Comics: The Weekly Rundown (was Heroes Con 2006) (1 Viewer)

[Greg_S_H]

Marvel's really taking the buzz saw to their line right now. In the last few days, they've canceled Punisher Max, Black Panther, X-23, Ghost Rider, a Dr. Doom mini, Alpha Flight, and maybe some others. I guess they're slimming down for the fight against a renewed DC. It seems a bad time to be launching a second FF book and a fifth (!) Avengers book. I'm paring down. There are too many good independent non-superhero books to keep reading Bendis's Avengers talking at each other three times a month.

 

[TravisR]

In the last few days, they've canceled Punisher Max...

I stopped reading it a few issues into Jason Aaron's run. I'm not very familiar with his work and I've heard alot of good things about him but I didn't like his work on The Punisher. It just seemed like he was trying to do Garth Ennis in terms of gross out gags or hardcore violence. When Ennis left Punisher Max after issue 60, they had a few people do arcs and they were solid gritty stories with The Punsiher rather than the crazy "Oh man, Bullseye hid a Derringer up his butt so he can shoot someone!" stuff that Aaron did.
For anyone who like The Punisher and Garth Ennis' work, read Born where he tells some of Frank's time in Vietnam. Ennis does war books better than anyone.

 

[WaveCrest]

One of the very few things which I find annoying with comic book mini-series/series, is when you've collected the issues to date, and then the last issue isn't published and you have to purchase the graphic novel which collects all the issues, to read the final part. Example I can think of is Shuddertown.

 

[Greg_S_H]

I've had a couple of really heavy weeks, to the point where I still have a ton from last week I haven't read. Fortunately, next week looks very light. Part of the problem is the X-Men relaunch. I loved the X-Men in the '80s, but got away from it pretty soon after the launch of adjectiveless (to be more accurate, I was away from comics until about issue 20 or 30 of that series, and it was difficult to get the recent back issues at the time, so I walked away from mutants). I tried out the new Wolverine and the X-Men, and it's a really good, light, fun book. Thus encouraged, I tried out Uncanny X-Force, which I had heard a lot of good things about (all true). Now, I'm buying the relaunched Uncanny X-Men, which is my least favorite but still one I'm sticking with for the time being.

 

[TravisR]

^ I've got a friend who was saying that he heard the new X-Men titles were pretty good. He's generally a "I wait for the trade" kind of guy so he hadn't picked them up yet though.
The only new thing I've read is Fatale from Ed Brubaker which is as good as and similar to his Criminal stories but since I've seen some giant tentacle headed monster in the promo stuff for the series, I'm guessing it's going to take a turn away from being like Criminal.
I'm still digging The Boys (which is in its last year so things are really building up), The Walking Dead (which has been deliberately slow for a while but you can tell something big and terrible is on the way), Angel & Faith (the Buffy spinoff) is even better than Buffy Season Nine (which started slow but after the latest issue, it seems like the characters are moving into place for what will be their stories for the rest of S9).
And I'm still looking forward to Saga. Any new book from Brian K. Vaughan gets read by me.

 

[TravisR]

At the risk of stirring up a hornet's nest, what are everyone's thoughts on the upcoming Watchmen prequels?
Personally, I just find it totally unneccassary. The original told a complete story and all the information that I ever needed to know or see about those characters is in those 12 issues. DC have lined up some nice creative teams who are probably pouring their hearts and souls into doing the best job possible and I wish them all the luck in the world but I'm not going to read them just because there's no need for these stories to be told.

 

[Greg_S_H]

I'm amused by the reaction from grouchy, predictable old Moore, but I don't care enough about Watchmen to either care or check out the new stuff. My main issue is that they're going overboard. Didn't they say it'll be weekly and come to something like 36 issues? I'm simply not spending that much. Adam Hughes can sure draw the Silk Spectre, though.

