Marvel Secret Wars Annoucement - Today 3 PM

[Mayor006]

It's all just a plot to insert Figment in Lockheed's place in the X-Men. Seems like a lot of trouble for that. ::

[Ken Aldred]

Sorry, Marvel, I don't do dares, and so I stubbornly refuse to buy any of your overpriced, vacuous comic books.

[Azkaban]

Now I remember why I quit collecting in the early 90's. I've been blaming it on my kids coming along and couldn't afford it anymore but it was the renumbering mumbo jumbo. No thanks, I'll just keep buying the old issues and watching the movies.

[slym2none]

Who will live? Who will die? Nothing will ever be the same again! (Until a year or two later, anyway.)

 

FTFY

 

 

 

 

-slym

[GeneticNinja]

I didn't like the coming Secret Wars when I heard about it a while back. I thought didn't they do this already? I remember missing the series then but thinking that it was cool that Spider-Man came back with a new costume. Anyway, I was out on this new version. Then I started thinking about yesterday, would there be new #1 issues after this new Secret Wars even though something like Spider-Gwen is just starting? Or will it be like Spider-Man and will Spider-Gwen come out of Secret Wars with a new costume or something for issue #7 or so. Then I started to get interested. Nostalgia was kicking in a bit.

 

I didn't like how DC kept some stuff in their reboot and tossed other stuff. From the stories I read it wasn't a true reboot. And even now I still think that DC will go back to some older numbering. They seem to be going back to some older characters for the coming summer event. But if Marvel is combining all the messy universes then this could be good if the person or people in charge have a firm grip on the future stories and characters. Honestly I wasn't following all the different universes and it got confusing which story was a main story or alternate story. Also, by combining the universes you can get some good stories with original Peter and Spider-Gwen. So I'm going to pick up this Secret Wars.

 

[MR SigS]

Spider-Gwen?!?

WTF?

 

Amazing how my love for the Silver and Bronze age continues to grow.

[Unca Ben]

Spider-Gwen?!?

WTF?

 

Amazing how my love for the Silver and Bronze age continues to grow.

 

Really.

Spider-Gwen? Oh Lordy.

 

...wait, wouldn't that be Spider-Tramp nowadays?

[vaillant]

 

There are thousands of older books for me to go after anyway so it works out better for me. Thanks Marvel and DC

 

That's exactly where I am. It took me a while but I finally realized that Marvel and DC have done me a huge favor. Not looking back at all. For those who enjoy moderns, enjoy! They aren't for me.

 

Me too.

I buy the occasional Modern Marvel just to see how they're doing (like a couple books a year).

Now I just re-read my old stuff and occasionally chase a silver age book.

 

My entertainment from current Marvel comes from the movies. Which I like quite a lot.

And here I do not understand you both.

 

Most people who have gotten to know me a bit are aware of how much I have suffered seeing Marvel led astray from his own vision and poetic, which – in poor words – properly represented the "Marvel age" – which I believe by no chance most recognize as three decades of great developing.

 

Now, you say you loathe what Marvel has been doing in comics and you like these movies, which are all part of the problem as any editorial decision they might take.

 

If you consider this really poor idea of a "numbered universe" came from that crazy genius of Alan Moore (and not from Marvel) – you realize that what the Marvel age was about has little to do with Moore’s own poetic and vision, and all of this comes from the abuse of an artistic device – the one of time travels and deflections in the time stream, and then from Earth Two and the unclear concept of "alternate universes" (which presents an enormous set of problems on an ontologic level).

 

It all dates back to Fantastic Four #5, where Dr. Doom first uses his time platform, but when you abuse something, well, that inevitably turns against you, and that is exactly what has happened.

 

Now, said this I have just read Fantastic Four #14 (640), #15 (641) and #642 and I really appreciated them. I do not know what they are going to do with this thing on a large scale, but Robinson definitely seems to care about the characters, and as Carlos Pacheco showed with his wonderful run and the creation of Abraxas, sometimes it just takes a good writer to forget all the abominations done and be really innovative, which in the end means to respect what has gone before.

