"My point about Civil War, and JLA, and Infinite Crisis, and any of these other EVENTS that the Big Two keep publishing is that nobody really cares if Steve McNiven is drawing it. I’m sorry, but I really believe that’s true."

That's what I'd say, too...part of that being that I'm not a big "art" person, and don't really notice the art unless it's very good or very bad (and in fact, I'm not really a big fan of McNiven, either.)

But Marvel, when they talked about this in the press release, said that fill-in artists hurt the sales more than late books, and that they can see the effect even when the trade is released (ie, it lasts longer than a late book's effect would). They say they've got sales data to back them up--unless someone can show me some numbers to contradict that, I'm going to have to give them the benefit of the doubt on this.

For the record, though, I'll agree with you that it seems counter-intuitive.

(And what about Teen Iron Man? We were supposed to take that seriously at the time, too. I know _I_ couldn't, but...)

But yeah, the main plots -- the mystery and the mindwipes -- were just painfully overserious and miserably underwritten, almost exactly the sort of thing indicated in that oft-quoted line from Flex Mentallo #3 about grim-n-gritty comics obsessively trying to "rationalize all [those] wacky past adventures."

I will stick by my contention that Identity Crisis is one of the most egregious things in comics in a long time, simply because it was so very stupid yet we were supposed to take it so very seriously. I don't take Liefeld seriously at all, so I don't count him. As for Superboy beating Superman to death, that was just AWESOME!

But that's just an opinion. My point about Civil War, and JLA, and Infinite Crisis, and any of these other EVENTS that the Big Two keep publishing is that nobody really cares if Steve McNiven is drawing it. I'm sorry, but I really believe that's true. For certain comics, it's the characters that matter. Plain and simple. I'm guilty of it as much as anyone, and if I were buying Civil War and its innumerable tie-ins, I'd be pretty pissed off that I have to wait so long because Millar and McNiven can't get their act together. I would just want to see Captain America and Iron Man beating the shit out of each other. THAT is why people are buying Civil War. It's not for Millar's subtle political arguments.

Well, OK, yes I do know where to start: "Meltzer is responsible for one of the most egregious insults to comic fandom in the past decade". So you're telling me that 'Identity Crisis' was a bigger insult to comics fans than Teen Iron Man, Rob Liefeld's 'Heroes Reborn' comics, Avengers Disassembled, Countdown to Infinite Crisis, and having Superboy beat the original Superman to death with his bare hands? The last issue came out in the same year as Infinite Crisis #1--it wasn't even one of the most egregious insults to comics fandom in the year it was published, let alone the last decade. I'm all for hype, but sane hype, please. Nobody can lay claim to "most egregious" so long as Rob Liefeld continues to solicit late books in the industry.

JLA is probably going to be a decent book, just like his Green Arrow story was decent. It's not his fault that Identity Crisis was hyped to hell and back, and then taken up as the standard-bearer for the next year's worth of storylines.

And I'm totally unclear as to what the rant about 'Civil War' was doing in there...you seem to be suggesting, "No, Marvel shouldn't have delayed the book, they should have dumped in any old s*** because you suckers will buy it anyway!" (It's possible you were using sarcasm, there, but you do seem to be condemning anyone who thinks that the late book is OK, which is an odd stance, to say the least.)

And no, DC and Marvel don't continue to make bad comics because they think we'll buy them anyway--at least, that's not the historic rationale. They continue to make bad comics because they think a new generation of suckers...err, kids...will be along soon enough to replace the people who've grown up enough to realize how bad this stuff is. The fact that we haven't is just gravy, as far as they're concerned. The Direct Market is changing all that, as the industry is slowly waking up to the realization that the next generation of kids doesn't know what a comic book is, except for those Archie comics they sell in supermarkets, but they're still getting used to the idea that their audience is now a bunch of 20-somethings.

So yeah, you're right, you shouldn't buy stuff you don't like just to keep up with the characters. Been saying that for years. But it's amazing how you can boil that down into one sentence without having to insist that Civil War #4 should have been stick figures and dog vomit, huh?

DC had kept it a secret up until this point, even releasing the solicitation cover for #2 with the members blacked out.

DC: "There's going to be a new Manhunter comics starting in December."
Me: "Damnit! Now I know who's in it! I don't have to read it anymore! The whole thing is totally spoiled for me!"

I just can't figure this out.

Well Meltzers himself has actually inadvertantly just proven this point on Newsarama! Quote: "Most surprising is how much love came out for the Detroit Era. I thought I was alone in that."

You should be buying it to make fun of the first chapter of Meltzer's crappy new novel that will apparently be included with it.

...wait, like reading a *character motive* into the story that isn't actually there either?

At least the plot hole(s) *exist*.

