the OFFICIAL comic books discussion thread!!!

[kylerexpop]

first off, there is no way steve rogers is REALLY dead, or at least will stay that way in the long term. *spoiler!*

i think in cap's own title, red skull has a time machine, they've introduced a character in the ms. marvel special that can rewrite the end of stories/events, and they've got life decoy models and astral soul projection and hand reanimating processes galore.

i do think it's classy that due to the delay on the next issue of captain america (not until may!) it WILL be a while until cap comes back. and i guess he can't really return until the completion of the five-part "fallen son" mini-series.

as far as the effect of the whole captain america incident, my shop sold out of the entire order of that issue in about two hours. which is pretty much unheard of. granted, we had dudes coming in ranting about "cnn news story" and "gonna be worth somethin' someday" who bought FOUR COPIES (dude.), but still. people were coming in by the truckloads and calling all afternoon and evening to see if we still had copies. fun!

all this goes to illustrate to me is that dc comics is so superior to marvel comics, it's not even funny. '52' trumps ANYTHING marvel has done in the past five years, and 'countdown' will demolish anything marvel does over the next five.

plus: dc has grant morrison, greatest comic book writer alive. marvel has jeph loeb, worst person on the planet.

winner: dc!

[Ringo]

Actually, they've worked real hard to keep Alan Scott, Jay Garrick, and Ted Grant alive. And it makes about the same amount of sense as radioactive spiders/monkeys/space...gas (betcha the Watcher had something do with it).

I don't know if anyone else has said it (I really haven't had time to read the whole thing), but JSA at the moment is completely amazing. Of course, anything Geoff Johns writes is strictly amazing, but I'm really happy with it right now, because they seem to be bringing back the Levitz/Giffen Legion of Superheroes, my favorite period (stupid reboots).

And I'm with Kyle. 52 rocks ever so much.

[TheLuckyOne]

JSA rules... I'm pretty off DC right now (no 52, Countdown, or any of that jazz for me), but I'm still reading 'Tec and Batman (the Dini and Morrison issues, anyway), JSA, JLA, and (for another month at least) Teen Titans. And I picked up JSA Classified today just because the cover was awesome- Alan Scott is, as coccatino said, the Man. He and Batman in that Batman Black & White story... awesome.

Actually, I'm not as big on Marvel these days either, after the letdown of Civil War. Still reading half the X-books and New Avengers (screw you, Mighty Fascist Avengers!), plus Ant-Man, Runaways, Loners, F'N Spider-Man, and most of the Ultimates line, but I seem to be in another indie comic phase. Maybe I'll write another article about 'em.

(Oh, and Rogers is probably dead for now. You can get away with replacing him easier than you could Superman or Batman, and the Winter Soldier is right there. But I give it less than 3 years before he's back.)

-D

[sirgallahad2]

I'm just waiting for GartH Ennis' "The Boys" to come back. Only Ennis can write profanity like that. Can't wait to see where it goes next

[TheLuckyOne]

On another message board I frequent, someone posted the following, which I think says all there is to say about Marvel's approach toward "events" recently:

That's Marvel's big problem, all of its event stories are basically, "Hey! Remember this obscure Marvel character? You liked him, didn't you?

"Well too bad, cause he's dead now mother****er!"


Sad but true.

-D

[coccatino]

DC is no stranger to this, either, in recent years, though...

way to make me care about Blue Beetle and Elongated Man, you jerks!

[TheLuckyOne]

True. I still can't believe they killed Spoiler. The issue where she and Robin had their super-cute teenage date night, and then at the end of the issue she revealed she was pregnant, is still one of my favorite comics of all time.

-D

[TheLuckyOne]

Well, yesterday brought us two pretty cool comics, each examining how the new status quo affects young heroes in the Marvel Universe, but from opposite ends of the spectrum. Avengers: The Initiative #3 finds Komodo, the young girl who stole the Lizard formula and used it on herself, drafted to help hunt Spider-Man. Iron Doom and his gang of tin-star tyrants are no longer interested in capturing rogue heroes; instead, they just want to inject them with syringes full of nanites that will permanently take away their powers. That leads to the following exchange, while Spidey is wrestling with Komodo, which does a better job of reminding me why Spider-Man is Marvel's greatest hero ever than any comic in recent memory...

Spidey: "Fine. You want me to be serious? I can do serious. You've already lost."
Komodo: "No way. I've only got to prick you once, and--"
Spidey: "Not gonna happen. Know why? Because I'm Spider-Man. And you're a dollar-store version of the Lizard. See, I beat down guys like Doc Ock, Sandman, and Venom all the time. And you're just not in their league. Oh, I'm going to win. And after you've crawled back home with your tail between your legs, you know what happens then? Then your buddies are going to stick one of these things into you!"
Komodo: "What? No..."
Spidey: "Ah, you blinked." *THWAP!* "Game to Spidey."

