In any case, I heard good things about Planet Hulk. But I also heard that the way they got “Hulk Angry” was ackward and didn’t make sense. Was the original plan to excile the Hulk or blow him up?

To be quite honest, and I haven't read past the end of Planet Hulk, anyone who was confused by it (and I remember reading about it before I read the HC) is an idiot, pure and simple.
It is a twist/shock ending, but not one that was meant to keep you guessing.
How he gets angry, and who makes him that way (even if there's some deceit involved) is all spelt out.

I also heard that around issue #4 everything sort of came to a halt, and that everyone basically sat down and waited for Sentry to show up.

I imagine they meant it figuratively and not literally. But then again, it's all lost on me.

Specially since I don't even know who Sentry is. Is he more powerful than Thor?

And you know, out of curiosity, did any of the cosmic beings fight the Hulk? Did someone like the Silver Surfer or Doctor Doom try using the ultimate cosmic nullifier?

Anyways, I swear to God I'm not being sarcastic. The inner geek in me would love to see Doom get his hands on the nullifier.

In any case, I heard good things about Planet Hulk. But I also heard that the way they got "Hulk Angry" was ackward and didn't make sense. Was the original plan to excile the Hulk or blow him up?

Oh, but you say that it’s good now. That WWH was awesome. Well, hate to spoil it, but the Hulk had a previous World War around Hulk #316 and lost. That storyline also culminated with 2 Hulks running around, only one was Gray instead of Red. Again. Nothing new, and no reason to come back.

Well, feel free to look down on the rest of us, but Planet Hulk was good fun, and I can't wait for WWH to come out in hardback, so I really think you may want to give it a try.

I think that a lot of “the fans” haven’t forgotten, that they’ve walked away over the years and everyone’s just choosing not to remember how big the readership used to be.--- John Seavey

I agree.

My pull list used to be huge!!! Now, it's just a road map on how to lose readership.

It started with...

1- The Detroit Justice League. Believe it or not, DC was as serious about this League, as Quesada is about the Spider-Marriage. How does the sayin' go? World's Greatest Break-Dancing Heroes my @$$!

2- New Teen Titans. They canned one of their most popular characters, Kid Flash, 'cause they wanted to sever all ties with their previous incarnation. In the process they lost sight of where they were comming from and where they were headed. After that, the series became about re-doing the Judas Contract. They did the Judas Contract with Jericho. The Judas Contract with Hawk. The Judas Contract with Raven. The Judas Contract with Cyborg. The Judas Contract with Evil Nightwing. Etc. Etc. Etc.

3- Green Lantern. I mean, Hal Jordan could've had an honorable death. Never got why they had to piss on Jordan in order to ellevate Kyle. It's like the Powers that be knew that Kyle would never be half the Lantern Jordan was. Result: Stopped reading/buying.

3- Legion Of Super-Heroes. Huge fan. Loved everything. Interlac, subs & the 9 panel grid. DC closed the book on this series during Zero Hour; and as far as I'm concerned it stayed closed. The fact that the series now gets rebooted every 2 to 3 years is proof enough that I made the right decision.

4- The Hulk. Again, Marvel closed the book on this character when they decided they wanted "the old Savage Hulk" back and let Peter David go. (Hey, that kinda reminds me of a marryied webslinger). In any case, the book never recovered. Sure, it got interesting when Bruce Jones shaved the Hulk's head; but the fact that the Trades stopped comming out half-way through, should tell you something. Oh, but you say that it's good now. That WWH was awesome. Well, hate to spoil it, but the Hulk had a previous World War around Hulk #316 and lost. That storyline also culminated with 2 Hulks running around, only one was Gray instead of Red. Again. Nothing new, and no reason to come back.

5- Aquaman. DC let Peter David go and I left with him. Right now I don't know how many hands Aquaman has, who is the King of Atlantis, or if the San Diego Charges still have a Football stadium. Don't care.

6- Young Justice. Well, DC made this decision for me. But if they thought I was going to buy a Teen Titans series where Deathstroke's Daughter pokes her own eye out in order to be more like her old man; well, they most be tripping bad!

7- Ultimate Spidey. Got tired of reading four to five months of story set up. You write for the trades; I'll wait for the trades. The only problem is that I've been forgetting to buy the trades.

