Bought/Thought 28/11/07

Phaedrus45 said:
Wow...I saw a full two pages of Bought/Thought, and wondered how so many people got comics. I should have known The Hype could easily fill a whole thread with nothing but b#tching and moaning.
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I'd say "Welcome to the Hype," but you pretty much did it for me. :dry:
 
I've actually heard that American television programming tries to alter the camera angle roughly every seven seconds to hold the interest of it's viewers, as they tend to be more impatient than most of the rest of the world.

I don't know if it's true or not, though.
 
That's not true at all. We Americans are WAY too lazy to make that happen through editting.
 
Isn't that why you have like six cameras per shoot? So you can pay some Korean guy to do it for you?
 
Television-watching is one thing we Americans are actually quite good at. Pushing Daisies is basically a one-hour helping of sheer genius every week, and its ratings are sky-high. That really helped me re-establish some faith in my fellow US TV watchers.
Phaedrus45 said:
Wow...I saw a full two pages of Bought/Thought, and wondered how so many people got comics. I should have known The Hype could easily fill a whole thread with nothing but b#tching and moaning.
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You make it sound like that's unique to the Hype. Message boards in general are built for *****ing and moaning. :)
 
I'm glad TV shows are moving away from that guy-with-shaky-handheld-camera trend from back when The Shield started. I hated that.
 
I don't mind it. Sometimes it can definitely go overboard, but for the most part I like it.
 
The Shield and Battlestar Galactica are the only ones that do it really well, as far as I'm concerned. Ironically so in BSG's case, since a lot of its shaky, madly zooming camera work is purely computerized.
 
Moon Knight Annual 1- I was also initially turned off by this comic with its convoluted beginnings that I just couldn't get into.
But eventually things started to piece together nicely, and I feel this annual is an extension of that improvement.
It was a really quick read, didn't feel as big as some normal comics I read, but it was well conceived, Moon Knight beat someone to a pulp, and we didn't see really see the weird Bushman Khonshu thing.

Sub-Mariner #6- Whoa, what a hardass Namor is!
Doesn't matter who you are, you cross him, your done.
I liked this whole series, and thought it was a more then satisfactory ending to it, and we definitely have not seen the last of the Atlanteans, holy crap, unholy alliances!!!

I got more, but I'll do some homework for now!
 
Talk about "off-topic". ;)

Quite why U.S. comics were delayed a day for Thanksgiving, which was on a Thursday a week prior, is beyond me. There probably is some reason, and it probably is stupid. This was a short week, and I am feeling pretty crummy with a cold right now, so I will try to keep it brief. Or at least as brief as I can until OMD #3.

As always, full spoilers are revealed. Let's bid November farewell.

Dread's BOUGHT/THOUGHT for 11/29/07:

