Comic Book Resources

1. Danielle, after Danny Rand (but they jokingly claim it's actually after Danny Bonaduce), as revealed about 4 or 5 issues ago. Still a pretty excessive amount of time after the birth before they mentioned it, though.

1. Danielle
2. They trained with Night Nurse from Daredevil.

The implication seemed to be that jealousy and grief over their own "barren" nature had Alkyone and the rest insane.

4. Bastion. Really.

3. It wasn't just that Alkyone wanted a baby, but that she was denying her feelings because she had convinced herself that they were "wrong and unnatural".

Could be worse -- it took 2 years to give Wally and Linda's kids names.

It hasn't come up, but is there any way that kid isn't a mutant? And while I'm asking questions, If Luke Cage doesn't have pores (as he evidently doesn't according to the Venom bomb issue) why hasn't he died from heat stroke?

1) Well, the bigger question is why did I spend 3 bucks on a conversation between Luke and Jessica with Luke's sole lines seemingly "You sold out"?

Alkyone and the others are insane fanatics, and therefore their grasp on logic and normal behavior are shaky, so it makes sense that their motivation is a little hard to fathom. Plus, they come from a warrior society that's been largely unchanged since the Bronze Age or so, so they probably have the "all transgressions must be met with death" mentality - while the average Amazon on the street is probably more enlightened (depending on who's writing the book) Alkyone and her associates were shown to be more draconian than the norm.

My take on it is that if you asked them why Diana had to die, they'd say because she was a threat to the Amazon lifestyle, because all the other Amazons would be jealous that the gods had given Hippolyta a baby while they were doomed to spend their lives with no children. In their minds, the other Amazons would have either become resentful, leading to the erosion of the blissful sisterhood that had been the status quo for centuries, or, even worse, the Amazons would try to get babies of their own by seeking out men. They do make the point that, logically, once they got out of their cells and discovered that Diana had in fact been embraced by the Amazons and not caused any resentment, they should have given up on killing her; but they were driven by honor (and other factors they'd never admit to) to follow through on the course of action they'd set themselves on.

As for the thing's never admit to (and probably don't even realize are motivating them): there's the jealousy they attribute to everyone else; good old reliable fear of change (Diana would be the first new resident of the island in over a thousand years, right? I'm not 100 percent sure of my Themiscyrian history, but if I'm right, that's a pretty huge change); plus - and I think this is a biggie - the baby becoming the thing Hippolyta loves most in the world while THEY were supposed to be her chosen ones!

Even if I'm way off and none of that seems like a sound analysis of their motivation, is "dammit, Amazons aren't SUPPOSED to have babies!" really that much worse of a reason to kill someone than "he's Jewish," "he's gay," or "she's a witch"? And ignorant people who don't even come from Bronze Age warrior tribes have been using those for ages. Irrational fear and hatred is, by definition, irrational.

Tracer said

while I’m asking questions, If Luke Cage doesn’t have pores (as he evidently doesn’t according to the Venom bomb issue) why hasn’t he died from heat stroke?

He probably pants like a dog. It's just off-panel.

I had a friend who once hired one of those "average Amazons on the street" for a bachelor's party.

Let me tell, it didn't end well... not well at all!

Trust me, you don't want to meet their Madame.
(...or is it still called a Pimp if she has a mustage?)

My big Avengers-related question is, how is Carol not getting arrested? After the Venom bomb, after the Hood stuff, and now after Luke and Jessica's talk, she just lets the New Avengers walk away without arresting them. How is Luke convinced that registration is so bad if those who registered don't even take it seriously? Honestly, in the last three issues of of Avengers released, Carol let the New Avengers just walk away in each issue. And all three were written by Bendis, so you think he'd get a new trick.

I think you summed things up pretty well, ZZZ. It kind of reminds me of the Rannians, who were once resentful of Adam Strange because he was the only person on Rann who wasn't sterile.

