Sperg about comic books here

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you know with all the stupid shit that's happened bc of covid and the comics industry, i know that there's an argument to be made that it's the reason that the marvel Empyre event got fucked over and King in Black didn't get too much done.

are DC/Marvel going to learn that maybe they should start appealing to their reliable audiences again, instead of giving books to horrible SJW writers and trying to push things that have a track record of not working out for them? I mean, I like Ewing and all, but his Guardians of the galaxy run getting cancelled felt like it was bc he kept shoving the gay shit into it while not delivering on the other story elements with proper pacing and good focus.

and DC's weird 2-3 month "future watch" or w/e it was called kinda didn't pan out bc i can't remember a single thing outside of the whole Superman becoming sorta like John Carter of Mars in vibe. like goddamn, give me good pacing and storytelling. stop fucking trying to sell me diversity for the sake of diversity.
 
are DC/Marvel going to learn that maybe they should start appealing to their reliable audiences again, instead of giving books to horrible SJW writers and trying to push things that have a track record of not working out for them? I mean, I like Ewing and all, but his Guardians of the galaxy run getting cancelled felt like it was bc he kept shoving the gay shit into it while not delivering on the other story elements with proper pacing and good focus.

and DC's weird 2-3 month "future watch" or w/e it was called kinda didn't pan out bc i can't remember a single thing outside of the whole Superman becoming sorta like John Carter of Mars in vibe. like goddamn, give me good pacing and storytelling. stop fucking trying to sell me diversity for the sake of diversity.
It's weird, because it feels like they're willing to go all in on SJW stuff, but then when it inevitably does bad, they can't pull the plug faster. Even some of the more "successful" attempts that didn't get fully retconned/buried tends to receive almost no attention. It seems like it's the worst of both worlds for publishers. They're wasting money on a failed project, then losing their progressive points when they cancel it and admit it was a failure nobody wants to see. Yet, they keep picking up those projects and letting the cycle repeat itself.

I admit I didn't reach much of Future State and thought it was a bad idea so maybe I'm off on this, but it felt like it was an attempt for DC to throw a couple different things at the wall and see if anything stuck, then carry that forward into the main titles. Which, honestly, on paper isn't a bad idea, and if it was just a separate side series and didn't dominate the main titles, could have worked. The big reason I didn't care/thought it was a bad idea was precisely because I knew almost none of it would last.

I think the big thing that's missing from either publisher is any sort of plan. DC feels too afraid to actually commit to anything and keeps changing lanes, leading to disjointed titles that ultimately end up alienating readers. Marvel throws out some big ideas/events, but rushes through them to get to the next big event, so not only do they end up feeling bog standard, but there's minimal weight and consequences and you don't get to see the characters react. It'd be like if in an RPG game if every random encounter was statted out like a boss fight. When the players then reach an actual boss fight, instead of it being a big climatic encounter, it just feels like another standard battle.
 
It's weird, because it feels like they're willing to go all in on SJW stuff, but then when it inevitably does bad, they can't pull the plug faster. Even some of the more "successful" attempts that didn't get fully retconned/buried tends to receive almost no attention. It seems like it's the worst of both worlds for publishers. They're wasting money on a failed project, then losing their progressive points when they cancel it and admit it was a failure nobody wants to see. Yet, they keep picking up those projects and letting the cycle repeat itself.

I admit I didn't reach much of Future State and thought it was a bad idea so maybe I'm off on this, but it felt like it was an attempt for DC to throw a couple different things at the wall and see if anything stuck, then carry that forward into the main titles. Which, honestly, on paper isn't a bad idea, and if it was just a separate side series and didn't dominate the main titles, could have worked. The big reason I didn't care/thought it was a bad idea was precisely because I knew almost none of it would last.

I think the big thing that's missing from either publisher is any sort of plan. DC feels too afraid to actually commit to anything and keeps changing lanes, leading to disjointed titles that ultimately end up alienating readers. Marvel throws out some big ideas/events, but rushes through them to get to the next big event, so not only do they end up feeling bog standard, but there's minimal weight and consequences and you don't get to see the characters react. It'd be like if in an RPG game if every random encounter was statted out like a boss fight. When the players then reach an actual boss fight, instead of it being a big climatic encounter, it just feels like another standard battle.
remember how they hyped a new disabled non-binary Flash? yeah she went nowhere and she's in the current Titans book. I think she's also an Aborigine? weird.