BLUE BEETLE #21: In October, BLUE BEETLE actually made it onto the Top 100 list for the first time in ages. That could have been due to the lack of many late Marvel books (causing DC to reign supreme that month), or due to the SINESTRO CORPS crossover, or whatnot, but it was a nice sight. This issue is done by a "guest" team (guess it sounds better than "fill-in", although it reminds me of a George Carlin routine where he claims "changing the name of something doesn't change what it is", or words to that effect) of Justin Peniston writing and Andy Kuhn on art. I have a bit of secret information in that Mr. Peniston is a friend of the SHH's own mod, Dew K Mosi, and they talk quite often. Peniston is one of those rare breeds; a "DC Zombie" who has literally fended off offers from Marvel to work for DC titles for the moment. From the impressions of this issue, that's for DC's gain. As for Andy Kuhn, he was the last artist on Kirkman's MTU run and probably the worst, but here he seems a little better (of course, it had been a year or so). Kuhn seems more adapt at drawing superhero characters than regular civilians to me, which is fine for most superhero works. BLUE BEETLE is maintaining something that has become a lost art; stand-alone stories that work as one-shot tales in and of themselves, yet maintain a subplot for long-time readers as well as inevitable trade readers, which is the best way to go. Unlike most "guest" runs, this story fits seamlessly into what Rogers is doing and even goes into long-running themes from past issues, such as Jamie getting used to his powers, the status of Peacemaker after last month (thankfully, he survived, but is still hospitalized; this is good because Peacemaker had too good a rapport with Beetle to die on me), and Jamie's budding feelings for the mystically powered heroine, Traci. The plot of the story focuses on Blue Beetle responding to a prison riot, but it appears to be more than that; the Spectre has appeared and is doing his "God's Vengeance" thing on some prisoners, and Beetle seeks to oppose him, not caring for "vigilante" style murder, which is a perfectly solid superhero reaction and one that is becoming rare there days, with many characters at Marvel & DC casually watching minion's die or allying with killer anti-heroes. The scarab wants to unleash weapons that would flatten the entire city, which Jamie opposes, but without that, he is merely an annoyance for Spectre. Involved in the riot is also an inmate named Luis, the man who was responsible for Jamie's father being partly crippled and needing a cane at all times. Peniston doesn't quite have the "classic one-liner" charm of Rogers and Giffen, but he still does the job very well for this sort of story and gets in some amusing quips when appropriate. At first stunned when his father asks him to forgive Luis, Jamie decides to go for it after Traci essentially explains that reasoning with Spectre is the only way to quell his attacks (short of nuking the city, that is). Naturally, the message here is that prison and even addiction are worse enough punishments to criminals than outright murder, which is fine for traditional superhero comics like this, especially starring characters with traditional values. Jamie later describes Luis as "not evil, but weak", and his addiction to his "fix" as "a cage". He uses this to get Spectre to relent, especially as the guard Luis injured during the riot survives at the end. The theme of the tale is faith, not just in God but in oneself. This was one of those rare fill-in's that manages to tell a good story, fit the tone of the regular creative team, and manage to advance the subplots a little bit as well. Peniston "got" what Blue Beetle is about and that is what matters most for a writer in the comic biz, to "get" what characters are about, rather than IMPOSING what said writer THINKS THEY SHOULD BE. This was probably the best comic I read all week. Granted, it was a short week, but that says something. I wouldn't mind seeing Peniston do more issues on this title in the future.

SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN #41: The final issue before all 3 Spidey titles merge into ASM, or ONE MORE DAY Part 3. Some people at THE BEAT are calling this "One More Delay" as this has fallen behind almost immediately, and the lack of this on the calendar likely helped DC beat out Marvel by a thin margin in October. It is especially embarassing because the EIC himself is penciling the story, and HE of all people should know the realities of his own schedule and whether or not he could release interior comics at a rate to make it a weekly (or bi-weekly) endeavor, as originally planned. Todd McFarlane took a lot of heat for his art woes when he ran Image (it literally took him a decade to complete work for an anniversary Image special), and Joe Q should expect some here. I mean, Erik Larson's SAVAGE DRAGON doesn't come out as often as it used to, especially with him running Image now, but at least he rarely makes false promises on the schedule. Joe Q's Marvel has made a REGULAR HABIT of severely overestimating their creative team's out-put speed on one series or run after the other. Yes, yes, "DC does it too", but that is no excuse; you're supposed to improve upon your competitors, not shrug when you mimic their errors, at least from a leadership standpoint. The other problem with OMD beyond schedule is that it is yet another one of Marvel's events that procedes PRECISELY as every single rumor and spoiler image predicted it would, song and verse. Picture a movie that not only is mediocre at best unto itself, but one that follows so faithfully to the teaser trailer that you really didn't have to invest in the film at all in order to know the story and every hook. ONE MORE DAY has become that. People were saying half a year ago that this was Joe Q's masterstroke to remove the Parker Marriage from the mythos, which he and other brain-dead writers feel have "ruined" Spider-Man. I've mentioned what sort of shark-jumping stunts and underdeveloped areas have really killed the Spider-verse, and I really don't feel like repeating them. The marriage is what a writer made of it, and many clung so much to the 60's that they cannot fathom the idea of Peter Parker actually growing up. It seems especially silly when you consider ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, which has a young, unmarried Peter still in high school like every single middle aged fanboy writer seems to want for the character for the rest of his published existence, still sells at around 90-100k in the Top 20-25 every month. People who want younger Peter go there, people who wanted an older, more mature Peter had 616. I believe Joe Q HIMSELF said something along those lines years ago when Ultimate launched. The story begins with Peter talking to his Red-Head Maguffin Brat (call her Mayla Liller for the moment) until he meets some oddball people in an oddball neighborhood, who both end up to be alternate versions of himself that became an isolated video game designer/fantasy geek, and a corporate, lonely billionare, respectively. Both are brought out by Mephisto, who has apparently heard Peter's mystic plea and is offering his Faustian deal; Aunt May's Life in exchange for The Parker Marriage ending. Good GOD, haven't we been saying this would happen for at least 7 god damned months!? Couldn't there have been more to it? Anyway, the title is revealed as the Parkers have until Midnight, or ONE MORE DAY, to make their decision, as well as to be together. Now, Mephisto's involvement isn't in itself too much of a stretch; he has ranged from being cosmic with Silver Surfer & Dr. Strange to being petty, as when he decided to randomly murder Mockingbird to spite the Avengers. Spider-Man's a longtime hero who has battled pretty much every kind of threat there has been, and likely ran into Mephisto or his agents at some point or another, so him offering this deal to Peter after he magically begged for it across the cosmos isn't far-fetched. But, good LORD, it is following the entire checklist of Joe Q's marriage-ending obsession. Why can't Peter have both? Why can't writers invest in stories about characters and not stunts, or create new supporting cast characters to replace old ones, or amp up and develop the other members of Peter's rogues gallery besides Norman ****ing Osborn for the 8 Trillionth time? No, they blame it on the marriage, and essentially the woman (MJ)...typical male response. "It all went wrong when he got hitched", isn't that the most male cliche explanation for someone's ills, ever? People mock ARCHIE, but at least those comics are honest with their Neverland intentions.

