The Marvel Thread

[Talavar]

I try to have that attitude as well - read comics I like, and if I don't like them, I move on.  Sometimes I linger a little too long on a comic going south in the hopes it will recover, but there are always good comics out there, they just might not star the biggest name characters at the moment.

[herodad1]

i hate how he's jacked up luke cage's power level.when could he ever do a sonic clap? luke was a 3 ton level,thing was 85,colossus was 70 plus,and she-hulk was 70 ton level. now everyone can lift roughly 100 tons.i'm a marvel fan all the way but i'm really discussed with them.

[Previsionary]

He shouldn't be able to (although he's been growing more powerful over the years), but he can in this book; and I just stopped questioning certain aspects because it's not worth it. Por ejemplo, I didn't make a single comment, until now, about that typo on page 1 and that little reoccurring error involving Clint and his costume (hi, Hawkeye and Ronin on the same page on opposite sides of each other ). You just have to brush it off until Marvel finds editors that actually edit everyone equally.

As an aside, I picked up Dark Wing Duck.  I hope to review that soon. Did anyone else do so?

[Blkcasanova247]

Por ejemplo, I didn't make a single comment, until now, about that typo on page 1 and that little reoccurring error involving Clint and his costume (hi, Hawkeye and Ronin on the same page on opposite sides of each other ).

I don't think it's a "typo"...this clearly happens before he takes his name and costume back and before Avengers number one. Hence Kate's still the person Clint allowed to be called Hawkeye and he's still in the Ronin gear. My only problem is that you don't get a real sense of time specifically passing...so you have no idea how long after Siege this "party" happens...when this stuff with strange goes down...when they move in. Yes you're supposed to suspend your natural senses and assume the passage of time. But IMO for this story to have been better paced..a few "time-markers" would have been nice and also appropriate. Speakin of Ronin...where in the hell is Echo? She just went "poof" after Secret Invasion...what gives? Yes...I like the character...before anyone jumps all over how much they think she sucks...I've just been curious for a while and I don't read every title out there...so any appearences of her?

[Podmark]

I'm not sure if she ever did, but she was supposed to show up in Spider-Woman.

Is this party the same one from the end of Siege? Well that would be before Avengers #1.

BTW I'm annoyed with Marvel naming conventions. Why have a book that's just called Avengers? It's confusing. I still don't get why they're bringing back X-Men.

[Previsionary]

I said there's a typo on the FIRST page. Daimon is talking about something entering the "world." He said "word." Also, the ronin/hawkeye error was pretty blatant. It happened on the same page; there was no time lapse. Yes, it was the same party from Siege.  Pod, Avengers #1 also starts out from the same party. That scene where Luke is randomly swearing with Patriot, Ironfist, and Jessica by his side is fleshed out in New Avengers.

Also, I already detailed the other trouble with Clint and his ronin/hawkeye gear appearing in different books. Ronin gear in Siege, Hawkeye gear MOMENTS after Siege in Avengers: Prime, Ronin gear in Avengers, and Ronin and Hawkeye gear in New Avengers on the same page. I'll upload a pic in a bit.



As you see, Hawkeye costume colored yellow in the first panel, 2 panels later, Ronin costume. Or maybe Bullseye broke out of jail and decided to change his color and eat with the team.

As for the timeline, it's roughly like so: Siege 4 > Avengers Prime > Party scene > Avengers [through party/recruitment] > New Avengers [end party]

[Podmark]

Whoa that's pretty silly. Whats worse is that, in the page you posted positionally there is both a Hawkeye and a Ronin. Hawkeye is behind Cap, and while he's not seen in the third panel logically he would still be there. So there are (logically) two Clints.

Now what would be kinda cool is if Bendis later revealed somekind of time paradox and there really was a Ronin and a Hawkeye. Otherwise that's really lazy editing, and really sad from the artist.

[Blkcasanova247]

My apologies Prev...I stand corrected. I completely "glazed" over that....damn it's glaring!

You just have to brush it off until Marvel finds editors that actually edit everyone equally.

