The Marvel Thread

[Podmark]

I got that one too, I liked it.
I think they might have purposely held off the caption for the villains in this issue because they're new characters. This way it creates some mystery as to who they are, what their powers are, and who their parents are for a while.

Interesting note, the villain Aftershock has the same name and powers as a character McKeever created in his one issue of Spider-Girl. If she is Electro's daughter then he basically imported a character he made like 5 or more years ago in another book.

[murs47]

I agree, Slott should have took some of his Initiative characters with him. I remember dropping that title after the 3rd issue and it was something I was looking forward too when it was announced he was taking over.

Anyone read Shield #2? That book is incredibly interesting. I really like it so far. I wish some of the scenes from issue one would have been expanded on. Like Galileo pointing a huge machine at Galactus, etc.

[Podmark]

Marvel just finished a big conference call to promote Avengers: Children's Crusade, which comes out next month. So looking forward to that book.

[Previsionary]

Piggy back!

Young Avenger preview images: http://ifanboy.com/content/articles/FIRST_LOOK__Avengers__Children_s_Crusade_from_Allan_Heinberg_and_Jim_Cheung

[Podmark]

So I said I'd do a review of Avengers Academy so here we go.

Spoiler

The first issue is told from the prespective of Veil, whose power is to transform into gases. After her power manifested Norman Osborn took her in promising her she was special. He tortured her to force her to develop her powers more. The result of that torture is that her body is slowly coming apart, but Dr. Pym says it may take years and promises to cure her before then.

The other students are Reptil who can change parts of his body into dinosaurs parts, Hazmat who is trapped in a protective suit because her power to project toxic energy makes her toxic to others, Striker who generates electricity, Finesse who masters skills easily but has no social skills, and Mettle who is trapped in a metal form and can't feel the outside world. The teachers are Wasp, Justice, Tigra, Quicksilver and Robbie Baldwin who is now going by Speedball again. Other Avengers will guest teach as needed. The school is held in the Infinite Avengers mansion from Mighty Avengers.

The students meet and then have a sparring session with Justice and Speedball. Robbie is playing rough so Hazmat cuts loose and Robbie flips out on her because she could kill innocent people recklessly using her powers like that. Vance tells Robbie to take a break and him and the other teachers discuss a secret they are keeping from the students. Finesse lip reads part of the conversation which gets the kids to hack Pym's files later and learn that the reason they are being taught is because they were all badly tortured by Osborn, have dangerous powers, and have concerning psyche profiles. They're being taught because the Avengers fear they could become dangers villains in the future.

I liked the issue. It's all character work introducing the new characters so nothing too exciting. The kids might be a bit bland right now but I'm a big fan of most of the teachers so I think I'll enjoy this book. Art is good but I have some issues with Mckone's work. I predicted the ending twist but it's a good premise to build the book around.


Anyone read this weeks Cap? I must know about Zemo!

[Previsionary]

I thought someone would have responded to you by now, Pod. I guess I will.

Captain America #606 (3):

Spoiler

Consider this a quick sumview. Immediately, we're greeted to Baron Zemon at an old Thunderbolts facility which happens to be occupied with a thieving Ghost. The two interact politely for a bit while Ghost reveals to Zemo who the new Captain America is. Elsewhere, Falcon is worried about Bucky because he's been making reckless decisions ever since his fight with 50s Cap. During a battle with the Wrecking Crew (guess they escaped capturement?), Capt. fought as if he wanted to be hurt. Because of his actions, the Crew escaped with an armored vehicle. Falcon worries that if things get much worse, innocents could be hurt or killed, and Steve agrees to have a chat with Bucky to set things right.

The rest of the book jumps between focusing on Baron Zemo gathering his forces and getting information on Bucky, and Steve, Falcon, and Bucky chatting about what happened with 50s Cap. The story ends with Baron making his first move against Bucky that ends with Falcon being severely injured, and the return of Sin, whose face has yet to heal.