4. The thing that has to be understood about the X-Men is that they have a pretty small rogue's gallery, and it's been actively dwindled over the years. Magneto and Juggernaut have largely given up being evil, Apocalypse was dead for years and is now lost in space, there is no Brotherhood of Evil Mutants anymore, the Sentinels are now the team's personal babysitters, the Hellfire Club is under friendly management, and they just killed Sinister. Of the major enemies that appeared before Morrison's run, the only ones really left are the Marauders, Acolytes, and MLF, and they've all been amalgamated into one group. So I, for one, don't mind bringing back Bastion.

In spite of being a product of the dark days of the mid-90s X-Men books, Bastion was a pretty decent villain. He was powerful, competent, and smart enough to attack the X-Men on multiple fronts - with both a new breed of Sentinels and government legislation. He had a decent background that connected him to two of the X-Men's old adversaries from the Claremont era and explained his motivations quite nicely. Bastion's only real failing was that he was intrinsically tied to the Operation Zero Tolerance crossover, which was one of the lamest and most pathetic crossover events in the history of the X-franchise, made even worse by the fact that Scott Lobdell cut out the planned ending so he could leave the books on time. And after that, Bastion's fate was concluding in a couple of team-up annuals which very few people read. I think Bastion is definitely worth another shot, and bringing him back to lead the anti-mutant Purifiers is a perfect place for him.

They should've named the kid "Christmas."

2. Why are all the nurses in Ghost Rider hot, except for the big one?

That's obvious. At Marvel, you are either a hot, desirable woman, or you are a worthless, fat cow who needs to have her ovaries removed before you procreate.

I read my room-mate's copy of 'New Avengers', trying to put myself into the mindset of someone who'd walked away from comics for a decade, then wandered back into a comics store and picked up an issue of their favorite book. (A decade ago, to remind everyone, you'd be seeing the beginning of Kurt Busiek and George Perez's run on 'Avengers'. Yes, it's hard to believe that anyone would drop that, but suspend your disbelief for a moment.)

There's no Cap (they mention he's dead), no Iron Man (they mention he may or may not be a Skrull), no Thor, and the entire issue is a long conversation between Power Man and some woman who's apparently his girlfriend or wife about their break-up, conducted in front of Ms. Marvel, Spider-Woman, and Wonder Man (who's gone back to the "safari jacket" look.)

Not only could I not imagine someone being interested in continuing to read the Avengers based on this issue, I couldn't even conceive of them believing they'd actually picked up the right series. I picture them checking the indicia to make sure there wasn't a stapling error, and the cover to their favorite comic hadn't wound up on an issue of "70s Rejects In Love".

Average looking women are a pain to draw.

Actually this is sort of true. When I did life drawing in high school the easiest people to draw where either really good looking people or less attractive people. Just easier to focus on distinctive features.

That's probably not the reason for the Ghost Rider nurses though.

@ John Seavey-

Internet-mandated disclaimer of non-hostility: I've read a good amount of your writing on comics, and for the most part I think it's good, interesting stuff, so I'm not trying to bag on you. (end disclaimer) That being said, you seem to be saying that comic books should remain largely unchanged in any major sense across a period of ten years. If I dropped X-Men today and picked it up again in 2018, should I be able to without difficulty drop in on a serialized story that had had about 120 installments, give or take, since my last reading? Why? If that were the case, I'd sure feel like a sucker if I had BOUGHT any of those intervening issues!

Apologies if I've misunderstood (maybe you were just noting the change?), but I couldn't disagree more.

Yeah, Bastion. LOLZ. Needless to say, I won't be picking up X-Force #2 or any other issues.

4. Bastion? Really?

Exactly what i said to my friend when i read x-force

I think the "X-Men don't have any great villains left" excuse is pretty lame. They could always try creating someone NEW.

M Bloom: You sure it was the case with the ending of Zero Tolerance? Because I've heard the same about Lobdell's Eve of Destruction, which had to be scrapped faster than planned because Marvel just signed Morrison for the book. Or could it be he had to change the endings for both stories?

No, Ch'p, you nailed my take on it pretty much just right, and I think we're light-years away from each other on this one. I feel, fundamentally, that comics these days have become too much about, "But how does this story move the status quo?" Comics fans aren't satisfied with a perfectly good, entertaining story, they demand that it must end with things being different than they've ever been before.