Now I completely agree. Speaking of costume errors...at least Allan Heinberg has addressed that there will be costume/uniform/armor errors in Children's Crusade. But you figure that somewhere at one of these creative summits that they had the marvel folks would have let Allan and Jimmy know about the changes. Hey...I certainly don't mind having Cap back in his uniform and Tony in the Extremis Armor but it'll certainly change the experience of the book.

[Podmark]

My apologies Prev...I stand corrected. I completely "glazed" over that....damn it's glaring!

You just have to brush it off until Marvel finds editors that actually edit everyone equally.

Now I completely agree. Speaking of costume errors...at least Allan Heinberg has addressed that there will be costume/uniform/armor errors in Children's Crusade. But you figure that somewhere at one of these creative summits that they had the marvel folks would have let Allan and Jimmy know about the changes. Hey...I certainly don't mind having Cap back in his uniform and Tony in the Extremis Armor but it'll certainly change the experience of the book.

My understanding is that Cheung started drawing this series sometime in the last two years. So pages were finished, possibly even coloured way before the costumes changed.

[Previsionary]

Ok, any reviews on any books? Any Second Coming news (which I dropped for being so padded out) or Avengers news (which I'm reading now while cringing at some of the art and dialogue respectively)?

[And yes... the chat about New Avengers #1 will be coming soon. I've yet to figure out why I can't get AA and Murs on at the same time. I think they're the same person. ]


I finished the book, and I have a few thoughts. I typically try to give an ongoing series 3 issues to an arc to gauge how I feel about it, and I don't know if I can do that with this book.

Spoiler

1. It shouldn't take 14 pages for a book to get its plot rolling. Even the CLASSIC Avenger books weren't this slow. In truth, the original stories probably packed too much into 22 pages, but I'd rather have that than having everyone sitting around chatting the whole time before the main plot comes back into focus. Ellis also suffers from this problem in Astonishing X-men, but at least his dialogue is amusing and mostly fits the characters. Bendis doesn't have that benefit as his Thor, Bucky, and Tony are all grossly misrepresented. He needs to stop trying to make everyone witty and sarcastic. That only really works with Spider-man.

2. The art this issue made me cringe... a lot. JR jr. doesn't really fit this book. I didn't like his work in that Spidey arc either, but here... I dislike it more. All those double page spreads Bendis scripted into the book are not working towards JR's favor. That pizza scene where Wolvie had Jessica's hair wrapped around his claw was just odd. Also odd... Thor munching down on pizza. I guess Donald is influencing him.

3. I wish the obligatory fight scene didn't involve Simon just shouting like a mad man while beating on people before disappearing 3 pages later. It was like a reversal of the Kang situation to a degree.

4. I hate that this book is full of 2 page spreads. Full of them. Like I said, it doesn't work in JR's favor, and the reader soon forgets the importance of them when they're piled on. The final splash with "Apocalypse & his horsemen" didn't impress me at all.

5. I'm trying to understand why Bendis is adding so many villain elements into this story. The Avengers spent 14 pages building a machine to check out what Kang was talking about (and got a new recruit as well) before Wonderman burst in and went crazy, only to have it end with Apocalpyse and his Avenger horsemen showing up as the time stream was disrupted. Let's not forgot about future Hulk who they have yet to meet. All of this in 32 pages.... but WHY? I think he needs to focus his plot a little more for next issue.

6. I really wish the Exiles were still around. All the time talk made me miss them. So much. they could've fixed this broken time stream thing in like 3 issues! Maybe 2.

Overall though... I'm rating it a 2. If the actual plot was brought into focus and the dialog wasn't so bad and repetitive, I'd rank it higher. However, JR jr's art made me cringe more than anything Bendis did, so this mostly falls on him, I guess.



In other news, because Marvel doesn't know how NOT to spoil people and don't know how to keep up suspense, we now know that Hercules and the remaining Hulks will be teaming up with the majority of the MU to fight off some evil gods. That's right, Hercules will be leading his own God squad! People, do you not understand? Hercules will be leading characters like Thor and GALACTUS! I'm psyched.