(Hey DC, you have that chinese Flash girl you've introduced? And Bart, and Max, and you even have the leeway to revive a lotta other dead speedsters. Noone's going to pay attention to a rando.)

also Bendis' Naomi is tossed into everything in the background and it's just so weird to me bc we're barely introduced to her. At least when he threw Luke Cage/Jessica Drew/Carol Danvers/Danny Rand around in the backgrounds of his books at Marvel, they'd been long established fan favorites and cult classic heroes. Naomi's just a character that's really new, a rookie, and may be coomer bait. (I'm only saying this because she's also runnign around barefoot.

I agree abt the plan thing. DC was probably right in shutting Didio down and stopping another mass reboot of the comics.

What's dumb is that they coulda just ran with the whole Titans/JSA "full revival" and done it decently. Show the expansion of the JLA, etc. Instead we wound up with a ton of meh events that really didn't do that much. God I miss Convergence, it was kinda fun. Wonder what that Waverider is doing now.

Hell, they spent a bit of time building up Rose/Thorn as an immortal for the oneshot prelude to bendis' Legion of Superheroes book and they haven't done shit with her.

We got to see Psycho-Pirate for a bit, only for it to all be bait for another setup. . .involving the multiverse and shit. Ok cool, but can we get something concrete? I'm cool with Wally getting a little development, and with Jon/Damien doing their thing. I just kinda wish they'd do more with the stuff that they hyped up in Doomsday Clock. Like damn dude.

Superman Theory or w/e it was called? That basically sounds like a DC version of the whole "Weapon Plus/Weapon X" thing from Marvel. Kinda hope that pans out.

New black batman is Lucas Fox's son or sth? Hope it works out but you know it'll be shafted after a few arcs.

Marvel's been rushing, I kinda wish I wasn't aware that they were making Hickman lengthen or "freeze" his grand saga of Krakoa just bc other writers really liked it. IMO the last competent Marvel event was Secret Empire.

(2020 was supposed to have some event called Robot Revolution with Iron Man 2020 and Machine Man 2020? Idk what the fuck happened.)

Fantastic Four did some interesting stuff with the Grimm's marriage finally happening. Johnny Storm cucked Dr. Doom. Feels like the heart of the FF stories are still there but the whole "event" rushing shit just feels bland and bad. The concepts are great but the execution is just kinda bad.

New Captain America book showing how there's now a Captain America network of low level vigilantes taking his mantle. Not a bad idea and invokes the other ideas like the teen brigade and the hotline. Whatever happened to Stevil though?

Iron Man book is kinda fun. Like Korvac as a villain, like Patsy Walker as a love interest. Nice covers. It seems to be a fine enough book.

Donny Cates Thor seems to be interesting. They got Throg.

Nick Spencer's been writing the Spider-Man book, but I kinda hope they're actually bringing Peter and MJ back together for good and not just teasing the fuck outta readers.

Avengers is fine and soemwhat fun. Nice buildup to future plots. same with X-Men. Ewing's Hulk is still a decent read too.

The Death of Dr. Strange sounds like it'll be a lame event and then we'll see him revived in a year. I guess it'd be nice to see a Doctor Voodoo book again?

Ewing Guardians of the Galaxy book gets cancelled. Probably shoulda had a better editor bc his stuff was getting really mismanaged in that comic. More SJW agenda pushing over everything else made it so we kept seeing the gay shit instead of story.

i don't have much else to say. i'm surprised that we don't have a current ongoing deadpool book though, or a new guardians of the galaxy one.
 
I can only touch on some of these because I'm fairly behind on comics/have dropped some titles outright.

I'm guessing Dr. Strange doesn't die and it'll be some kind of "symbolic" passing of the torch thing, because Marvel likes to do that every couple of years to briefly introduce some new Sorcerer Supreme. He has a movie coming out sometime soon, so that all but guarantees they'll be using him in comics.

Dropped Avengers, not because it was bad, just...sorta lost interest. In comparison, I dropped JL because I barely recognized any of the characters.

Behind on Iron Man, but it's been pretty okay overall. Didn't know they were setting up some robot thing, but it makes sense given the previous arcs. Probably for the best it got dropped, I don't know if it'd be all that great, I imagine it'd hit on all the usual robot sci-fi tropes we've seen dozens of times.

I don't read Punisher so this is third hand info, but I think Punisher killed Stevil. Or he was at least hunting him down last I heard. I like the idea of Cap having a group, but I'm always a little weary of picking up Captain America these days because it feels like certain writers just want to use him as a mouthpiece.

I have a soft spot for the FF, and I'm just glad they're all allowed to exist again.

Black Batman is the rando Lucius Fox son that I think always existed but has no character. I only touched on Future State, but didn't really care about him then. I always liked the Batwing costume, feels like they should have just given him that.