Dan Slott is taking over ASM after this storyline ends, and I have full faith that he will explore Peter's universe to the fullest, perhaps improve upon the utter lack of any supporting cast or civilian life to Peter (which is what REALLY killed him, and JMS helped that along). But all of that doesn't mean the Parkers had to split up. And what really kills me is Mephisto goes on about his "you won't know you were married, but part of you will mourn it because I jerk off to your pain" stuff, but what about all their friends, family, allies? And beyond that, you KNOW it won't be 12 months befoere someone is teasing about a Parker/MJ reunion, especially if SPIDER-MAN 4 becomes more of a reality. It took less than a year for Marvel to retract on Peter's "public knowledge" identity by allowing Slott to fudge it into "widely speculated" territory in AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE, and I will be surprised if the "divorce" lasts that long. Besides that, if Joe Q wanted to end the marriage, why NOT have them divorce? That would have been honest, and could have been a deep character story that people could relate to, especially in a country where many people in their mid 20's marry, yet about 50% divorce after a year. But NO, instead they make it some magic baloney story with Dr. Strange, demons, and costumes, NOT about human choices. Stunts like THIS have ruined Spider-Man comics, not him being married to the red-head of his dreams. I literally want to speak to a bunch of writers' wives to understand where this utter contempt for the Parker marriage comes from. For ****'s sake, let Peter Parker grow the **** up! Even Superman, the iconic example of a dusty franchise which couldn't find an innovative or modern idea for it's life (yay, have Donner pitch rejected 70's ideas with Johns!), allowed the Kents to stay married. Think about that; all of DC's OYL turmoil, and the Kent marriage is INTACT and people aren't pissing and moaning like man-babies that it ruined their character.

I'm sure Slott will perform masterworks with the new status quo, and I suspect Jackpot may end up an alternate reality MJ who became a superhero; now if THAT isn't a clue as to the current return of the 90's, I don't know what is. The 90's were CRAWLING with alternate reality versions of characters who were still alive and kicking just to make fanboy's heads explode. My final point? The marriage was not the straw that broke the web. Stunts like OMD were.