On the art side, I wasn't really impressed by Butch Guice's work. It's OK, but it feels like a step backward from the art from the previous arcs. Some scenes look as if they were rendered very stiffly and others just look a bit messy. I wasn't really feelin' the coloring job by Dean White either. It seemed to hop between being too dark to being too bright the majority of the time. It never felt "right" to me. Just adequate. There was a particular scene where Bucky had a nightmare that involved a skull and a chess board, and it did nothing for me. It reminded me of the old Johnny Quest cartoons... but without the excuse of "time" going for it. Storywise, I think it's OK. It's not a strong showing, but I think it's a step in the right direction after the 50s stuff. I don't think Brubaker has fully recovered from the Captain America: Reborn fudge up, but I doubt this or the next few issues will incite Tea Bagger rage. I give it a generous 3.

In other news, Stan Lee will be on Craig Ferguson tonight. Why? Dunno... but why question it?

[The Hitman]

In other news, Stan Lee will be on Craig Ferguson tonight. Why? Dunno... but why question it?

Now, y'see... if you were on The Twitter, you'd know why he's gonna be on. For the past few months, Stan and Craig have been amassing their Twitter followers, and staging a fake "war" between Smilin' Stan's Brigadiers and Ferguson's Robot Army, and tonight is the culmination of their "war." Awesome, right?

[Previsionary]

Dear Hitman,

I have enough life of my own to deal with than getting on a social site where other people tell me about their lives. I'm sure if I ever get the need to catch up on mundane elements of other people's days, I can just look outside my window and imagine. It'd probably be more fun for the writer within me.

[The Hitman]

Yeah, well... can your "imagination" tell you what your next door neighbor had for breakfast, and whether or not it was "hella delicious?"

... Don't answer that. 

[murs47]

Yeah, well... can your "imagination" tell you what your next door neighbor had for breakfast, and whether or not it was "hella delicious?"

... Don't answer that. 

lol

[Previsionary]

Yeah, well... can your "imagination" tell you what your next door neighbor had for breakfast, and whether or not it was "hella delicious?"

Yo, don't direct me. I'll tell you what I want to pluckin' tell you! My next door neighbors ate a nice slice of pink flesh dipped in mango sauce. There was a delightful side dish of Mexican Murs and some Hitman dip which they just sipped up. Their teeth dripped with a indescribable red liquid, and they licked their forked tongues across the tables as if it were made of sugar. And when they finished, Hitman... when they finished, they licked from the toilets making sure to collect every tasty morsel they could find while quenching their insatiable guts. Twitter that, pimpin'. Twitter that all over your page. And if you must know, they found the meal absolutely pulchritudinous and lovely. I'm sure they took pics; you can find it on their page. Follow 'em.

[Podmark]

Not much I want to say about my comics yesterday except that I love Spider-Man artist Max Fiumara, who did the two Rhino stories and is doing a Kraven/Kaine backup story during the Grim Hunt arc. I wish he was doing the main art instead of Michael Lark.
Three noteworthy developments from part 1 of Grim Hunt:

Spoiler

Ezekeil from JMS run has returned.
Mattie Franklin/Spider-Woman was killed.
Vladimir Kravinoff/Grim Hunter was resurrected as some kind of lion/human creature.

Looks to be a good arc. I've really liked Kelly's Spider-Man stuff.

And in other Spider-Man news Rich Johnson has reported a rumour that Dan Slott will be announced as the sole Spider-Man writer during July's San Diego ComicCon and that the book will drop to two issues a month sometime later this year. Slott has teased that he was handed a dream assignment that caused him to leave Mighty Avengers and it could be Amazing Spider-Man. I like Slott's work so I'm OK with this change if it's true but I'm definitely going to be disappointed to see Kelly leave, and the multi-headed writer monster did have it's good points. Plus I'm going to miss reading 3 issues of Spidey a month that was great.

[AfghanAnt]

Spoiler

How did they kill Mattie Franklin? She hasn't even been used in years! I say don't use a character if the only use is fish food.

[Xenolith]

Slott knows his Marvel characters, so if he is the only writer I'll be buying the book.  His Spider-Man/Human Torch series from a few years ago was a nice ride.

[Previsionary]

Too bad Young Allies spoiled that something happened to Mattie, therefore affecting the effect said spoiler had on me. Gotta love Marvel scheduling.

[BlueBard]

Gotta love Marvel scheduling.

It's referred to as temporal multisequential flux with mutable time dilation.

That's what happens when you cross the streams.

