Any chance the big events will stop?

[TheCorpulent1]

Ben Reilly would've absolutely worked for me if they'd played it as a legacy. I rather liked Ben and Peter as "brothers."

 

[Dread]

Ben Reilly would've absolutely worked for me if they'd played it as a legacy. I rather liked Ben and Peter as "brothers."

Unfortunately, by the time they started playing it like that, the damage was already done. Ben represented nothing but writer's vision/dream/fantasy of single Spider-Man and Peter was their "old fogie" Spidey who was married and expecting a baby. By the time that "brother" aspect came into play, Reilly was killed by Norman Osborn.

Still, you would think that death would matter to Peter, but apparently the only dead people in his life he can't get over are Gwen and Uncle Ben. Reilly, George Stacy, Jean DeWolfe, they just upset a weekend.

Marvel often has made some terrible situations out of potentially decent ideas by overreaching, going too far for retcon territory rather than just sticking to their guns in the present, but whatever.

X-23 is the only cloned character at Marvel who is treated like a real character and not canon fodder.

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

Problem is, Ben Reilly had fans BEFORE time passed. He's GAINED more as the years went by, but the fanbase always existed.

 

[Dread]

I am amazed at that fanbase, though. Reilly is literally the character manifestation of the collective editorial fear of change that Marvel has had for Spider-Man for about 15 years. He is the embodiment of all of their assumptions of what they feel his readers want out of him after 40 years, and the desperate, foundation-damaging tactics they are willing to go through to prevent Parker's character from maturing or changing in any way beyond details after almost half a century. He also was part of some pathetic stories trying to be "kewl", and I was never a huge fan of that redesigned costume, even if I appreciated making Spider-Ben look different in the mask.

The Clone Saga was a bad idea and a colossal failure. Giving Marvel the idea that it was merely a misunderstood gaffe will only lead them to do equally colossal failures in the future to attempt to try to fix what isn't broken. The marriage has never been Spider-Man's problem. It has been the lack of any writer to figure out a supporting cast, and to present and update the mythos accordingly. Part of me wonders how Spider-Man could be different if for the last 15 years the editors went, "Okay, he is married now, how can we possibly make a married couple who are under 27 dramatically interesting besides just having them fight a lot like us old married guys in middle age do with our nagging wives?" Imagine the growth potential. Instead we have had 15 years of editorial mandates that feared growth, feared change and looked wistfully back at how Spidey was in 1977 and how liberated that was.

The inability of those in charge to look to the future instead of just repeating the past, often their own nostalgic misremembering of it, is the cause of no end of society's problems, much less Marvel's.

 

[Upset Spideyfan]

I wonder if Ben Reilly had stayed would we be in the middle of Spider-Man: Rebirth.

 

[Abstract]

I am amazed at that fanbase, though. Reilly is literally the character manifestation of the collective editorial fear of change that Marvel has had for Spider-Man for about 15 years. He is the embodiment of all of their assumptions of what they feel his readers want out of him after 40 years, and the desperate, foundation-damaging tactics they are willing to go through to prevent Parker's character from maturing or changing in any way beyond details after almost half a century. He also was part of some pathetic stories trying to be "kewl", and I was never a huge fan of that redesigned costume, even if I appreciated making Spider-Ben look different in the mask.

The Clone Saga was a bad idea and a colossal failure. Giving Marvel the idea that it was merely a misunderstood gaffe will only lead them to do equally colossal failures in the future to attempt to try to fix what isn't broken. The marriage has never been Spider-Man's problem. It has been the lack of any writer to figure out a supporting cast, and to present and update the mythos accordingly. Part of me wonders how Spider-Man could be different if for the last 15 years the editors went, "Okay, he is married now, how can we possibly make a married couple who are under 27 dramatically interesting besides just having them fight a lot like us old married guys in middle age do with our nagging wives?" Imagine the growth potential. Instead we have had 15 years of editorial mandates that feared growth, feared change and looked wistfully back at how Spidey was in 1977 and how liberated that was.

The inability of those in change to look to the future instead of just repeating the past, often their own nostalgic misremembering of it, is the cause of no end of society's problems, much less Marvel's.

Amen.

Seems like once Peter got married Spider-man stalled. BND reminds me of the worst days of the clone saga and as a result I haven't touched a spidey book in months.

 

[imdaly]

I've been collecting comics since 1993 when I was 10. It wasn't until these big events that I finally started to branch out and read what else Marvel had to offer.

1993-2005 I bought each and every Spidey book, but never ever ventured out to something non-Spidey. 12 years...