 

[TravisR]

I haven't seen anything but I'm not surprised that Alan Moore is being Alan Moore.
As for the number of issues, copying and pasting from DC's site...

BEFORE WATCHMEN includes:
RORSCHACH (4 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: Lee Bermejo
MINUTEMEN (6 issues) – Writer/Artist: Darwyn Cooke
COMEDIAN (6 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: J.G. Jones
DR. MANHATTAN (4 issues) – Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artist: Adam Hughes
NITE OWL (4 issues) – Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artists: Andy and Joe Kubert
OZYMANDIAS (6 issues) – Writer: Len Wein. Artist: Jae Lee
SILK SPECTRE (4 issues) – Writer: Darwyn Cooke. Artist: Amanda Conner
Each week, a new issue will be released, and will feature a two-page back-up story called CURSE OF THE CRIMSON CORSAIR, written by original series editor Len Wein and with art by original series colorist John Higgins. There will also be a single issue, BEFORE WATCHMEN: EPILOGUE, featuring the work of various writers and artists, and a CRIMSON CORSAIR story by Wein and Higgins.

So that's 35 issues (with the 36th coming from the backup pages in each book) at presumably $4 each for a total of nearly $150 for all of them.
I have to admit that the idea of JMS doing Dr. Manhattan is pretty tempting and any Minutemen story might be cool.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Well, that's probably the wise way--just read the book or books that interest you. But, we all know most comics fans are the "in for a penny, in for a pound" types.

 

[TravisR]

But, we all know most comics fans are the "in for a penny, in for a pound" types.

Definitely. I'd like to pretend that I would just pick and choose some of the books or, with comic books in general, drop a book when I'm not enjoying it anymore but that collector mentality takes over and I can't get out.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Yeah, the EIC of Marvel casually said on Friday that 2012 is Peter Parker's last year. Nobody has picked up on it, and I don't know what it means, but I've said if they kill him off in the 616, I'm done buying Marvel comics. But, I don't know if I can make good on that threat.
I would like to reiterate how awesome Uncanny X-Force is right now (Travis, I somehow overlooked your response to me from a couple of weeks ago). The latest arc has the team in Captain Britain's Otherworld realm, and I wasn't looking forward to it too much. Cracking open my old Captain Britain trade helped, but it's turned out to be a good tale in any case. The latest one had some amusing stuff as well as one absolute laugh out loud moment (rare in comics):

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

The Age of Apocalypse Nightcrawler is riding on a reanimated unicorn skeleton he has dubbed Rainbow Kiss, carrying Deadpool's headless body, when he sees the head off to the side. His method of recovering it is to spear it with his sword. Wade (who is very funny here) complains about being treated like a piece of roadside garbage, and AOA Kurt says, "So, the analogy wasn't lost on you." The LOL part, though, is when a bearded gent suddenly kisses Kurt on the mouth. In the next panel, "he" is revealed to be Meggan in disguise. Thinking he is "our" Nightcrawler, she says, "You don't know how relieved I am to see you!" He responds, "I'm not who you think I am, but you can't be as relieved as I am to see your true form." (dialogue paraphrased, and better in the original)

The recently concluded Dark Angel Saga in this book was so good, followup is taking up the second arc of Uncanny X-Men and was a major part of the latest issue of Wolverine & the X-Men.

 

[TravisR]

Yeah, the EIC of Marvel casually said on Friday that 2012 is Peter Parker's last year. Nobody has picked up on it, and I don't know what it means, but I've said if they kill him off in the 616, I'm done buying Marvel comics. But, I don't know if I can make good on that threat.

When I read this post, I passed out due to extreme nerd rage . What kind of topsy turvy do I live where companies are using characters that shouldn't ever be used again (Watchmen) and dropping characters that should basically go on forever (Peter Parker)?