8- Powers. Same as #7, but they are also more expensive... and when they switched companies, they also wanted me to buy some sort of expensive Wizard Comic that cost twice as much as a regular comic, but only had like 10 pages. Whatever.

9- Wonder Woman. First she's blind for like a year. Then she becomes a murderer. Thanks, but no thanks.

10- The Flash. Saw no reason to kill Wally off. Can't tell if Impulse as Flash was any good. But I feel that Flashes are like Green Lanterns. Every one has their favorite and when they are done, so are you.

11- Black Panther. This book used to be so awesome. By the way, if you want to read a good Mephisto story; here's where you go.

12- Avengers, also blacklisted. The funny thing is that I don't remember the specifics, all I know is that it got real bad; and then they all got real naked. So now there's a note from my future self that says "Don't worry about reading the Avengers. You're not missing anything."

Anyways,

I guess Spidey's Amazing makes it a baker's docen.

Now, don't get me wrong; there's plenty of stuff that circles the drain, but as long as the words

"New kryptoninan Origin"

"All brand new Supergirl"

"Fresh Reboot"

"written by Judd Winnick"

are not uttered; then those comics are okay with me... for now.

Ok, Larsen's anti-marriage, too.

Oh, hey, I found it. (It was in my car. Which is v. messy.)

Michelinie comes off slightly pro-marriage, but does say it made Spider-man into a different character.

Defalco says "At the time I thought it was a veryyyyyy bad idea. History has proven me wrong."

I don't actually see Larsen give an opinion, either way.
He says it was "pretty abrupt" and "changed him from young to old," but those aren't EXACTLY value judgements .

And Jim Shooter is too busy calling everyone else a liar and defending against being called a liar to give much of an opinion.

Really? Near-unanamity? If I remember the Spider-Man round table from Back Issue (that you mentioned in one of these damn Spider-man posts) right, it ran about 60/40 Anti Marriage to Pro. And Stan Lee was in the Pro camp.

Note the qualifiying "past 15 years" part.

That article was mostly people who USED to write Spider-Man.

That said, yes, notably, Terry Kavanaugh and Jim Salicrup (and, I think, Tom DeFalco) were in favor of the marriage.

That's about it (I'm only counting editors and writers - assistant editors may have liked the marriage).

Remember, it’s not like Joe Quesada is alone on not wanting Spider-Man married - there’s a near unanimity among the folks who have worked on Spider-Man the past 15 years or so who just do not like the marriage.

Really? Near-unanamity? If I remember the Spider-Man round table from Back Issue (that you mentioned in one of these damn Spider-man posts) right, it ran about 60/40 Anti Marriage to Pro. And Stan Lee was in the Pro camp.

I picked up New Avengers for BMB, but stopped before they got to the Savage Land.

I am trying to collect Disassembled for Finch's art, and it was just such a spastic story. Everything was nuts, you didn't know what was going on, even if you knew what was coming.

I will not collect OMD or buy BND because I have no interest in the character anymore. If Peter can't let go of his Aunt May and is willing to give up his marriage to squeeze a few more years out of her, and if MJ is the kind of character to sympathize with this and go along with it, I am just not interested in anything Joe Q has to say about Spider-Man.

And Bob Harras’ Avengers sold more than all of them.
It seems to me that they aren’t picking up ‘new’ readers, just readers from other books.
It’s become a limited pool of readership, and so they have to rely on stunt stories and constantly switching creative teams to keep people interested.

Come on, you know you can't compare sales on books from the early 90s to books now, lest we have stuff like "NFL Superpro is more popular than every comic currently made!" You CAN compare the sales of the comic from the month before Bendis took over to the sales the month after Bendis took over.

Whether they are from other books or not, the book sold a lot better post-Disassembled than pre-Disassembeld. So much so that they added a spin-off title that sells about the same!!

And ANOTHER spin-off that sells more than the pre-Disassembled Avengers!

You could argue that all they're doing is adding readers from, say, X-Men and getting them to buy ANOTHER comic, rather than taking in readers from outside the industry.

I totally buy that.

But it is pretty plain to see, from a sales perspective, Disassembled worked well.

Not to mention, the Avengers have been the centerpiece of a major marketing push by Marvel for the past few years, with several of their "event" crossovers being prominently featured as 'Avengers events'. (And 'Secret Invasion', the 2008 "event", has been pushed for the last several months as, "It starts in the pages of 'New Avengers'! If you don't want to get left out when 'Secret Invasion' starts, you should be buying 'New Avengers' right now! Now, dammit, now!")

