Currently very frustrated with the state of the Marvel universe and its characters. Villains in particular, and X-villains in particularx2. I almost wish I could qualify as a diversity hire there so I could bring back some of the older secondary villains that never got properly explored or utilized.
I've noticed multiple Marvel books are using the same plots at the same time like that going on in X-Men Gold and Ms. Marvel also being not-Trump taking over Jersey City (while Secret Empire and tie ins are also about Trump taking over America). Another is the Inhumans and Black Panther books are both about the protagonists trying to turn their monarchies into democracies at the same time. It really should be a sign to them that they have too many books out if they're running more than three different instances of the same story most months.
They likely won't elaborate on anything too much since being too specific hamstrings the writers and leads to more continuity errors, but I wouldn't expect any kind of answers until at least after the Doomsday Clock thing. Or, frankly, until the whole Watchmen thing has been dealt with.
Of course, I don't want anything too restrictive since the implications might be big for DC media in general. It'd just be nice for them to finally address that sort of thing since it's been awhile. Morrison's the writer most likely to touch it IMO.
Just bought The Mystery Knight graphic novel. If you are a sucker for A song of Ice and Fire and want something more in wait for Winds of Winter to come out, you should check it out. It has a good story and a very likable protagonist. If you have read the other two graphic novels based on tales of dunk and egg, you will like this one as well.
Might be the wrong place to put this but from this video it looks like we've stepping up from Dan Slott stalking people who talk bad about Marvel to people doxing people who badmouth them. Technically this woman isn't part of the company but she's in the same circle of friends as some of the new hires. I don't know if they can get even lower without some kind of legal backlash.
Currently very frustrated with the state of the Marvel universe and its characters. Villains in particular, and X-villains in particularx2. I almost wish I could qualify as a diversity hire there so I could bring back some of the older secondary villains that never got properly explored or utilized.
Thought this was kind of funny. Jennifer Walters is still She-Hulk when it comes to trade paperbacks (TPBs) but is Hulk, just Hulk when it comes to the "floppies." Go figure.
The issue date of the TPB was sometime in July 2017, I think Hulk # 1 was from November 2016.
I don't know a lot about marketing, but I gotta think this would be confusing as hell to somebody with a casual interest, looking to pick up a few books.
Thought this was kind of funny. Jennifer Walters is still She-Hulk when it comes to trade paperbacks (TPBs) but is Hulk, just Hulk when it comes to the "floppies." Go figure.
The issue date of the TPB was sometime in July 2017, I think Hulk # 1 was from November 2016.
I don't know a lot about marketing, but I gotta think this would be confusing as hell to somebody with a casual interest, looking to pick up a few books.
She's also "Hulk" inside the book and inside whatever they say to the press when they're not talking about Cho's Hulk too. I think this particular case is because of Marvel Legacy in a few months. Most titles are going to be switching back to their actual issue numbers which means this "Hulk" series is going to become "She-Hulk #159" and onwards. This might be a good thing in the long run if they don't go back to relaunching but that's too for Marvel.
Super Sons #7, Lady Mechanika The Clockwork Assasin #1, Dark Knights METAL #1 (shiny edition), and SUPERB #2. That's not counting the bound volumes I bought today, but I'll address those... sometime in the future. Maybe.
Also, there doesn't seem to be a copy of Mr. Miracle #1 literally anywhere. Just give it a second printing, goddamn DC! I'm trying to give you money! I can't even find a whole copy online, is this some kind of elaborate prank or something? WTF?
Super Sons #7
We start off with Jon playing host with the Teen Titans, them having arrived at his house after a humiliating defeat. Damian, having been told into an old man, is having to go to the bathroom a lot. Nothing is explicit, but I guess that they had to make that joke. When Jon tells TT that Damian is going to be a minute, Aqualad says that Jon is going with them. Seeing as Jon was specifically barred from joining in the first place, he's slightly hesitant. However, he ends up being volun-told by everyone-including Damian, who is extra grumpy now that he's old.
Cut to our villain, Kraklow, the guy who made "artificial" villains and sent them after the TT. He's a magician who wants fame. Apparently, a "centuries-old" version of him arrived from "another reality". I assume that this has to do with the "alternate" versions of people what with Rebirth being a thing.
Old Kraklow gives this Kraklow a box of magical clay, calling it a gift and a curse before being drug back into his own reality. He used the clay to recreate Atom-Master, Time Commander, and Chun-Yull the Faceless Hunter. As he goes to send them off, the Teen Titans bust in. Unfortunately, Time Master just freezes their asses.