 

[Greg_S_H]

Here's the wording: "2012 is looking to be a big one for Spider-Man with a lot of big things happening -- the 50th Anniversary as you, mention, a big movie in July, and issue #700 on Broadway. Seems like a pretty good final year for ol' Pete, doesn't it?" Either he just dropped a bombshell (and, though death in comics is meaningless, if they are planning on replacing Peter with Miles in the 616, he won't be coming back any time soon out of sheer stubbornness if nothing else) or he's making a Mayan end of the world joke.

 

[TravisR]

The worst case scenario is that they're replacing him because he'll be gone a shorter amount of time if he's dead rather than if he's replaced. Ah, comic books.
I don't really know what I'm crying about because I stopped reading the regular Spidey when JMS left Amazing Spider-Man which was like 4 or 5 (?) years ago and have been reading Ultimate Spider-Man ever since. Oddly enough, I'm more bothered by them dropping Peter Parker from the regular Marvel U eventhough I'm not reading it than I am when they killed him (presumably on a permanent basis) in the Ultimate Universe.
As an aside, Miles Morales is doing his thing surprisingly well in Ultimate Spider-Man too.

 

[TonyD]

There is a thing going round that there will be a meeting of the Ultimate Spide-man and the regular Spider-man.
I haven't bought a comic in five years or just after the brand new day stuff started and I don't miss it.
Anyone want to buy about 50 long boxes of comics?

 

[Greg_S_H]

That was the early idea, but an analysis of the logo showed a blending of Ultimate Peter Parker's emblem and Miles Morales's. I don't think even jaded fans think Ultimate PP is coming back this soon, so the thinking is time-travel or something along the lines of Peter Parker finding out he's dead and replaced in his future. Who knows.
It makes sense to me to be upset that the "real" Peter Parker would be killed and replaced. Miles is alright and all, but the regular Spider-Man should not be treated as a legacy character. In another part of that quote, Axel calls Peter the center of the Marvel Universe--the everyman, our "in" to the universe. You can't just throw that away. Has Peter ever been seriously considered dead to the readers? I don't remember that ever happening. There was a "missing month," where Spidey wasn't in any of his own books. There was the time he was named the clone and retired to the suburbs with MJ. But, I don't think he's ever been killed and brought back. Well, The Other, but he was brought back inside that story.
It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, when I hear people say, "You need to kill characters so it is known that nobody is safe." Besides having the opposite effect when it's done over and over--nobody believes death is permanent--who says "nobody is safe" should be the goal? There were a lot of decades where almost nobody was in danger of being killed off. The thrill of reading was finding out how the characters were able to work themselves out of the villains' traps, how they were able to avert disaster. It didn't matter if we knew they would prevail. And, it made it actually shocking when they didn't.
I when it's looking more and more like Marvel is going to replace 616 Nick Fury with the Sam Jackson Nick Fury. When people complain about that or about Miles, the charge of racism is bandied about. How about coming up with good, new minority characters? Is that too much to ask? I am reading Ultimate Spidey, and I don't mind the new kid (though, no offense, but I think people are singing his praises a little early, considering he hasn't even really gotten out of his origin story yet), but I would think on some level it's a little insulting to say, "Okay, we need minority characters. Black Spidey! Black Wolverine! Hispanic Hulk!" New characters.

 

[TravisR]

It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, when I hear people say, "You need to kill characters so it is known that nobody is safe." Besides having the opposite effect when it's done over and over--nobody believes death is permanent--who says "nobody is safe" should be the goal? There were a lot of decades where almost nobody was in danger of being killed off. The thrill of reading was finding out how the characters were able to work themselves out of the villains' traps, how they were able to avert disaster. It didn't matter if we knew they would prevail. And, it made it actually shocking when they didn't.