[cmdrkoenig67]

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.

Hmmm...That confirms it for me, IMHO BMB is a kill-happy hack.

Dana 

[daglob]

I said there's a typo on the FIRST page. Daimon is talking about something entering the "world." He said "word." Also, the ronin/hawkeye error was pretty blatant. It happened on the same page; there was no time lapse. Yes, it was the same party from Siege.  Pod, Avengers #1 also starts out from the same party. That scene where Luke is randomly swearing with Patriot, Ironfist, and Jessica by his side is fleshed out in New Avengers.

Also, I already detailed the other trouble with Clint and his ronin/hawkeye gear appearing in different books. Ronin gear in Siege, Hawkeye gear MOMENTS after Siege in Avengers: Prime, Ronin gear in Avengers, and Ronin and Hawkeye gear in New Avengers on the same page. I'll upload a pic in a bit.



As you see, Hawkeye costume colored yellow in the first panel, 2 panels later, Ronin costume. Or maybe Bullseye broke out of jail and decided to change his color and eat with the team.

As for the timeline, it's roughly like so: Siege 4 > Avengers Prime > Party scene > Avengers [through party/recruitment] > New Avengers [end party]

Y'know, I think that whoever colored that page thought he was coloring Wolverine...

[marhawkman]

Especially interesting is the fact that the quiver is NOT colored at all.  It's just lines over the background....

[Blkcasanova247]

[And yes... the chat about New Avengers #1 will be coming soon. I've yet to figure out why I can't get AA and Murs on at the same time. I think they're the same person. ]

Hey now...Murs is MY clone. Don't get it twisted. 

[Previsionary]

Really? How does that work? Have you seen Murs's other clones? Why would you willingly associate with that? Oh, Casanova... what a can of worms you've opened.


Curse of the X-men: Blade news: http://www.newsarama.com/comics/blade-xmen-curse-mutants-100625.html

Looks like it won't be featuring any X-men in this one shot. I'd rather them give Blade a book back rather than giving him a Dracula vs. one shot that leads into an X-story. I'm also mixed on Duane providing yet another story for a character I like (Black Widow first, now Blade) because I can't think of one story by him that I actually like outside of that one Cable issue.


And yet another interesting development. We all remember Mutant Zero, correct? I remember this thread was buzzing with mystery before Typhoid Mary was revealed. How did that come about? Dan allows us into his thinking process.

Would you ever consider writing an X-book?

Years ago, back when I was working on SHE-HULK Vol.1 an X-Editor (who's not at Marvel now) asked me to join the group of people who were pitching for the NIGHTCRAWLER book (which eventually went to the very talented Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa).

After reading and liking my pitch, I was asked to pitch my idea for an X-Book... And I turned in a proposal for an X-Universe version of THE AVENGERS (not the Marvel Avengers, a modern-day updating of the old British TV from the 60's).

It would've been a 2 person team taking on strange & bizarre cases in the X-Universe, starring Banshee and... Emma, but she was busy... then Domino, but she was busy... so I made up my own character for the girl. And there would've been a mysterious 3rd member who sometimes swooped in to save our heroes, an established X-character who's identity would be kept a secret... but until then, they'd be nicknamed the "Deus X-Man." (Groan all you want.)

Eventually I cannibalized all the bits and pieces of that for other projects: The 2 person team became BLACKJACK (over in AMAZING FANTASY Vol.2 #15, and later MIGHTY AVENGERS). And the Deus X-Man became MUTANT ZERO over in AVENGERS THE INITIATIVE.

He then expounded upon that when another fan asked:

"Deus X-Man." was going to be an established X-character, but the idea of that role turned into Mutant Zero, who turned out to be Typhoid Mary. Can you tell us who the established X-character behind the Deus X-Man mask would have been?

Same concept: Mutant w/ Multiple Personality Disorder, with "Deus X-Man" being a new power/personality set. In the pitch it was Legion (David Charles Haller). And that's who I originally wanted for Mutant Zero.