And then something happened. "Avengers Disassembled" came out and I read my first Avengers story ever. And which each consequential story I found myself checking out more and more titles about more and more Marvel characters that I've never payed attention to.

"New Avengers", "Civil War", "The Initiative", "Secret Invasion", and now "Dark Reign"...each new event introduces me to more and more characters that I've never cared enough to pay attention to, and now I'm finding myself with PILES of comics every week rather than one or maybe two per week.

For 12 years I only knew Spidey and what little I'd find out about other characters from their appearances in his books.

Now in the past 3-4 years, I'm finding myself looking forward to finding out what's next for Captain America, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Ms. Marvel (well...), She-Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Hercules, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Deadpool, all of the X-Men, The Initiative, all of The Avengers teams, Punisher, Runaways, The Sentry, The Thunderbolts, The Inhumans, skrulls, etc.


I for one welcome each coming event. They've only helped me expand my views on this whole Marvel Universe that for 12 years I only paid attention to a tiny corner of. And without these events exposing me to all of this I'm enjoying collecting and reading comics now more than ever.

And, yes, I'll mirror Joe Q's comment: It actually finally feels like something's happening in this universe. It no longer feels like there's 20 different versions of New York City in these books, with each character/team having their own version where occasionally they'd cross-over to remind us that they're in the same town. The Marvel Universe feels like a single entity now where the actions of one hero or villain effects everyone in that area. The Marvel Universe no longer feels like a "safe" universe where some big threat will come along that threatens the world, be neatly cleaned up by the end of the story, and reset back to the status-quo. Each story and event directly effects what happens next.

"House of M" is over, but there are still soooo fewer mutants out there than before and Wolverine still finally remembers his past.

"Civil War" is over, but the SHRA and The Initiative still exists and continues to effect numerous characters.

"Secret Invasion" is over, but there are still some remaining Skrulls out there and those characters that have been gone are still adjusting to getting back to their lives (or what's left of them).

And "Dark Reign" so far is also having big consequences on the Marvel Universe as a whole.


So yeah, as long as they continue to bring some real shake-ups to the Marvel U, and as long as they continue to keep me wanting to know what could possibly happen next...I say keep it up.

 

[Dread]

To each their own, but the biggest problem with M-DAY, in my opinion is that it is robbed the X-Men franchise of it's premise. With only 300 mutants left worldwide, and considering at least 65% of that number are current or former X-Men or their allies/enemies, the franchise can no longer serve as a metaphor for minority relations or so forth. There are simply too few mutants to give a damn about them holing up in San Francisco. 300 people is barely a rave, much less a species. Twenty times that attend the annual BIG APPLE ANIME FESTIVAL once a year. There are fewer mutants than there are Inhumans. It makes completely no sense that they still would have human bigot enemies considering that with there being zero threat of mutants overtaking man now, "unnatural" metahumans vastly outnumber them. Types like the Hellfire Cult or the Sapien League would be far more realistic targeting more general superhumans rather than picking fights with the handfuls of mutants left. It's like claiming Blade was still viable if there were only 15 vampires left on the planet and no means of restoring them; eventually his premise would dry out. Oh, wait, they did do that, basically; in the 90's, the so called "Montesi Formula" was a spell that eliminated all vampires worldwide (even Dracula); they had to reverse it a few years later.

Without the notion of mutants being a minority of mankind, the only stories you can do with the X-Men are either personal soap stuff or alien ventures, which were both done for about 1-2 years after HOUSE OF M #8. Or you can try to reverse it. Beyond that, the X-Men universe HAS NO PLAN long term, and that may be why sales on these titles are dwindling. Save for UNCANNY X-MEN, all of them are selling far lower than normal for X-titles.

The problem with Marvel's event structure is that a new status quo with an interconnected universe needs time to build momentum, to have weight, to feel like a finality. You cannot do that when said status quo has to shift to make way for the NEXT event every year. There needs to be a brake in the tension to allow stories to breathe. A format of a line wide event every OTHER year or every 2.5 years may be better able to handle that. Or basically a motif, which DARK REIGN has been so far; just no one who isn't gullible expects it to last.

Marvel editorial also has to be able to think long term better. Remember all the drama of Spider-Man Unmasking to the public in CIVIL WAR #2? How it was a big deal in his titles and New Avengers for about a year after? Now? Virtually worthless. You may as well burn all those comics, because they don't matter. It's been over a year since BRAND NEW DAY started, and Marvel still can't even cohesively explain Spider-Man's new reset status quo plainly, they have to keep going, "oh, we have a good explanation for _____, just you wait for it!" Which is code for "we are making it up as we go along, but believe you, the reader, are too stupid to figure that out". Please. Spider-Man isn't (or shouldn't be) F***ing LOST, you don't need 7 damned seasons to explain the most basic of plot points.