Time Master advises Kraklow that his powers won't last forever, but Kraklow is too busy wondering why other heroes haven't showed up. Kraklow and Time Master fuck off, with Atom-Master promising to kill the child heroes. Kraklow still can't get over how other heroes haven't shown up. Atom-Master gets ready to fuck shit up but Superboy BAMFs out of the time freeze, knocking the enemies away. Robin sends Beast Boy after Kraklow, and tells Aqualad and Starfire to fight. He takes Robin with him to hunt after Time Commander as well, telling Superboy to stay out of it. He's not happy about it.
Fight happens.
Robin and Raven catch up to the Time Master, while Superboy and Starfire have a bonding moment beating someone up. After they beat them, the bad guys melt. Or rather, decomposing.
Robin has returned to young Robin, and Beast Boy has caught up to Kraklow. Bad guy is captured. Kraklow turns out to be a complete nobody. Small fish.
Starfire says that they should bring Superboy with them from now on, but Robin says not yet. They tell Jon not to let Daman bother him.
Titans leave to drop off Kraklow, with Jon and Damian staying behind to investigate the clay people. Damian, being Damian, annoys Jon so much that they start arguing, but as they argue, a small portal opens and some sort of mechanical tentacles (?) poke out towards them.
End.
As always, it's pretty good. The dialogue is snappy and entertaining without being forced or gratuitous. They genuinely had some very nice little throwaway lines, like the part where Jon, unprompted, changes his saying "hell" to "heck." While we don't really get a ton of interaction between TT and Jon, you can totally see why they would like him, for each of their own personal reasons. Art is nice, story is logical, though not world-changing. Interesting to see where this goes from here, and what the ending means for the future. Recomended.
Lady Mechanika #1
We start at Athena Industries with a man talking to another about working too much. Man 1 leaves to have some conversation with a third person. He leaves the building, casually singing on his walk home. He greets a lady he walks past, but she pulls out some swords and cuts him in half.
Cut to the cemetery. There's some conversation that I assume is foreshadowing between Lady Mechanika and someone named Mr. Lewis. The people talking are interrupted by the lead investigator for the case, Inspector Singh. He blatantly suggests that Lady Mechanika could have cut a man in half like that, but she just says that the town is filled with "tinkerers and inventors" who could have come up with something to do that with. The conversation is interrupted by another individual named Philippe, who is apparently an old friend of Lewis.
There's a lot of talking and dumping backstory that I'm not going to transcribe because then I'd never be done, but let's just say that while everyone seems glad to see each other, there's some definite bad blood between some people. Also, Lewis, who is very meek, used to make weapons.
EVENTUALLY, a woman named Gwendolyn Cain, who owns Athena Industries, arrives. She wants Lady Machanika to work for her. She refuses, citing a similar offer from an unpleasant person in the past. Gwen scoffs, saying that she is on the up and up and that she started her business for the benefit of talented women. She merely asks that Mechanika think about it. However, when Singh tries to get her attention on her way out, her ladyguards hold knives to him. After some chat she agrees to help him figure out what happened to the dead guy. She also offers Lewis a job, who refuses.
They talk about whether or not she is actually an alright person when, suddenly, an older man has a heart attack and dies. Except it wasn't a heart attack. It was a murder.
Lewis and Phillipe (?) are chatting about their suspicions when Harry shows back up. Lewis punches the fucker for insulting Mechanika. Harry leaves the bar. Cut to the assassin from the beginning, murdering him.
Cut to Mechanika having a nightmare, that I only point out specifically because it has a startling good use of red tones. As she wakes up she readies a lantern and a gun, only to find Lewis. He's babbling drunk about how everyone is dead because of him. She flops him on a couch, but shortyly after there's a knock on her door. Singh. He tells her that someone else is dead. But there's a witness. The witness says that they saw Mechanika killing him. Mechanika is shocked.
After some thought, she invites Singh for some teach, citing that this might take a while.
This is issue 1 of a 3 issue miniseries, apparently. I'm not normally a steampunk person... and this is probably one of the better steampunk things. It's not for me. I'm not interested in the faux-victorian aesthetic, but, while there's a lot of talking, that's kind of typical of the genre. Once we finally leave that one fucking scene it's actually a bit interesting.
Basically, if you like this sort of thing, I think it's a pretty good one of the genre. Seeing as it's a 3 issue mini, I might pick up the other two just for closure. Read at your own risk.
