Comments on: Comics That Probably Shouldn’t Be Good But Are

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:34:11 +0000

As concepts Civil War the mini and even Secret Invasion the mini, though both flawed, worked for me. I bought the idea of Cap and Iron Man on opposite sides of the registration issue and I enjoyed the whole turn around in Secret Invasion that had the public cool to Stark and side with Osborn.
What I don’t like is how drawn out these stories become to the point where they saturate pretty much every title out there.
I remember back when Grant Morrison was on JLA and wrote his epic World War III storyline and there were complaints from fanboys – Oh, why isn’t this a crossover. Oh, why don’t we see the impact of this in the other books.
I don’t WANT that. If I’m not a huge fan of something, I don’t want it permeating my entire hobby.
The Slott/Gage Mighty Avengers book is a HUGE breath of fresh air for me because, despite some links to Dark Reign, they’ve been doing what the Avengers should be doing – fighting world threatening, sci-fi threats.
I’ve tried New Avengers on and off through the years. I like some of Bendis’ work (the aforementioned Secret Invasion, again despite its flaws, and the Illuminati mini, along with his initial storyline of New Avengers).
But my God, THEY DO NOTHING. Once Civil War hit, the book was about the New Avengers hanging out at Dr. Strange’s house, fighting and getting beat-up by a second-rate group of Masters of Evil, dodging Iron Man, complaining about the Skrulls but doing nothing about it.
Now its all about hanging out at Captain America’s apartment, fighting and getting beat-up by a second-rate group of Masters of Evil, dodging Osborn, complaining about Dark Reign but doing nothing about it.
Someone above asked “how do you know what issues to read and what unnecessary junk to avoid.”
As a 35 year old comics fan, I’ll tell you the secret. Buy the mini-series, skip the next several months worth of books, and then by the next mini series if you’re really interested.
Seriously.
This is the problem with these events. The writers of the various books are not allowed to tell any meaningful storylines until THE NEXT BIG MINISERIES. It’s all treading water.
Agents of Atlas’ first few issues were a perfect example. The premise was the Agents were going to infiltrate Osborn’s government, learn his secrets, take him down.
Did they? Of course not. Because it wasn’t time for Dark Reign to end.They fought the New Avengers, bumped into Namor, and that’s it. Jeff Parker’s a fine writer, but he does not havfe the keys to Dark Reign and the best he can do is play along.
Trust me, everything that happens between Dark Reign and whatever series wraps it up – this The Seige story, perhaps? – will get recapped in one way or another in that next series. EVERYTHING. You’ll get why Cap is back. You’ll get why Iron Man has been in hiding. You’ll find out what made Osborn snap and reveal himself. You’ll learn why the X-Men are on an isolated Island.
I so miss the days when a comic book meant something because a title was self-contained and you had actually storylines and ongoing subplots that eventually ended after a couple of months And either new ones began or the writer left and a new creative team took over. You got entertaining stories, some progression of character, and it wasn’t dictated by what some other writer was doing or by the company’s plans two years from now. Occasionally they’d weave in and out of a larger company wide event, but then the title would go back to their own little corner of the universe.
That’s not the case anymore wiht Marvel. It hasn’t been for about three or four years now.
And, unfortunately, sales are up and DC is following suit. First we were told Blackest Night would be contained to the mini and some special connected mini series. Now books line-wide are being forced to tie in.
The days of Grant Morrison blowing up the world in the JLA for a good, self-contained story are over. Now everyone’s got to be in the pool, and it sucks.

By: Joe Rice

Joe Rice — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:37:14 +0000

No, I agree, Sgt. My first line was not meant to be taken seriously.

By: sgt pepper

sgt pepper — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:36:37 +0000

Joe, I wish you’d post more.

