The Marvel Thread

[HarryTrotter]

Also the cover is a homage to Amazing Spider-man #129.And somebody in the letter pages isnt asking if Steve and Bucky will hook up?Thats the first.
New Avengers are in their final lap.If there is one thing that is Ewings own,its the sudden mood shifts.From standard superhero fight to Tippy Toe convincing Vermins rats to go on a strike,to a named character getting shot in the head.
SM/DP #9 was pretty good.We get two new villains and the bromance is dialed up to 11.Whose costume is Shekilah wearing?I didnt get that reference.
On the fill in issues,I would understand if the book was bi-weekly,but here Im not sure whats the need.I guess Kelly and Mcguiness have other projects?Or they are finishing the next 39 issues in advance.

[HarryTrotter]

So stuff from NYCC
-Deadpool the Duck series.Cuz that makes sense.
-Thunderbolts #10 is an oversized anniversary issue.A back-up story by Busiek and Bagley features the return of Jolt.
-Alex Wilder from Runaways will return.As one of the most important villains in the Marvel universe.

[cmdrkoenig67]

Ooh, I really hope Werewolf By Night will get some major comic page time.

Edit:  Darn, I just saw that Spade said this may be an event and not a series...poop!

Dana

The "MU" Mystery is finally revealed! It's multiple artists on a huge event!



Monsters Unleashed will be a series featuring classic Marvel monsters being introduced into new stories with all of the previously listed artists involved PLUS all alternate covers during that month will feature monsters as well.
More details coming this weekend.

- CQ

[HarryTrotter]

Its an event.Monsters from Marvels pre-superhero days are invading Earth,or so the previews say.
Gonna have to dissapoint you,I think Deadpool killer Warewolf when he caught him with his wife.


Also,not that anyone cares,but it looks like Demolition Man is gay now.

[cmdrkoenig67]

Yeah, I know about Deadpool shooting Jack's head off  , but Jack also died at the end of Mrs Deadpool and the Howling Commandos miniseries.

I'm guessing he'll come back yet again at some point.

Dana

Its an event.Monsters from Marvels pre-superhero days are invading Earth,or so the previews say.
Gonna have to dissapoint you,I think Deadpool killer Warewolf when he caught him with his wife.


Also,not that anyone cares,but it looks like Demolition Man is gay now.

[daglob]

Remember Larry Talbot (paraphrased): "I can't die..."

[HarryTrotter]

Empress has a pretty impressive ending.Im willing to overlook a bit of deux ex machina there.There will be a sequel. 
Venom #1 So yeah,we got a new Venom.Who is bit more on the villainous side.As far as origin stories go,it was okay.Sandoval is still trying to channel Todd McFarlane,but it mostly works here,so I can forgive that.

[HarryTrotter]

New Avengers #18 mostly does a lot of setup.For US Avengers,Thunderbolts and a new Power Man and Iron Fist series.So I guess that's happening.
Thunderbolts #7 Yey,Songbird is back.And that's pretty much it.Artwork is a bit better.But granted,after Malin,everyone would look like Chris Weston.That is,everything would look really good,for those who missed the reference.

[Silver Shocker]

Here's a limited comics roundup from me. I'm hoping to write up more in the future but for now, this is what I've got:

FR comic comments:


-New Avengers #18: First we had Garrett saying he loves the patriarchy like the cartoon character he is, then in the previous issue he complained about how how much flak you get for being prejudiced against mutants, and now in this issue the two White Tigers randomly reference the Bechdel test for no particularly good reason. Man, Al Ewing is really playing Bingo here isn't he? On a more positive note, Hulkling and Wiccan talk about a possible Young Avengers reunion. Yes please!

-Thunderbolts #7:

-While the art for the last two issues is certainly better than Malin, the faces can be a bit odd in places. As a result characters (Cap and Bucky being the biggest offenders) manage to overact in a comic book.
-Fixer says "We followed Zemo and Norman Osborn before." An odd comment to make, considering Songbird and Moonstone were the only ones there who worked under Osborn. In fact Fixer and Abe helped Songbird go against Osborn.
-Captain America: "That's Funny, I thought they called you 'Maria Hill, Director Pending Criminal Investigation'" Ooh, sick burn!

-Guardians of the Galaxy #14: Ah nuts, this issue was pure filler. It was fun but filler regardless. I do find it amusing that at one point Kevin Mcguire draws Drax just like he drew J'onn J'onnz in the JLI run in the late 80's early 90's.