Dark Knights METAL #1
50,000 years ago there were 3 tribes, Wolf, Bear, and Bird. But suddenly, a fourth one arrived. Thus we begin with our Justice League, dressed as knights in armor, in some sort of arena. Mongul taunts. The armor they're wearing negates their powers. Fight ensues.
Batman manages to boop a button on a robot, but he gets chomped for his troubles. But I guess that was the plan. He tells everyone else to do the same.
AND THEN THEY TURN INTO A GIANT FUCKING MECH.
Mongul tries to run. The next scene is an abrupt cut on their way back to earth. On the way in, Alfred tells Bats that a mountain has sprung up. They begin to discuss how this could happen and what that thing is. Flash finds a door that leads to a lab. Inside they find a spaceship thing, and inside that they find some kind of energy core that apparently contains people. But it's giving off weird energy. But there's also Red Tornado! Cyborg tries to activate him while GL finds a message that says "It's chasing us RUN". Then some dudes come in, dressed in some sort of gear. GL readies for a fight but Batman cuts it off, telling everyone that one of them is Lady Blackhawk. Her name is Kendra Saunders and she tells them that they need to come with her. An invasion is coming.
Cut to Blackhawk Island. Turns out this was the base of a man named Carter Hall (Hawkman), who apparently searched for and found a fragment of Nth Metal. He wanted to know more about it, so he sought out the best of the best, including T. Morrow (I assume, he's not named but Tornado is in the background here, too.) He and his team traveled to the "other side", the multiverse. 52. Which is both awesome and hilarious to me. But now there's a Dark Multiverse.
They foreshadow about many things, including a "Great Dragon." Then they turn their attention to something called Barbatos, except for one thing. According to voodoo, Batman will be the one who lets it in.
Supes, rightfully, points out that for this to be the case, the entire universe would have to hinge on Batman's existance. Blackhawk and her crew point guns at Batman, but Red Tornado wakes up, furious. They opened the door. Tornado attacks while GL lampshades how dumb it was to bring Batman there if they were trying to capture him.
Bats hitches a ride on a dinosaur as narration takes over, foreshadowing shit. Doctor Fate, what I think is one of the Metal Men and some egg I don't recognize start to notice and worry about the dark energy. (If anyone knows what the egg is, please tell me!)
Cut to the Batcave. Turns out Bats stole the bit of Nth Metal from Blackhawk. Alfred hears the sound of a tuning fork. There's a narration reference to Final Crisis. It gets really meta. The narrator apologizes. Turns out Carter Hall's journal is underneath Batman's study.
End on Dream of the Endless accosting Batman. The Fucking. Sandman.
For a #1, it's not very friendly to someone who hasn't read the lead up-which is my own fault, but also not perhaps the best idea. But you catch on fast.
It's... pretty good. I'm not 100% invested, but I typically don't like events. The beginning portion, with the armor and Mongul, might as well not have been there, but once they get back home it starts turning into an interesting story. Lots of questions left to be answered, and there is a genuine sense of dread with what's coming next. The end of the book has a very helpful list of tie-ins and such, so that's nice. Art is good, dialogue is pretty good (though Blackhawk gets kind of long-winded, the exposition is necessary imo). It's shaping up to be a good event in my book. Definitely pick it up.
SUPERB #2
We start where we left off, with our hero Cosmosis running into armed guards. He Cyclopses them. Some guy in charge shows up, telling Cos that he wants Cos to work with him. When Cosmosis refuses to tell him anything, he points a gun at him. Fight ensues, with Cosmosis lazering the gun. He runs out. The guy in charge tells his men not to let them escape, and that he wants Cosmosis alive. Cosmosis gets shot with a dart, but manages to clear the fence.
Cut to Kayla. She's recording a podcast. She's interrupted by her father, who has amazingly wonky eyes for one panel. He leaves, and Kayla hears a thump. It's Cosmosis, passed out on the ground. To the surprise of no one, when she removes his visor, she recognizes him as her friend Jonah. She carries him into his house, sneaking past his passed out father.
Cut back to the guy in charge, talking to Lorena. He ends the call and walks into the room with the redhead who was taken away. They realize that Cosmosis probably goes to the same school as Redhead. They increase security in the area. He questions red (whose name is revealed to be Corinna) about Cosmosis. She's snotty about it. As he leaves, he mentions having to "program and train" Corinna "like the rest".
They start throwing around numbers, and it looks like this town will have an unnatural amount of enhanced beings. It's made pretty obvious that these guys think they're doing the right thing.
