Aldo reads Marvel NOW! (even though you are, and he clearly hasn't learned his lesson)

Since I obviously don't know any better, I'm going to take on the Marvel soft reboot as well (not least because some of you asked me to). I'm far less familiar with the Marvel Universe, particularly the X Plot, and only really know anything about the recent FF and Iron Man out of the line, which maybe makes this a better fit than DC in that I'm the sort of person Marvel should be chasing in that I have the potential to be a new customer. So let's dive in...

Marvel NOW! 0.1: A guy from the future shows up and starts taking over the New York stock exchange, which maturally piques the interest of SHIELD. Maria Hill, Agent Coulson out of the films and Ultimate Nick Fury/Samuel Jackson turn up to interrogate him where he tells about the imminent collapse of America and spouts an awful lot of Warren Ellis-type dialogue. We get an origin story of sorts for the new Nova, who fights an old Nova baddie and ends the fight written like BMB's Ultimate Spider-Man. After a SHIELD interlud we get a thoroughly enjoyable piece where Loki tries to recruit Miss America for the Young Avengers over Korean barbecue. Then a Mike Allred piece on Ant Man that reads probably most like The All-New Atom (from when he was the Asian kid). Somebody who looks like an insane Tony Stark but according to the end papers is someone called Forge builds (or rather fixes) a giant steampunk computer and chops up a living brain for, it turns out, Cable. Back on the Helicarrier, future boy gets shot dead by Coulson after doing some body jumping. All of this prompts Maria Hill to start the Avengers. If this is supposed to be a taster, and try and suck me in to the reboot then it's done exactly the job it's supposed to as I want to read more of pretty much all of these stories. I'm kind of confused why the characters seem to be from different Marvel Universes, but I'm sure it'll be explained somewhere. This is how you do it, DiDio.

A+X #1: WWII Captain America and Bucky are sent behind the lines to break up a Nazi robot factory, and discover what seems to be a Nazi Sentinel. Then with a whoosh, Cable jumps through a time portal to "help" because it's all part of a time-travel plot by someone called Trask to wipe out mutants earlier in history. In a thrill-powered moment, Trask sends the Sentinel after Cable by programming it with the punched card he's already had made for the mutants he knows about. Bucky then blows it up. In the second story, a Hulk and Wolverine from the future come back to stop a Hulk and Wolverine from the present arguing about a slice of cake. They were sent back by a Red Hulk PotUS, who looks like either General Ross or JJJ. These are fun, but standalone tales which presumably are supposed to contribute to an overall plot by increments, and they're tremendous fun but the real truth is that they're just not long enough and so end up being completely unsatisfying. Like just eating canapes instead of having a proper meal. Strip this down to one story and it'll be as much fun as the late lamented Tangled Web, which I'm sure we'd all love to see back.

All-New-X-Men #1: It starts with a summary of A Vs X, which seems to be as follows - the Scarlet Witch gets rid of mutants, but then Phoenix comes from space and powers them back up again; then Cyclops kills Professor X which makes Phoenix sad and go back to space so now all the mutants are becoming mutants again. Alles klar? Beast becomes the Beast again, and the team-up of Cyclops, Emma Frost and Magneto (who may or may not be a good guy now) find a new mutant in Australia who has frozen time. The resolution of this section is kind of confusing if I'm honest, as they can get in her time bubble so why they don't just take her out and then collapse the bubble isn't clear and they seem to do it the way they do just so they can have a FITE (or, even more cynically, just so there can be that splash page of them having a fight). It rumbles on in the same way, until Beast goes back in time to try and persuade past-Cyclops not to be a baddie. Maybe. This feels like a single shot story rather than a reboot if I'm honest and although it's a great read I'm not sure I care for where it's going. I'm then further confused by the sarcastic end piece, which seems unsure about who the target market is. I have a nagging feeling if they're all like this issue then this could be a more painful experience than doing this for DC. Time will tell.

Deadpool #1: A Scottish magician guy brings back the dead PotUSes, Captain America decapitates Harry S Truman, a giant dinosaur turns up and Deadpool burts out of its chest... LOOK, JUST BUY THIS. It's exactly what you expect/want it to be but makes it clear it's not a reboot. Deadpool is dreaming of franchising his book. You should be celebrating.

Fantastic Four #1: The skinny - Reed's powers are failing and he wants to take the entire contents of the Baxter Building into space for a year and use a time portal to return when they left, ostensibly so he can discover an unknown universe. Despite the fact they won't actually be missing, the premise for the FF series is to make sure everything's fine when they're gone by putting in replacements. Franklin has a nightmare foreshadowing something going wrong when they're lost in space/time. This jumps about an awful lot and might seem kind of baffling to people who haven't been reading either of the other books for the past few years.

Iron Man #1: Unlikely as it sounds, despite all the years of battling it Extremis is back on the loose and Tony is trying to shut it down. Being a Greg Land book, this has lots of identikit women. Like, LOTS of women. Everybody who isn't Tony or the bad guy, pretty much, is a woman. It's like reading a Gail Simone book which is sexist for different reasons for a change. Only more entertaining.

Thor God Of Thunder #1: Taking place in three time regions, this story of a God killer is a great read but feels like it's all been done before. If this was an Alan Moore or Gmoz book we'd accuse them of going over old ground. Fun, but pointless. Like painting targets on your nipples and getting somebody to fire rubber bands at them or something.

Uncanny Avengers #1: THERE ARE MORE VARIANT COVERS OF THIS THAN THERE ARE PAGES IN THE COMIC. Is this the 80s again, again? Anyway, this takes place some time before All-New-X-Men as Cyclops is in custody and there's lots of harking back to what happened in A Vs X. Ultimately, some aliens or something turn up and stop Rogue from punching the Scarlet Witch by stabbing her. The Red Skull cuts out Charles Xavier's brain. I have no idea what's going on or how it relates to the other books, and I'm not sure I care.

X-Men Legacy #1: The son of Charles Xavier does some Dragonball Z cosplay in the Himalayas, then sucks the life force out of people who have names with lots of z and x in them in an alien space prison, which it turns out is only in his imagination. It then does a pile of desperate GMoz wanna pseudo-mystic bullshit and something or nothing happens. Impenetrable bollocks that thinks it's clever.

And onto the books which are part of Marvel NOW! but aren't being renumbered/rebooted/whatever...

Avengers Assemble #9: The Avengers before the Uncanny Avengers have a kind of goofball team-up adventure in the ice and snow of Russia. If this and All-New-X-Men both contradict Uncanny Avengers, can I ignore it as out of continuity? Please? It's one of the things I haven't liked very much, so it would be expedient to do so. Ta.

Red She-Hulk #58-59: Yet another different Avengers lineup tries to take down Betsy Ross (who, while nobody was reading, became the Sexy Rulk because hs was at the original Gamma event or something). They sort of fail. But not in a way that's good enough to care about.

Wolverine & The X-Men #19-20: Wants to be wacky teen fluff. Almost succeeds. Contradicts All-New-X-Men and (possibly) Uncanny X-Men. Thankful now I don't have any other books to read.

And that's it. I don't know what they're trying to do, and don't know whether they've succeeded or not. I can't work out whether there's supposed to be a continuity (because several things contradict each other already) and if there isn't then what's the point of the whole thing? And as enjoyable as they are, the whole thing just feels tired - like all the plots for the FF, Thor and Iron Man have been used up and are treading water. And the real-world setting just actively works against the titles. I mean, both Uncanny Avengers and Deadpool destroy New York AGAIN. INDEPENDENTLY. That can't be right, surely? A better read than DC's effort, but less of a success I think. Time will tell.

You are a brave man.

I hate to say it, but the first chunk of Nu-52 > first chunk of NOW.

god bless brother and god speed

THERE ARE MORE VARIANT COVERS OF THIS THAN THERE ARE PAGES IN THE COMIC.

so is this basically an attempt to line up the comic with all the movies?

Some of it feels like it, for sure. Coulson seems to be the most important SHIELD agent, Fury is the one from the films, Thor travels about like he's going to see Natalie Portman. Wolverine and the X Men is Saved By The Bell: The Mutant Years.

In all-new X-Men, I thought they were using Emma to talk to the time freezing mutant telepathically, and then Emma shut down the part of her brain controlling her powers so they could interrupt the bubble and snatch her.

That makes sense, I guess, but pre-supposes you know she can do that or even that she's a telepath. The young mutant says "how did you do that" and Cyclops just says it's a secret and doesn't tell her, then it's never explained. So if you don't already read X-Men then the art and dialogue tell a different story, that they're physically there.

Oh God, I've come over all Tuomas.

I don't necessarily disagree with you but I think Emma is an important enough X character that 90% of the intended audience already knows she is a telepath

I'd disagree. In First Class she's sort of a cool girl who can turn into a diamond. I had only really remembered she was because I'm playing MAA on Facebook and she gets mental attacks on that.

In the X comics I've read in the past, her main power seems to be standing about in a push-up bra, and her second power is sleeping with Scott Summers behind someone else's back. I don't remember reading a comic before now when she actually uses any powers.

The only X-books I'd read between 1990-ish and All-New #1 were the GMoz run (can't remember if she was in it) and the Whedon run -- from it and AvX I did know she was a powerful telepath. #anecdotalirrelevance

MAA on Facebook?

Marvel Avengers Alliance. A kind of shitty Flash gave that I'm inexplicably still playing.

My X-knowledge is limited to a bit of the Claremont era, a cursory read of GMoz's New X-Men and Ultimate X-Men. So my only real experience of Emma Frost is in Mark Millar's EF teen book.

In First Class she's sort of a cool girl who can turn into a diamond.

.. And also she's a telepath? There are big plot points in that movie that are directly tied to her mental abilities.

Also the diamond thing is a new development introduced by GMoz; up until then she had only been a telepath.

Is she? Shows what I took from the film.

Really? I've seen it more than once and really don't remember anything more than her turning into diamond on the yacht a couple of times, and turning into diamond when she gets caught by the good guys in Russia. And how she convinces the Russian guy to invade somewhere or something by being all the sexey towards him.

Maybe Marvel (or more specifically X-Men) is just not for me.

Although I do greatly appreciate your efforts here, aldo (and will be perusing them through splayed fingers, as I'm >1 yr behind on Marvel stuff and don't wanna spoilerize myself too much), I'm also curious as to what regular stans think of the changes. They seem monumental enough without having any meaningful narrative purpose that I'm inclined to think of Marvel Now! as a really great jumping-off point (speaking as someone who's been pretty up in the general Marvel U's business since Bendis took the Avengers' reigns and who's read pretty much everything X-related from Claremont on). I don't really care for this kind of (seemingly) marketing-driven rejiggering of a long-form narrative conceit. Maybe I'm laboring under a misapprehension tainted by the bad taste DC has left in my mouth (and the idea that Marvel's new look was at all inspired by the ill-advised New 52 clusterfuckery).

And how she convinces the Russian guy to invade somewhere or something by being all the sexey towards him.

She's telepathically manipulating him. He thinks he's boning the shit out of her and she's basically sitting off to the side rolling her eyes.