[Podmark]

Spoiler

How did they kill Mattie Franklin? She hasn't even been used in years! I say don't use a character if the only use is fish food.

Spoiler

Mattie had been appearing occasionally in Spider-Man for the past few months as she was captured by the Kraven family. She was killed in a ritual sacrifice to resurrect Vladimir Kravinoff.

Too bad Young Allies spoiled that something happened to Mattie, therefore affecting the effect said spoiler had on me. Gotta love Marvel scheduling.

How did Young Allies spoil Mattie's death? Arana's new costume has me thinking it may spoil Julia Carpenter/Arachne's death because the costumes look similar. I didn't notice anything related to Mattie though.

[Previsionary]

Occasionally? You're overstating it, Pod. Rarely. The first time she appeared in years was just her being captured. I had a feeling then that something drastic was gonna happen to her. I'm pretty sure I posted about it, right? Maybe it was just a discussion between SS and me. *shrugs*

As for Young allies, it didn't so much hint at something happening to Mattie, but the spoiler about Arana + how Mattie was treated in her appearances in ASM + the event status more than sealed the deal about her for me.

[Podmark]

Occasionally? You're overstating it, Pod. Rarely. The first time she appeared in years was just her being captured. I had a feeling then that something drastic was gonna happen to her. I'm pretty sure I posted about it, right? Maybe it was just a discussion between SS and me. *shrugs*

As for Young allies, it didn't so much hint at something happening to Mattie, but the spoiler about Arana + how Mattie was treated in her appearances in ASM + the event status more than sealed the deal about her for me.

Yeah it was really just 3-5 side appearances starting at the beginning of the Gauntlet. And you don't need Young Allies to predict something bad happening to her. ASM 600's backup story by itself was enough for me to expect some bad stuff coming up, then every issue she's appeared hinted that the Kraven's wanted her for some dark purpose.

If Bachalo hadn't been running late on his arc Grim Hunt part 1 would have shipped the same week as Young Allies. But I still don't feel Young Allies spoiled anything regarding Mattie. It didn't mention the character at all, I don't believe it implied any deaths in Grim Hunt, and it didn't even really mention Grim Hunt in the story if my memory is holding up. Now if Julia Carpenter dies or retires thats a different story.

EDIT:
Was looking through my Spidey issues and Mattie did make much less appearances than I thought. Checking through issues that I recalled used the Kravens she only appeared in 3. The Deadpool issue where she was captured, the first Lizard issue where she was just shown in the background, and the free recap story where she appeared in about 2 or 3 pages of the short story. Disappointing, I thought she appeared more.

[Previsionary]

Urg, since Murs, AA, and I will be doing a chat about the book later [if Murs ever logs on!], I won't review, summarize, or sumview it. I will just give my basic thoughts.

New Avengers V2 #1:

I thought this book was OK. I wasn't really excited by anything in it, but I was impressed that Bendis actually moved the villain plot along much more quickly than I anticipated he would. I don't, however, see the point of adding Thing to the team, and I was really, really mixed on the scene between Luke Cage and Victoria Hand. I don't think it was wise to have Luke do a sonic clap that knocked a woman that was barely a threat across the room and into a vase. Unnecessary violence never sits well with me. I'm still more fond of Jason Aaron's writing of the team than I am of Bendis's, but at least Ms. Marvel and Ironfist are fixtures of the roster and can actively do things again. I'm really starting to wonder why every Avengers #1 Bendis writes heavily involves magic (or mysticism) though. It's an odd thing I'm starting to notice about him. Oh, although this book is accessible to new readers, it also picks up on plot points scattered throughout the final few arcs of New Avengers V1.

[murs47]

It's not even worth reviewing.

[Talavar]

I thought the sonic clap was justified by the woman in question pointing an extremely large gun at a Jessica Jones holding her baby.  Sure, Jessica could probably take the hit, but the baby is presumably powerless at the moment, that and it's just a bad idea among a group of people already inclined to see you as the enemy.

Really, they should have just kicked Victoria Hand to the curb - she's clearly a terrible decision maker (helping Norman Osborn, that worked out so well, and pointing a gun at a team of superheroes + baby.  She's someone who should probably have a life coach for day-to-day choices, let alone guiding an Avengers team).