Cut to Jonah's room. Kayla wants answers. He tells her about the room of dead bodies he found. She realizes that this is where her parents went, but also that Jonah did something very stupid and dangerous. The extra security shows up, knocking on the door, and Kayla has Jonah change. Looking out the window, they realize that they guards are at Kayla's house. Except, because her parents work for the corporation, they aren't allowed in. Should have hid at your place, huh Kayla? The guards show up at Jonah's house, waking up Jonah's dad. They tell him that they need to search his house. They detecting an enhanced kid in the vicinity.
END
Though I gotta admit that last panel, with Kayla looking super shocked over the bed of a really dead looking Jonah is pretty hilarious to me.
A pretty nice continuation from the first issue. Not really much to say about it, it's superhero fare. Better than anything at Marvel at the moment, so if you need something to fill your not-DC superhero slot in your pull list, I'd say give it a shot. Nothing is super intricate at the moment, but frankly, that's kind of nice, not having decades worth of continuity showing up. Just superpeople fighting the government n shit.
Panel layouts when there's no dialogue get a little iffy, but it is a far more polished product than its brother, Accell. Putting these two stories next to each other really show off Accell's flaws... but I also can't say that Superb has a greater appeal. There's something charming about Accell that Superb just insn't hitting for me. Whether this book will stay by the numbers or take on a life of its own remains to be seen.
I also picked up The Shadow #1, Pocket Mortys #2 (I don't have #1), and those aforementioned bound volumes, but this has already taken forever to type up. Maybe another time.
I remember hearing that story. I can believe it. This is what happens when you hire people for their political beliefs, ethnicity and sexuality rather than hiring them for their talent. While Johns and the other folks at DC are not perfect storytellers, the Rebirth stuff at least has a feeling of passion behind it. They care. That's all I'm looking for.
I believe it. The reason Marvel is tanking is that they're hiring people with little to no experience with mainstream comic books, and giving them their own book to write (or high position jobs like editor) based on nothing more than the fact that they are non-white, female, and/or LGBT. Back in the glory days, you started at the bottom and had to work your way up for years doing back up stories, fill-ins, and other less glamorous jobs. THEN you got put to headline a series. Todd McFarlane paid his dues with fill in work on Coyote and Infinity Inc, before getting promoted to Infinity's full time artist and doing fill ins on other smaller titles, finally getting a plum spot drawing Spider-Man. Once the title sold like Viagra at a hooker convention, then Marvel gave him his own Spider title to draw and write.
Nowadays, Marvel is basically walking up to every rainbow haired lesbian that accidentally read an issue of "Supergirl" once and every black man that constantly writes about how "woke" he is, and giving them full rein of a series without either having any experience writing for superhero comics. Then people are shocked when the title gets canned after 6 issues because the characters are wish fulfillment self-inserts, and nothing happens for three issues...and when there is a villain, it's the most obvious, ham-handed caricature of "de ebil white mens".
Meanwhile, DC is coming back hard because they're sticking with artists and writers who have proven themselves and have years of experience. They manage to have characters with diverse genders, races, and sexualities (the two newest GLs are a dark skinned Muslim and a Hispanic woman) but without the obnoxious "hey look at how diverse we are!" silliness that Marvel is doling out. The focus is on the characters' personalities, not their skin color or who they fuck. I honestly can't stand any Marvel book with younger characters because they all act like stereotypical millennials - self absorbed brats who think that only they can save the world via selfies and "wokeness".
The subgroup 4chan/co, which focuses on comics, animation, and sometimes how terrible I am, saw one member concoct a fake letter for Americasent to editorial intended to mock the series with over-the-top praise that they think this comic undeservedly gets. And then they compare the comic to a much-derided movie. The letter is signed from CO, the 4chan subforum in question.
Some of the group mocked the sender for it being too obvious, or not making the right jokes or being a wasted opportunity. And then in this week’s America #7, Marvel went and printed it…
There's a chance a chunk of the letters to America are fake. There's a bunch of that broken not-quite-Spanglish Gabby does. It's that or those letters are also from other "Latinos" who overcompensate how ethnic they are in a vain attempt for acceptance. It's not rare for people to go on about being "1/64th Spanish" or something, especially now when it gets you diversity cred.
I'm kinda busy and can't give detail recapped of the comics I got this week, but why, oh why, did Supergirl go from like issue 12 to issue 1? I get that it's an annual, but it picks up where 12 left off. I had to help someone at the comic shop who was really confused about why it had the "wrong" number. This is why people are so easily confused by comics.