It feels like everyone had some kind of plan for Pyscho Pirate that never saw the light of day. I think he died again in the recent multiverse thing? Wasn't really paying too much attention to that because it largely focused on rando multiverse characters and Roy Harper being a Black Lantern for some reason.

Superman Theory was a neat idea, but totally not something any writer was onboard for and is most likely subsequently forgotten now that Doomsday Clock is done.

Naomi sucks and is clearly Bendis's author pet that will most likely cease to exist whenever he stops writing DC stuff, I didn't even know there was a disabled Flash but not surprised they dropped that character. Chinese Flash (Avery?) is okay and was showing up every now and then, now that Wally is back, wouldn't be surprised if she fades into obscurity like the rest of the Chinese characters.
 
Naomi has an upcoming TV show on CW network so DC will likely continue using her. If I remember right Bendis has said that second volume of her solo is in the works as well.

Avery is going to appear in Justice Incarnate and likely will play a part in Williamson's big event next year because she is his creation.

I was surprised that Guardians were cancelled, googled a bit and found out that Richard Rider was also turned gay? What?
 
I love Fantastic Four, but I wish they'd get back to the whole "Is Franklin really a mutant or not" thing, which happened right after the whole X-Men vs FF mini where they had a slapfight over Franklin coming to live on Krakoa. Since then, Slott has done jack shit about it.

My theory is that Franklin still is a mutant, and someone (most likely Sinister) is somehow "hiding" Franklin's X-gene so he can have a new genetic plaything without the X-Men getting up his ass.

Also, i'm glad Skye left. Her whole JOHNNY IS MY SOULMATE thing was so fucking annoying. Who wants to be soulbonded to a fuckboi they barely know?
 
I can only touch on some of these because I'm fairly behind on comics/have dropped some titles outright.

I'm guessing Dr. Strange doesn't die and it'll be some kind of "symbolic" passing of the torch thing, because Marvel likes to do that every couple of years to briefly introduce some new Sorcerer Supreme. He has a movie coming out sometime soon, so that all but guarantees they'll be using him in comics.
tbh they only passed the torch once, and it was to Dr. Voodoo. (Who I think was a really good choice as Brother Voodoo was extremely underutilized. Maybe they'll try using Jennifer Kale more since she's tangentially tied to the Midnight Suns/Sons group that's coming in a game? Or maybe they'll try something with Wanda. I could see them trying to turn Baron Mordo into more of a hero and use a design based on his MCU actor.)



Dropped Avengers, not because it was bad, just...sorta lost interest. In comparison, I dropped JL because I barely recognized any of the characters.
Yeah I kinda just pick up Avengers every few months bc while I like the setup they're doing with the ancient heroes, legacies, and tying in other bit of Marvel history, it's a little slow paced.
Maybe

T'CHalla's a fine enough character, I kinda wish they'd just flat out make the whole "Agents of Wakanda" group into auxiliary Avengers in the book anyways.

(I like the whole Gorilla Man, Ken Hale, being so desperate for death that he fucks up. Whenever we get a full-ass Agents of Atlas return, that's probably going to be addressed.)

Behind on Iron Man, but it's been pretty okay overall. Didn't know they were setting up some robot thing, but it makes sense given the previous arcs. Probably for the best it got dropped, I don't know if it'd be all that great, I imagine it'd hit on all the usual robot sci-fi tropes we've seen dozens of times.
no they set that up and it's kinda an alright event but I do wish they built it up properly because it could have been more interesting.

Iron Man's current volume is just him chasing Android! Korvac across the universe with a rag-tag team that includes Gargoyle, Frog Man, and Scarlet Spider. It's pretty aight.

I don't read Punisher so this is third hand info, but I think Punisher killed Stevil. Or he was at least hunting him down last I heard. I like the idea of Cap having a group, but I'm always a little weary of picking up Captain America these days because it feels like certain writers just want to use him as a mouthpiece.
they used Coates for about a year or so, he just used the book to sperg. The only interesting concept was Coates bringing back the whole "lady liberators" name from the '70s and trying to make it into a secret society of women that help shape the world and etc.

Te Nehesi Coates made Black Panther accessible to modern academics but his work just isn't too much of a fun read. I guess he brought back THUNDERBOLT ROSS as THE RED HULK so its all balanced out for me tbh.

I have a soft spot for the FF, and I'm just glad they're all allowed to exist again.
yea but we finally saw Johnny storm become an Avenger which means all of the FF have officially been mainline Avengers for a period.