Anyway, I don’t agree that Marvel superhero comics are pretty terrible right now. They’re actually as good as or better than I can remember them ever being (is that faint praise? anyway, they’re pretty good right now). The Spider-Man trust is turning out some awfully fine comics (especially when they bring in Waid), and we’ve got lots of comics coming out from Brubaker, Van Lente, Jason Aaron, Fraction, Bendis, Hickman, and occasionally Ellis. I’m usually first in line to complain that I wish comics were better, but right now, they’re pretty darn good.

By: bongoes

bongoes — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:05:32 +0000

Honestly, if Dark Reign doesn’t end with Osborn becoming Green Goblin again and being defeated by Spider-man alone then Dark Reign isn’t really worth it in my eyes. Everyone else may have their reasons to hate him, but in the end beating Osborn should be Spidey’s job. Always.

By: Les Fontenelle

Les Fontenelle — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:04:31 +0000

Quicksilver never personally killed the queen of an invading alien army in front of TV cameras – which was how Osborn skipped the whole “proving himself” period.

And Osborn didn’t need Captain America to vouch for him, the American government itself vouched for him. Osborn is a War Hero for the public, a PR advantage that Quicksilver never had (plus, Osborn isn’t a filthy mutie).

By: T.

T. — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:02:28 +0000

If people believed in Quicksilver’s redemption, why wouldn’t they believe in Osborn’s?

First, Captain America vouched for them. Second, if I recall correctly the public didn’t accept them right away. Weren’t there protests and stuff? I thought they had to repeatedly prove themselves to gain acceptance. (I could be misremembering)

By: jazzbo

jazzbo — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:36:03 +0000

In regards to the believability of the storyline, everyone seems to be forgetting that the people of the Marvel U have shown themselves to be pretty stupid/gullible in the past. “You want to send a team of known criminals and murderers to arrest people that we thought of as heroes just a couple days ago? Great! Those heroes are evil because they didn’t register!” It doesn’t suprise me at all that they would be oblivious to Osborne’s shenanigans.

By: Joe Rice

Joe Rice — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:04:06 +0000

I feel Bendis has really found his footing within the last year. And New Avengers has Stuart Immonen, who is frickin amazing on his own, and seems to raise Bendis’ game like crazy. I couldn’t read Ultimate Spider-man until Immonen came along, and it quickly became one of my favorites.

By: Brad Curran

Brad Curran — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:17:18 +0000

“I’m picking up Dunlavey’s MODOK story. That’s it.”

Good pick. If you buy only one DR related story, that’s a pretty good one to settle on.

I’m buying a fair bit of Dark Reign stuff on the fringes (Herc and Atlas, which, according to Parker, isn’t canceled; may have missed something since that interview). I’m enjoying how well it’s worked. I also find it interesting that Joe sees the Avengers books and SW as a serial. Douglas Wolk was reading the Avengers books like that last year, through Secret Invasion. That appeals to me, but Bendis has never really convinced me he’s a good team book writer.

By: Joe Rice

Joe Rice — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:50:15 +0000

Dude, dating would be so much easier and so much harder in the MU.

By: Dan Bailey

Dan Bailey — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:36:55 +0000

Hell, we’ve ALL “been mind-controlled & later forgiven.”

Haven’t we?

By: Joe Rice

Joe Rice — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:15:09 +0000

And how many times have good guys been mind controlled and later forgiven? It’s a whole different world of moral judgements when you like at the MU.

By: Les Fontenelle

Les Fontenelle — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:05:57 +0000

I agree that Dark Reign has been far better than expected. I’m not so surprised about Marvel’s obvious longterm planning because I’ve been noticing it since Civil War – which, beyond all the online whining over Cap and Iron Man not being BFFs anymore, fully accomplished its goal of returning the MU to a status-quo where their main heroes could believably fight each other about actual disagreements (as opposed to the “everybody is everybody else’s buddy” status-quo that four decades of team-ups between heroes had created).

