The current state of disarray at Marvel

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anarky
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The current state of disarray at Marvel

Post by anarky »

Just thought I'd share this:

I was talking on the phone last night with a friend. Both of us used to be heavy into all things Marvel. He's not read comics in a little over a decade, and I was telling him what's going on (mostly second-hand from you guys, since I gave up on Marvel a while ago).

I told him about Civil War, and House of M, and the Iron Spider, and the current mess with Tony Stark going nuts and cloning Thor or whatever.

His exact words: "What the hell?"

So, is Marvel trying to alienate everyone in the world with the shit they're putting out? They've theoretically got the best characters, but, man, the stories blow.
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Post by vynsane »

i've always stated that i was mostly a marvel guy, but at the same time i guess not the typical reader... other than spidey, i'm very particular about what i collect. basically, they can't alienate me, as i'm not reading most of the shit they're fucking up right now. i was reading FF up until a little bit ago, and i'm still reading new avengers, but for the most part, anything i get from marvel has spidey in it. and wolverine: origins.
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Post by Eternal Padawan »

This is my theory. The Age of Marvel's 50th anniversary is coming up in 2012. They are trying to deconstruct every last one of their main titles, X-Men, Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, Daredevil, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, etc into such disarray far enough in advance that this mess will become the "Standard" for the Marvel Universe, until the huge anniversary where everything will somehow miraculously get reverted back to the Classic Marvel.

Avengers were Disassembled, then Civil War split them right down the middle. I'm sure WWHulk will devestate the status quo even more.

Captain America has had his world rocked by the return of Bucky, in addition to all the Avengers problems.

Daredevil has been outed, thrown in prison, etc

Fantastic Four has been shattered by events of Civil War, leading to a new team roster.

Hulk has been betrayed by his fellow heroes, shot into space and returns to wreak havoc next summer in WWHulk.

Iron Man, again, also devastated by events in Civil War, WWHulk etc

Spider-Man. Outed. Betrayed. Losing his family(?) basically thrashed six ways from Sunday.

X-Men. Their ranks devastated by House of M, finding out Professor X is the biggest douche in the Marvel Universe. The general malaise of being a mutant, etc

And this is just the beginning. After WWHulk who knows what horrifying crossover Joe Quesada has planned. It's just going to get darker and darker until right before the Dawn...

That's my theory.
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Post by anarky »

That's an interesting theory, quite likely correct.

However, there is such a thing as screwed up so badly that it's impossible to get back the readers you lost. The constant stream of Onslaught, X-Tinction Agenda, Infinity Fill-In-The-Blank, and such crap chased me from Marvel years ago. It was just a neverending stream of pointless crossovers that accomplished nothing and existed only to drum up sales.

Flash forward several years: even though I've picked up comics (mostly SW, TF, GIJoe, Batman, and some indies) in the interrim, I'm still so disgusted by Marvel that I avoid it like the plague. Then X2 comes out, and totally blows me away. I remember how much fun it was reading X-Men before Marvel got so screwy in the early 90s, and some marketing genius at Marvel had the brilliant (seriously) idea to release a 25-cent issue shortly after the movie came out. And the stories were pretty good. I started following the X-Men again, and I'm glad I did for a while; Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men was phenomenal! But I never would have known it existed except for a movie--something totally outside the regular Marvel Universe and the medium of comics.

But almost immediately after Morrison left, it shot straight to hell. Once again, all the books were coasting between epic crossovers. And every time there was a crossover, the writers changed, and each writer wanted a totally different team. When you have even just one crossover a year, and have to work toward that end during your tenure, and after the crossover the next writer abandons the characters you've worked on, there's almost no possible way to get character development (unless it's Spidey, with fifty books focusing on just one guy).

And Marvel's got the idea now that every crossover has to demolish the status quo, which isn't always synonymous with good storytelling.
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Post by vynsane »

anarky wrote:However, there is such a thing as screwed up so badly that it's impossible to get back the readers you lost. The constant stream of Onslaught, X-Tinction Agenda, Infinity Fill-In-The-Blank, and such crap chased me from Marvel years ago. It was just a neverending stream of pointless crossovers that accomplished nothing and existed only to drum up sales.
a test-tube version of which being the clone saga...

yeah, i hope you're right EP, but i suspect you're optimism is misplaced. it will take a new EIC to put right what has been wrought.
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Post by anarky »

Clone Saga. Ick. They didn't even wrap the damned thing up properly. It was almost like "Ben Reilly died on the way to his home planet."