Black Batman is the rando Lucius Fox son that I think always existed but has no character. I only touched on Future State, but didn't really care about him then. I always liked the Batwing costume, feels like they should have just given him that.
no we can't have Africans show up in comics, that'd just activate some almonds in people. get them asking the wrong questions and all that.

It feels like everyone had some kind of plan for Pyscho Pirate that never saw the light of day. I think he died again in the recent multiverse thing? Wasn't really paying too much attention to that because it largely focused on rando multiverse characters and Roy Harper being a Black Lantern for some reason.
it was clumsy but now we've got THE GREAT DARKNESS as a general entity now, if you remember the whole GREAT DARKNESS SAGA from classic bronze age Legion of Superheroes and the OG Crisis.

I'll take it over them trying to push politics. It seems making the multiverse and the whole "Crisis" events as public knowledge to the DCU is interesting. They've apparently brought back Pariah from the OG crisis and we're now seeing MULTIVERSE-2.

It's going to be comics bullshit but I hope it's fun.

Superman Theory was a neat idea, but totally not something any writer was onboard for and is most likely subsequently forgotten now that Doomsday Clock is done.
I'm fine with it existing but I wish they'd take advantage of it.

Doomsday Clock took an interesting approach in just using Firestorm as the one who gets screwed. It always feels like a DC event isn't a DC event unless Firestorm, Captain Atom, or a Flash gets screwed over.

Naomi sucks and is clearly Bendis's author pet that will most likely cease to exist whenever he stops writing DC stuff, I didn't even know there was a disabled Flash but not surprised they dropped that character. Chinese Flash (Avery?) is okay and was showing up every now and then, now that Wally is back, wouldn't be surprised if she fades into obscurity like the rest of the Chinese characters.
I like the idea of them existing, it's a corny idea to me.

Grant Morrison's japanese batman's showing up in the current Robin book. You remember the guy?

Naomi has an upcoming TV show on CW network so DC will likely continue using her. If I remember right Bendis has said that second volume of her solo is in the works as well.

Avery is going to appear in Justice Incarnate and likely will play a part in Williamson's big event next year because she is his creation.

I was surprised that Guardians were cancelled, googled a bit and found out that Richard Rider was also turned gay? What?
no the thing is that it never read like he was gay or bisexual. it just read like he just straight out says he loves him like a brother, kinda akin to how Tony Stark refers to Steve Rogers after Civil War iirc.

Or Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm.

or Nightcrawler and Wolverine.

etc.

Avery is an alright character and I don't have many hangups with her since she's had her time to meld with the rest of the DCU.

Naomi seems like Bendis trying to cash in. I do think she's a little bland, but she's kinda inoffensively bland outside of just kinda being "there" in current JLA stuff.

Bendis existing must chuff some SJW egos because he's done everything a pop culture writer wants to do, but it feels like he just doesn't have any fucks to give at this point.


I love Fantastic Four, but I wish they'd get back to the whole "Is Franklin really a mutant or not" thing, which happened right after the whole X-Men vs FF mini where they had a slapfight over Franklin coming to live on Krakoa. Since then, Slott has done jack shit about it.

My theory is that Franklin still is a mutant, and someone (most likely Sinister) is somehow "hiding" Franklin's X-gene so he can have a new genetic plaything without the X-Men getting up his ass.

Also, i'm glad Skye left. Her whole JOHNNY IS MY SOULMATE thing was so fucking annoying. Who wants to be soulbonded to a fuckboi they barely know?

@Water-T

Sinister's probably going to have a very public cap in his ass over what he's done.

Skye and Johnny are just a really fucking funny thing to me. She initiated all of that on him and never communicated jack shit. All she had to do was just talk it out with the family more but uh. . .

the one time Johnny needs support is when she decides to leave. . . really? Sure she got an overdose of the same cosmic energy and all, but couldn't she have at least tried to figure things out instead of having his weird culture-shock thing where *gasp* Johnny Storm has had a history of women.

Like damn, you initiated this, go figure it out and talk.

(I find it funny as hell that Sue Storm officially and canonically stalks Johnny on his dates now and retroactively.)

Skye could be an interesting heroic death because that's a big possibility I see with comics.
 
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I think one of the core problems DC and Marvel have is that both are owned by major corporations the can make profit from their brands regardless (arguably in spite of) of the quality of the comics.

Even if we assume the MCU is on a downward turn, if even a fraction of the people that watched Black Widow and Shang-Chi bought comics it would be a boom for the industry. Marvel/Disney easily make far more money from films, TV and merchandise than they ever made from the comics. They only need the comics around to mine for IPs or concepts to adapt to the MCU.