MOON KNIGHT ANNUAL #1: Just when I was growing tired of the regular series' creative team and anticipate the next, along comes a solid one-shot tale that shows there still is some life in the franchise. Actually, the story by Swierczynski and Palo is standard annual fare; unable to do anything major with the title character, they tell the story of civilian characters with the title superhero acting as a brief phantom to move the plot forward. Writers have told one-shot WOLVERINE or PUNISHER stories along this route for years. It also touches on a theme that Sam Keith has all but milked to death; women being raped. Unfortunately, it is still a too-common crime and this story touches on many of the angles of victimization, anger, despair, and even denial. Various women meet in a support group for victims of date rape and all tell tales, some interconnecting, of the same sleaze who takes on various identities and acts to date-rape women. One of the women manages to fall into Moon Knight's arms after a suicide attempt, and this puts the hero on the trail of the rapist, who gets his just desserts in the end. One could argue that Moon Knight himself isn't exactly required here; one could have told the exact same story with Daredevil, Wolverine, the Punisher, or any moderately violent hero in his place and only a few lines would have had to be changed. But, Moon Knight has usually thrived in this sort of urban material, and he works out here. The last woman in the group really needed a good smack, though (tasering superheroes is NOT cool). Still, this was a simple, effective storyline which was good for a one-shot read, but unfortunately may re-inforce critics who feel Moon Knight is too "interchangable" with other heroes. I liked having a down-to-earth urban story about the sort of criminals and victims that do exist in the world, especially after OMD #3 which has Mephisto Starring in DIVORCE COURT. Solid, enjoyable annual. The art's great, too.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS #6: A horribly low selling title, but if you compare it to similar MARVEL ADVENTURES titles, it vastly outsells them all in the direct market. Something really weird seemed to happen to this issue, and it wasn't just mine after some AIM discussions; the stories were all over the place. The beginning and end pages deal with everyone in the X-Mansion waking up without their powers, and then Sentinals attack. The middle has a story where Xavier tries to make contact with alien life, which may or may not connect to the power-loss story. And then there is another adorable Marvel-Girl story from Coover that is adorable but ends abruptly. And the very first page of the comic is an ad. Hopefully this was some sort of disasterous printing error, because if not, I can only conclude narcotics were involved (which, actually, may explain a lot at the bullpen). Normally I enjoy this simple title, but not jarbled issues like this. Shame, because it has cute moments. But they're like cute boxes on a mangled Rubix Cube.

I also got MARVEL ATLAS #1 of 2, which I haven't read yet, but from a simple flipping I can see it is yet another ambitious attempt to catalogue the MU from the Handbook crew, and I can only marvel at the amount of research and collaboration that it took (don't believe me, read some of the bio's for Vampires and whatnot from the MARVEL ZOMBIES handbook last month). It is appreciated. Now if only more editors & writers at Marvel would read the darn things.
 
Green Lantern Corps #18
Wow, I bet the Guardians feel dumb for taking Ion away from Kyle now. :o Here's everything that happens in this issue: Superboy Prime and Sodam "not Ion" Yat fight, we get flashbacks to Sodam Yat's past, Superboy Prime wins. That's literally all there is to this issue. I hate to sound as clichéd as the Simpson's comic book guy, but this really was the worst issue of GLC ever. Tomasi better be saving his A game for after the Sinestro Corps crossover or something, 'cause another couple of issues like this and GLC will go from being one of my favorite, most anticipated comics every month to a drop in about as long as it took the whiner to beat Yat into submission.

Gleason and Igle's art was pretty good, though.

Sub-Mariner #6
What a surprisingly great mini-series. I tend to think of Namor as pretty one-note: he's a king, he's a racist, and he's really, really angry. That's about all there is to the guy--or so I thought. This mini-series has done a really great job of giving me more insight into Namor's mind. He's not just an angry idiot who likes to spit the words "surface-dwellers" like they're curse words; he's the king of the oldest and proudest civilization on Earth, and he regularly deals with all of the pressure that entails.

This issue put a cap on the mini's events with loads of ethos, an unsurprising twist, and a ridiculously surprising twist that totally made up for it. Great work from Cherniss and Johnson, neither of whom I'd heard of before this series but both of whom I'll be keeping an eye out for from now on. Phil Briones' art continues to be consistent and vibrant straight to the very end, too. This is one of the very rare mini-series that I picked up on a lark and turned out to be hugely surprised with. I enjoyed it a lot.

Blue Beetle #21
This comic is apparently so good, it rocks under anyone. This was a fill-in issue that was hastily inserted into the publishing schedule at the last moment, but it turned out to be quite good. Jaime runs afoul of the Spectre--his second Wrath of God entity in six months--and the whole thing turns into a big metaphor about personal responsibility and independence. Peniston effortlessly weaves subplots together in such a way that everything feels totally organic but also reflects the central metaphor well.