-Guardians of the Galaxy #15: As soon as I started reading this issue my immediate reaction was "Oh screw you Bendis". A entire issue devoted to the Thing and Bendis' Iron Man run. Bendis, if I wanted to read The Thing, I'd read Fantastic Four, Dan Slott's Thing series, or Marvel Two-In-One. If I wanted to read Iron Man, I'd read that. But I bought a comic called Guardians of the Galaxy so where the frak are they? Also according to Bendis Thing considers being in "Atlantis Attacks" (and yes, he phrased it like that like he's breaking the fourth wall) one of the saddest things he's ever witnessed. Glass houses and stones, B.

Spoilers desu, including the now-spoiled fate of Tony Stark:

Spoiler

-Bendis writes Thing out of the book. Good. Then we can get to some actual Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah, I know it sucks that Perlmutter put the kibosh on FF but I don't read Guardians of the Galaxy for the Thing. Though I do find it amusing that issue starts with Ben being super bummed out, waxing nostalgic for the FF, and being told by shopkeepers that he's the greatest and being giving free stuff and even money. It's like Bendis giving his own two-finger salute to Perlmutter.

-According to this comic, Tony Stark is dead (not a big surprise) and the media/Stark Industries/superhero community (???) are covering it up.

[HarryTrotter]

Eh,Ewing is nothing if not cartoonish. 
From what I saw (people complain about it,as usual) Infamous Iron Man came out before GotG ended,and pretty much spoiled everything.Or at least the part about Thing working for the SHIELD now.

[Silver Shocker]

That's not actually the last issue of GotG though, they advertise the next issue in the book itself.

Speaking of Marvel spoiling books in other books, I meant to talk about this for a while but I'll get straight to the point. Champions #1 spoiled the ending to Astonishing Ant-Man. But of course it's Ant-Man, so noone except me cared.

Spoiler

Ms Marvel says that she's been spending her free time writing fanfic, and Miles says "Tell me you're not shipping me with Stinger". As soon as I read that I felt confident that this wasn't just Waid not actually understanding the plot in Ant-Man or not doing the research and messing up the reference, and that it was in fact a spoiler for Ant-Man. And guess what? I was right. The ending of Ant-Man has Cassie Lang publicly fighting crime as Stinger. See, if Champions #1 came before the end of Ant-Man, then those characters would have NO WAY of knowing who Stinger was, since her existence wasn't public at the time and the other iterations of the character are from alternate universes and Miles ect wouldn't be privy to them. Ant-Man explicitly takes place before Civil War II, Which Champions takes place AFTER, so there's no doubt about it. The only way the line would have worked otherwise if it Miles referenced Cassie's earlier identity of Stature. And that's all ignoring how creepy it is that Kamala apparently writes shipping fanfic of her close fellow superheroes and they treat it as business as usual.

Now don't take that to mean I dislike Champions. Three issues in, I actually quite like it. And yes, I'm now a fan of Viv Vision.

[HarryTrotter]

And btw,CW2 is apparently still ongoing.Why do their events always end up running so late,their aftermaths start halfway into the event book itself?

[Silver Shocker]

Well, I dunno about the other events, but I was told that the main artist for CW2 just had a child with his wife, so he couldn't get the art done on time and several artists are filling in. Marvel might want to consider either setting up multiple artists to begin with (worked for AVX, actually of the few things about AVX that did work) or assigning an artist who's really good at meeting deadlines. But the problem is those sorts of artists, your Tom Grummets, your Ron Lims, your Andrea DiVito, aren't sexy in-vogue artists who bring that "widescreen action". Actually I find a fair number of the big artists working at Marvel overrated, so I wouldn't be shook up by that. Plus I value the story more. I value the story coming out on time.

Which brings me back to Champions spoiling the ending of Ant-Man. It was completely unnecessary. In the case of Civil War II and Secret Wars, you have to move forward. You just have to. But there was no reason to spoil Ant-Man in Champions; the plot didn't hinge on it; and for a groaner of a joke to boot.

[HarryTrotter]

If only they somehow knew that he was going to have a child a planed accordingly...

[Silver Shocker]

Wow, that pic of Bendis is horrifying.

[Talavar]

They really need to start having these events complete before they start publishing them at this point.  The delays are getting ridiculous.