The same can be said for DC, while their theatrical releases have mixed reviews they've always dominated animated content either as TV series or direct-to-video features. Their live action TV has also done well for itself, even if most of it has been CW fodder. They still make bank with their merchandise since regardless of whatever tripe is in the comics Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman stuff sells.

With all of this, the actual comics are almost an afterthought since it reaches a far smaller market than literally anything else that gets put out. Their parent companies won't let them die, since it would be bad PR, but otherwise AT&T and Disney probably don't care what they do so long as the greater IPs aren't harmed. And as long as the comic publishers know they'll get bailed out by the parent companies, they have no incentive to fix the underlying issues.
 
I think one of the core problems DC and Marvel have is that both are owned by major corporations the can make profit from their brands regardless (arguably in spite of) of the quality of the comics.

Even if we assume the MCU is on a downward turn, if even a fraction of the people that watched Black Widow and Shang-Chi bought comics it would be a boom for the industry. Marvel/Disney easily make far more money from films, TV and merchandise than they ever made from the comics. They only need the comics around to mine for IPs or concepts to adapt to the MCU.

The same can be said for DC, while their theatrical releases have mixed reviews they've always dominated animated content either as TV series or direct-to-video features. Their live action TV has also done well for itself, even if most of it has been CW fodder. They still make bank with their merchandise since regardless of whatever tripe is in the comics Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman stuff sells.

With all of this, the actual comics are almost an afterthought since it reaches a far smaller market than literally anything else that gets put out. Their parent companies won't let them die, since it would be bad PR, but otherwise AT&T and Disney probably don't care what they do so long as the greater IPs aren't harmed. And as long as the comic publishers know they'll get bailed out by the parent companies, they have no incentive to fix the underlying issues.
the problem is that Black Widow's premise is kinda basic and they really shoulda just made it a proper spy flick with superhero elements than whatever one calls what they did.

Shang-Chi is. . .I'm not sure how to articulate this but it feels like they really could have done better. At least the film isn't preachy, but I think the general issue of a cinematic universe on the scale of the MCU is that you really need a Marvel Studios Writing/Plot Editor that helps keeps shit in line
 
Okay, glad I'm not the only one who feels like every single modern comic is just one event after another. It makes everything feel bloated and there's no time to decompress. In just the FF (2018) alone, I encountered like two of them back to back
 
Okay, glad I'm not the only one who feels like every single modern comic is just one event after another. It makes everything feel bloated and there's no time to decompress. In just the FF (2018) alone, I encountered like two of them back to back
i can deal with the events but i'd like it if they actually at least tried to write the tie-ins as having something interesting beyond spectacle.

like yeah sure in DC, the "INfected" jokerized heroes were cool but we didn't do anything with them outside of uh. . .

i think we just had a little 90s angst and no character study
 
Okay, glad I'm not the only one who feels like every single modern comic is just one event after another. It makes everything feel bloated and there's no time to decompress. In just the FF (2018) alone, I encountered like two of them back to back
Yea, for Marvel everything really went downhill when 616 and 1610 merged.
 
Well, didn't really expect much from the Spider-Man finale to the Kindred arc and I wasn't surprised. A long running build up to a sputtering wet fart. But hey, we get to see this classic Spidey costume again in the epilogue. Shame he doesn't have the completely 90's (but always appreciated) wrist rockets for his stingers. After three long years of Spencer's bullshit we might finally be able to have a little fun again with Spidey. Provided they don't just take this opportunity to shit on Ben again.
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I'm also secretly hoping they at least have an issue or two of him in the Scarlet Spider suit. You never know, with this Kindred shit wrapped up I might even start paying for Spider-Man again.

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They still, after three years, didn't nail down which Kindred is the woman. They still swap them out even in this same issue they can't nail down which one wears which colours. Fuck this entire run.
 
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Well, didn't really expect much from the Spider-Man finale to the Kindred arc and I wasn't surprised. A long running build up to a sputtering wet fart. But hey, we get to see this classic Spidey costume again in the epilogue. Shame he doesn't have the completely 90's (but always appreciated) wrist rockets for his stingers. After three long years of Spencer's bullshit we might finally be able to have a little fun again with Spidey. Provided they don't just take this opportunity to shit on Ben again.
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I'm also secretly hoping they at least have an issue or two of him in the Scarlet Spider suit. You never know, with this Kindred shit wrapped up I might even start paying for Spider-Man again.

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They still, after three years, didn't nail down which Kindred is the woman. They still swap them out even in this same issue they can't nail down which one wears which colours. Fuck this entire run.
shitting on ben reily because noone wanted to actually go through with the plot twist in the 90s so we're all stuck with this
 
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