The problem with this is, you can only do that so many times before you wind up taking the story somewhere that a) you don't want to go, and b) you can't get back from easily. Which then leads to messy, ugly, kludgy retcons that fans lament because, "Oh, now things are just back to the way they always were," not understanding that they had to put them that way because they'd written themselves into a corner trying to "do something different."

Now, I'm not getting too worked up over Bendis' Avengers run because it doesn't fall afoul of "B". The next writer to do 'Avengers' once Bendis gets sick of the title or the readers get sick of Bendis can clear everything up in about five issues, just like John Byrne quickly wiped away Walt Simonson's run, just like Kurt Busiek hit the ground running after Bob Harras' run, et cetera et cetera. It's the way the Avengers works. As a team book with a rotating membership, clearing the decks is easy. But I still object strongly to the idea that a comic is only worth reading if it advances the metaplot, because ultimately, that leads to a comic that used to be high-octane super-hero action with the stars of the Marvel Universe, now becoming 22 pages of Power Man arguing with his girlfriend.

I think the arguement that the X-Men have no "great" villains left is a fair assessment. In the last five years the majority of the X-Men's villains, great or lame, have been depowered or killed off:

Blob - depowered
Acolytes - majority depowered or dead
MLF - majority depowered or dead
Brotherhood - just a mish-mash of mutant villains, see Acolytes and MLF
Magneto - depowered
Sentinels - became bodyguards, but now status unknown
Hellfire Club - which version? most recently run by Sunspot
Selene - running around New X-Men subplot, probably forgotten
Sauron - in the Savage Land or in jail
Mastermind - all three versions dead
Reavers - cannon fodder
Lady Deathstrike - possibly dead
Sabretooth - dead
Avalanche - mia

These are just off the top of my head. Any character, hero or villain, is not inherently lame. I would go so far as to say Bastion has been used in some lame stories (the less said about Operation Zero Tolerance the better), but his origins are quite interesting. Used correctly, he can be a great villain, any character can.

And the problem with "just create new villains" is that it's been done with mixed results. Remember the Neo? Bastion himself was an attempt to create a new villain.

My only complaint about Bastion is that after blowing him up three or four times, you'd think the x-men would lock up the scraps.

@Eric: I agree. But then again without an "Okay come on guys, let's just let 'em go. They've been through enough for one day" moment every few issues, that series really wouldn't have a good way to continue.

And as for Bastion? Meh, there are worse villains to bring back. At least he kicked ass when he first appeared. It's better than a Hawd Boiwled Henwy last-page reveal, right?

NOTHING would be better than a last page Hawd-Boiled Henwy reveal.

I'm not arguing the accuracy of the X-Men being short on villains or not. I'm saying it's a lame excuse to dredge up the stinkers.

And I'd rather have more new characters, even if they stink like the Neo. Because sometimes they rock, like Cassandra Nova. How are they ever supposed to get more villains, if no one's making new ones?

I think ZZZ got it right on the Amazons. Plus there are a few nuances. Reading between the lines slightly, I think Alkyone and her crew are basically the last remnants of "tribal" Amazon culture. As the relative "loners" of the Amazons (and/or not quite right in the head), they were more prone to negative feelings than those in the thick of enlightened "modern" (well, still incredibly old, but post-tribal, anyway) Amazon civilization. (And incidentally, I think Hipployta, who manifestly does not *need* a Royal Guard, created one in a failed attempt to better integrate Alkyone and crew into the wider Amazon society.)

To them, it seems reasonable that jealousy over Diana might destroy their society, but the rest of the Amazons have mostly managed to get past that sort of thing.

I loved this story, and it was the first time I've ever found the Amazons qua Amazons to be really *interesting*.

[...] Icebox Questions: I read our other Greg’s post with great amusement, here, a few days ago. As it happens, it reminded me of a similar phenomenon I’ve been meaning to talk about for a while now, called “icebox questions.” [...]