I remain unconvinced that the current audience for 'New/Mighty Avengers/:The Initiative' is the "core" audience of long-term Avengers fans with an abiding love for the (if you'll permit me a momentary indulgence) Avengers' storytelling engine.

New Avengers sells nearly twice as much as Avengers did pre-Disassembled.

Mighty Avengers sell about the same as New Avengers.

Even Avengers: Initiative sells more than Avengers sold pre-Disassembled!!

So either the fans forgot about Disassembled, or they picked up the proverbial “new readers” to make up for the departed ones.

And Bob Harras' Avengers sold more than all of them.
It seems to me that they aren't picking up 'new' readers, just readers from other books.
It's become a limited pool of readership, and so they have to rely on stunt stories and constantly switching creative teams to keep people interested.

That situation was certainly dumber, Funky, but it got a lot less attention among readers, basically because barely anyone read the book (it did get some mainstream attention, though!).

Which is actually disappointing.
Mess with a character, everyone gets up in arms.
Make homophobic statements/decisions to appease whoever got upset about changes to an old character, there's a slight grumbling.

Mighty Avengers sell about the same as New Avengers.

Even Avengers: Initiative sells more than Avengers sold pre-Disassembled!!

So either the fans forgot about Disassembled, or they picked up the proverbial "new readers" to make up for the departed ones.

"So I dunno if the fans really WILL forget this the same way they forgot, say, Avengers Disassembled."

But do we really? I look back at my own personal history as a comics fan, and I look at myself in, say, 1995. I was probably buying 25-30 dollars a week of comics, which would probably be closer to 40-50 dollars now. Not counting trade paperbacks or anything, this was just what I spent on that week's new releases. Marvel, DC, Image, I was a voracious fan.

Now? I buy exactly zero dollars a month on new releases. Marvel, DC, and Image have literally driven me away as a fan. I still buy stuff from them, but it's all either reprints of their older material or their all-ages, out of continuity books. And I don't think I'm alone in that regard. I think that a lot of "the fans" haven't forgotten, that they've walked away over the years and everyone's just choosing not to remember how big the readership used to be.

Fans do have a breaking point in their personal loyalty to the company (Marvel or DC), and it's a tremendous mistake on the part of that company to assume that just because their latest stunt didn't reach it, it must therefore not be reachable. They might manage to pull off OMD/BND, to retain a disgruntled audience through habit and lingering goodwill (although my gut instinct still says no, this one is going to be where most people get off the f'ing trolley.) But that's not the same thing as the fans "forgetting it".

(Or to quote Terry Pratchett, in response to someone saying, "Forgive and forget, eh?": "I'll forgive. Don't recall anyone saying anything about forgetting.")

Even if they regain their memories of the marriage (which is a real possibility), I do not think they'll bring the marriage back.

Remember, it's not like Joe Quesada is alone on not wanting Spider-Man married - there's a near unanimity among the folks who have worked on Spider-Man the past 15 years or so who just do not like the marriage.

This is more like Batman's Death in the Family where Jason Todd died. The story is over, and so far as editorial and creators are saying, the story is establishing the new ongoing status quo.

Now, with that said, I'd like to say that I, personally, feel that OMD is actually exactly like Death of Superman in that I think that it is obvious that OMD/BND are the first two chapters in a self-contained story.

You see: Superman dies, the world mourns, replacements appear, Superman returns as does the status quo. Batman is broken, another Batman takes his place, Bruce vs. Jean Paul and the status quo returns. These are self-contained stories. There is a clear beginning, middle, and end.

I think that OMD isn't an end, despite Marvel's claims. But, by the sheer naming of the story arcs, is more likely a trilogy. One More Day, followed by Bold New Day, followed by Someting Ending in Day at the end of which some small things might be different. Superman might have longer hair and be slightly weaker. Batman might have a new Agent. John Walker might be a Cap replacement for AWC. Maybe in this instance, the secret identity will still be hidden. But, mostly, it'll be back like it was. I give it 12 months.

Doesn't mean I liked OMD, however. I'd rather accept that Superman forgot to use his heat vision and other powers on Doomsday than that Spider-Man forgot that making deals with the devil was a bad thing.

Theno