[HarryTrotter]

Wow, that pic of Bendis is horrifying.

Best Uncle Fester cosplay ever. 

[HarryTrotter]

Venom #2 was okay.I like the fact the dynamic is reversed;with the symbiote being the good one here.TBF,as everyone said,it does bear similarites to Darkness,but it doesnt bother me all that much.
And btw,I thought the symbiote has a weakness to fire?Another thing everybody mentioned.

[Silver Shocker]

Let's do a comics roundup:

1. Guardians of the Galaxy's new creative team will be Gary Duggan and Aaron Kuder.

I'm fine with Duggan as the writer. I like him fine and he's proven he can blend humor and drama. I also trust him to actually have a direction unlike Bendis who really didn't seem to have much to say about anything other than "Aren't Kitty Pryde and Ben Grimm great characters? Don't you love these characters? I'm so glad I get to write these characters in my book". Both of those characters are out so hopefully it'll feel more like an actual Guardians book. Groot will be Baby Groot in it.

I'm not happy about the art either. I'm not familiar with Kuder, but the cover is by him and I find the cover art rather ugly. It reminds me a lot of someone, but I can't think of who. Then again, I can take solace in the fact that he won't be on for long. Few artists are.

2. The next Marvel event maybe "The Secret Empire" as in the thing from Captain America. I don't really have anything to add to that, since we know pretty nothing about it other than a story is being teased involving TSE. If it's an event comic and it has tie-ins, I'll at least pick up the tie-ins that are in books I buy, but other than that I don't want to jump to conclusions. I need more info.

3. Bendis is doing a Defenders series with David Marquez, starring Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones. Makes sense. I like to rag on Bendis, but I've got no issue with him doing a book like this since it is his element and on Avengers he was always pretty upfront about his interest in writing those two and putting a lot of emphasis on them, and while I found their were quite a few problems with Bendis' Avengers run, I wouldn't say would Luke and Jessica were among them.

4. Here's an interview I looked at for Jim Zub's Thunderbolts, Zemo and the Anniversary issue. On the one hand, he sounds like he has a good handle on Zemo as a character. On the other hand, *sigh* more Malin art. Watch as every member of the T-Bolts displays the same slack-jawed expression: Dull Suprise!

Bagley's art, on the other hand, looks great. It's especially neat to see him draw Jolt's energy form. We now know that the Busiek and Bagley story will actually be the prologue to the issue. Sounds pretty sweet to me. I can't wait to see the O.G. Thunderbolts creative team run circles around the current one.

Zub also says that when he got the gig, he read every issue of Thunderbolts ever and took notes. I think that's great, but I find it disappointing that he read all that and still writes Atlas as more of a meathead that I'd prefer.

On that note, here's my comments on two books I read recently:

Thunderbolts #8: Malin's back...and I could swear his art is worse than ever! Ugly faces, lousy anatomy in places, poor storytelling and composition, and vaguely defined backgrounds. On the plus side:

Spoiler

Ghost!

Uncanny Avengers #18: I saw this issue has a different artist (Kevin Lebranda, who I've never heard of) so I was looking forward to seeing what he's like.Turns out he's pretty good. Particularly, he draws a effectively menacing Red Skull, and since this is an issue that puts the spotlight on him, that suits me fine. It's also a spotlight issue for Quicksilver, who I'm a big fan of.

Spoiler

This exchange stood out to me:

Red Skull to Quicksilver: "You're Gene-Trash. You're not even the garbage you thought you were." You gotta rub it in, don'tcha Marvel?

"Nobody loves you." Clearly Fox does.

A full-page splash of one of my favorite characters, Quicksilver, with blood running down his nose and tears running down his eyes, as Red Skull mind-r&pes him. Oh, Marvel. Don't stop never stopping. But seriously, I'm still really enjoying this book and that includes this Red-Skull/QS plot.

[HarryTrotter]

-I got the feeling Zub read maybe the first tpb and said "Yeah,okay,I got this".But Im impressed if he did read every issue.
-Secret Empire had a role in the USavenger #1.They piloted a heli-volcano.And thats only the 5th most random thing in the issue.But I leave that for another day.
-Defenders were to be expected.And Bendis does some like the natural choice for the netflixian direction of them.Should we be worried that Bendis now has Thing,Doctor Doom and(I think) Ultimate Reed?

