Comic Book Resources

Brian!

Why’d you have to tell everyone? It was supposed to be a SECRET!

Ah, but the screen says text from R Richards, not Reed Richards. See, he could be getting a text from a Ralph Richards, or a Ramona Richards. That’s brilliant on a Purloined Letter level. Who needs encrypting when simple misdirection would work? And if you buy that, then you probably have no problem with Norman Osborn being the most powerful person in the Marvel Universe regardless of all the continuity you have to ignore to make it work. Or the fact that DC already did this story when Lex Luthor was elected president. Don’t even get me started on DC. If you ever told me I would be collecting more Image montlhy titles than either DC or Marvel, I never would’ve believed it, but that is what has happened.

I’m with ya, Argo!

Can’t wait for this endless drag-on Dark Reign to end — maybe then I can resume buying more Marvel comics.

And here we run into one of the limits of fiction: past a certain level of detail, it’s not really possible to create more genius than the author possesses. Just as we can’t actually imagine a future that is stranger than we can imagine, we can’t really depict how the smartest man in the world would act, unless we’re him.

I find it strange when people refer to Dark reign as dragging on or going on forever. When did it start, Mid December last year, January for a lot of books. Thats 9 months ago or so, about 2 story arcs in a monthly book. The way I see it is that Marvel are actually following through on something rather than changing the status quo only to change it again or undo it a few months later. Many people complained after Civil War that Spideys unmasking wasnt dealt with or that not enough time was spent delving into all the 50 state initiative teams. Well this time at least they are going with it for a little while, judging by sales charts lots of people are liking it or they wouldnt be buying the books.

Maybe Marvel should just keep publishing its stuff from the 60′s or keep their characters perpetually dealing with the same challenges/enemies while always maintaining their classis status quo.

Im not the biggest fan of Dark Reign, but I think it has some good possibilitites and some of the stories are good, but Im glad they are sticking with it for a little while rather than just jumping straight in to what ever inevitable massive shake up is next (Magic/Asgard/street level events have all been mentioned).

sorry for the slightyly ranty response. To actually get back on topic, the article is kinda funny. I like Argo’s theory of misdirection. People will see it and think “that cant possibly be sent by Reed, that would be stupid”

People complain when comics are too up their own continuity-holes but then slam it when they try and put in something to explain what’s been going on. I’d prefer one little text screen rather than a thought bubble going “ah! a message from Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, with whom I have been communicating…..IN SECRET” like this would have had 20 years ago.

Umm.. I thought you were going to point out that the character’s eye’s were bandaged, but that he could somehow read the device anyway..

I think – assuming you ignore the dozens of tie-in books and just read what you please – “Dark Reign” has been moving along pretty nicely, as we’ve seen:

1) How the new status quo has affected the heroes (mostly it’s just screwed with the Avengers and painted targets on the back of others) and
2) How Osborn isn’t nearly as smart as he thinks he is (he can’t catch a de-smartened (?) Tony Stark, his alliances – including Emma Frost, Namor and now Daken – are all making counter-alliances…Loki’s doing some side-projects too, isn’t he?), and of course we’re seeing more and more signs that he’s losing his shit anyway as predicted (by both readers AND the other characters)

So I expect we’re seeing the board set up for Act III: How It All Falls Apart. If I had to wager a guess (or maybe just a hope) – it’s that the schizophrenic atom bomb called the Sentry finally goes off, as it’s been hinted at since just after Civil War.

[T]the schizophrenic atom bomb called the Sentry finally goes off, as it’s been hinted at since just after Civil War.

It’ been hinted since New Avengers #1, which came out a couple years ahead of CW, dragged the Sentry out of his gimmick miniseries and jammed him painfully into the forefront of Marvel’s line. Come to think of it, it’s pretty much the character’s only storyline of any sort; otherwise, he’s been little more than a deus ex machina in Avengers stories. If Dark Reign is about pulling that trigger, Marvel’s about three years late for my remaining interest.

All Dark Reign has done for me is limit my purchases to the titles that are, for the most part, self contained outside of it. The main Marvel books I’m picking put these days are: Immortal Weapons, Nova, Captain America, Daredevil, Guardians, and Hercules. This isn’t a boycott. If a title is well written enough and self contained enough to stand on it’s own, I’ll pick it up: the current Iron Man is directly in the midst of things, but the book is self-contained enough that I can read it strictly on its own merits.

All the Avengers have been dropped, and I haven’t picked up any of the mini’s.

My complaint isn’t that books are affected by events…it’s that they’re swept up entirely in events. If you removed the ‘event’ from the book, there wouldn’t be enough plot to maintain my interest.