After some thought, I'm wondering if Joe Q was told to increase sales or it was his neck. And so he embarked on this never-ending string of universe-shattering crossovers. If they increase sales, great. If not, well, the whole thing is such a fucking mess that an army of Larry Hama clones couldn't fix it. Sort of "If I can't have it, no one can"?
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Post by Eternal Padawan »

Honestly, coming after Tom DeFalco's timidity, and Bob Harras' royal pooch screwing, I'm willing to see Quesada taking some chances. Stanant is boring. Can anyone remember anything from the two years leading up to Heroes Reborn other than some fancy covers? In ANY of the Marvel books? And Harras' run was this huge vaccuum of suck. I think most of it has been ret-conned away it was so lame. And what has Quesada given us? Bendis' GLORIOUS run on Daredevil. Morrison on New X-Men. Wolverine's Origin (which has led us to the magnificent Origins title) The Ultimates. ( Not like the whole Ultiverse, just Millar and Hitch). A sorely needed revamping of the Mighty boring Avengers. Sure, he's thrown a few dogs in there, but at least he's taking chances. I love comics that make me say "What the FUCK!" and want to reread it immediately. It's been a long time at Marvel since that happened. Enough to get me collecting again.
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Post by anarky »

Oh, I totally agree that stagnant is boring. But if you're going to run the entire universe through a blender, you'd better have someone with some godlike storytelling skills. For something like Civil War, for instance, you'd better create a superhuman Serpentor-style clone of 1970s Chris Claremont, 1980s Larry Hama, 1990s Simon Furman, Mark Twain, and Bryan Singer to pull it off.

It's nice that I can sing the praises of Hama and Furman here and not have Dominic Gugliwhatever immediately post after me and say that I'm an idiot because I can recognize that they rock and he can't. Nothing against the guy, but, shit, accept that nothing you say can make me hate these two guys, okay?
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Post by Eternal Padawan »

I'm assuming Dominic resides at the other place?


You just reminded me how much Claremont sucks these days. Oh my poor, poor Exiles. How I fret that Chris will subject you to his awful creations like Opal Luna Saturnyne, the Technet, Lila Cheney and the rest.

God you suck ass, Chris. Why don't you and Liefeld go relaunch Awesome?
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Post by anarky »

Eternal Padawan wrote:I'm assuming Dominic resides at the other place?
Yeah, and sometimes I think he just waits for someone to say something good about Hama or Furman so he can swoop in and say something like:
You are wrong. So wrong it hurts. Hama was an idiot. He wasn't fit to wipe my ass. As you can see, there is clearly an exit wound when Cobra Commander is shot, and yet he comes back twenty issues later when sales are slumping, claiming that rumours of his demise were greatly exagerrated. This is an unforgiveable flaw in storytelling, one which would not be made even by Snigtad Flornbi at his dumbest. And you'll notice that, in issue #74, the Snow Cat is colored orange. How ridiculous! Hama is clearly so stupid that he should be ejected into deep space.
He seems like a fairly intelligent guy, but sometimes I want to ask, "Dude, if you're so smart, why do you continually buy all these comics that you seem to absolutely hate, just so you can go to SSG and post reviews that go on at length about how reprehensibly bad they are--reviews that, it seems, no one reads, as no one ever responds to them."

The dude just wants an outlet. But it's like talking to a brick wall. Much as JJB when he was trying to say that A) I only thought Civil War was a mess because I was obviously a disgruntled New Warriors fan, as no one could possibly dislike the story otherwise, and B) I must be a homophobe because I thought the Young Avengers was a stupid idea.
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Post by anarky »

Oh, and "Agreed. Claremont clearly lost it when he was fired off X-Men the first time."
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Post by jjreason »

I'm kinda with EP on this. I like what they're doing overall - but the purist in me (which is an 80s purist - not a 60s one.... I ain't that old) shrieks a little in the face of all these "mega events". Each month on Uncanny used to be a mega-event in itself, now all the books go on hold story-wise for months until the next big crossover.

You gravitate toward what you like, and I like Marvel. For anyone who's been out of it for awhile, it would be shocking to get back in - but (like a cold swimming pool) if you like the characters, you could easily find something to enjoy. If you don't like what's going on there - that's fine. But I theorize this: it's not just Marvel that's in upheaval (some would say disarray) - it's the whole industry. The money-grubbing going on now is worse than it was in the early 90's - you just can't tell so obviously by the die-cut covers anymore.

There is nothing in comics for kids, or for anyone that just wants a casual read..... you're either RIGHT INTO COMICS, or you're not.... and that's too bad. Back in the day, I bet you'd find the odd teenager, kid or grown up that would grab an issue of FF or Spidey (or whatever), just for a quick read on the bus, knowing the story would resolve. The days of that are LONG gone - and it don't matter who's books you like.
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Post by Eternal Padawan »