At no point in IC or Day of Vengeance is it ever even hinted at that Jean actually DID want to kill Sue. This is never, ever expanded upon or present in any of the books.

In IC, she says she "took some extra weapons along just in case".

Assuming that she just wanted to scare Sue, what is the point of taking weapons along - especially weapons that work? Unless she actually *wants* to kill her, which (again) is never even alluded to.

Which means if you go with the "Jean actually wants to kill Sue for x reasons" theory you just made Meltzer's plot even more stupid because he never, ever works that possibility into the story. I can just about cope with the flamethrower goof, even if it is entirely illogical (though not the fact that the entire justice league seemed to miss the fact that a flamethrower had been used completely. Presumably Ralph ordered a new carpet after the death and threw the old one out before everyone turned up to "investigate".)

In Day of Vengeance, the (short) moment that we see her before Eclipso takes over, she seems to still be wholly repentant for what she did to Sue, in an "I'm going slowly nuts" fashion.

In addition, at no point before IC is it ever hinted that Jean is a nutball or wants to "get even" with Sue in any way - and of course, due to being stuck orbiting the Sun for all eternity (nice touch DC), you wouldn't have seen her pop up and give an I HATE SUE speech at any time *after* IC either.

In conclusion, Meltzer goofed.

Trying to pin Jean as a liar who had every intention of killing Sue is trying to twist the character into something she's not, and reading something into the story that was never even remotely suggested.

Then again, they had to this character twisting with Martian Manhunter and pretty much anyone else to shunt Blue Beetle onto a path of bullet assisted suicide so I can't say I'm surprised.

Oh, and one final parting thought - if Jean intended to kill Sue, why bother with the elaborate tap dance on the brain then finish off with the flamethrower and make it obvious?

Why not just continue doing the riverdance on Sue's grey matter and finish her off that way?

Even with the rather spectacularly presented SUE GOT MURDERED crime scene, they *only just* spotted the footprints. If she'd just appeared to have dropped down dead, its even more unlikely anyone would have noticed anything.

What is presented in the book does not fit with what you're suggesting for any number of reasons.

Regarding the flamethrower and accidents, did it ever occur to you that Mrs. Palmer might have been lying in her big reveal? sheesh. Next time you want to slam stories for their plot holes, make sure they're actually there...

I was thinking of Stormwatch, Authority, and to a lesser extent Planetary. Haven't read NEXTWAVE.

Actually, though, now that I think about it Ellis did some really nice work on the Ultimate books that seemed very much in line with the idea of, "I'm just going to do superheroics the best I can," without tagging a lot of this deconstructionist look-ma-grownup-superheroes! Sex! Violence! stuff on it. So maybe he should come off the list. You can replace "Ellis" with "Rucka" and get the same rant. How's that?

Now, I've got no problem with "seething need-to-prove-I'm-a-grownup" comics; if we never had attempts to fuse awkward maturity and quasi-realism onto superheroes, we never would've had Spider-Man or the Claremont X-Men or basically any development of the superhero genre in general. So once again I have no idea what you're saying. A lot of what these writers have produced is mediocre-to-crap; quite a bit of it is really very good. Generalizing to the point of condemning superhero hybridization - or pretty much any attempt to make a long-stale genre interesting again - isn't particularly helpful.

I really have to say that most of fandom is starting to sicken me, because it's starting to see like 99% of fans seem to just want to buy the exact same comic book they first picked up, over and over again for the rest of their miserable lives. For myself, I just want comics to be good, and I want a lot of variety (which really is my biggest complaint about the American comic book industry: domination by Marvel and DC and a handful of "hot" writers, to say nothing of the superhero genre itself, has not been good). But most fans I see seem to want all comic books to look the same way they looked when they were twelve, which is just asinine.

You were dead-on with your point about people only enjoying what they had 20 years ago and 20 years from now. There are some great, great comics being made this year, this month, this day. I hate spoilers- at least the types that aren't clearly marked- because they don't let people have the fun of enjoying a new story for themselves. Often- like when the spoiler hasn't been asked for- spoilers aren't just the height of 'nerdity', they're the height of dickery.

Anyway, thanks for the good read.

You'll find as you get older that there really was never a "golden age" of anything.... music, television, movies-there's always been some great, some good, some crap of every era. It's just that the crap tends to fade into history and we forget it was ever there. But don't worry, it WAS there! The Brady Bunch Kids made albums and toured; there was a show called My Mother, the Car; and Mystery Science Theater 3000 was only one way of reliving horrible movies of yesteryear.

It's fine to criticize, but I encourage fellow readers to be constructive. Rather than just fuss about what was done, be sure to share your ideas about what can make it better. "It sucks" is a waste of everyone's time.

If it turns out to be a more worthwhile target tomorrow, maybe.