Clearly, Reed just sent it from whatever number is already in Daken’s phone. And is it really that suspicious that even someone who is just pretending to be an Avenger would have Mr Fantastic’s phone number? And what’s Daken going to do, go around blabbing to people that he got this awesome text message from Reed Richards and haha it will destroy you all?

Plus: I could be entirely wrong since I’m not reading Dark Wolverine, but presumably the fact that that Reed sent Daken an encrypted text message is not that big of a deal, at least compared to what the actual contents of the message are. It’s easy enough to keep getting and sending text messages “secret enough” from those around you – you just don’t tell them. If you’re more concerned than that, you can keep the information concerning that message protected (deletion or password protection). It might be a line item on your phone bill at the end of the month, but then you have access to the billing information and be looking for suspicious texts. So Wolverine Classic or Bullseye or even Sue Richards would all be unlikely to know about it or find out unless they were already looking for something specific.

Obviously, someone like Norman Osbourne might find out easily if he is tracking and intercepting all texts from Reed or to Daken or both. But Reed and Daken will need to communicate somehow and at some time, and presumably someone like Norman has the resources to find out that they are or have been in touch anyways. And if Reed sends out a lot of encrypted text messages to other heroes (to provide them with information on something), then the fact that Daken gets an encrypted message from Reed is only slightly more relevant than the fact I sent an encrypted message to Amazon.com last month.

Not only that, his screen is crooked!

Obligatory technical nitpick here:

Encryption only works if the sender and receiver are known to each other – the receiver has to know which of several possible decryption methods to use. Therefore, the screen message is completely legitimate, and suitable for a time where the fact of communication between two known entities is well-known, but you do not want the message to be overheard.

What you’re referring to is source obfuscation, which is how you send someone a message without making it clear who did the sending.

I think the most critical part here is that Norman Osborne has given all his Dark Avengers *incredibly crappy phones*. You’d think Daken would at least hold out for a Blackberry.

@David-

Yes, but in the context of the story, Daken is trying to keep his contact with Reed a secret, presumably even if anyone got ahold of his phone. “Encrypted message from Bob Beauregard” would do the same job, providing Daken could remember, say, a half-dozen aliases.

To weigh in on the other controversy’s:

Legit error here, but a good crossover overall, as massive crossovers go.

^controversies

At least Reed didn’t have to type “unbeknown”, then it really would be embarrassing.

Unless it is not Reed Richards at all, it’s just someone who knew about the encrypted text pretending to be Reed Richards.

Ummm … what is that device the stupid-looking characater is holding?

Signed –

Stubborn & proud non-owner of a cellphone or anything approximating one

Who drew that ugly, ugly panel?

They were obviously in a hurry or just didn’t give a damn.

Richards!!!

Anyone remember the No-Prize comic from the 80′s? There’s a Lee/Kirby X-Men panel where the Beast is in the hospital and Professor X telepathically reminds him not to use his real name in public…just before calling him “McCoy” in front of everybody.

I’m more amused that the caption says “The first thread of a well-laid plan”.

The phone with unencrypted screen is being used as a visual shorthand here by both the artist and writer. How then, should one depict a phone receiving an encrypted message? A screen full of garbage or letter substituted words and then a panel Daken with an expression of recognition? What about a screen full of nonsense characters shown over successive panels that resolves to the message? Both of those take up extra page real estate and do nothing for the story, except let the artist show off by doing something “cool” — and here I thought you guys weren’t fans of story decompression!

Trust me, putting all of that ‘story’ into one panel is a rare gift from a modern comic artist.

I see visual shorthands used all the time in television and movies — scenes involving computers to be destroyed invariably have someone shoot at or crack the screen of a laptop mainly because it looks more dramatic than someone beating up on a black box. I always get a kick out of moments like that knowing that the computer is likely still working.

“People complain when comics are too up their own continuity-holes but then slam it when they try and put in something to explain what’s been going on. I’d prefer one little text screen rather than a thought bubble going “ah! a message from Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, with whom I have been communicating…..IN SECRET” like this would have had 20 years ago.”

I think a thought bubble would have worked just as well. It didn’t have to be that long, it could’ve just been “A coded message from Reed Richards!”. That’s basically what the text in the panel says anyway, they could’ve just transferred it to Daken’s thought bubble.

The real silly part are the words “encrypted message”. As others have stated, encryption is only about the transmission. The receiver has to have the ability to decrypt the message or it’s useless. No one actually includes the the words “encrypted message” in the message or subject.

If Reed and Dakken really cared about someone getting their hands on Dakken’s phone, they’d have used some sort of code, so that the decrypted message was still meaningless or at least obscure to anyone who might get a hold of it.