To me, Marvel NOW is 100% marketing; unlike DC's reboot, they could have easily kept the numbers and titles the same, and launch a new title or two and wrap a couple up. As far as I can tell it's no different than any other follow-up to a big summer event - SIEGE into HEROIC AGE, SECRET INVASION into DARK REIGN, CIVIL WAR into THE INITIATIVE, etc. They shuffled a few more artists and writers than usual, but that's about it.

I kind of think that Marvel is a lot happier with not giving a fuck about continuity than DC? Apart from the obvious Wolverine being on a billion teams, they've seemed happy just mostly freeze things in amber on a lot of titles - Franklin aging 7 years over the last 40, to pick the popular example - apart from the ones where there is so much going on all the time (Daredevil is a great example) that it settles into a hum of action, with no sense that there's a real permanent character history being written.

Also just sayin' that'd have to be a pretty cursory re-read of New X-Men, she's being telepathic pretty much on every page.

Yeah, what everyone is saying - NOW! isn't really a reboot, just another post-event change o' the kaleidoscope. Marvel is just making a bigger hubbub so it'll seem nu-52-ish, and reap whatever sales will arise from that.

Oh aye Dan, I remember that bit now. It's just before the good guys turn up in Russia and there's a big fight and then she goes all diamond-y.

YMOF - I meant a cursory read at the time, and I haven't re-read it since. I was a late adopter too, so all I really remember is Emma having an affair with Scott (that I think would test Jeremy Kyle, because I don't think he was even with the woman who gets all snotty about him going behind her back) and it being all OOOH XORN IS MAGNETO then they all die.

But yeah, I agree with the general tenor here and the frozen in amber comment - and maybe it's why I've never been a Marvel stan. It kind of seems like when you turn the last page the Marvel universe resets to some kind of perfect state. It feels like they're just telling the same stories over and over again - mutants get de-powered, mutants get re-powered, mutants get wiped out, mutnats come back again, rinse, repeat.

All this is sort of leading up to a blog post I've had in mind for a while, but reading Marvel NOW makes it feel like the right time.

It's interesting that, of all the changes that GMoz made, the one that seemed most likely to be reverted within 3-4 working days is "Jean is dead, Scott's with Emma", and that's the one that's lasted.

I kind of think of a lot of Marvel as pre-syndicated, like if you see a Spiderman newspaper strips there's three panels but there's also some quanta of story being told, and you don't need to know if it's 70s / 80s / 90s / 00s Spidey.

And as a side effect you don't get the generational thing so much, where the original JSA have mostly retired and/or handed on their legacies.

I can't say I really bothered by the whole "frozen in amber" thing either way 'round. I tend to dip in and out of Marvel superhero comics, so I'm generally more concerned by internal consistency and clarity (and, y'know, fun) than caring about where everything sits on the General Index of All Continuity Ever. And like Andrew said, I think Marvel's much happier not giving a fuck about that sort of thing anyway. Good.

DC's different -- indexing the various alternate earths and variations between costumes and cleavage levels and origin stories is all part of the fun (or "fun") for us longterm DC readers/stooges.

What seems to have changed for me lately is that the summer event stories -- since maybe Dark Reign and Blackest Night -- have been basically unfollowable clusterfucks, dragging down the whole continuity rather than just poisoning their own little summer event pool. Which is what ends up drawing me to single-character comics like Daredevil and Hawkeye, with continuity of creators (or at least writers) and the status quo not being reset every six months.

Anyway, the Marvel Now comics I have read -- FF, All New X-Men and Uncanncy Avengers -- did seem on another level to whatever DC is managing these days -- but I can't say I'd go back for the second issues of any of them. They did seem like the least "issue 1" issue 1's ever.

I adored All-New X-Men because this is the first depiction of Scott Summers that has really felt RIGHT to me since the days when he ran out on his wife and son to court his high school girlfriend. The cheesy X sign he gave the security camera after his dramatic speech was just perfect.

(Storywise I think it would have been a better read to have had the girl's time bubble drop to see her surrounded by prone policemen and carnage with Scott reaching a hand out to her saying something like "Come with us, there's not much time" especially since they had a backup fight in place with the jailbreak later on)

Captain America #1: Steve Trevor should have known it wasn't a SHIELD train when it has Mogwai songs as the password to get on it. Surely the good guys aren't still listening to them? Although maybe Steve still is, since it's his 90th birthday. Maybe he's just confused because his bllod sugar is low? He and Sharon clearly thought they were going to a bar for a drink or some food rather than him being transported to Dimension 5 by Arnim Zola, where he's now stuck. This is at times charming, funny and thrilling and is a great, great read. It makes explicit though that Marvel NOW isn't anything other than a marketing gimmick, as it refers to something which happened in previous issues of Captain America? The Avengers? Who knows, and it isn't explained.

Deadpool #2: A zing-rated wazzer if ever I saw one, Deadpool is joke after joke after violence after joke. Zingy dialogue about sound effects? CHECK! An elephant burned to death? CHECK! JFK can't keep his hands off theladies? CHECK! Bugs Bunny and TV advertising references? CHECK! If this sounds like snark it isn't, because I really enjoy reading this, but then I was buying Deadpool Max before the jump so go figure.

Indestructible Hulk #1: Mark Waid's take on the Hulk is simple. Bruce is upset that Tony Stark and Reed Richards get all the credit for being the brains in the Marvel Universe and feels intellectually cuckolded so decides to be the Bruce Banner/Hulk from the recent Avengers film because people liked him. Eventually it turns out the Hulk might be stronger than anyone ever thought he was and might defy mathematics. Yes, again. Enjoyable enough, but feels like it's been done before.

Iron Man #2: More Greg Land! At one point, the entire frame is full of a woman pouring a martini at chest height. Why? Because BEWBZ! (Apart from that, this is wordy and Tony fights some other people in Extremis suits, this time inspired by King Arthur and the Round Table. OK if you like some near-identical people blasting repulsor rays at each other. I think we're supposed to recognise the woman in the final panel and draw some conclusions but, you know, Greg Land.)

Journey Into Mystery #646: Sif leaves a domestic dispute to scratch a dragon's neck and then cut someone's head off. Seriously, are there any books in the Marvel Universe that aren't supposed to be funny? This is jam full of jokes, about half of which vaguely come off, and if I knew it was like this I would have been buying it already. Like Deadpool Prince Valiant, if not nearly as good as that sounds.

Wolverine and the X-Men #21: Rehashing the plot of Mojo Mayhem, reset in a circus, might just work. Although even I, who has read very little Marvel, spot it so maybe not.

A+X #2: Hey, these are fun and all but like last month they're too short to take seriously. An entertaining diversion though.

All New X-Men #2: Okaaaaay... present day Hank goes back in time to get the original X-Men and bring them back to the present day, because if he does then Scott will realise what he's going to do and... something will happen. Instead they come back and love what they've done with the place. Jean gets her mental powers because Hank tells her she'll get them at some point in the future. Anyway, they decide to stay and fight against present day Scott because present day Hank might not be that well. I can see what this is doing, but it feels like awful fanwank if I'm honest.

FF #1: So, now we know what's going to happen while the Fantastic Four are away for FOUR MINUTES. This is so heavily foreshadowed that something going to go wrong it's not true, but I'm guessing we'll end up with this being the Kirkman FF book and the Fantastic Four being Challengers of the Unknown In Space. This issue pretty much does what's required to set up this premise, but since most of this is told in single pages it feels like it jumps about a bit too much. As somebody who was with the FF books at the end, I kind of just want them to get on with it.

Thor God of Thunder #2: After having set up the three time zone premise, this is set entirely in the past. Thor and Lord Voldemort punch each other in the sky for 10 pages until Thor remembers he can call down lightning, which ends the fight pretty quickly. Yes, I'm being harsh (because I did actually like this) but given this is only a five part story - because the one thing I'm getting from all of this is that Marvel only want to tell stories they can print in a single-volume trade these days - it doesn't feel like that much happens.

Uncanny Avengers #2: PO. FACED. Possibly Wanda is going to do what she did in A vs X which got undone by the end of A vs X again, because the Red Skull tells her to. After all, why just use a plot once when you've paid for it, right? Some heroes look guilty because they smashed up New York, but it's OK because an old guy tells them he wanted it smashed up really. The Red Skull stands very heroically, but not as much on the cover of #3 where Cap looks like he's going to kick him in the balls.

X-Men Legacy #2: Wow. Even worse than the first one. Some people who may be an alternative X-Men turn up to get Dragonball Z guy out of his Tibetan monastery while he simultaneously fights Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean in his head and Chinese Parademons in Tibet, guided by the Fluoronic Man. A pair of floating eyeballs turn up and he starts wearing an 80s bodywarmer. This version makes more sense than the published one.

All New x-Men #3: We get, in the following order, the following scenes: Scott and Magneto set up their bad mutant base in the Weapon X facility because "nobody would ever suspect that bad guys would be there"; we see Scott and Magneto bust out Emma (where she admits her powers are screwed and turns into a diamond a couple of times to show she can still do SOMETHING) and she joins them out of desperation because the police turn up; Scott has a bit of a cry and Magneto talks through his daddy issues with him; and finally the 60s X-Men turn up to tell them they're naughty mutants. This is so mired in X-history and continuity I can't be arsed, and I can't see how this is much fun for anyone else who isn't bought into the whole X-thing.

Avengers #1: Tony decides the Avengers need to go to Mars to take over the planet as a base, because the Avengers aren't big enough, but it turns out somebody else had already had the same idea. They have a fight and Cap gets away and back to earth, where he plans a rescue mission because of guilt over Civil War or the Illuminati or some other crossover I didn't read and couldn't care less about. To do this, he expands the Avengers membership to 13 which might stretch the defention of "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" slightly.

Deadpool #3: Even by the standards of the first two, this is like watching a hyperactive kid running round zinging bits of furniture. It works, but by God it's tiring to watch. Two issues in one sitting might just be too much, although Deadpool acting as the editor's explanatory boxout is a moment of greatness.

Iron Man #3: Blah blah extremis blah blah sick girl blah blah guys in super suits fight with rays. Only one real Landism to report, which is the first panel Firebrand's in. No woman's ever sat like that though, surely? And what's up with her left thigh? Poor quality lightboxing there. I'm sure there's something to like here but I'm not seeing it.

Red She-Hulk #60: The Red Hulk Avengers fail to capture her, but notice she doesn't seem to be as bad as they think she is. Except Cap. He hates her. Machine Man discovers that the Earth actually is the supercomputer from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the Eye in the Pyramid tells him that SHIELD has it built. Because of this he chooses to help her beat up a super-soldier training camp run by DUN DUN DUN...! General Fortean! Presumably mates with Brigadier Blavatsky? It's really not very good, this.

Thunderbolts #1: General Ross' Rulk is recruiting bad guys, so obviously picks the Punisher, Deadpool and Elektra. This aims for Ennis (Punisher, and bits of Preacher seem the most obvious comparators) and mainly succeeds, but the retouching of Steve Dillon's artwork to give Elektra bigger boobs sticks in the throat a bit too much to take it seriously. We'll see where it goes from here.

Deadpool sounds just as intolerable as I've found all previous iterations (note: I've never read Kelly's run).