Kuhn's artwork is solid. I wasn't a fan of his when he took over MTU, and his work here doesn't change my mind. It's just a question of style--namely, I don't like his. But it's still solid, competent work and I can't really fault him for that.

Teen Titans #53
This issue was pretty disappointing until its last page. The story flows well enough and advances more than most in one issue of today's largely decompressed comics, but there were a ton of little things that threw me. First was Eddy Barrows, who actually does pretty good work here--that kind of rocked my world given how much he sucked on 52. So that threw me a little, but in a good way. Then the not-so-good set in: the apparent murder of future Miss Martian by present-day Miss Martian (whose masquerade as a green Martian still confuses me, by the way; are white Martians genetically a**holes or something? What's the big deal about just revealing her true color the way J'onn has embraced more elements of his natural Martian form?), the full-Kryptonians-are-teh-best!!!!11 attitude of the creators via Supergirl's ridiculously easy dispatching of the full-grown and formerly pretty powerful Kon-El and later some giant red dude that Wonder Girl couldn't even slow down, Robin's continued pathetic brooding, and the mysterious allegiance to future Lex of various future Titans who used to oppose the evil Titans. All of those things either outright sucked or left me scratching my head because no explanations were given. About the only twist I enjoyed, in fact, was the ending one, which seems to promise that next issue will be Blue Beetle, alone against the world! Hopefully McKeever pulls himself back up to his usual level for it.

X-Men #205
Yay, an issue drawn by Bachalo!

That was my reaction upon opening the cover and reading the credits. The story was pretty good, too. It drew the various subplots with the various teams together to form a cohesive narrative far better than the past two chapters of MC have; those were an X-Factor story where some other stuff happened with other characters and a New X-Men story where some other stuff happened with other characters, respectively. This one feels like the entire X-Men roster and all their allies are pushed to the brink and confusion is closing in on all sides. Carey does a good job playing up that chaos and uncertainty by throwing in some really great, surprising action beats at key moments. I actually find myself wondering if Kurt will be okay rather than cynically expecting him to either be fine next issue or die and be back within a couple years. The ending twist was also pretty awesome, and quite fitting given that Bachalo and Carey were the team who covered Cable's supposed death in X-Men #200. While most of the other MC cliffhangers have fallen flat (especially the last chapter's--who really gives a flying **** about Lady Deathstrike?), Cable's return is a nice, juicy tidbit that got me really excited for the next piece of the event.

Really, the only part of this chapter that I had any problem with was the showdown with Gambit. Finally, the X-Men are reunited with their long-lost comrade-in-arms, but instead of a major emotion-fest, we get Wolverine stabbing him a couple times with no more malice or reluctance than he would any of the other Marauders while Gambit himself stands there uncharacteristically dumbfounded, and Scott and Emma coldly intellectualizing about his return back at the mansion. Come on, that's it? Oh well, maybe there'll be more in future chapters.

Oh, and Bachalo's art is stunning, as usual.

Batman and the Outsiders #2
I start this review with a curious musing: Is Carlos Rodriguez actually the penciler for this issue? The art looks a lot like Julian Lopez's work last issue to me. I was admiring what a great command of the human form Lopez has while reading it, in fact. But I just checked and Rodriguez's name is on the cover and in the credits. :confused: Oh well, whoever's art it is, it looks great.

Not much to say about the issue itself. The character exits feel really forced and more than a little out of character in Catwoman's case, but I guess her return to moral ambiguity could kind of be used as an explanation for it, if I squint really hard and break my head's inner logic sense. J'onn's exit is handled much better, thankfully--he basically tells Batman that he's giving the JLA all the info they've found. But even his exit is forced, since he doesn't really mention why he's leaving. He was also uncharacteristically cold in the issue. That could be an extension of his darkening from that recent mini-series where he changed his costume and junk, but he was practically back to his old self in his Five of a Kind issue before this series, so the frequent handing off of J'onn from one writer to the next is proving pretty unfortunate for any hope of consistency with him. Is he still emo? Has he put that behind him and gotten back to his usual warm self? Is he back with the JLA? Who knows? I have absolutely no idea what's really going on with him at this point. I half-expect Dixon to reveal that he's a Skrull, followed by the announcement that Secret Invasion was secretly a cross-company crossover.