jjreason wrote:I'm kinda with EP on this. I like what they're doing overall - but the purist in me (which is an 80s purist - not a 60s one.... I ain't that old) shrieks a little in the face of all these "mega events". Each month on Uncanny used to be a mega-event in itself, now all the books go on hold story-wise for months until the next big crossover.
Yeah, i agree. I don't know if it's editor on the X-books or what, but it seems like the comics ( aside from Astonishing) are just getting swept along in the commercialism juggernaut that is the X-Men franchise ( movies, toys, video games, etc) rather than being the vanguard. Every "event" in the X-universe is taking place in limited series like Deadly Genesis or House of M so much it's as if they told the regular monthlies to NOT do anything drastic or shocking with the characters. I want Uncanny to blow my socks every month. It's getting better now that Bru has taken over, but it has a long way to go.
You gravitate toward what you like, and I like Marvel. For anyone who's been out of it for awhile, it would be shocking to get back in - but (like a cold swimming pool) if you like the characters, you could easily find something to enjoy. If you don't like what's going on there - that's fine. But I theorize this: it's not just Marvel that's in upheaval (some would say disarray) - it's the whole industry. The money-grubbing going on now is worse than it was in the early 90's - you just can't tell so obviously by the die-cut covers anymore.
I don't know if I would say "worse" as much as "just as much". And the 90's fiasco was a knee jerk response to the Image craze of flash over substance. Giant unjustified double page action spreads every other page, no story, the next eye grabbing, wallet emptying cover/investment. It was like the dot.com of comics that crashed and they've spent the last several years going "How can we gat back to where we were fiscally then, but with a more stable foundation?" It's always been a war, but now they're using different weapons. Were getting stories from the Metzers and Whedons and Heinbergs instead of the flash of the Liefelds and McFarlanes. Little publishers are taking iconic staples like GIJoe and Transformers and giving them their full attention, rather than being churned out like the olden days. (We've been over this. Bob Budainsky sucked people. TF didn't get good until it was too late.) I'd much rather have DC and Marvel investing in talent than holograms to get my $2.99. So bravo to Dan DiDio and Joe Q. for that.
There is nothing in comics for kids, or for anyone that just wants a casual read..... you're either RIGHT INTO COMICS, or you're not.... and that's too bad. Back in the day, I bet you'd find the odd teenager, kid or grown up that would grab an issue of FF or Spidey (or whatever), just for a quick read on the bus, knowing the story would resolve. The days of that are LONG gone - and it don't matter who's books you like.

It's tough to argue with that on the tail end of the biggest mega crossover Marvel has seen in years. The last crossover I saw this all encompassing was Onslaught and before that it was probably Acts of Vengeance. And delays in the main book have spread like a cancer thru the rest of the publishing retinue. Civil War has upended just about everybook they have, the same way Identity/Infinite Crisis did for DC. I really don't have a frame of reference since I buy so many monthlies consistently, But i daresay i could go back and grab a random issue of Captain America, or Wolverine or whatever, read it and be satisfied, but also WANT TO COME BACK NEXT MONTH. Which is what each issue is supposed to do. "I love what happened. I want to see what happens next. I want more of the story." Cross overs like Civil War take that to the uber-next level. if you like this guy, see how he interacts with ALL of our other characters and who knows, you might like some of them enough to follow their monthly adventures, too. Now, with Civil War, its a double edged sword since they are putting all their eggs in a basket, then dumping it out and seeing what cracks and what doesn't. Will Fantastic Four purists stick around for T'Challa? Will Iron Man purists follow a book without Tony in the armor?Some will. Some won't. It's a risk to see if they can bring in more readers. I don't think its resulting in bad storytelling. The latest issues of Black Panther are some of the best I've ever read with that character. Ditto Spider-Man. The issue where Peter, MJ, and Aunt May are wrestling with the idea to unmask was amazing writing. Amazing. So yeah, Quesada is fucking with these characters. But it's a long term goal. Civil War stirs things up brings in new readers and then everything eventually goes back to Status Quo and the purists come back and the new readers maybe stick around too. The Status Quo event will probably be just as huge and attract even more readers.
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Post by Eternal Padawan »

Ways they can further fuck with the Marvel Universe.

Have the American Govt deport Logan back to Canada, thur forcing readers to Buy Omega Flight to get their Wolvie fix.

Have Steve Rogers become crippled and forced to wear the Iron Armor to survive.

Hulk comes back and takes over HYDRA and rallies the villains to get organized.

Make Daredevil a woman. ( Not turn Matt into a chick, have a chick put on the costume)....( or make Matt a woman...)

One title: X-Avengers

Make Spider-Man not such a whiny douche. ( In other words, get JMS off the book.)
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Post by jjreason »

I love how Hulk just happens to be gone for Civil War. The (non)return of Thor could have been really cool - him coming to smite Hulk or what have you during one of the battles - but OH NO, let's send Bruce to Mars (or wherever the fuck he is) to fight with bugs, false-Things and weird pink guys.

They can also bring the real Mar-Vell back, ruining yet anothe poignant, "meaningful" comic death - but they're going to do that here shortly, aren't they?

They can also keep Wolverine going the way he is - which they will.

They can always get Spidey to renege on his "coming out" - which they will as well. I'm tired of Civil War, and I want it to end.
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