Like it or not, this is a very competent “event” (if we can even call it that; so far the “Dark Reign” banner has only signified that the comic that wears it references the temporary status-quo). It’s interesting to observe that after fracturing their superhero community with Civil War, now Marvel is slowly bringing them together again by giving all the heroes a clear common foe.

I honestly don’t care about which real-world events or people this story is supposedly referencing, and I was sold on the idea that Osborn would be accepted after reading Osborn’s TV interview where he argues that Quicksilver and Hawkeye were once terrorists/villains too, and THEY redeemed themselves and were accepted as heroes. And that rang true to me; of COURSE the examples of Hawkeye and the former mutant-terrorists who became beloved heroes could be twisted to serve as precedents for Osborn’s “redemption”. It DOES make sense, if we stop to think that Quicksilver once was allied to Magneto against mankind and eventually redeemed himself. In the Marvel Universe, these kinds of villain-to-hero redemptions have happened so many times that it stands to reason that an unrepentant villain might also be able to convince people that he redeemed himself. If people believed in Quicksilver’s redemption, why wouldn’t they believe in Osborn’s?

By: Dan Bailey

Dan Bailey — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:54:44 +0000

Something tells me that Mr. Poehler is either unfamiliar with or dismissive toward Sturgeon’s Law — 90 percent of Everything is Crap. (Which would seem to apply even to *gasp* DC & Marvel superhero comics.) Then again, Ted Sturgeon was also generally guilty of “terrible writing,” I suppose.

By: Joe Rice

Joe Rice — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:20:35 +0000

Wow, Aaron! You’re awesome!

By: Sijo

Sijo — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:50:51 +0000

To me, the biggest irony is that while it’s Marvel that’s calling itself “dark” these days, it’s DC I don’t feel safe reading. At least Marvel keeps its zombie heroes where I can avoid them.

By: Aaron Poehler

Aaron Poehler — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:32:15 +0000

I stopped after the first sentence: “Everyone knows that DC and Marvel superhero comics are pretty terrible these days.” What a blanket, unsupportable crap statement, and terrible writing. Think before you submit such indefensible garbage.

By: Willy

Willy — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:21:50 +0000

Heh, superhero comics? Pretty terrible all around. Everybody in the world agrees.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to post on a predominantly superhero comic website.

By: Dan Bailey

Dan Bailey — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:02:55 +0000

Who is this pmpknface person? Apparently (since he *choke* disagrees with me), he is NOT the same lovely & talented pmpknface who posts on the Classic forum.

Begone, Skrull pmpknface!

Begone!

By: Neal K

Neal K — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:59:42 +0000

I don’t understand all the Dark Reign hate either, Joe. I happen to be reading all the “core” books, but even if I wasn’t, I don’t think I’d have a problem understanding each book on its own or feel like I’m missing out on a larger story. I kind of like that aspect of Dark Reign – its really not a proper event in that it doesn’t have its own book, and there really isn’t any kind of sequential story that has chapters you have to read in order (in other words, the end of a random issue of “Secret Warriors” doesn’t say “CONTINUED IN NEW AVENGERS” or anything like that). It’s just a temporary status quo for the entire MU, and you can read as few or as many titles as you like without missing out on anything. But if you do read a bit of it, it all fits together in a pretty decent way.

I’ve been picking up a few of the mini-series, basically ones that feature creators I like or characters I have an interest in for some reason, but I don’t feel I am missing out on anything. In fact, most of the series would work fine without the “Dark Reign” banner splashed up top. As for the question of “why do we need a Zodiac mini” asked above, the answer is simple: it’s a fun story by a good writer (Joe Casey) and talented artist (Nathan Fox). That’s it. Good work is good work, whether it says “Dark Reign” up top or not. I like Paul Cornell so I buy the Dark Reign: Young Avengers. I don’t follow the work of Zeb Wells, so I didn’t pike up Dark Reign: Elektra. Its really not that complicated, and a lot of the over-saturation complaints really just add up to a big, pointless hissy-fit about trade dress.