If you're going to do a one-off sort of thing, at least don't make it a direct continuation of the actual main story. /peeve
That said it was an action packed issue. T'was fun.
Haven't read Princeless, but I forced myself to read all 8 issues of TUW. So many things wrong with that book.
1. Nadia starts a lab for girls called "Genius In Action Research Labs", which should be "G.I.A.R.L.", but the comic pases it off as "G.I.R.L.", which only makes sense if it was spelled "Inaction" (which fits the comic to a T)
2. Nadia means "Hope" in Russian. I'm sure this was TOTALLY a coincidence. And of course, she changes her last name from "Pym" (her dead mother's name) to "Van Dyne" (her husband's ex-wife's maiden name). What kind of disrespectful shit is that? It seems like just an excuse to make her name "Hope Van Dyne", like Evangeline Lilly's character in the Marvel films.
3. She acts like pretty much every girl character in the Marvel U as of late - flighty, a super genius without even trying, with this whole "OMG I'M SO RANDOM YOU GUISE!" stupidity. Please throw away the cookie cutter, Marvel. Remember when they made awesome girl characters like Shadowcat and Jubilee?
4. This chick is supposed to know everything, but is SHOCKED to discover in the last issue that her dad smacked Janet once when his bipolar disorder was off the rails. Jesus Christ people - it happened ONCE, he apologized 1,000,000,000 times, and he was fucking kookoo for Cocoa Puffs at the time. Stop beating the dead horse like Ike beat Tina.
It's possible this info is fake but it's an interesting read. If they're heading in this direction I'd be okay with it. Particularly the stuff about starting a new Ultimate line for the diversity kids, not as a new universe but more for the sake of containment, with the Champions being renamed the Ultimates (Waid being kept far away). Slott and Bendis being kept away from the Spider-Man IP which is going to head in a direction closer to Superior Foes. Squirrel Girl getting canned for a New Warriors book done by a different team.
Secret Empire being intended as the bastard child of Secret Invasion and Dark Reign probably surprises no one. Same with Disney eventually pulling on the leash.
4. This chick is supposed to know everything, but is SHOCKED to discover in the last issue that her dad smacked Janet once when his bipolar disorder was off the rails. Jesus Christ people - it happened ONCE, he apologized 1,000,000,000 times, and he was fucking kookoo for Cocoa Puffs at the time. Stop beating the dead horse like Ike beat Tina.
I wish we could move past the slap and do more with Pym's character, he gets the least love out of all the Lee/Kirby creations. Most people who bring it up either do it because that's the "thing" or they never read the issues of the Avengers dealing with it. The other Avengers weren't in the right either as they ignored that their friend had psychological issues and treated him as the butt of the joke. You can't really say "wife beater" when he was having a mental breakdown and would've hit anyone who put their hands on him which as you said, happened once. Someone could counter this by pointing out Jan getting hit in Tales to Astonish which no one does but there it was under the context of superhero stuff if I remember right, not beating his wife in the sense of spousal abuse.
Honestly a lot of those rumors sound like it could be true. It's no secret Marvel hasn't known what to do with the X-Men for years, and once Marvel Studios abandoned the Inhumans movie the comics stopped giving a shit about them. (Which is a shame, since several of the new Inhuman characters were pretty interesting).
DC has been killing Marvel with the Rebirth stuff, and its only a matter of time before the Mouse Overlords step in and take over.
Honestly a lot of those rumors sound like it could be true. It's no secret Marvel hasn't known what to do with the X-Men for years, and once Marvel Studios abandoned the Inhumans movie the comics stopped giving a shit about them. (Which is a shame, since several of the new Inhuman characters were pretty interesting).
DC has been killing Marvel with the Rebirth stuff, and its only a matter of time before the Mouse Overlords step in and take over.
If it's true, it's funny how Bendis is one of the main people shitting the bed and everyone doesn't want to anger him for some reason. We already know Rhodey was killed off because he's an idiot who saw the Civil War trailers and thought Marvel Studios was going to off him. I thought it was weird that they made a big deal about Iron Man being pushed as the new flagship character only for him to coma shortly after so I can buy Riri being a mistake that threw everyone's plans off. It'd fit what we know of him originally planning to kill Peter off in Civil War 2 so Miles can be the one true Spider-Man of 616.
for Marvel.![[Insert Meme Here]](http://uploads.embed.kiwifarms.st/data/avatars/l/13/13221.jpg?1481587806){kind=avatar}