Kelly's run is AMAZING

Gail Simone's run is also great - though I didn't read Kelly's or Priest's, maybe the first one you see is the best?

Has it been explained how the Red Skull came back to life, other than "lol continuity schmontinuity"? I thought Brubaker managed to kill him pretty thoroughly, though his daughter followed in the family business.

Not that I've seen. I'm assuming it's just lol continuity.

Actually, they explain Red Skull very clearly in issue #2, so I think Aldo must be glazing. This is the REAL Red Skull, who was put in suspended animation at the end if WWII; all the prior villainy was but a Red Skull clone created by Arnim Zola.

And Deadpool is crap, as Deadpool has always been crap.

Actually you're right, just re-read and it's pretty clear. I must have been glazing, because on first read I thought that was Rogue in disguise (using a power that she absorbed off-panel somewhere between here and her last escape) and was just making shit up to try and fool the Scarlet Witch.

The Red Skull's plan makes no sense though - he goes into suspended animation to come back in a time when "the world had forgotten me and my perceived atrocities". But, you know, those atrocities are kind of fun so I'll create a clone who's just like me that can keep on doing them in the 70 years I'm going to be frozen. Because that's a really good way to help people forget what happened, continuing to do it.

The reasoning is utter bullshit, and the comic itself is probably the worst of the big NOW! launches. Which is surprising, in that Remender's Uncanny X-Force was one of the peaks before all this marketing.

I'm not really feeling Deadpool; the jokes are there but the underlying menace isn't, and that juxtaposition was my favorite thing about Kelly's run and something I haven't really gotten from any of the other Deadpool runs I've read.

I am enjoying Uncanny Avengers in spite of myself? I had forgotten how much of a Havok fanboy I used to be before this series.

Did you read Havok in X-Factor? That was a fun little run.

haha of course I did! PAD + Havok = instant good times

as someone who has found Scott borderline irredeemable since the beginning of X-Factor, Alex quickly became "the good Summers brother" to me and it's always bummed me out that he never attained the status Scott did, so seeing him tapped to lead the flagship crossover team between the X-Men and Avengers is kind of a dream come true for me that is making me gloss over a lot of annoying storytelling quirks

Totally fair. I like Havok too, and thought the "X IN SPACE" (you have to say it like the Muppets Pigs in Space. Trust me) stories were well done. Scott's been a dick long before X-Factor; pretty much since he had to come back from retirement with Maddy.

... that was the beginning of X-Factor, wasn't it? Scott ditching his wife and son to run after his high school girlfriend? Or am I forgetting another piece of Scott Summers dickery? (I know there was some nonsense around the time when Storm took over leadership, where he basically acted like The X-Men would fall apart if he wasn't there to lead them and then Ororo handed him his ass without any powers, lol.)

Yeah, X-Factor #1 featured Cyclod running out on his wife and kid when he discovered Jean was alive.

I thought he was back before X-Factor, though that is when he finally threw off Madelyne; isn't the patronizing Storm bull before then? Though he came and went so often between Krakoa and X-Factor it's hard to keep straight.

But no matter how much of a dick he was back then, he wasn't as bad as Xavier when he got the ability to walk again. Scott basically turned into that guy in the intervening years.

VERY GOOD

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/12/16/marvel-digital-xomics-unlimited-comes-to-ipad-and-iphone

I wish I knew how to get in that beta.

I think if you subscribe they will email you with the beta address, so worth a punt for a month I guess

They haven't mailed me shit and I've been a subscriber for most of a year. Buggers.

This might work for a bit, sort of

I'll give it a go.

Got it working! A little slow, but single page view looks gorgeous on the ipad. This is a game changer.

Bah, my iPad 1 keeps crashing :/

sold

or rather i will be once it's live. Someone update here please?

Once I hear its out of beta I'll shout it from the rooftops.

I think John Cassaday's take on the Red Skull looks really cool. It's got kind of an EC comics thing going on, the eyes are totally crazy looking.

Marvel are making a big deal on "Now!" but really it is the same kind of reboot every 18-24 month thing they have had going on for a few years with new writers on some characters that haven't had a change out of teams for a long time.

I'd like to scatter the tumbleweed around here with some good news, but the Superior Spider-Man first issue is just awful. I was expecting at least a mild okay. It's actually DC-level witless.

Spider-Man is a character in desperate need of some downtime (a la Thor's vacation between Disassembled and the Straczynski book) and is also, unfortunately, the last Marvel character who'll ever get any kind of moritorium, however brief.

Superior Spider-Man seems pretty good to me. It's a kinda hokey situation, but it's done very well.

that All New X-Men plot actually sounds kinda fun to me, tbh

Hah I just came in here to say what a blast All-New X-Men is

Yeah, I'm really enjoying it as well. And ditto for Waid's new Hulk title, which is a little surprising to me.

I found out - but can't find the image right now to show you - that the point at which the old timeline is visited is actually what was going on in a specific X-issue. All-New enacts the same scene with a different layout, so you don't notice they're redoing Kirby/Lee, it's an awesome detail.

Young Avengers anyone? Nice art, but seems like power-pop in comic form (I.e. kids stuff for us oldsters)

It doesn't have the mature seriousness of Daredevil, true.

Affleck-chin.jpg.

I thought it was kind of cool knockabout fun, but I wouldn't put it on a pull list. Then again there aren't many comics I'd consider putting on a pull list these days.

I liked it! But it felt a little square -- NB. So am I -- and needed better jokes.

I thought it was too much "Super Phonogram" which definitely put me off. I liked Gillen on Journey Into Mystery and Uncanny X-Men (though Land makes me want to break his porn tracing hands), but his Iron Man is pretty dire so far and this is not off to a good start.

He's talked a lot about how this is superheroes as pop music, so it doesn't sound like this is necc. your thing (though Phonogram is more Afghan Whigs than Azaelia Banks).

I hate Phonogram with a passion, so any of it's taint sweeping into his super stuff is going to rankle. Shame, because I think he can do good cape stuff that doesn't feel so forcedly precious.

I've heard the Journey into Mystery stuff was great - worth a shot?

Phonogram did not work for me at all. It's like the 500 Days of Summer of comics. Ick.

I'm enjoying Journey Into Mystery quite a bit, but in a lot of the same ways as I enjoyed Young Avengers so YMMV. I didn't think Phonogram was that bad, but then I don't think I read past the first collection.

On balance DC may have better writers than Marvel at the moment, they're just doing a worse job.

His Journey Into Mystery run is a fun adventure with a horrible crossover with Fraction's Thor absolutely mutilates the overall series. Gillen ends it well, but the Fraction taint is strong.

Read a Wolverine and the X-Men graphic novel collection by Gillen and Chris Bachalo that I borrowed from the library - seemed a bit sub-Peter David tbh, but it wasn't terrible either.

Didn't realise Fraction was hated these day - iirc his Iron Man series used to be an ILC fave rave.

Gillen and Fraction seem to have an odd symbiotic relationship - Fraction taking on Thor after Gillen (and running it at the same time as JIM), Gillen following Fraction on Uncanny X-Men and Iron Man.

Fraction is hit or miss for me, though mostly the latter. And when he sucks he SUCKS. I liked his Iron Man for a while - the whole erase and reboot was a fun idea - but it was dead long before it was buried. His Thor was crap from the get go, and his Fantastic Four is quickly ruining all the hard work Hickman did to rescue the moribund foursome. If he ever tops the Iron Fist he did with Brubaker I'll be surprised.

Fraction's up and down, but Hawkeye's been great.

They're both oversusceptible to grating disco dad-isms, but Fraction's a much better joke writer.

xp - Is that the one where Wolverine is now headmaster at Xavier Academy? I enjoyed it a lot, but it's not written by Kieron Gillen.

(I'm not to be honest seeing where there's supposed to be jokes in Young Avengers, other than Hulkling's terrible Spiderman costume?)

Hawkeye seems to be trying too hard for me, and exhibits all the tics I don't like about Fraction's work. I don't find Fraction funnier, but he definitely thinks he's a better joke writer than he is. Gillen knows he's corny and undercuts himself.

You're right Andrew F, I'm getting my Gillen mixed up w/ my Aaron

Fraction's Thor is the first thing I read by him that I didn't like. (I only read the first issue of Hawkeye... it didn't grab me.)

Those first two issues of Hawkeye felt fun but decidedly affected, but issue three (and every issue since) has hit a sweet spot. The car chase in three = yowza.

Hawkeye is currently the best Marvel book I'm reading

New Avengers is the best Marvel book at the moment.

Having recommended Hawkeye, don't pick up the latest one, which was a "very special issue" and is pretty poor. But yeah, from the third issue on the affectations get a bit less annoying (or I just got used to them).

Yeah - those first two issues left me "impressed", if not so much enthralled.

Glad I got over my Miller/Mazzuchelli shock of the first ish and stuck with it. It's tremendous fun. Agreed the new one is pretty weak but it's an old-school comic PSA

Hawkeye, Young Avengers and Wolverine and the X-Men are all amazing, though I'm a bit behind on the last one. Marvel seem weirdly split between stupid 90'ies comics for adolescents and these books where they allow there writers to just do what they want, with great results. I read the latest issue of Captain Marvel, and liked it as well. And I'm a Hickman-stan, so I will check out his stuff on avengers, once there is a bit more of it. He really reads better in larger chunks.

All in all, Marvel could either enter a golden age once all their crap fails, and they greenlight more stuff like what I've just mentioned. Or everything could be derailed by some stupid crossover, and we'll be back to square one.

Oh oh I forgot FF with Allred art is WAU

I'm an Allred nut, but my god is Fraction dropping a steaming load with the story in FF. HORRIBLE.

tbh I couldn't possibly care less about the FF story aside from Ms. Thing's inevitable breakdown

but it looks amazing

I'm really enjoying both of Hickman's Avengers books -- bringing the long-game plotting of his FF run and the convenience of having a cast of dozens of Avengers available depending on the mission, a la Warren Ellis' run on Secret Avengers. Remender's Uncanny Avengers -- eh, not so much, though Cassaday's art is pretty.

Neither FF book has really caught me yet, but as I mentioned on another thread, I'm really digging Waid's Indestructible Hulk.

I really liked the FF as written by Hickman. But this is so horrible -- well, Fraction's whole concept for the Fantastic Four is horrible, but FF is the dregs -- that even the excellent Allred can't make me read the thing anymore. I'll just read X-Statix again; that was brilliant both in writing and art.

I think the concept is competent enough for me to enjoy the art

Haven't read X-statix, been saving the run for a rainy day. Thanks for reminding! It is rainy.

Make sure you start with their short X-Force run. It leads right into X-Statix.

it's more than 12 issues, not short

I still haven't read the final two arcs of Journey into Mystery yet, but there is a whole lot of fun comics in the early part of the run. The single issue story with Mephisto was great and everytime Loki's dog shows up is really funny.

It does tie into the 'macro-Marvel U' and Thor story but not necessarily in a way you have to read Thor or the other series to know what is going on. It just kind of outlines Loki's usual manipulating behind the scenes, except this time as a goofy teenager instead of his usual shown malevolent self.