That, plus Dani Moonstar's appearance (with the Demon Bear!) and Peter making fun of his more loser villains because they didn't bring their teammates puts it over the edge as a great issue.

Spidey: "Please, can't you think of me for once? 'Spidey captures lame half of the Sinister Syndicate.' How's that going to look in tomorrow's Daily Bugle? People will think that I'm slipping."

And on the other side of the fence, finally we see some true resistance to Stark's fascist agenda. New Warriors brings back Marvel's young, rebellious team, fighting both to cram Registration down Iron Doom's throat and to redeem the good name of the New Warriors after Stamford. Issue 1 plays out as very much an (intentional) homage to The Matrix, with Sofia Mantegna, formerly Wind Dancer of the New Mutants before she lost her powers on M-Day, getting messages through her computer telling her she's needed, and that she has to be told the truth. Over the course of the issue (as villains are mysterious captured and graffiti tags left behind saying "The New Warriors are back"), we find her approached by the former Beak (of, as I'm sure Kyle remembers, Grant Morrison's New X-Men run), also powerless since M-Day, who wants to recruit her to a secret group of freedom fighters. At the end of the issue she's brought to a secret headquarters and there comes face-to-face with the leader of the new New Warriors... Night Thrasher? As in the guy who died with his teammates in the Stamford tragedy?

I know we don't have a ton of comic readers here, but anybody else read these two issues? Thoughts? I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens next in both.

-D

[Al]

And here I thought you weren't going to read The Initiative, Mister "I Hate The Iron Man Gestapo!"

The Avengers was definitely a great issue, but I didn't pick up the New Warriors. Now I may have to. Sigh. So much for cutting down my weekly intake...

[PoolMan]

theluckyone said:

Spidey: "Ah, you blinked" *THWAP!* "Game to Spidey."

Spidey: "Please, can't you think of me for once? 'Spidey captures lame half of the Sinister Syndicate.' How's that going to look in tomorrow's Daily Bugle? People will think that I'm slipping."

See, THIS is what was missing from the movies. Wisecracking, funny, trouncing some lower class crooks/villains Spidey.

[TheLuckyOne]

gunslingeral said:

And here I thought you weren't going to read The Initiative, Mister "I Hate The Iron Man Gestapo!"

Heh. I ultimately decided to only buy Marvel books that either A) have nothing at all to do with the Initiative, or B) don't show Iron Man or his gestapo in a heroic role. Since the Initiative so far has portrayed them as bumbling hypocrites who are in bed with ex-Nazi scientists, I feel okay shelling out money for it. Same for New Avengers. Absolutely no Mighty Avengers, Iron Man, Omega Flight, or anything like that, though. That's my Pavlovian experiment with Marvel- they get a treat for Anti-Registration books, they get nothing for Pro-Registration books. We'll see how it works.

-D

[blinkfan]

Sorry to interrupt but I just bought issue 1 of 4 of MARVEL ZOMBIES V.S ARMY OF DARKNESS. Has anyone else got it and did they love it as much as I do (which is alot)

[TheLuckyOne]

Sorry Blinky, haven't read it. Cool concept, but I'm trying to buy fewer comics these days, not more.

So. In the same week, one Flash dies and another returns. Not surprising, from what I've heard about fan reaction to Bart as the Flash, but disappointing... with Superboy and Impulse dead, a Young Justice reunion is looking less and less likely. Having Wally back is nice, but I know a lot of old-school fans were thinking it'd be Barry... they really teased the hell out of that in Barry's direction, too. Batman's reaction was nice- you can't be sad when an old friend returns, but when it's not the one you thought, that's bound to be a disappointment.

Still undecided on whether I'll pick up the new book- Mark Waid back on Flash is one of the only things that could tempt me to do that, but we'll see.

-D

[Grifter]

sirgallahad2 said:

I'm just waiting for GartH Ennis' "The Boys" to come back. Only Ennis can write profanity like that. Can't wait to see where it goes next

I tried to read The Boys, but found it to be really really painfully boring. It has the bones of an interesting story here - team of (semi-)normal humans take down a corrupt hierarchy of superheroes. That's good stuff! But it becomes really uninteresting when he writes the heroes as completely amoral. They engage in a giant list of acts that are definitely not appropriate for a family website like this, and we're supposed to laugh as acts of savage violence are done to them. I couldn't though, because that just seems like violence for the sake of violence. We get to watch Garth set up his favorite strawmen and then knock them all down once again, and I've seen it before. It wasn't even that fun last time. Maybe if the heroes were written as tragic figures rather than as cartoonish caricatures, I'd actually like this series.

[TheLuckyOne]

Sad news for comic fans today- Mike Wieringo has passed away. Not that there's ever a good time to die, but he was only 44... that's really sad.

We'll miss you, 'Ringo.

-D