I think that killing characters permanently is a fine idea in a book where it's only going to run for X years and that will be all for the story. However when it comes to the characters that have been around for decades, I agree with you. The big characters should always be safe because that's part of the fun of reading their tales and like you said, no one believes that a long running character is actually dead so his death doesn't have as much impact as it should which makes killing them off somewhat pointless.
I read tons of Star Wars stuff and my biggest complaint about it is that it's so serious and they go for gritty tales, big events and big character deaths (and in their defense when a guy is dead in Star Wars, he's dead so at least it means something) but the Star Wars movies are primarily fun adventure movies where the good guys will eventually win. That's not say that Star Wars or Marvel should be making their stuff for 10 year olds but I think lightening up with their characters would be more in tune with the original incarnations of the characters.
When I saw they were doing the Death Of Spider-Man story in Ultimate Spider-Man, I laughed because I assumed that his death would be for a few months at most and then Peter would be back. However, by the time the last issue came out, I bought that they were killing him off permanently and found the issue to be great and a fitting end for the character. I think Bendis has said that he has no plans of bringing him back and it should stay that way so that the character's death will always mean something rather than a bump in the road of an endless story. However in the case of the Marvel U Spidey, I know that they won't be able to let him be dead forever so I hope they don't do that.

I when it's looking more and more like Marvel is going to replace 616 Nick Fury with the Sam Jackson Nick Fury. When people complain about that or about Miles, the charge of racism is bandied about. How about coming up with good, new minority characters? Is that too much to ask? I am reading Ultimate Spidey, and I don't mind the new kid (though, no offense, but I think people are singing his praises a little early, considering he hasn't even really gotten out of his origin story yet), but I would think on some level it's a little insulting to say, "Okay, we need minority characters. Black Spidey! Black Wolverine! Hispanic Hulk!" New characters.

When I heard that Peter Parker's replacement was half black and half-Hispanic, I wasn't mad but it felt like Marvel was just trying way too hard to be diverse. I intended to give it a shot and I'm glad I did because I think the character is going to be really good and he's a kid that you can root for him. The book is fun because you're seeing Miles have fun with his new powers while also seeing him deal with his real life problems which is what Stan Lee did when he was writing The Amazing Spider-Man. And in terms of race, the best thing that can be said is that the kid could be white and the stories would be nearly identical so it's not like Ultimate Spider-Man has become a soap box.
Replacing Nick Fury with Sam Jackson Nick Fury seems like they're letting the movies lead them rather trying to give some diversity to their cast. That being said, I think having Sam Jackson's face makes Ultimate Nick Fury even more of a badass so I'm not that bothered by him replacing the Marvel U Fury but it's lame that the movies can dictate the direction when it should be the comics that are telling the movies what to do.
And I'd read Hispanic Hulk if he always wore a mariachi hat.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Yeah, just let me be extra clear that I don't care what race Miles is. To Bendis' credit, he's writing him to where he is what he is and it isn't "oh look, I'm the minority Spider-Man. I'm just saying its in everybody's best interest for diversity to come from new characters rather than just changing an existing character. And, of course, I love Ultimate Nick Fury, but I love the 616 version and it seemed like everyone won with both around (and, if they don't kill Nick off, I guess he can just be in the background for now). They are being led by the movies (thank God they aren't bringing Gwen back--a character I love, but a death that is too important to undo), which is silly, because the movies have not to date brought a new influx of readers into the shops.

 

[TravisR]

A few days ago, John Severin died at the age of 90. The guy leaves behind a massive body of wonderful work but I was a fan from his stuff for EC Comics (Two-Fisted Tales, Frontline Combat and Mad when it was still a comic book) but he also had a decades long run on Cracked and a boatload of other work.

 

[TravisR]

For those reading Ultimate Spider-Man, has anyone seen Bendis, etc. say the correct pronunciation of the name of Miles' buddy Ganke? Does it rhyme with Spanky or does it rhyme with Tank? I haven't been this tortured since The Walking Dead's Michonne.
In other meaningless comics thoughts, it looks like a character that I've suspected for years would play a bigger part in The Boys might actually soon prove true. Nice to see Garth Ennis playing the long game and planting seeds about 3 or 4 years before they bear fruit.