I think Bendis relies on magic for big threats because its easy - in the Marvel U magic basically has no rules, so whatever Bendis wants to happen can happen with less chance of being called out on errors regarding character power levels, histories or continuity than other types of threats.

[Previsionary]

Considering she explained what she was doing and Luke is bullet-proof and could have just crushed the gun, I don't think he HAD to go with that. Victoria may be brash, but she's never actually harmed another person's life (and they've never seen her do anything that would make them consider her a major threat). On a visceral level for Luke, maybe that would be an appropriate action instead of just grabbing the gun, but in the long run, that sonic clap could have done collateral damage and hurt his child's ears. It was powerful enough to send Victoria sprawling and forced Jessica to cover her child ("Joo!") while her hair danced from the resulting wind.

Anyway, I also picked up Dark Wolverine again. Why did I do that? I figured Marjorie and Way would give this character a new purpose after that ridiculous crossover. Boy, was I wrong. The whole issue is just Daken moping around Rome manipulating people and using his sexuality (which they've never explained nor his pheromones). And now that he's crossing over with Franken-Castle, I am content with letting this character fade into my mental abyss.

[AfghanAnt]

Wow was I the only one who liked New Avengers?

[Previsionary]

Nah, most online reviewers are in love with it. I'm middle line with it, and Murs hates it for whatever reason. . When we do the review chat thing, it should bring interesting perspectives, no? Hopefully we can do that today.

[cmdrkoenig67]

Spoiler

How did they kill Mattie Franklin? She hasn't even been used in years! I say don't use a character if the only use is fish food.

Why not, AA?

Spoiler

They just did it to Diamond Lil over in X-Men (it's been a while since we've seen her)...Well...Also, they offed most of Alpha Flight a few years back in New Avengers...Oh, and Darkstar when she showed up as a member of X-Corporation...Sigh...Now I'm sad again.

Dana 

[Previsionary]

Speaking of character death, another dan slott comment to talk about:

Given your antipathy towards that Doc Samson miniseries you did, whose decision was it to have Geiger (from that miniseries) appear in the Initiative - yours, or Christos Gage's?

to which Dan responded with:

Before SECRET INVASION started, Brian told me he wanted to kill all the Initiative kids in SI (though I could pick a couple survivors). So... I graduated everybody out of the program and brought in a new busload of recruits to be the Secret Invasion "red shirts".

It was all a bait-and-switch on my part to keep the original Initiative kids from becoming cannon fodder.

I honestly thought that everybody who was walking off that bus were dead meat. So I figured-- eh-- let 'em kill Geiger. :-P

In the end, only 1 Initiative kid got killed in SI. So looking back, if I knew that was gonna happen, I'd've probably kept Cloud 9, Hardball, Komodo, and the gang around at Camp Hammond longer.

Emphasis mine. I'm really starting to pick up trends I'm not fond of. Someone is kill happy, and now I have to be even more wary of events involving characters I like. I don't find this comforting. It's actually aiding me in figuring out which books to drop with the current pricing situation. As if 22 pages of story for 4 dollars wasn't enough to sway my decision.

[Podmark]

I knew part of that story, but I didn't realize that was why Slott graduated Cloud9 and the others. It's interesting, sometimes disappointing how outside influences can affect books you like.

It also continues to reinforce my belief that Bendis holds a lot of power at Marvel. And it's been that way for a long time.

[Previsionary]

Yes, Bendis has a lot of power. He writes all the core avenger books and the majority of the big MU events. I still don't understand how that happened. I remember all the outrage he garnered from his first Avenger story. You just wouldn't think a writer that caused so much chaos would be controlling the universe. Just for comparison sake, what happened to Chuck Austen when his X-stories caused an outrage? Fans turned against him, and he eventually was forced out of comics. It's interesting that the same didn't happen to Bendis (or he wasn't banished back into the ultimate verse).

Having read the book again in order to prepare questions for the still yet-to-be-done group chat, I realized that Spidey, Wolverine, and Hawkeye agreed with Luke's position. I found that to be weird since all three are ON Cap's team as well. Also, at one point, I thought Bendis was having a conversation with himself. That scene where Steve was telling Luke to pick a team but these "A-listers/forced Prime Avengers" are off limits just read to me like Bendis was reminding himself that no big member can appear on this "New" team...  and yet the New team looks like the old one. I wish he would have jumped out of his safety zone and actually built a "new" team led by Luke. There's over 100 Avengers out there; please use them.