Yeah, I recently read Gillen's JiM run, and I agree it stands pretty well on its own. I think you only need to get what happens in Fear Itself to get Gillen's JiM, reading Thor isn't necessary, except for the very last arc, which is a crossover with Thor... But if you're buying TPBs, the Everything Burns book compiles all the relevant issues.

Of course JiM might've been even better if Gillen had been given a totally free reign with it, but I guess in these crossover-ridden days you gotta accept you're never gonna get that. At least JiM wasn't semi-ruined by continuous crossovers (no Avengers vs. X-Men stuff in it, for example) like Avengers Academy was. And the final issue of the run was one the most touching superhero books I've read in a while. Gillen managed to end it with a clever, almost Morrisonesque meta-commentary on superhero comics in general, and this series in particular, that was nevertheless heart-tugging too. That sort of balance between clever meta stuff and sentimentalism is pretty hard to maintain, but I think Gillen pulls it off nicely throughout the whole series.

I haven't read Young Avengers yet, but I think want to check it out just to see what Gillen does to Loki next. Don't want to spoil too much, but is YA #1 addressing what happened to Loki in the final issue of his JiM run?

No - it's a #1 and there's already a lot happening - Loki is played pretty mysteriously.

Well, you would have to read some issues of New Mutants as well at some point, though they would probably also be in the tpb. The end of jim was amazing, and I don't think it would have worked without the crossovers. It used the grind of modern comics to make a really tragic point.

you guys sparked my interest but then i kinda got confused about what TPBs to check out. there are 4 JIM trades and 1 crossover Thor/JIM trade?

Marvel DCU recommendations?

forks -

have you read all the 60s Strange Tales? Between Dr. Strange and Nick Fury they're absolutely astounding. Also, the Kirby returns stories in Cap and Black Panther are cool beans.

there are 4 JIM trades and 1 crossover Thor/JIM trade?

4 regular trades, one New Mutants/JiM crossover trade called Exiled (the one Frederik mentioned), and one Thor/JiM crossover. The Thor crossover trade has the finale to Gillen's whole JiM story arc, but the New Mutants one can be skipped without missing the main story, though it does resolve some subplots (mostly, the fate of the Disir).

Also, for some weird reason the Mancheter Gods TPB includes a Thor annual written by J. M. DeMatteis (in his trademark pompous style) that has absolutely nothing to with JiM's plot. I guess they included it only to fatten the trade, as the actual Manchester Gods arc is only 3 issues long.

And if you like it, especially if you want to know more about the Disir, you can go back and read the rest of Gillens Thor-work, as well as his New Mutants tie-in to Fear Itself. It is quite the epic he has created, though it is the jim-story which is the best. The rest is just bonus, sort of, hardly neccessary.

New Avengers is the best Marvel book at the moment.

Loooooooving this book soooo much

Superior Spider-Man #3 is really a great issue. Great art, pure entertainment.

so reasking: can anyone recommend any modern era (post '95) series on MDCU for reading?
i appreciate the strange tales recommend but i'm trying to get caught up with contemporary capes and tights

I didn't have any response because I didn't understand the question. Are you asking for Marvel universe recs, DC universe recs, or both? Your abbreviations throw me.

This is the unlimited download thing, yes?

Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts run
Extremis Iron Man run
Marc Millar's FF run starts a mine of greatness all through Hickman's
Hulk across America/Planet Hulk/WW Hulk
DO NOT STOP WITH HULK ONCE HULK IS NOT IN IT (Incredible Hercules etc, but I have written about this before)

Yeah, it's books available on the marvel Digital comics unlimited service (their monthly paid all-you-can-eat webthing) that i'm looking for help with

First person who wants to can use my code for a free digital copy of Superior Spider-Man #3: TMM19IYH1QMR

the Thunderbolts run before that by Fabian Nicieza was also pretty good! don't know if it's on MDCU though

agreed on that dope Planet Hulk + run, i never finished the Herc/Cho run but it was really good up to where i stopped reading

From how far back are you looking to get re-acquainted, forks? Is '95 your starting point or MDCUs?

1995 is mine; roughly about when i completely lost touch with marvel universe.

Though i have some connect points. And it's funny your first suggestions are things i've read and liked!
Thumbs up (but already done) Thunderbolts, Extremis and new Iron Man, Planet/War/etc Hulk and Ultimate FF.
Key point here is that it needs to be available on MDCU; lots and LOTS of contemporary stuff is not.

Best of Bendis: Ultimate Spiderman, Daredevil (Alias isn't on there apparently) - you could also probably do worse than picking up the main books of the big crossovers.

The Ultimates - the Millar stuff, not the Loeb. Action-movie Avengers.

Nextwave! Ellis in wacky sarky mode is completely brilliant.

Let's face it, I'm not going to recommend you skip any Morrison: New-X Men / Marvel Boys / FF miniseries / Skrull Kill Krew is probably the most-to-least-acceptable list

Milligan & Allred's X-Force / X-Statix - Not the first being-a-hero-for-the-fame, but the best.

A lot of people love the Abnett and Lanning space opera stuff - Annihilation / Nova / Guardians of the Galaxy / War of Kings / The Thanos Imperative.

The first book or two of Dan Slott's She-Hulk is really good, Peter A David-in-his-prime, work! Sadly nearly everything else he's touched has been meh.

Yeah, I had to sell a bunch of stuff recently, but I've clung tenaciously to the Pak Hulk stuff and DNA's Annihilation et al.

And a ton of great younger heroes stuff too - Avengers Academy, Journey Into Mystery, Runaways, Young Avengers.

Also Ed Brubaker's Captain America run, which is a bit like Bendis' Daredevil in that it starts and it's clearly great and nothing changes but then it's just kind of there, it's great if you like that kind of stuff, you know, great stuff.

PAD's X-Factor felt like great stuff at the time.

Brubakers Cap is an epic from 1-42. Then it doesn't know where to go. But those first years are great.

Everything Hickman has done: Secret Warriors, Fantastic Four, S.H.I.E.L.D. (though that is unfinished)It's slow but good.

I just want to echo the Nextwave recommendation, and also put out there Joe Kelly's Deadpool run

I also loved Kelly's X-Men run at the time but I have no idea if it holds up

BTW, if you decide to read the Peter David X-Factor (which I recommend, with the understanding that each mandatory crossover fucks with his otherwise left alone little x-world) make sure you read the Madrox mini-series first. It's David's revamp of that character that paves the way for X-Factor to follow.

The BKV Dr Strange series is fun. And Runaways for about 24 issues.

well the redesign appears to have happened.

Is DCU ipaddable then now? In a way that doesn't crash every five secs?

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marvel-unlimited/id607205403?ls=1&mt=8

game on, downloading now

oh shit. guys it's good. simple interface, fast load, clean scan, good library, decent layout, intuitive options. they need to make the library deeper for sure. but this is what i was looking for. will be fucking about with this for awhile, will say if i see problems.

Okay can I just say I am very very VERY happy I decided to pick up The Avengers

Of all the directions they were going to go "finish Warren Ellis's New Universe reboot" was nowhere near my radar and I am fucking PSYCHED

downloading the app now. Excited.

and yes, you can swipe pages forward and back
don't know how bad the drain will be.
you can download up to six comics to read offline which is kinda dumb but it's a start.

ooookay, already some issues.
poor curation is evident immediately. there are four different series of "the twelve" and you have to flip around to find all the issues. you can't just add a whole series or character to your library as far as i can see, it's hunt and peck.

creator credits and book information at the front end is astonishingly sparse; many books only list a penciller making it impossible to browse definitively by author

all this stuff was there on the web too, looks like they got the interface right and still haven't stepped up curation and maintenance
it's the worst and best elements of spotify. i hope they will put some focus on this; it could really change the industry

aaaaand it crashed twice already.
okay, i was too excited. still.

it could really change the industry

paying royalties could really change the industry

Of all the directions they were going to go "finish Warren Ellis's New Universe reboot" was nowhere near my radar and I am fucking PSYCHED

Hickman's grasp of the Cosmic Marvel U and its storytelling potential beyond Earth and a bunch of fit guys n' gals in tights is really awe inspiring.

forks, Todd Allen at The Beat has a gripe --
http://comicsbeat.com/calling-bs-on-marvel-unlimited/

oh yeah, this shit is hella old no doubt

and sic, no boubt

er doubt

The bendis avengers is really good!

no biggity, no boudt

I'm fine with the spotty curation and crashing -- I have an ipad 1, it crashes every five minutes -- but it's annoying you can't see the comics full screen. Unless I'm missing something?

you can see the comics full screen. there's an expand button in the lower right.

Ah, very good. Thanks! Thought that was a bit odd. Right, purchase time when I get home then.

Still can't find it -- is there not a way of getting rid of the name of the comic in the top bar?

Top bar never goes away

hey guys, you know the blatant Battle Royale/Hunger Games ripoff Avengers Arena?

it is shockingly good, like not in a "oh shit everyone must buy this" way but more in a "how the hell does this manage to be coherent and entertaining" way

I recommend taking a look, esp if you have passing familiarity with Avengers Academy, Runaways, and random New Warriors rejects

also I am semi annoyed that Cannonball and Sunspot aren't getting more chances to shine but Avengers is fucking incredible in the "oh shit everyone must buy this" way

have recently read an Avengers graphic novel collection by bendis, jrjr and b. hitch, mainly feat. a big dust-up w/ the red hulk, and two collections of recentish slott-written spider-mans - and they were all great! MAKE MINE MARVEL

(strangely, since reading Sean Howe's superb MARVEL COMICS THE UNTOLD STORY i've been on a real Marvel kick/high - i say strangely, because the book makes for depressing reading for anyone who has ever cared abt the company, the characters, its creators)

Yeah, the Avengers Now stuff is great. I've been rereading Hickmans Fantastic Four, and it's just amazingly well-plotted. It's also really fun how he just has these weird kicks, such as people always mentioning 'wheels whithin wheels' and such. The story of the Manifolds, which is just alluded to in the beginning of New Avengers, as perhaps being a big deal... Also, in FF they build 'sols anvil' and now in New Avengers they've build 'sols hammer'. I have no idea what the point is, and I don't think it matters, but it is really fun to think about.

Age of Ultron seems to be completely pointless but I've been enjoying it anyway

wow, so many issues with this app
it freezes up a lot but the big problem is that on A LOT of comix it doesn't import the dialogue.

weird. I haven't seen that happen. But I have had stuff start on the last page, and have search tags not work. What bugs me most is series showing up on the web but not in the app, or not appearing there until you restart it, or do a search, and then VOILA! They appear.

all the avengers stuff has that word bubble issue
and yeah, i have the same problems.... 24 ISSUES OF XXX and only three show up
it's basically buggy as hell and the more you use it the buggier it gets
even so, i've probably read like 300 marvel issues in the past month. it's a lil' addictive.

The more you use it the more it freaks. You have to shut it down and restart it pretty often.

Which Avengers issues? I'll test it on my end and see if I get the same thing.