But anyway, the rest of this issue is basically a long chase scene featuring Metamorpho, Catwoman, and Katana trying to escape the "different" OMAC with their lives. We have no clue why this OMAC is different, mind. We're just told it is. We're also told that J'onn is in favor of killing it, which heaps another helping of out-of-character-ness onto him, since, last I checked, OMACs were normal people infected with nanotech and they've been given no on-panel reason to think this one isn't that I've seen.

Oh well, at least the ending kicked ass. Hopefully Dixon will get her right in future issues. :up:
 
Dread said:
As for Andy Kuhn, he was the last artist on Kirkman's MTU run and probably the worst, but here he seems a little better (of course, it had been a year or so). Kuhn seems more adapt at drawing superhero characters than regular civilians to me, which is fine for most superhero works.
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You honestly don't dig Kuhn's work? His Firebreather series with Phil Hester was one of my favorite minis from Image's failed superhero relaunch thing. Last I heard, Firebreather is coming back next year as an ongoing. I look forward to it.

And while I didn't see his art in Blue Beetle this week, the art style I have seen him do is a Mignola-esque one. It's good.
 
Dread said:
SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN #41:[/B] The final issue before all 3 Spidey titles merge into ASM, or ONE MORE DAY Part 3. Some people at THE BEAT are calling this "One More Delay" as this has fallen behind almost immediately, and the lack of this on the calendar likely helped DC beat out Marvel by a thin margin in October. It is especially embarassing because the EIC himself is penciling the story, and HE of all people should know the realities of his own schedule and whether or not he could release interior comics at a rate to make it a weekly (or bi-weekly) endeavor, as originally planned. Todd McFarlane took a lot of heat for his art woes when he ran Image (it literally took him a decade to complete work for an anniversary Image special), and Joe Q should expect some here. I mean, Erik Larson's SAVAGE DRAGON doesn't come out as often as it used to, especially with him running Image now, but at least he rarely makes false promises on the schedule. Joe Q's Marvel has made a REGULAR HABIT of severely overestimating their creative team's out-put speed on one series or run after the other. Yes, yes, "DC does it too", but that is no excuse; you're supposed to improve upon your competitors, not shrug when you mimic their errors, at least from a leadership standpoint. The other problem with OMD beyond schedule is that it is yet another one of Marvel's events that procedes PRECISELY as every single rumor and spoiler image predicted it would, song and verse. Picture a movie that not only is mediocre at best unto itself, but one that follows so faithfully to the teaser trailer that you really didn't have to invest in the film at all in order to know the story and every hook. ONE MORE DAY has become that. People were saying half a year ago that this was Joe Q's masterstroke to remove the Parker Marriage from the mythos, which he and other brain-dead writers feel have "ruined" Spider-Man. I've mentioned what sort of shark-jumping stunts and underdeveloped areas have really killed the Spider-verse, and I really don't feel like repeating them. The marriage is what a writer made of it, and many clung so much to the 60's that they cannot fathom the idea of Peter Parker actually growing up. It seems especially silly when you consider ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, which has a young, unmarried Peter still in high school like every single middle aged fanboy writer seems to want for the character for the rest of his published existence, still sells at around 90-100k in the Top 20-25 every month. People who want younger Peter go there, people who wanted an older, more mature Peter had 616. I believe Joe Q HIMSELF said something along those lines years ago when Ultimate launched. The story begins with Peter talking to his Red-Head Maguffin Brat (call her Mayla Liller for the moment) until he meets some oddball people in an oddball neighborhood, who both end up to be alternate versions of himself that became an isolated video game designer/fantasy geek, and a corporate, lonely billionare, respectively. Both are brought out by Mephisto, who has apparently heard Peter's mystic plea and is offering his Faustian deal; Aunt May's Life in exchange for The Parker Marriage ending. Good GOD, haven't we been saying this would happen for at least 7 god damned months!? Couldn't there have been more to it? Anyway, the title is revealed as the Parkers have until Midnight, or ONE MORE DAY, to make their decision, as well as to be together. Now, Mephisto's involvement isn't in itself too much of a stretch; he has ranged from being cosmic with Silver Surfer & Dr. Strange to being petty, as when he decided to randomly murder Mockingbird to spite the Avengers. Spider-Man's a longtime hero who has battled pretty much every kind of threat there has been, and likely ran into Mephisto or his agents at some point or another, so him offering this deal to Peter after he magically begged for it across the cosmos isn't far-fetched. But, good LORD, it is following the entire checklist of Joe Q's marriage-ending obsession. Why can't Peter have both? Why can't writers invest in stories about characters and not stunts, or create new supporting cast characters to replace old ones, or amp up and develop the other members of Peter's rogues gallery besides Norman ****ing Osborn for the 8 Trillionth time? No, they blame it on the marriage, and essentially the woman (MJ)...typical male response. "It all went wrong when he got hitched", isn't that the most male cliche explanation for someone's ills, ever? People mock ARCHIE, but at least those comics are honest with their Neverland intentions.