Now that that's out of the way, Murs wanted me to post the following:

Apparently, Dan has found some time to talk about some of his battles with fans on message boards. A question was posed to him.

Your tweets about some fans makes me wonder how you were when you were a reader. I often think when the distinction between creator and fan comes into play, do the now active employees forget what they were like and how harshly they used to judge.

to which he responded with the following, long comment:

Here's the thing: There is no divide. All pros ARE fans. No "pro" falls into this industry. They're all fans-made-good.

Despite how fans are portrayed on shows like THE SIMPSONS, not all fans are "harsh" judges. (Though some on the internet would sure like you to think otherwise.)

As a reader I was-- and still am-- ENTHUSIASTIC about comics. As a fan, the things that got me the most excited about comics weren't the things that got me worked up, they were the things I ENJOYED! The stuff I'd be talking about with w/ other friends/fans was more about what we were INTO instead of what we weren't. It was way more-- "Are you checking out Walt Simonson's THOR?" Or "I don't care if you're not into Superman, you've got to check out these Alan Moore issues! They're called 'Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow'!" Or "I know he's an obscure DC guy, but this ANIMAL MAN book that just came out is SOOO good!"

Sure, we slammed on stuff ("This new NEW MUTANTS character, Bird Brain, looks so stupid!", "Post-Crisis continuity? Why did they do that?!", "Jean Grey didn't die? She was in a tube?! WHAT?!") it was never a crusade-- never months and months, (or in some cases today, years and years)-- of the SAME whinging and complaining. It wasn't about trashing something-- it was about looking for the next big thing: "This Grey Hulk stuff is interesting, I think I might start following this regularly..."

I remember when I was in college, the friends I had who were fans-- We'd make a comic shop run (back then I think new books were out on Fridays) and read 'em at PETE'S BLUE CHIP (over burgers-- Pete's Blue Chip Special w/ a burger, chips, and soda under $2 was hard to pass up on a college budget) and talk about 'em. (This was *gasp* before the internet). And, yeah, there'd be books we'd bag on. I remember with THIS group, NO ONE liked the status quo change when the X-MEN went through the Siege Perilous and moved to Australia. That made all of us drop that book for awhile. But here's the thing-- that NEVER turned into a monthly whine-session* about X-MEN-- or some self-righteous crusade to get Chris Claremont tossed off of the book-- or to threaten a boycott if the wind wasn't blowing in any one direction we liked. We moved onto stuff we LIKED and we talked about THAT. (Byrne on SUPERMAN, or BATMAN: YEAR ONE, or this McFarlane guy they were trying out on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.)

I think the internet's wired for for short bursts of cynicism, sarcasm, and knee-jerk reactions. How many threads do you see praising ANY book in the industry VERSUS the number of threads bashing it?

* = I mildly edited that word to fit in with our forum rules.

Honestly, I think he has a few points. This thread and forum alone can attest for his conclusion; however, I think he's underplaying the divide between creator and readers. Once you become a creator, you're now in a position to be judged, and you then begin to play the marketing game. Your comments are typically censored (though not so much these days from the Marvel side with all the fights some creators are getting in), and you never really say your true thoughts towards some of the work your company puts out... at least not publicly. Also, he's comparing a small sample size of intimate friends to a large sample size of anonymous users who mostly don't know each other. Plus, the threads stay around significantly longer and it's harder to get annoyed by someone constantly bashing unless they reach an obnoxious degree. It's a shaky road. What say you, my FR members?

[Podmark]

The thing about Bendis is that his books have sold well regards of how readers have reacted and they continue to sell. Avengers Disassembled, I believe, was among the top selling books when it came out. Now part of that goes to the hype machine, but Bendis must be good at inspiring his editors because his books are always highly promoted. It helped that early in his career he was well received as a writer.


I think Slott has a point. Generally I try to focus more on stuff I like than stuff I don't. Honestly I'd rather praise Max Fiumara than complain about Greg Land. Helps that I don't tend to read stuff I don't like.