I should go back and get all of the current New Avengers run, right

there is no "current" run on the ipad app, they're at least two years behind.
most of the dark avengers have that glitch

I am not using the iPad app

I was trying to ask a question about the current comics rather than talk about buggy software

I would say yes -- both Hickman Avengers books are great.

dig, i forget what thread we're on. may be time to have a marvel unlimited app thread.

If what Axel Alonso is saying here is true, then that is really cool:

Yes. We want things to be organic. It’s the writer and editor huddling and deciding to pitch a tie-in; not me saying, "Yo, Jordan (White)! Get me a “Deadpool” tie-in!" We don’t lean on any of our writers to tie in. Although, a Deadpool tie-in might be kinda cool…

Look, Marvel NOW! did what we wanted it to do. It revitalized the monthlies and reenergized the talent pool. Events add a dimension to the Marvel Universe that should compliment the monthly publishing plan, not uproot it. If a writer and artist think there's an opportunity to tell a good tie-in story to an event, I won’t discourage that, but I won’t demand it, either. It’s better for a writer to come up with the best story within the universe of that character than search for connective tissue that doesn't exist.

The first line of defense for this is Tom [Brevoort], who always stands at the epicenter of our big events. If he’s not convinced it’s a legitimate tie-in story, I probably won’t be. And we both agree that oversaturating the market with tie-ins that aren't really relevant is a bad long-term strategy that erodes fan and retailer confidence.

Also, while events are crap, I'm curious to see if Hickman can pull it off.

It's from this interview: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=44894 Also, check out his thoughts on the meanings and metaphors of the Inhumans. Those are some clever thoughts for a Editor in Chief. Or perhaps it's just that the people at DC has really lowered the bar...

Alonso was a good and smart editor at DC.

I didn't even know that Quesada had stepped down, nice interview, kind of, at least for describing how some of these ideas kind of get hashed out

Quesada was promoted years ago iirc, not stepped down

Promising!

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/marvel-epic-collections.html

Nice!

Mr A. Ewing's issue of Avengers Assemble is VERY GOOD

I kind of think that Marvel is a lot happier with not giving a fuck about continuity than DC? Apart from the obvious Wolverine being on a billion teams, they've seemed happy just mostly freeze things in amber on a lot of titles - Franklin aging 7 years over the last 40, to pick the popular example - apart from the ones where there is so much going on all the time (Daredevil is a great example) that it settles into a hum of action, with no sense that there's a real permanent character history being written.

----------

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, November 19, 2012 12:47 AM (5 months ago)

I read 'Marvel Comics: The Untold Story' on holiday and actually Andrew's assertion here about Marvel and continuity is completely off the mark. Marvel used to use their slavish devotion to continuity as a badge of honour and a reason why you should pick them over DC, who didn't care about it. Lots of stories in there about plots being completely rewritten because the Marvel continuity police (and at one point they had an entire editorial team to uphold it) saw a problem.

The first crack appeared with McFarlane Spider-man, since he was so inept at writing they couldn't possibly expect him to keep continuity straight but was so integral to Marvel's business plan that they had to throw a new book and shitloads of money at him just to keep him. (As a sidebar, that's the funniest part of the whole book, where Todd describes how he just did a couple of splash pages and none of it made any sense but he doesn't really give a shit because he was being paid millions of dollars.) The whole point of the Ultimate line was to let Bendis tell a Spider-man story without any continuity baggage.

I'm guessing DC changed sides over continuity after Crisis, and codifying it in History of the DCU.

I'm happy to switch 'continuity' to 'history' there, and to point out that it's a view on their current output rather than what they might have been like 20 years ago.

I am a little surprised that damage to continuity was much of a concern in 2000, 6 years after the Clone Saga.

Yeah, I can see that and agree with you - but it came out of me saying that I couldn't parse the continuity of the different titles, who was in them and how they happened relative to each other.

Interestingly there's a story in the book about GMoz and the Planet X storyline, how it is just a parody by him of how crass and slavish the Marvel obsession with continuity is and that Magneto tries to reinvent himself and break out of the cycle but just ends up back where he began, fighting the same trivial battles with the same people.

think the marvel obsession w/ continuity start to fade away w/ the death of mark gruenwald, who once edited the 'seminal' marvel history fanzine Omniverse.

the death of continuity is of course also an effect of different corporate owners with different priorities (ie never let continuity stand in the way of a money-making title/'concept'), and of the sheer VOLUME of comics that marvel has published in the last twenty years, making totalising coherence an impossibility.

i might guess that all of the major comic publishers have also taken note of Paramount's decision to jettison imprisoning Star Trek continuity in favour of a re-boot

but the comics companies have been doing reboots for decades before Star Trek copied it off them

uh wait A. Ewing wrote an issue of Avengers Assemble?

Of "Ultimate Future Shock" / "Rogue Trooper at the Disco" 'fame', yes.

Or rather - The Ultimate Future Shock

It's also not un-thrill-powered

there seem to be a lot of books with 'avengers' in the title atm

i'm also a little unclear as to whether the comic with wolverine leading a death squad is contemporaneous with the one where he's running a school

Such was, in fairness, ever the case other young Mr Howlett.

Wolverine contains multitudes.

Go Marvel!

In an attempt to make it seem like Dan DiDio isn't the biggest dick of a CEO at the big two, Marvel are about to announce that...

Age of Ultron #10 will actually be a 4 issue mini series called Hunger...

Starring Galactus...

From another dimension.

Jesus titty Christ.

waht

Also we shouldn't overlook Avengers Assemble being cancelled and them writing to subscribers telling them iy was and that their subscriptions were being transferred to another title. Then when said subscribers leaked the news using Marvel emails as evidence, Marvel taking the huff and denying it leaving them without a product to meet their new obligations.

what exactly is wrong w/ galactus from another dimension (i mean moreso than any other dopey different-dimensioned variant of character x)?

i recently glugged down a nice big british collection of the bendis avengers vs x-men series, which i thought was the best of his widescreen multi-crossover megaseries blahdiblah, although i was pained to see cyclops written as such a big prick (i don't think this is any new departure for marvel's treatment of the character over the last x number of years, but as an old school byrne-claremonter, i'm sorry to see the definitive leader of the x-men treated in such a way.) marvel cld quite easily write cyclops as a man literally deranged by grief and loss, and make him a tragic hero. some of the art was horrible - frank cho's bubblewrap cheesecake, ugh - but jrjr, even on autopilot, is still gd to look at

my "waht" is more about turning the last issue into a four issue miniseries

well also they just did "Galactus from another dimension" in the X-Termination crossover that ended X-Treme X-Men and Age of Apocalypse so I guess some of my "waht" is just at the stunning lack of creativity on display

My waht is that they've run a massive series that has huge, far reaching implications for the MU (see Bendis' leaked memo for the implications of what Wolverine and Sue Storm did) and the only way they can think of finishing it is with Galactus From Another Mother? anyone reading AoU should be wtfing themselves into a coma at this point.

This is all only so they can bring Angela into the MU apparently, now they own her.

AU started off promisingly, but #8 took it way off the rails imo.

yeah after that one I was basically thinking to myself "why am I reading this again"

AU is awesome and batshit crazy and I kind of think there is no good resolution

somehow over the course of less than ten issues it's already the tv show Lost

I feel that Hickman's two Avengers titles are doing pretty well. He seldom really does an outstanding issue, but a series of issues that make for a good long-term arc is kind of his thing. He's really starting to pick up steam.

Brian Wood's take on X-Men is coming out soon, which I'm also looking forward to.

two other titles that are really good right now are Fraction's FF and Hawkeye

most definitely

Apparently some stereotypical comics dudes were bitching about FF! They didn't like Mike Allred's art! wtf is fucking wrong with people

basically I feel like Fraction and Hickman are just running shit at Marvel right now

it's really fucking bizarre to me that there are no X-titles in my 5 favorite Marvel titles right now (Hawkeye, Avengers, FF, Avengers Arena, New Avengers)

btw it is still boggling my mind that Avengers Arena is actually really, really good

they don't like vegetables, they only like french fries - xpost

Wolverine and the X-Men isn't half bad!

I think it was the stupidly titled Age of Ultrun #10U.C. which was turned into Hunger. It's just a follow-up series like AvX: Consequences or Fear Itself: The Fearless. Still sounds extremely dumb.

Thor: God of Thunder is pretty cool as well!

my 6-10 Marvels are X-Factor, Young Avengers, W&tX, Astonishing X-Men, Uncanny X-Men

I have to post this from the new solicits. Hawkeye #14:

• This one has it all! Characters! Plot! Story! Dialogue! Theme! Meaning! Message! Action! A little exposition! Fire! Arrows! Criminals! Neighbors! Large bodies of water! Clients! Cops who don’t care! A system that victimizes the victims! The dog!

I'm hooked!

basically everything about Hawkeye is an exercise in What Makes Comics Awesome

didn't like Mike Allred's art!

i don't like allred's art that much (tolerated him on the xforce etc stuff because pete milligan was at the v top of his game for those) - limited actual technical drawing skills, and limited repertoire of 'tricks' and signifiers of 'hip' - occasionally musters a slightly eerie edge to some of his drawings - but he's no jerry grandenetti, eg

he likes sting, btw

I tend to put Allred and Bachalo in the same bucket where the style is so overwhelmingly appealing that any storytelling issues I have with their work are immaterial

Looking forward to catching up with Hickman's stuff back to Fantastic Four.

Yes, Hawkeye is awesome. With Marvel + Image being in good place right now, I'm probably buying (and enjoying) more single issues than I have in about 5-6 years. Plus, I'm even psyched enough to get B-level trash like Guardians of the Galaxy, which is probably a good sign.

Fraction, Hickman and Bendis, yes.

xpost

bachalo's storytelling chops seem incredibly deficient for someone who has been drawing comics for so long, but his work has much more wit and energy, to my eyes, than allred's rather stiff and self-conscious pastiche-y style - its, like he really aspires to be 'versioning' classic streamlined minimalist spook stuff like bruno premiani's 60s doom patrol stuff, but that shit actually requires series basic structural craft/sweat that allred actually hasn't got (don't get me started on richard sala)

I freely admit that my Allred ardor cooled someone when I started reading Hawkeye and saw what Aja and Pulido were doing

Bachalo's style and storytelling seems to change and wane by the year or project. There are a few instances where the storytelling is hard to follow, but it's in the minority, imo. He's definitely gone through several distinctive eras but still seems to change it up occasionally, although not always successfully.

DJP, did you read Iron Fist? Fraction/Aja was awesome on that.

Daredevil is my favourite Marvel book by so,e considerable distance. Mark Waid's plot line in Latveria as great.

Also the Zimworld Captain America stuff seems to have gone unnoticed.