Dan Slott is taking over ASM after this storyline ends, and I have full faith that he will explore Peter's universe to the fullest, perhaps improve upon the utter lack of any supporting cast or civilian life to Peter (which is what REALLY killed him, and JMS helped that along). But all of that doesn't mean the Parkers had to split up. And what really kills me is Mephisto goes on about his "you won't know you were married, but part of you will mourn it because I jerk off to your pain" stuff, but what about all their friends, family, allies? And beyond that, you KNOW it won't be 12 months befoere someone is teasing about a Parker/MJ reunion, especially if SPIDER-MAN 4 becomes more of a reality. It took less than a year for Marvel to retract on Peter's "public knowledge" identity by allowing Slott to fudge it into "widely speculated" territory in AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE, and I will be surprised if the "divorce" lasts that long. Besides that, if Joe Q wanted to end the marriage, why NOT have them divorce? That would have been honest, and could have been a deep character story that people could relate to, especially in a country where many people in their mid 20's marry, yet about 50% divorce after a year. But NO, instead they make it some magic baloney story with Dr. Strange, demons, and costumes, NOT about human choices. Stunts like THIS have ruined Spider-Man comics, not him being married to the red-head of his dreams. I literally want to speak to a bunch of writers' wives to understand where this utter contempt for the Parker marriage comes from. For ****'s sake, let Peter Parker grow the **** up! Even Superman, the iconic example of a dusty franchise which couldn't find an innovative or modern idea for it's life (yay, have Donner pitch rejected 70's ideas with Johns!), allowed the Kents to stay married. Think about that; all of DC's OYL turmoil, and the Kent marriage is INTACT and people aren't pissing and moaning like man-babies that it ruined their character.

I'm sure Slott will perform masterworks with the new status quo, and I suspect Jackpot may end up an alternate reality MJ who became a superhero; now if THAT isn't a clue as to the current return of the 90's, I don't know what is. The 90's were CRAWLING with alternate reality versions of characters who were still alive and kicking just to make fanboy's heads explode. My final point? The marriage was not the straw that broke the web. Stunts like OMD were.
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Not a Bendis bash in sight!

Anyway I could not agree more Dread. The only good coming out of this event turd is 3 issues from Slott, but even that's every 4 months I think.
 
Can anyone, Canadian or USAer, give me a quick rundown on who the New X-Men are. Names and abilities.

(How quickly I am going to be scolded for asking this?)

Really enjoying Messiah Complex.
 
That was quite illuminating. I had no idea who half the people in NXM were when I read last week's issue.
 
I recognize faces, but I don't know names, powers or personalities aside from maybe X-23 and...well, X-23. The character designs are a lot of fun, though.
 
I didn't really care about any of the characters since a) I don't plan on continuing to read NXM after MC and b) apparently getting attached to any of the characters under these current writers only breeds heartbreak, since they kill 'em off every five minutes.
 
Yeah, I've heard that about the book, too. If that were true, though, wouldn't there be, like, no characters at all? Seems like the same characters currently on the team are the same characters I've seen gracing NXM covers for the past few years.

Anyway, I don't think there's going to be a NXM book around after MC, so it's a moot point.
 
The only book post-MC that interests me is Cable, surprisingly. Carey's done good work with him in making him an old zen-like warrior. It's a far cry from the 90's Cable. Plus, I've read it described as a police procedural drama set against a futuristic sci-fi backdrop. That alone makes my mouth water.
 
Sounds a lot like what they tried to do with Bishop in District X. Hopefully it fares better in the sales department than DX did. :o

Have they announced the team for Cable's book yet?
 
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