When we couldn't get David, Typhoid Mary fit the bill perfectly. In fact, we realized that due to the red hair, telekinesis, and pyrokinesis, she was even better. Because if we played our cards right, we could throw people a red herring and make them think it was either Jean or Rachel or-- going out on a limb-- Copycat.

How interesting would it have been to have Legion in a hero role BEFORE Second Coming? Also, an X-character interacting with the MU would be awesome, but I think he more than accomplished his goal with Typhoid and making people think she was Jean.

[Talavar]

Reading Avengers 2 I suddenly wondered what the point of the New Avengers book is now.  The main Avengers line-up is half classic and half New anyway, and there are at least two or three characters pulling double-duty on both teams.  Is this just shameless successful title padding at this point?

[Blkcasanova247]

Really? How does that work? Have you seen Murs's other clones? Why would you willingly associate with that? Oh, Casanova... what a can of worms you've opened.

That's why the 47th one was the trick. And why..oh why can't the X-Men get away from gosh darn Vampire stories? I'm really gonna hate this arc. But I hope I'm wrong.

[lugaru]

I have never been too fond of X-Men in space or X-Men against supernatural (demons, vampires). Whatever... both have good examples (Phoenix saga for example rocked) so we will see.

[Zippo]

Y'know, I think that whoever colored that page thought he was coloring Wolverine...

I was thinking it looked a lot like they were colouring Ronin. Notice the blonde "hair" above the flesh-coloured "H". The bizarre colouring on the chest also sorta matches up with the yellow/black aspects of the ronin costume we see in the other panel.

[marhawkman]

I hope they fix it before printing the comic.....

[Previsionary]

I hope they fix it before printing the comic.....

Hrm? It's already out; It's been out over 2 weeks now.

[marhawkman]

>_<'  Never mind....I was thinking this was a preview.

[daglob]

In the old days, this might be worth a No-Prize...

[BlueBard]

In the old days, this might be worth a No-Prize...

It's only a No-Prize if you can explain away the discrepancy.

[murs47]

Not an official announcement, but Millar has begun working on the sequel to Old Man Logan.

[daglob]

In the old days, this might be worth a No-Prize...

It's only a No-Prize if you can explain away the discrepancy.

Once upon a time, all you needed to do was be the first to point out a blatant error on the part of the Marvel Madmen. I don't remember when they started the "then you have to explain it" business (but you are right, they did). I had a friend get one for pointing out that Gabe in Sgt. Fury etc. was miscolored on one page.

[Previsionary]

Yeah, the no-prize rules changed from regime to regime (or EIC to EIC). I'm not going to do any reviews this week, but Murs, LP, and I got together and made this: Roundhouse Chat #2: Secret Avengers #2

Please read and leave an opinion or two. .

[Previsionary]

Allan Heinberg + Uncanny X-men = http://www.newsarama.com/comics/allan-heinberg-xmen-100701.html

While the main X-Men story by Matt Fraction and Whilce Portacio will deal with the after-effects of "Second Coming," Heinberg will be focusing on how the fall-out from that event are connected to his Young Avengers ? and particularly Scarlet Witch, whose character returns within the pages of Avengers: The Children's Crusade.

"The most important thing to know about this story is that it was drawn by Olivier Coipel, who is one of the finest artists on the planet," Heinberg said up front. "The story deals with the fallout from 'Second Coming' and principally features Wolverine, Cyclops, Magneto, and Doctor Nemesis.

"[Marvel] Editor Nick Lowe felt that this story could shed some light on the X-Men's relationship to ? and feelings about ? the Young Avengers," Heinberg said. "Particularly in light of Magneto's possibly being Wiccan and Speed's grandfather."

[Previsionary]

Sooooo... Fred Van Lente will be writing an Avenger book. Question is, will it be an ongoing, a mini, or even in continuity? Come on, Marvel, leak the deets!

[AfghanAnt]

I am so excited about the Coipel and Heinberg backup. Two of my all-time favs.

What does everyone think of the newest Generation of Hope promo? Some people are saying it's Sabertooth but I think it might be Landslide or Wildchild.