Didn't read Iron Fist, no; only really started moving away from my Mutants Only stance via Avengers Academy and Secret Avengers

Mark Waid can fuck off for eternity, I actively avoid his shit

dude read Iron Fist ASAP

i hear so many gd things abt waid's daredevil, but i have been fucked over by waid recommendations SO many times

I guess it's possible that Waid is doing good work now but I remember when he was writing the X-Men with Lobdell and he actually had a scene in his book where Sam went and sulked in a tree because he thought he wasn't good enough to be an X-Man, which was just completely counter to the way the character had been written for the previous I don't know A BILLION YEARS

angry fanboys then used that as an example of how Lobdell sucks, lol

btw this is the only thing I remember from Waid's X-Men run, that and him being a massive cock on Usenet

I'd go so far as to say its maybe my favourite soft reboot of the pas 10 years. ( But maybe I have read so many shit comics ha a halfway decent one just seems like the best thing ever)

yeah, i'm hella trepidatious about trying another waid book of any variety

I read a few issues of that Daredevil, they were good superhero comics

This is all only so they can bring Angela into the MU apparently, now they own her.

They don't.

OK, sorry, so Neil Gaiman can bring her into the MU, now he owns her. Marvel have already released the sketches (copyrighted Marvel) of what she's going to look like.

I will whole-heartedly recommend Daredevil and take the heat for it if y'all hate it.

Also, today is like the fifth time I have been on the cusp of getting a Marvel Unlimited sub, then pulling away at the last min in fear/horror of the app. (This time I tried on a desktop - even that's terrible too.)

does the waid daredevil begin when kevin smith quit on the knights run? because i tried to read that shit and i love daredevil but daaaaammmn.
can you give me a starting point?

the unlimited is a mess and it's always fucking up but it's probably worth it. i've read more comics in the past few months than i have in years.

vol 3 #1 Sept 2011. Dd xpost

okay, queuing it up now.

Waid's DD is really good! I don't think I'd ever read anything by him before, but I'd been warned off of a lot of it beforehand.

I don't mind Allred's stylized cartooning, but I do have one small peeve with him -- he puts his wife in every goddamn thing he draws.

xp

Laura, I'd say, is a key part of the Allred equation - he looks waaaaay different w/o her colors.

In summary then, if Marvel want to beat DiDio's DC at being a shit heap, they'll have to start sucking a lot more.

That's about the size of it.

Marvel's winners are more brilliant and their failures are more abysmal; DC just moseys along on a flat path of okayness. The status quo for 50 years.

DC is much worse than "okay" right now.

Admittedly I am not the average DC buyer, but once Batman Inc's over, I don't think I'll be buying any of the books, for the first time since around 2004

Yeah, I know that I share what's probably a common ILC bias due to receiving more detailed reports from Aldo of DC's behaviour than Marvel's, but I'm not aware of any failure on Marvel's part as abysmal as giving two books to Rob Liefeld and/or treating serious creators (and Rob Liefeld) badly enough that they speak out publicly against the dicking-around they've been getting.

This is all only so they can bring Angela into the MU apparently, now they own her.

Who's "Angela"?

A Spawn character that Neil Gaiman co-created with Todd McFarlane and they've been fighting about ever since. Todd used the Marvel legal defence that it was work-for-hire and therefore he didn't owe him any royalties, Neil took him to court and won and they agreed they were co-creators as far as SPawn 9, Spawn 26 and three spin-off issues.

Since that legal case, it appears that Neil has bought out Todd's interest completely and is taking it to Marvel as part of his golden handcuffs deal there. No word on the other two characters that were part of the court case, or how this affects the Miracleman fiasco.

he didn't buy it out, he was awarded it by the court. (twice!)

and he obv doesn't have a golden handcuffs deal, as he's doing Sandman #0 right this moment.

It doesn't affect the Marvelman fiasco in any way.

Admittedly I am not the average DC buyer, but once Batman Inc's over, I don't think I'll be buying any of the books, for the first time since around 2004

I'm tentatively buying Batwoman for another month or so. But then I'm sure there've been occasional times since 1996 that Morrison hasn't had a book going at DC and I thus haven't been buying any of them.

(I do feel rly awkward buying Batwoman still, the way DC are treating readers and creators, and felt VERY gross buying Action - if I'd known the end date would keep moving, I would have bailed out around #10. But I've probably been done buying any Marvel ever for a year or two, unless they start paying royalties. Or put covers back on the floppies.)

the other two characters in the court case are acknowledged as being part-McFarlane, and so presumably Gaiman gets to request another audit, and McFarlane gets to declare bankruptcy in order to avoid it again, like after the first court case.

please explain A)golden handcuffs and B)put covers back on the floppies

at least i understand Marvel not paying nobody royalties

He was awarded co-creator credit by the courts. There has to be something else happened since the last court case for him to take it to another company - unless Todd is being paid shitloads by Marvel and I would imagine he'd have them over a barrel if Neil was insistent he was going to use it in GotG. I don't even see what NG's point is in using it, since he doesn't appear to show any affection for the character. He tried to swap it for Marvelman in 97 (which is where that character comes into it) and aiui his court cases were more about royalties and Todd deliberately leaving the issues in dispute out of tpbs.

Todd's a complete dick, but there's something weird going on here.

Didn't know about Sandman #0, retract my golden handcuffs statement. I'm amazed he's gone back to Marvel in that case, let alone to co-write a second (third?) tier book where whatever he writes is going to be retconned away by the forthcoming film in any case, or why Marvel are making such a big deal about it.

Okay, I remember reading about that Gaiman/McFarlane court case, but why would Marvel want to bring some obscure Spawn into the Marvel universe, especially if they'd have to pay McFarlane royalties for it?

"some obscure Spawn character"

that is a question that no one can answer

Waid daredevil is great by the way. Thanks and good call.

Maybe angela is being written into one of the movies?

uuuungh

Or maybe she is key to the eventual spawn reboot... Maybe even at marvel? Is that a thing? Fuck if i keep up with mcfarlanes bizness these days.

But i could see him teaming up with marvel if it would give him the clout to integrate his characters to the marvel u and then get them in avengers 4 and reap the 10% licensing fees.
Nb: i am making this up as i go along

if spawn shows up anywhere i'm throwing all my comics on the curb and reading only magazines and books

I am trying to imagine Spawn and Malebolgia in an Avengers movie and DO NOT WANT

please explain A)golden handcuffs and B)put covers back on the floppies

a) non-existent exclusive contract
b) last Marvel I bought (the first [?] Chris Samnee issue of Waid's Daredevil) was self-cover. gtfo for US$3.50 or w/e

(I bought four issues of Waid's DD and the second Strange Tales mini the year before; they both had covers.)

(when their first issue of Langridge Muppets apparently transliterated the Italian translation rather than accept Langridge's offer of his original English script, just to NOT HAVE CONTACT WITH HIM even though he knew he wouldn't get paid, I reached my "probably no moral twisting I can put myself through to justify buying anything from these cunts ever again" point tho)

He tried to swap it for Marvelman in 97 (which is where that character comes into it)

no, the character came into it when Todd bought Eclipse's assests and then OFFERED to swap him Marvelman for his interest in Spawn characters. he agreed, then Todd continued to never pay him anything, and also didn't send him anything indicating that Todd actually owned even the slightest fragment of Marvelman. hence another 16 years of legal nonsense.

and aiui his court cases were more about royalties and Todd deliberately leaving the issues in dispute out of tpbs.

royalties due to creating characters, and Todd only took the issues out of the TPBs and stopped making multiple action figures of all three ONCE Gaiman asked for his royalties.

let alone to co-write a second (third?) tier book where whatever he writes is going to be retconned away by the forthcoming film in any case, or why Marvel are making such a big deal about it.

he's editing dialogue in one issue AFAIK, not writing a series

and then get them in avengers 4 and reap the 10% licensing fees.
Nb: i am making this up as i go along

c'mon man this is psycho, Marvel don't pay royalties on books and got summary judgments against Kirby's grandkids the week the Captain America movie came out. what world do you think you're living in?

I hope I am living in a world where Spawn never ever ever has anything to do with the Avengers

So self-covering is a thing where they used to print the cover on a different type of paper to the inside and now they don't (but they've improved the interior paper stock)? Can't say I noticed.

no, the character came into it when Todd bought Eclipse's assests and then OFFERED to swap him Marvelman for his interest in Spawn characters. he agreed, then Todd continued to never pay him anything, and also didn't send him anything indicating that Todd actually owned even the slightest fragment of Marvelman. hence another 16 years of legal nonsense.

Ok, I'll rephrase what I said. NG was prepared to swap it for Marvelman. Does that make my point clearer? And yes, we all know Todd didn't actually have the rights he tried to sell in the end. Did you see the part where I said he was a dick?

royalties due to creating characters, and Todd only took the issues out of the TPBs and stopped making multiple action figures of all three ONCE Gaiman asked for his royalties.

Like is said then, about royalties.

he's editing dialogue in one issue AFAIK, not writing a series

Really? Wow. Then it's completely fucking crazy that Marvel are making any press out of it at all, and more than heavily implies that bringing it in was all Marvel's idea. I guess that means there are two main possible explanations for Angela appearing:

It was all Neil's idea

Given he did Marvel 1602 for free just to fundraise so Marvel could beat down Todd, I can't see why he would have the idea of giving Todd money unless its part of some conspiracy to get Marvel to pay him royalties and undermine their position. This only really makes sense if he obtained Todd's rights after the legal thing was over.

It was all Marvel's idea

Joe Quesada woke up one day and thought "I love that awesome character that appeared in 5 issues of another company's comic 20years ago, I should put the character in the MU". That's batshit.

Gaiman is sole owner of Angela.

character makes no sense outside of spawn, unless they throw it in with all the marvel supernatural crap, which could work but that is currently getting some play in x-factor

yeah but X-Factor is ending so that will have to move somewhere if they're going to keep using it

wait, what? they're canning x-factor?

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/04/28/x-factor-is-cancelled-official/

EZ that's what I thought must have happened, which means NG has got Todd's rights after the last court case.

Angela is going to be in Guardians of the Galaxy to start with, which is the book NG is working on.

maybe they'll put her in the movie

okay, putting angela in Guardians makes me feel it's super likely she's a movie character since they're focused on that film

c'mon man this is psycho, Marvel don't pay royalties on books and got summary judgments against Kirby's grandkids the week the Captain America movie came out. what world do you think you're living in?

Image takes a flat fee on every book it publishes.

Ok, so A Ewing's second Avengers Assemble is also VERY GOOD

Bright future that kid etc

AU started off promisingly, but #8 took it way off the rails imo.

― What makes a man start threads? (WilliamC), Thursday, May 16, 2013 3:22 PM (2 weeks ago)

yeah after that one I was basically thinking to myself "why am I reading this again"

― AMERICA IS ABOUT RESSLING (DJP), Thursday, May 16, 2013 3:27 PM (2 weeks ago)

Damn if Bendis didn't steer it back towards sensibility. I'm not a fan of Peterson or Pacheco, though.

Okay Mighty Avengers looks like it will be THE SHIT

thank u based Al

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=45933

Monica Rambeau
She-Hulk
White Tiger
Luke Cage
Power Man
Otto-Man
Falcon
Ronin
Blue Marvel

yes I'm buying this

nice to see Ms. Rambeau back

so the Otto-Man thing stuck huh? i kinda thought that would've been reversed by now

Really wish it wasn't Greg Land, but Al's Avengers Assemble issues were great.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/4eb4350bb02eb0e8117d42b181fb4e05/tumblr_mo16vd5VQL1qznhs5o1_500.jpg

It's possible that this won't rule. But it's not _very_ possible.

