Comic Book Resources

Yeah, the film seems like as a pretty good reason to bring Galactus and the Surfer back together. I doubt that it was the primary motivating factor in coming up with Annihilation, but once the event was in motion, I'm sure that was a big factor in the decision to make the Surfer into the Herald again.

I'm reading an Essential FF book right now, and I've decided that I'm okay with Marvel re-hashing those stories. Fuckdamn, that is some terrible, awful, worstever dialogue! Every sentence that isn't a question ends with an exclamation point.

So, I'm okay with seeing those stories again, but with scripting that doesn't make me vomit all over the place.

Marvel has done it before with other movies. It's not really much of a "creative" or "character driven" reason... but I guess I can see why Marvel would do that in an attempt to not confuse any new readers that the movie may bring in. ...though does it really make a difference???

ANNIHILATION's kind of an odd series. It shuffles various characters into new positions, but while the minis seemed to have some kind of point to them, I'd be hard pressed to identify exactly what ANNIHILATION itself was actually about. It does feel like an excessively elaborate way of setting up future stories, more than a proper story in its own right.

All I know is that killing off Quasar is the most useless gesture in the universe, considering he's already died and been resurrected at least three times.

I can't think of any better reason for making the Silver Surfer Galactus's herald again.

Every sentence that isn’t a question ends with an exclamation point.

That wasn't just bad scripting, that was a limitation of the technology. The printing process back then made it impossible to determine the difference between a full stop and what was a fleck or spot on the plates, so they very deliberately used exclamation points as primary punctuation.

Dunno, really...I mean, I'm not saying it wasn't, but really, the Surfer's been at a loose end for a while and Galactus hasn't seemed to have a consistent, interesting herald since they killed off Nova. It seems like a pretty sensible move even without the movie coming up.

Phyla becoming the new Quasar and Thanos dying, though...those I can't explain. Nor can I really explain killing and resurrecting Annihilus in the course of a single issue.

It probably was motivated by the movie. I thought Giffen did a decent job selling it, though.

What I'm wondering is, why is this a question now? Marvel did it eight months ago.

Could go either way. It certainly seems possible, but on the other hand, all indications are that the Fantastic Four won't be the original team for the next several months, so they can't be THAT concerned about tying in to the movie. (And I'll be surprised if movie-Galactus actually resembles comic-Galactus anyway.)

This whole movie business is kind of tricky. I'm not sure there's a real gain from bringing back Spider-Man's black costume to coincide with the movie -- it doesn't look like the comics version will be the symbiote this time, and the comics one really doesn't look much like the movie one anyway. Seems more like an attempt to grab the existing fans going "Ooh! Black costume! I remember that!" than to get anyone who only knows it from the movie.

I think Marvel and DC are pretty inconsistent when it comes to how they do these things (apparently it was necessary to give Spider-Man organic webshooters, but it was okay to leave him married and have him be a teacher instead of a photographer, etc. ?) and as a result people just kind of jump on everything as a possible movie tie-in. Where fans used to say, "Oh, he'll be back, nobody ever dies in comics," now they say, "Oh, that'll be undone in time for the movie!"

And sometimes, they're wrong. Remember when everybody was *sure* Jean Grey would come back to life in the comics in time for X3...? The consensus right now seems to be that Iron Man will stop being vaguely evil in time for the Iron Man movie, but really, by the time that comes along they'll probably have at least five or six TPBs of pre-Civil War material on the shelves, so it may not be terribly necessary.

As much as Annihilation could have used some far tighter scripting -- can't say I really gave a damn about the status quo of the Kree Empire -- I found it to be a fun popcorn read. Action, reasonably comprehensive giant space battles with evil bugs, Drax being cool in utterly over-the-top sort of way... ultimately, I enjoyed it.

As for the deaths, the won't exactly spot these characters from being used again. Mark Gruenwald killed Quasar a few times -- possibly a record for a hero with an ongoing series. As for Thanos, his entire schtick is his rocky dating history with Death herself. Lower-case death is hardly a irreverseable condition.

On a side-note, I just find it amusing that Moondragon's finally sleeping with a Quasar.

Nope.

And I'll tell ya why.

Unless the filmmakers are insane, the end of any FF movie with Galactus and the Silver Surfer in it ends with the Surfer betraying Galactus for "these insignificant beings called...Men!" It is a classic, classic note, whether you find it in movies, comics, or novels. In fact it's Kirby's impression of a Biblical note: that's how far back its pedigree stretches. Why, you could no more have the Surfer not betray Galactus, and then pay "...the ultimate price!", then you could have McBain not scream "MENDOOOOO-ZZZZAAAAA!" in a movie that, one day, somehow, I hope they make.

I hope you Bloggers, like me, take that to be an absolute lock. The Silver Surfer thing, I mean.

So...

Therefore the thing to do in the comic is to have the Surfer be trapped on Earth again. Reasoning (hey, it could happen!) that the moviegoers will become comic-buyers, that's the only thing that makes sense. If the kid who ends up wanting to buy the comic goes to see the movie with his father, hell, he's even got a better chance that his father will say: "Hmmm...what happens to him after, eh? For five bucks...all these ads...ahhh, screw it, I wanna know what happens to him, too. Here's five bucks, kid!" And lo, maybe...just maybe...a comics fan is born.

My two cents. Oh crap, I'm leaving too many comments tonight, like footprints in the snow. Oh well.

I'm sure by the end of the movie the Silver Surfer will be Galactus' FORMER Herald, or at least on his way down that path.

I don't think this has anything to do with the movie and everything to do with us never really seeing the Surfer as Galactus' herald.

By the way, have there really been that many changes to coincide with the movies. I can think of two;
1) Organic web-shooters
2) Black X-men uniforms
What else? Anything?