[kkhohoho]

-Defenders were to be expected.And Bendis does some like the natural choice for the netflixian direction of them.Should we be worried that Bendis now has Thing,Doctor Doom and(I think) Ultimate Reed?

WHERE'S MAH HULK STRANGE&NAMOR?! (AND VALKYRIE NIGHTHAWK HELLCAT HELLSTROM GARGYOLE—) {Is shot}

Seriously though, I get that they're trying to promote the TV show and all, and I don't have a problem with making the Defenders a street-level team in an adaptation, but this isn't an adaptation. This is the comics, and the Defenders in the comics are far from street level.

[Silver Shocker]

So in February, starting next week, there will be $1 reprints of Wolverine comics, including:

-"Wolverine Vs. Hulk" (the first appearance of Wolverine)
- Wolverine #1 (the first issue of the original Frank Miller miniseries set in Japan)
- "Wolverine - Save the Tiger" (a story that ran in Marvel Comics Presents)
- "Wolverine - Weapon X" (the original Barry Windsor-Smith story)
- "Wolverine - Origin" (the first issue of the original Origin miniseries)
- Wolverine - Enemy of the State, "Wolverine - X23" (the first issue of the original X23 mini)
- Wolverine and the X-Men #1, Wolverine - Old Man Logan (based on the cover, it's the 2nd mini, from 2015)
- All-New Wolverine #1.

Obviously to promote the new movie Logan, because apparently Marvel's willing to promote the X-Men movies after all. (well, apparently the Inhumans vs X-Men B.S is about to end) I've got about half of those, so I'm going to get the ones I don't have yet.

In addition, the April solicits just came out and they're doing the same thing with X-Men.

-X-Men (1961) #1
-Giant Size X-Men
-New Mutants #1
-"Cable & The New Mutants #1" (the first appearance of Cable in New Mutants)
-X-Force #1
-"X-Men Blue #1" (the first issue of the 90's Jim Lee X-Men series)
-"X-Men Gold #1" (the first issue of 90's "Gold" team in Uncanny X-Men)
-Generation X #1
-Astonishing X-Men #1

I would guess this batch is to promote the new line of X-Men comics. Once again I've got roughly half of these, but I'll pick up the ones I don't have yet.

[HarryTrotter]

Speaking of the new wave of X-men;few of the upcoming #1 will be 4,99 and biweekly titles will still be 3,99.
They really want all the money.

[Silver Shocker]

Eh. I can't just work up any kind of outrage over prize increases in comics anymore. I just kinda accept it. On the other hand I hated when Netflix raised the rates twice in a year. But unlike Netflix, at least Marvel, et all let you KEEP the comics you bought.

Here's another comics roundup:

-Thunderbolts #9: Not bad. Probably one of Malin's better efforts, not that that's saying a lot. The Power Rangers-esque suiting up sequence was cute (especially Fixer's "Kiss Tha Fix!" coffee mug. Nice.) I also enjoyed Fixer's "Sleep is for the weak." I can relate. And of course,

Spoiler

GHOST!

-Nova #2 & 3: Death's Head! I notice Richie Rider claims DH has a Canadian accent. Is that actually a reference to David Kaye's Megatron from Beast Wars and his tendency to end his sentences with a "Yes"? If so, neat.

-Champions #5: Gwenpool guest stars! And she doesn't really add much.  She's really only there to be a not-terribly-well-written strawman for the others (mostly Ms. Marvel, naturally) to wag their finger at and tell her she's wrong. I also don't feel it was a good ambassador for the character. I knew literally nothing about this character (other than that she started out as a Gwen Stacy-themed variant cover) until the day the book came out, and only one element (that she's from the "real world", like Superboy Prime) comes up in the book.

As for the issue itself, it's a super topical (not sure if intentional, but wouldn't be surprise) Very Special Issue about how life's complicated and bigotry and police corruption is not necessarily the work of a super villain's scheme. I've enjoyed this book, but it's undeniably the super-political counterpart to Waid's apolitical All New Avengers (which I've mentioned before, and I'm still thoroughly enjoying.) The book is entirely a power fantasy for young people i.e. what would I do if I had superpowers and could use them to solve the world's problems? I'd really enjoy seeing an issue/story where they overextend their reach and abuse their power and get a dressing down for it (that sorta happened in a earlier issue, but not quite and it came down pretty positive in the end) But I kinda doubt that's going to happen in this book. Then again, I already saw that done well (Cable & Deadpool), poorly (AVX) and "awesome at the time, has probably aged poorly" (Ultimates) so there you go. Anyway, this is the issue where the political activist superhero premise tows the line a bit.