There are so many great Avengers/Avengers-affiliated books out right now, it's crazy

Might end up in the pub with Al this evening - will endeavour to convince him to cover Greg Land's art with as many dialogue boxes as possible. The Marvel Method works!

Make it so.

So, the indicia of AoU #10 says Marvel owns Angela lock, stock and barrel now. I guess that sorts out the debate above over whether .NG bought out Todd, which he must have done if he's sold it on. (Other option is that .NG sold his shares to Marvel leaving Todd in a 'name your price' position, which would constitute a bit of a fuck you to NG given how long he spent in court)

maybe he sold the character to them as some kind of consolation considering how the whole Marvelman thing faded out. i could see him just wanting to completely forget the whole thing at this point, or maybe he figures it'll be a huge pain in the ass for Todd to fight Marvel on it

So, the indicia of AoU #10 says Marvel owns Angela lock, stock and barrel now. I guess that sorts out the debate above over whether .NG bought out Todd, which he must have done if he's sold it on.

Seems far more likely that he was given the character as post-bankruptcy settlement.

maybe he sold the character to them as some kind of consolation considering how the whole Marvelman thing faded out.

it's unsettling to see a successful creator flogging a character to Marvel at all. but the idea he'd have to console them is weird - if Marvel aren't happy with ongoing sales on the 1602 collection, it's their problem for neither marketing nor keeping in print their collected editions. or if they're not happy with the sales on their Marvelman books, they shouldn't have paid a weegie wideboy for the rights (either 1 pound or the rumoured high amounts) nor published material nobody in the marketplace was interested in. and Gaiman already wrote The Eternals AS "thanks" for the royalties on the 1602 floppies!

oh yeah, i totally forgot about that book

you guys, Hawkeye #11

holy shit

I mean seriously, this may be the best single issue comic book I've read in years; the last time I had this strong a positive reaction to a book was We3 (which, given the POV of Hawkeye #11, is a big lol)

PIZZA DOG

http://kibblesmith.tumblr.com/post/53934553463/lyrics-by-mckelvie-sorry-it-took-so-long-i-had

I haven't read a single comic in about 5 weeks. This no internet and away from LCS thing is killing me.

I really love the way perspectives are used in this series; it sometimes feels like lazy storytelling when a book does the whole "here's what happened from so-and-so's perspective" but Fraction's decision to use the perspective overlap to anchor parts of the story together in terms of timeline and character motivation (this is the third time we've seen that confrontation between Clint and Kate, right?) and to expand the web of the story (the way the Clown was brought in).

Yup. Hawkeye #11. Insane.

So did people read Infinity? In the end, I really liked it. The conflicts were all sorta handwaved away, but that is still better than the fistfights normally thrown. And it was just constantly half mythically grand and half insanely batshit, and the structure was just weird. In the end, most of the Builders storyline was in Avengers while Thanos was in New Avengers, except that the whole point of the Builders agression was explained in this one issue of New Avengers which was a weird interlude from everything.

I need to reread it in a sitting or two to really understand what the hell went on. The Black Swan coda really irritated me -- "Oh you think you had it tough with the Bogeymen? Wait til the Double Bogeymen get hold of you! Or the Triple Bogeymen!" Enough to make me want to give up golf.

I have no idea what you guys are talking about, but it sounds hilarious.

I loved that Black Swan coda! Every event ever has been like that - see Trinity War for the worst - at least this time there was some explanation that sorta made sense. The Builders haven't been powerful since the destruction of the Superflow between universes, so wait til you see The Mapmakers!!! Also, made up languages...

It just felt like a cynical lead-in to some future Marvel Crossover Event™, which I've sort of reached my limit for...

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m39jofPaY01qec398o1_400.gif

But to me it felt natural, and in keeping with the feeling of hopeless despair from New Avengers. It wasn't the usual nonsensical twist.

Signed up for Marvel Unlimited and have been using my dad's ipad as a reader whilst visiting this week. I like this a lot, and its saving a great deal in trades of issues I'd want to read but not necessary own.

It does make me want to pick up the Steranko collection for real, tho.

I like Hickman, but I've found Infinity really difficult to follow even by his usual standards - not the narrative as a whole, which is basically just Space Invaders, but the individual scenes, which don't carry much as they're so choppy and confusing and self-consciously epic. Also the characters are a bit dull -- the New Avengers story storyline is just as bitty, but the characters are much more compelling.

I wonder why he bothered making Cannonball and Sunspot Avengers if he was hardly ever going to do anything with them. I guess maybe the thing with Smasher is supposed to go somewhere at a later point?

It would be interesting to see the younger/newer Avengers have their own spotlight adventure as opposed to being fill-in characters for Avengers standbys; Manifold and Smasher have gotten some of this and I'd like to see more of it with Sunspot, Cannonball, Starbrand, Nightmask, etc. Also the thing I'm unsure of at the end of Infinity is are Captain Universe, Abyss and Ex Nihilo sticking around?

Hickman's more complex narratives are usually pretty hard to follow unless you read it all in one go, then they end up being pretty sweet. Pretty much the antithesis of a self-contained single-issue writer.

Did they resolve that multiple worlds colliding into each other thingy? I either missed that or didn't read the right issues.

I'm going to drop in a recommendation for Secret Warriors right here again, though.

Yeah, my frustration with Hickman only really started when I caught up with all the back issues and started reading him month-to-month. But I still think the character work is pretty uninvolving compared to FF.

That's something of a necessary side-effect of dealing with 20 characters as opposed to 8, I think

Avengers Arena just ended and I enjoyed it a lot; Hopeless introduced some really great characters in this thing and added a behind-the-scenes coda in the letters column that reveals that the entire concept was supposed to be standalone story arc in the teenage superhero soap opera he originally wanted to write but the editors honed in on it and said "we'll greenlight a series about this"

Have read through the second trade of Avengers Arena. Grateful that I'm reading library trades. Had the same "ARGH!" reaction to Nico's death/rebirth that I did to Ultimate Gwen Stacy's death/rebirth, so glad that that was solved within the same book. On the plus side, not overreacting in the short term reinforces the 'go along for the ride' feeling I have enjoying Superior Spider-Man.

Now to wait for the third AA trade and see how that plays out against the characters announced for Avengers Undercover, and what happens to those who weren't listed as AU cast.

"the New Avengers story storyline is just as bitty, but the characters are much more compelling."

I started wondering at times when you read comics is some of this characterization really just a similar effect of "acted stardom" in that you know other stories with the characters so your mind automatically compares it back to earlier comics. Say just in how cool Black Panther might be drawn, even if he doesn't say anything, your knowledge of earlier stories fills in a blank in your head.

Eh, I finished Infinity and didn't think much of it in the end. A bit too punchy. Meet the new end-of-level-boss, same as the old, etc.

I am a late convert to Avengers Arena though.

I think I'll give Avengers a miss for six months then catch up and binge. Seems the best way to do Hickman.

Hickman's FF run was the most enjoyable superhero run I've read for many, many years. Thought he really brought the best parts of the FF to the fore. Cosmic adventurers, grounded by being a loving family. Redeemed the misuse of Reed Richards in Civil War, for me at least.

What did people think of Fraction's Inhumanity? I thought it was pretty clever of him to use two characters he'd been writing recently (Hawkeye, Medusa) as sounding boards to lay out the framework; I have always been much more mutant-focused up until the past 2 years or so so I have no idea if the direction the story took was supposed to be "SHOCKING" or not.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ba52FRmIUAAZ-Aa.jpg

armor up.
be angry.
POSSESS THE POWER
your attack plan.

poor Hawkeye

Hawkeyes cologne smells like cheap stale beer and pizza. the slogan is "Be Realistic"

sounds about right

Who are considered to be the A-list Avengers these days? Hickman seems to really be attached to this subset:

Captains America and Marvel
Iron Man
Hulk
Spider Woman
Manifold
Black Widow
Bruce Banner (moreso than Hulk)
Thor

Is it just me or did it seem like drawing a curtain over a lot of series this month? Avengers Arena and Fearless Defenders for sure, Young Avengers feeling like it and Infinity being over plus some other things I've forgotten already - Scarlet Spider? Carnage?

The Kirby tribute Deadpool was great.

YA is ending soon (next month?). Marvel is starting to do a thing where they are willing to greenlight stories that are longer than the traditional miniseries but not meaty enough to sustain a fully ongoing title, hence the 18 issue run of Avengers Academy that sets the stage for Avengers Undercover next year, or this latest entry into the Young Avengers saga. I think Wolverine and the X-Men is ending soon, too?

I'm pretty sure all of those are wrapping up. Arena and Young Avengers finished as planned, Fearless Defenders and a few others were cancelled for lack of interest.

xpost

YA felt like it was over, but has a next issue blurb and cover at the end of the letters column.

Forgot to say too that 3w1ng's digital-only Iron Man comic is a lot of fun. And that Fantomex is a massive pile of wank, "oooooh shocking" nonsense dressed up "look at me!" clothing.

it's kind of hilarious that the most resonant image YA had for me over the course of a series filled with gorgeous, unforgettable images, was Prodigy's phone tree

basically I like graphs

(also a large part of why I Went bananas for the Pizza Dog issue of Hawkeye)

So, I know this is long, but I think it is pretty fun:

Finally, "Infinity" was different from past Marvel events in that the core story was featured in three titles all written by you, Jonathan. What was it like writing such a massive story? How does it feel to bring the story to a close?

Hickman: [Laughs] Well, I don't think we should have done it that way. I think it was irresponsible, but as soon as I got into it there was no other way to do it.

It was a lot of work. it feels good to be done, and I'm happy that we didn't screw up too badly. That's a terrible answer. [Laughs] Tom, do you have a better answer?

Brevoort: [Laughs] I think that's a pretty good answer. As we've said before, we completely failed in this instance to make the core series stand alone. We always try to do that, and more often than not in the past we've succeed. This was one where once we got into it, it just couldn't be done. So fairly early on we made the choice and the switch. We realized that we were going to have to treat the "Avengers" and "New Avengers" chapters as essential pieces otherwise we were going to need twice as many "Infinity" issues for everything to happen. We just didn't have that strategically, resource wise, or the time. It couldn't be that way.


That's kind of a reflection that every event is different. In this case the shape of the story and how it sat in "Avengers" and "New Avengers" and how much you could convey and make matter in just the core book dictated that we had to do it this way. It was a choice, but it came from having no choice. This was really the best option we had in terms of being able to do this.


So it's a glorious failure, but it's a failure nonetheless. [Laughs]

Hickman: The biggest problem was how late it came together and that I wasn't really expecting to do it. So we were always racing against the clock. Once we made initial decisions we were locked into them and that's how we got into the situation where the six-issue event book basically became a 16-issue story. [Laughs] Everybody did as good of a job as they possibly could though, and in some instances, especially with the art, they really exceeded expectations. So I think it all turned out okay.

Brevoort: I've been sort of astonished by how positive everyone seems be about the story. Even people who weren't completely on board with it at different points seem to not dislike it as much as they have other things that we've done in the past. I'm not quite sure if that's a good or a bad thing quite frankly, but the reactions and reviews to issue #6 that I've seen so far have been pretty good and pretty positive. People seem to like it and that's always gratifying. So we're happy about that.