 

I am always giving Marvel a possibility (and will always do), but don’t tell me you are so "naive" to believe the money you are giving them for the movies is better than what you might give them for a monthly comic title. :shrug:

[vaillant]

BTW, the battleworld map in some way reminds me of the after-disaster Earth map of Kamandi, less imaginative and a lot more limited because it collages parts, but definitely has the feeling of an "after disaster" map.

 

Now, if I have to make a guess, "Perfection" could be that depressing negative theology patchwork conceived by Krueger and Ross with "Earth X/Universe X/Paradise X" but I hope we’ll see something good coming out from "King James' England" and the "Eye of Agamotto"…

[Unca Ben]

And here I do not understand you both.

 

Most people who have gotten to know me a bit are aware of how much I have suffered seeing Marvel led astray from his own vision and poetic, which – in poor words – properly represented the "Marvel age" – which I believe by no chance most recognize as three decades of great developing.

 

Now, you say you loathe what Marvel has been doing in comics and you like these movies, which are all part of the problem as any editorial decision they might take.

 

If you consider this really poor idea of a "numbered universe" came from that crazy genius of Alan Moore (and not from Marvel) – you realize that what the Marvel age was about has little to do with Moore’s own poetic and vision, and all of this comes from the abuse of an artistic device – the one of time travels and deflections in the time stream, and then from Earth Two and the unclear concept of "alternate universes" (which presents an enormous set of problems on an ontologic level).

 

It all dates back to Fantastic Four #5, where Dr. Doom first uses his time platform, but when you abuse something, well, that inevitably turns against you, and that is exactly what has happened.

 

Now, said this I have just read Fantastic Four #14 (640), #15 (641) and #642 and I really appreciated them. I do not know what they are going to do with this thing on a large scale, but Robinson definitely seems to care about the characters, and as Carlos Pacheco showed with his wonderful run and the creation of Abraxas, sometimes it just takes a good writer to forget all the abominations done and be really innovative, which in the end means to respect what has gone before.

 

I am always giving Marvel a possibility (and will always do), but don’t tell me you are so "naive" to believe the money you are giving them for the movies is better than what you might give them for a monthly comic title. :shrug:

 

I don't loath what Marvel is currently doing, it's just not my cup of tea anymore.

 

When I look at the history of relauches that started in 1996 with Heroes Reborn - what now, there's been 5 or 6 relaunches of FF #1 since then? Fantastic Four is up to V6 and FF up to V2, or something like that.

I just find this re-booting and complicated carryover of histories to be totally convoluted at this point.

The stories might be great, I won't argue that as a matter of taste, but they lost me some time ago.

 

I picked up 3 or 4 issues of FF a couple years ago and it took me a little over 5 minutes to read each issue, so for $12 - $16 ($3.99 an issue IIRC) I got 20-30 minutes of entertainment.

I can spend the same amount at the local Century Theater for 2 hours of entertainment from a Marvel movie.

 

And I enjoy the movies more.

 

The comic's garish computer coloring, decompressed storytelling (if that's applicable to current FF's - I don't know), characters I hardly recognized by their behavior and language - I'm not the target audience anymore.

Little things as well - the FF story I read had Franklin running around with his little sister I guess (?) in the background, and a couple times he said what she was doing or saying was "retarded".

That just turned me off.

I'm not being the PC police; hell, a writer can say what they want - but conversely if I find something unacceptable to my personal standards I can vote with my wallet.

 

Tony Stark and Reed Richards acting out of character throughout Civil War - murdering Black Goliath by releasing a Thor clone (or whatever). Really?

The Hulk running around saying "Hulk Horny!" in The Ultimates - just not what I want to read when I read about my beloved Marvel characters.

 

When I purchase a new book and pick it up and read it, I don't get the charge I used to get. I'm not particularly excited about what's coming in the next issue.

 

The movies, however, do it for me. I felt like a kid again waiting for The Avengers after the movie build-up. And for me it paid off.

I'm currently like a kid in a candy store awaiting The Age of Ultron.

 

The blend of action and humor; the heroes fighting each other before facing the primary threat; likeable characters despite their human flaws; -all these things from the movies combine into what I enjoyed in Marvel's Silver and Bronze ages.