Gwenpool's strawman role in the story is kinda where the premise falters a bit. She claims on her world in "these kinds of stories" it's always a villain plot. The hell Marvel comics was she reading? Clearly she never read Spider-Man. Or X-Men. Or you know, as detailed by others on this forum, literally anything by Steve Ditko ever. Superheroes are often belittled and judged by the people they protect, who often aren't supervillains but rather just jerks. . Hell, it's pretty much the A plot of Waid's Avengers Point-One flashback issues.

Ms. Marvel's also kind of a bully in this book. I said in my review of that annual that she's selfish, hypocritical, and wants to enforce her own will over others (at least where fanfic is concerned) but in this book she's a major killjoy to almost every other character on the team. In this issue she makes the other members agree to "no punching down", an admirable thing to encourage right around now, but when she says and does this kind of thing in every issue, and pretty much every scene, it basically makes her...well, as discussed in Benton's Bronze Age thread about Green Arrow....Lisa Simpson. While I haven't read her ongoing, I'm genuinely curious what Kamala Khan would have to say or do in a story to make her fans turn on either her or the writer for it.

The weird paradox thing from a critique standpoint is I can't really blame Waid for any of it...from what I've seen Ms. M is 100% in character. It's just that character is a brat. I can totally put the blame on him for how Gwenpool was used in this issue though.

[HarryTrotter]

Only problem is,its a shared universe(Marvel universe,no less),you cant solve the worlds problem.Because that would move too far from ours and you cant have that.
Which is to say,Im really tired of that plot.And Im tired of Mark Waid,for that matter.

[Silver Shocker]

See, I really like Waid. Haven't read his Daredevil, so can't really critique it first hand. But to me, this issue has me thinking of the hypothetical video game that's a great game but has a story that you might find reprehensible. In this case it's I really like the writer, and I'm ok with the artist [Ramos], and I love teen superhero books, and I really like all but one of these characters, and the one I don't like as much I can enjoy if she's not being preachy, but I'm not sure I want it to be Social Justice: the comic. Which it totally is. Supposedly we're getting a villain team in an issue or two, so we'll see about that.

[HarryTrotter]

We all liked Waid.Mark Waid,the comic writer,not Mark Waid,the influential twitter writer of today.
Eh,I guess its hard to separate the work from the creator(and vice versa) these days.

[Silver Shocker]

And yet, he can't stand Rich Johnston, which makes him all right in my book. And yes, I feel the exact same way about Greg Capullo. And Ron Marz. Not Slott though. #NeverSlott

[HarryTrotter]

Well,nobody can stand Rich.
With the risk of sounding like a jerk,I had waaaay more of Waids rants then I asked for,and for free even.Also,from everything I gathered so far,I don't see the draw of Champions.There is hardly anything there that hasn't been done better before.Or currently.

[Silver Shocker]

Oh I'm pretty sure I passed "jerk" a galaxy ago. If I was on a different comic site talking bad about Kamala Khan I'd probably be getting death threats by now.

Well I'm lucky, I would guess I've read way less of Waid's rants than you have. And I imagine I'm better off that way.
That's fine if you're not interested. I don't imagine you'd like the stuff I just described. As for your other comment, well, I'm struggling to think of another young heroes team book I could be buying right now. Young Allies got cancelled, Young Avengers got cancelled, Avengers Academy got cancelled, Avengers Arena/Undercover got cancelled, and I was sour on that one by the end anyway, I'm not buying All-New X-Men cuz X-Men and cuz I don't like Hopeless, I sure as hell am not buying an Inhumans book, and Generation X isn't out yet. Over on the DC front we've got Titans. I just got the trade of Titans Hunt, I haven't read it yet. And I'm not really that interested in Teen Titans Or Red Hood and the Outsiders at the moment. I already buy the trades of TMNT.

I think that's it.

Actually, I just looked at Tv Tropes page for Champions and apparently I'm not alone in thinking the socio political issues aren't being handled as well as they could be. Then again, they also say Ms. Marvel is a "Moe" who is "always happy". Hmm, based on what I've read I'd say she's more of a Tsundere, and I usually don't like those type of characters in anime and manga...