until the point where Ultron tries to take the world leading to this mess, so nothing justifies that retconning.

I'm sure they'll alter some things, otherwise the entire series is utterly pointless.

(I feel like I'm summoning Nephrite with those last words...)

[Lady Octarina]

Those "Mighty" teasers from Marvel, is anyone actually excited about that? I was looking forward to it until they revealed the roster. Normally, I'd give them credit for not including the obvious characters after Luke Cage was announced, but SpOck is in enough books already, and they didn't even put Iron Fist in it, so what's the point?

[red snow]

Those "Mighty" teasers from Marvel, is anyone actually excited about that? I was looking forward to it until they revealed the roster. Normally, I'd give them credit for not including the obvious characters after Luke Cage was announced, but SpOck is in enough books already, and they didn't even put Iron Fist in it, so what's the point?

Is this a new team or just the team featuring in the "infinity" series? The team seems a bit "meh" I agree.

I'm sure they'll alter some things, otherwise the entire series is utterly pointless.

(I feel like I'm summoning Nephrite with those last words...)

Where is Nephrite? Maybe Geoff Johns leaving Green Lantern was too much to bare?

Just read the latest "walking Dead" trade. It's fairly good. Enjoyed the reveal of Dwight when we saw what the iron was for and Carl rocks. Negan's dialogue is "fucking" horrendous but his erratic behaviour is interesting. Is it just me or am I not the only one thinking TV Governor has been set up to become Negan in the show? TV governor has a lot of traits similar to Negan and now he's snapped I could easily see him forming a group like the Saviours.

Picked up second issue of ten grand (rare i pick up a second issue) and still have the Wake to read.

I was reading AOU on my phone the other day. On the last Hitch issue. I think it probably reads better in one sitting as I enjoyed it. It would have annoyed me in the single issue format though and I'm still convinced the story from the new artists on was entirely added afterwards. I suspect the series originally ended with the Hank Pym removal.