I'm a big fan of what Stan and Co. did - created a long-lived and contained universe from almost nothing.

The Marvel Cinematic universe is doing the same thing, in my opinion.

 

Movie goers around the world are now experiencing what I already knew back in 1965.

And now, like then, it's proving to be popular.

 

I spent $1.50 - $2.00 a month to read the entire Marvel Hero line from '64 to '70 or so. That would include the occasional Annual or 25¢ book.

 

Nowadays, what, about $80 a week? (Not including variants)

If I would'a bought two books at 12¢ each in 1966 and opened them to find identical interiors with the only difference being the cover, I would'a felt cheated.

-But that's just me.

 

 

 

 

 

[vaillant]

No, definitely it’s not just you.

 

Thanks for the explanation about the movies, but again, they are as much part of Marvel decisions as the comics, and while an occasional moviegoer couldn’t care at all, an affectioned reader cannot set aside their "entertainment" value without considering all that they have been doing as a whole.

 

I could agree with a good number of the points you bring forward, but again, I don’t believe at all it’s just a question of taste ("not my cup of tea"). Besides, taste is not something sacred or totally alien to reason and plausibility.

 

And no, a writer cannot "say what he wants" if he is an honest writer that is taking up the chore of giving life to stories and characters which have behind them a tradition, more or less always consistently developed from a unified initial inspiration.

Your example about Franklin clearly underlines that. It underlines that "a matter of taste" it might be, but just up to some point.

 

Unless the management suddenly decides so, and that is precisely what has happened. And it started to happen before 1996. :shrug:

[vaillant]

The comic's garish computer coloring, decompressed storytelling (if that's applicable to current FF's - I don't know), characters I hardly recognized by their behavior and language - I'm not the target audience anymore.

Little things as well - the FF story I read had Franklin running around with his little sister I guess (?) in the background, and a couple times he said what she was doing or saying was "retarded".

That just turned me off.

 

Just a note on this – call it a coincidence!

 

As I am little by little filling all (or most) of the holes in my modern FF collection, I happened to be browsing some I bought recently and came exactly across what you mention, here:

 

 

Actually it is Valeria (the sister, long story, introduced as a teenager by Chris Claremont in his post-1996 tenure, and later on "fixed" by Pacheco) that constantly calls Franklin "retard" – and not only this, there are a lot of inconsistent things as far as the characters go… This reminds me why I did not buy the Hickman books at the time, but let’s see – I will have time to read everything, little by little…

[bb8]

This reminds me why I did not buy the Hickman books

 

I'm probably in the minority, Claudio, but I enjoyed the Hickman run. At its core, I think the FF is two things: first, family; and second, they're explorers, and Hickman really emphasized these two staples. Add to that the mania of Reed Richards (SOLVE EVERYTHING), and imo it was an excellent read.

[vaillant]

Buddy, I don’t think you are in the minority, I am just somewhat surprised as I seem to recall you have a good knowledge of the characters.

 

I am not saying these writers (Millar, Hickman) did not have any "good ideas" or did not "write well". It’s a more essential problem, that goes at the core of what the characters are, to me, following the lines of their development, and how a writer approaches them.

 

I have read little of these runs to comment properly, but there is a thing which quickly catches the eye, and that’s that Hickman’s Reed Richards have very little of Reed in his fundamental attitude.

Besides, if you read the final issues of the initial Straczynski run (which I did not appreciate much and had other problems, but in the end it managed to keep consistent) you will see that this "insatiable" scientific curiosity, which Hickman calls "promethean" (and indeed it is, from the little I can grasp of his run) does not belong to him. In fact, at the end of the story he just realizes he had been presumptuous in his thirst for knowledge, and the story ends up with him contemplating the vastness of the mystery and then holding Sue.

Now, after this Hickman presents us with a Reed that makes that discourse? (I am referring to the issue where he starts the Future Foundation, which I have read briefly) and then proceeds with his wildly fantastic and unlikely speculations over time and space, up to this "Council of Reeds" idea et al.

 

All in all, Robinson current run seems more respectful: I don’t know what they will do with Secret Wars, let’s wait and see.