Really refreshingly honest, and completely unlike anything I could imaginge coming from DC.

Should probably say that it's taken from here: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=49599

I think Wolverine and the X-Men is ending soon, too?

I know that this is probably inevitable given the new character landscape and the fact they're doing this temporary series to get Nightcrawler back, but bleeeeh.

is Amazing temporary? I thought it was actually replacing WatX

Ah, that'd make more sense.

Watxm is relaunching with a new creative team. I'm looking forward to Avengers Undercover, cos Arena was the best Marvel book I've read in a while.

YA's having a two-issue afterparty/jam issues, ends at 15 I think.

btw can I just say YA was super charming and 90% of that is because of Jamie McKelvie's art

I preferred watching it to reading it - some of that is just literally Jamie McKelvie's lovely lines on a page, but a lot of it is what the page looks like, which I gather is more of a collaboration - there's a great post from Gillen about how and whether to disentangle that stuff.

I thought Cyclops killed Charles Xavier, but here he is in New Avengers #13. I totally don't know what the hell is going on in the M.U. anymore.

alt universe Xavier. They're watching that world through the bridge.

Ah, ok. That's what I get for quick skimming.

yeah, that is why mags is wearing his classic costume, too. that's the alt-world version of the illuminati or whatevs

I have read now Hickman's New Avengers up to #8 and Avengers to #13. Personally, I like the epic nature of the whole scope, even if some of the dialog is perhaps a bit stiff. I'm working on the last prelude to Infinity issues in Avengers and will start the main story next. I like it in that it feels big in the way some of Jim Starlin and Grant Morrison's cosmic comics seem. I like that Aim and the High Evolutionary showed up. It would seem that Eternity or the Celestials should show up at some point, if nothing else to see how they tie back into the Builders etc.

Funny thing is that the whole multi-verse in Marvel looks a heck of alot like the Bleed and the Monitors shown in Final Crisis. Perhaps it is all one and the same really...

I'm not sure if the Celestials are locked into Uncanny Avengers right now and they're unavailable or what

Infinity and Hickman's run on Avengers is pretty good. It's probably the best big Marvel story since the Annhilation.

"I wonder why he bothered making Cannonball and Sunspot Avengers if he was hardly ever going to do anything with them."

I don't know, considering that neither character is really a key part of the big plot (at yet), I think he has incorporated both quite a bit, usually for levity. Maybe it is because I have been reading that era of Avengers in Essentials, but the scenes they do popup in remind me a bit of the old Beast/Wonderman friendship.

I also got caught up and read Mark Waid's Indestructible Hulk 1-16 and the Jeff Parker written Annual. That also was a pretty fun read. Walt Simonson's artwork on the 3 parter with Hulk and Thor versus Ice Giants was fantastic. It looked really good, much better than the few issues of Avengers Simonson did a while back.

star wars NOW
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/how-star-wars-marvel-move-668465

that's gotta be a bummer for that fanbase, niche as it is

not that it's a thing for me, but it's gotta demolish a lot of hard built canon; wonder if marvel will even pretend to honor that

Can't wait for some heroes to time travel too many times, crack open the universe, and have some jedi pop through into good ol' 616

Han Solo/Bishop limited series teamup

Darth Doom

Darth Doom the Annihiliating Conquerer of Coruscant

Emperor Thanos.

Avengers World really reminded me why I like Hickman. Just so many bat-shit ideas thrown into twenty pages.

Anything else worthwhile from ALL NEW NOW!!!

Superior Foes of Spider-Man has been fun. Bendis is doing his best work in a decade with the out of time X-Men. Al Ewing's Mighty Avengers is charming me despite Land's art, which is a mighty feat indeed. Others are loving Hawkeye and Young Avengers, though I'm ambivalent toward them at best.

But I'm a few months behind. Is that the newest Hickvengers?

Okay, I just read about NOW2. Most of those look and sound dreadful. Phil Noto's Black Widow at least looks good.

Young Avengers just ended. Hawkeye rules. You have to get Mighty Avengers because of we support our own and it also happens to be great (plus it has Monica Rambeau in it). The X-Factor reboot was suprisingly fun but I like PAD on autopilot, so

I wondered what happened to her after Nextwave

But I'm a few months behind. Is that the newest Hickvengers?

― EZ Snappin, 9. januar 2014 03:17 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup, with help from Nick Spencer (Superior Foes of Spider-Man). Hickman really makes people like Johns and Bendis look myopic with all their heroes-fighting-heroes stuff.

Last issue of Young Avengers was awesome.

Yeah, new x-factor was non-earth-shaking fun.

I really enjoyed the original Madrox detective show setup of X-Factor and lost interest when it drifted from that -- then read the last issue before the relaunch out of loyalty and was glad I skipped it. BUT what's the new one like?

Mighty Avengers has such a lovely tone of voice and hangout vibe, it's already a keeper - actually kind of reminds me of PAD's original X-Factor run from the 90s.

I still think Daredevil is terrific if also auto-piloty (but folks here are ambivalent)

Speaking of loyalty, I read Justice League 3000 and it made me :(

It looks like PAD is exploring the X-Statix/Youngblood idea of a corporate hero team, only with PAD-humor rather than overwhelming cynicism.

I'm just glad he's well enough to write anything at all.

i dig new direction iron man

Mighty Avengers has such a lovely tone of voice and hangout vibe, it's already a keeper - actually kind of reminds me of PAD's original X-Factor run from the 90s.

Oo, I think I'm sold. i loved that too-short run he did then.

New She-Hulk was awesome. All lawyering, all the time. Loke #1 was great as well. Also, did people see that Ms Marvel #1 apparantly topped Marvel's digital sales chart? 2-7 was issues of Hawkeye...

Really liked She-Hulk, and Ms Marvel was very promising--didn't get far into the plot, but was really well done.

Is anyone else a Jeff Parker fan? He's more good-times fun writing than the cerebral Hickman end of the Marvel universe but I think his stuff is pretty clever

Jeff Parker is way better than alot of people ahead of him on the food chain.

Quite a few of the good writers over the years in super hero comics seem to oddly never get the main titles. Maybe it is because they can sell comics that many other writers couldn't get done. I guess I would be referring to guys like Steve Gerber or John Ostrander, guys that were really good writers and created stuff that lasted but never really got any real run with the top characters for various reasons. I figure Parker might end up in that kind of company in the super hero comic world.

I can see Ostrander wanting to get a main DC title with his great Suicide Squad work - did Gerber want to pen X-Men/Spider-Man etc?

Any Jeff Parker recommendations that don't require knowing everything that's happened in the Marvel U for the last few years?

Reading forum posts talking about Ms Marvel #1 full of people complaining "why are all of the white people racists" is really the funniest fucking thing

Quite a few of the good writers over the years in super hero comics seem to oddly never get the main titles. Maybe it is because they can sell comics that many other writers couldn't get done. I guess I would be referring to guys like Steve Gerber or John Ostrander, guys that were really good writers and created stuff that lasted but never really got any real run with the top characters for various reasons. I figure Parker might end up in that kind of company in the super hero comic world.

I would assume that at least some of these writers preferred the more obscure titles because they were allowed more creative freedom there? Like, Ostrander could do things with Suicide Squad that he never could've done if he was writing the Justice League, and the same applies to Kieron Gillen with Young Avengers, Christos Cage with Avengers: The Initiative/Avengers Academy, etc.

Oy, I think Gage is pretty dreadful though.

Parker's Agents of Atlas stuff is mostly divorced from mainstream Marvel continuity. I've only read part of his X-Men: First Class runs but due to it being in that timeframe, it's also pretty divorced from current Marvel.

His Red She-Hulk run is a little more linked in, but he ended up doing something kind of neat with it (using some of the SHIELD-as-centuries-old stuff Hickman introduced) that gave it kind of the secret society feel that the Atlas series had.

Jeff Parker wrote a bunch of those alt-continuity, all-ages Marvel Adventures titles, where he basically got to do his own Ultimate Spider-Man under the radar.

<I>Like, Ostrander could do things with Suicide Squad that he never could've done if he was writing the Justice League, and the same applies to Kieron Gillen with Young Avengers, Christos Cage with Avengers: The Initiative/Avengers Academy, etc.</I>

Bearing in mind that at the same time he was writing Young Avengers, Gillen established that Tony Stark is adopted...

I have to say that the past few years have really made me into a big Remender/Hickman/Fraction fan. I really dig all of those dudes, ESPECIALLY Fraction.

Also in completely unsurprising news, Al Ewing has been killing every Marvel project he's touched. Kind of amazing/crazy/awesome that One Of Our Own is the hot new talent at one of the Big Two.

I think the Jeff Parker / Gabriel Hardman stuff was a few years ahead of it's time. Like, with the right kind of project they would fit right into All New Marvel Now along with Daredevil and Hawkeye and She-Hulk and Loki and Young Avengers and Ms Marvel. Agents of Atlas was really good, but at the time it was seen as too 'marginal'. Now She-Hulk spends an entire issue arguing about the inventions of Jonas Harrow...

Marvel really is on fire these days. Wonder how soon it will collapse.

What's interesting is that I don't think they've got anyone other than Bendis on an exclusive (okay, possibly a "Don't do DC", apart from She-hulk's writer) - all of them have some side gig or other going, many with Image.

Parker's run on Thunderbolts was amazing. The time travel stuff was probably my favorite Marvel storyline of the last several years.

oh THAT was Parker? yeah that was super fun, also TROLL!

xx-post: I think the fact that they allow their writers to do Image-stuff is quite important in them being able to get the best and brightest. Like, why not do 2½ Avengers-books and your own stuff at the same time?

Over on twitter I suggested to Parker a Thunderbolts spin-off called HYDE AND TROLL SEEK. He said he wished he could but it wasn't in the cards. :(

aw

"Parker's run on Thunderbolts was amazing."

Parker also made the Rulk readable and enjoyable. Definitely taking lemons and making lemonade as comics.

I'd love to Jeff Parker get the Fantastic Four. Probably won't happen, but I bet he could do some fun F4 comics.

Steve Gerber maybe not doing a run with one of the marquee titles may have just not happened as the whole Howard the Duck ownership thing derailed that relationship. I'd love to see what he would have done in a Fantastic Four or Avengers run.

Jeff Parker deserves some Marvel U. props for how he used Man-Thing and Satana in that run on T-Bolts. That was ace and really did well to tie-in to the old appearances in a way. I'd think he could do some cool stuff with The Defenders if they would only let them use Dr. Strange, the Hulk, Valkrie with Kev Walker. Walker is really good and if they hit with the right comic together, I think it could catch on.

Decent gossipy interview with Sean Howe:

https://www.nerdist.com/2014/02/nerdist-comics-panel-29-sean-howe/

Did you know that the first issue of Spider-Gwen sold more than 300.000 issues? And I think that's just direct market, Marvel keeps claiming that these types of series sell better digitally. That is kinda insane.

I heard lots of good things, and tried it, but as is so typical in modern superhero comics, despite being #1, it seems to be halfway through a story.