There are ways to do an interconnected universe, and to have ramifications to an ever changing world, then tearing the house down to the foundation every year and then starting over. A fire can rejuvenate a forest, but only if there is enough time for said forest to regrow; a fire every 12 months would just leave seedlings that burn to ash every season.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

What about the messiah war though? That is a big event for the X-Men and mutants in general. I'm interested to see what Hope's powers are. But probably they will be some massive macguffin that restores every mutants powers on the earth or something ridiculous like that.

 

[Dread]

What about the messiah war though? That is a big event for the X-Men and mutants in general. I'm interested to see what Hope's powers are. But probably they will be some massive macguffin that restores every mutants powers on the earth or something ridiculous like that.

The entire result of Messiah War was, "The X-Men world is rocked by the team moving to California and Cable stealing a baby into the future, and launching X-Force and Young X-Men, the latter of which died in 12 issues". Color me unimpressed. It amounted to a lot of fighting with little result for it. Least that was what I gathered.

The only title that tried to get genuine stories out of M-Day, rather than spending half of the last 3 year period ignoring it, or the last year or so hinting at trying to reverse it, was X-FACTOR, and that is a side title.

Nothing Marvel has done over the past 3-4 years has convinced me that M-Day has done anything but magnify what a cyclical franchise the X-Men are, and while I think they may be stalling for a good solution, at this point with sales for most of the X-Books underwhelming, even a half assed solution can't be any worse than allowing the books to spin their wheels without any long term agenda.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

The entire result of Messiah War was, "The X-Men world is rocked by the team moving to California and Cable stealing a baby into the future, and launching X-Force and Young X-Men, the latter of which died in 12 issues". Color me unimpressed. It amounted to a lot of fighting with little result for it. Least that was what I gathered.

Don't forget the total bastardization of Bishop. He went from solid supporting X-character to rabid villain in a couple issues.

 

[Tron Bonne]

The entire result of Messiah War was, "The X-Men world is rocked by the team moving to California and Cable stealing a baby into the future, and launching X-Force and Young X-Men, the latter of which died in 12 issues". Color me unimpressed. It amounted to a lot of fighting with little result for it. Least that was what I gathered.

Just a correction, you're thinking of Messiah Complex. Messiah War is the event that's just started in X-Force and Cable.

Just a heads-up because I agree with what you're saying for the most part.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Yea Messiah War has only just started, I'm interested to see how it pans out.

I think the idea of Bishop going completely nuts is good, but the way it was executed was poor. They should of made his descent into madness longer, not just one minute he is a good guy, the next he is a bad guy.

But his role is interesting. Who is wrong about Hope? Bishop or Cable? That's why I've still got faith in Messiah War.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Does it matter? Hope doesn't really mean anything to the present-day X-Men, which is the only version that will ever matter.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Does it matter? Hope doesn't really mean anything to the present-day X-Men, which is the only version that will ever matter.

Hmmm good point. But we won't really know for sure what sort of impact her fate will have on mutant kind, present or future, for a while yet I don't think.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

She's gonna grow up to be Jean Grey, resulting in an even more f***ed up Summers family tree since her clone's son whom she raised in the future would have now raised her in a different future.

 

[JDym]

I hate what they've done to Bishop.

 

[Dread]

Don't forget the total bastardization of Bishop. He went from solid supporting X-character to rabid villain in a couple issues.

It was inevitable considering he was the only X-Man to side with Iron Man during CIVIL WAR despite for the flimsiest of reasons. He comes from a future where human-made Sentinels rule the world and feels that following an armored man overreacting to some unlicensed vigilantes is in mutantkind's best interests!? Especially when that meant using Sentinels to hold mutants in a camp for a while?

In my defense, I always hated Bishop in the comics. Him being a rabid villain does nothing to make me like him more or less.

Just a correction, you're thinking of Messiah Complex. Messiah War is the event that's just started in X-Force and Cable.

Just a heads-up because I agree with what you're saying for the most part.

Fair enough. All I know is that Stryfe is returning, and Marvel's inability to let go of Rob Liefield ideas continues. Seriously, sit and think about how many Liefield creations or franchises are still running or often relaunched.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

It doesn't matter if Liefeld created them back in the day for me. As long as they have sufficiant development since their creation, I don't care. Like a certain crimson comedian who is still thought of as Liefeld created "EXTREEEEME!!!111" character with no depth by some.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I don't know what you're talking about. Joe Kelly created the Deadpool that matters.