Dread,I doubt everyone in the bar died.I mean,it seemed pretty open ended,just showing the explosion,and sure they were poisoned,but really,these are super villains!They'll find a way around it.Like I said,no bodies and these villains were more than able to protect themselves from an explosion.
I hope so. Because while there surely are dead-weight, dead-end villians like Cat-Burglar, Gibbon, or whatever, there also are some rather reliable rogues like Shocker, Eel, and hey, Prowler's not even a villian anymore! In a way it proved Iron Man's statements about Punisher in the CW WAR FILES correct; in that, he mentioned Avengers who were reformed criminals and theorized that Punisher would have killed them all had he gotten the choice. In a way Prowler proves that. He was barely a thief for like 5 seconds and he's been a low rent vigilante ever since. At least Fraction's not afraid to show Castle as being unstable and untrustable. Too often some writers almost make him seem like a "voice of truth" whose cynicism is never wrong.
Like I said before, it's a hard issue to judge. On it's own terms, it's great. Good art, well written villians, really establishes the villian community that Marvel has neglected for a good, long while (DC actually handles villians better in some ways, or at least has them be credible threats and organize). But it potentially writes out a lot of rogues who have been neglected or never got the chance to shine. Marvel writers are lazy and uninspired as it is most of the time with either amping an old villian decently or creating new ones. BKV has made a few in RUNAWAYS, but they're hardly classic (aside for the Pride, who are all dead. See my point?). Bendis amps up some D-Lister he deems worthy about once every 3 years, but aside for them, it's slim pickin's. In a way that ending, while a great twist for a cunning Punisher, reminded me a little of the last issue of THUNDERBOLTS; Ellis amps up Jack Flagg and makes him workable and interesting...then totally abolishes any future potential with him. I call that a tease. PWJ #4 wasn't that bad, because as you said, Fraction left the ending pretty ambiguous for any future writer to go, "oh, he survived somehow through [INSERT COMIC BALONEY HERE]", but considering that Marvel barely cares about continuity when it comes to a major event like CIVIL WAR where there are glaring inconsistancies between chapters (even this issue has some; Armadillo obviously has to live unless that is his clone headlining that Texas team alongside Yellowjacket, Firebird, and Texas Twister in CW #7).
I've mentioned it in other topics, but I see Marvel's supervillian community as reaching a crisis. Between N-Zone prisons, Thunderbolts, deaths, etc. Marvel is grinding through their rogues galleries fast and there is little to replace the ones that go, thus having to overrely on the same faces, or make more stories where heroes fight heroes. An option I am growing tired of. ANNIHILATION was such a rarity that it is shameful.
There were some new villains created in Deadpool today, at least I've never heard of them. As for them not sucking
Can you name me 5 villians created within the last 5 years who haven't been killed, don't blow chunks or have any reasonable chance of being used again? I'm drawing a blank.
Who are these fresh faces in DEADPOOL and how badly did Wade beat Rhino? I mean...everyone beats Rhino. He gets beaten so often, Hand ninjas laugh at him. AIM agents take his lunch money. THAT is how low he has fallen.
nice reviews, as usual...but i thought you mentioned once that you don't read daredevil??
I used to read DD when my mother subscribed, but when she stopped I didn't continue. At times I regret it, especially as she stopped right after Waid's second or third arc on FF and he was rockin' on that book.
The part where Hercules smashed Clor his his own hammer....it didn't have quite the impact on me than most people.
Annihilation did it first and better when Ronin Smashed Ravenous with his hammer of judgement.
Oh, I know ANNIHILATION did those kind of moments more often and better, and was a stronger, more compact story that uplifted characters and made more sense, but it was still satisfying to see Herc trash Clor. Herc really kicked the butt in CW at least.
you know what the saddest aspect of all this is? I think the real moral of this story is that nobody can trust each other. I mean, its hard to believe these are the same people who fought and sacrificed together to defeat Onslaught. After all they've been through together how do they have the balls to even throw a punch at one another? There was one scene where it showed Spiderman knock the crap outta Reed Richards, that really baffled me, because Spidey has a close close relationship with the fantastic four. I just don't understand how the heroes were so quick to beat each other down without giving it a second thought. It's almost as if they never really liked each other...
And behold Joe Q's "second genie" that he wanted to return to the bottle. Joe wanted to return to the late 60's-70's or so when the MU was more "hostile", when many heroes were more isolated and had easy reason to beat each other half to death upon meeting someone new. History didn't matter, he wanted the MU's heroes more hostile and willing to infight, so with one far-reaching story, you are right that it seems as if the heroes never liked each other, despite many being friends and teammates for years. The writers of CW have claimed that under some circumstances, longtime friends can become mortal enemies like this. If so...I wonder what kind of friends they have. Have we seen any shooting sprees over those for or against the Iraq War? Or abortion? Hell, random snipers who have targetted abortion docs are arrested, prosecuted, and not popular or embraced even by pro-lifers. So seeing these superheroes on both sides act so irrational just to fuel a few slugfests can be very jarring.
As for "Cap's surrender", yes, it goes against what JMS, Jenkins, Gage, etc have written. I saw it, however, as Cap realizing that fighting "the war" as he was had dumped a 100 or so man metahuman brawl into the dead of Manhattan, endangering civilians and destroying property. His surrender was perhaps an act of mercy to end the battle before more died, on any side. HOWEVER, of course, it was Cap who ordered Cloak to dump everyone in Manhattan to escape the N-Zone in the first place (like if they'd beaten the Pro-Reg's, they couldn't have found some way to get Reed or Stark or pray to Dr. Strange to save them or whatever). And as some posters have said all along, Cap chose to fight the war the exact wrong way; what were the Secret Avengers going to do, overthrow the U.S. government? Don't get me wrong, compared to Iron Man & Co. cloning Thor, employing supervillians, having no mercy for old allies, or for current ones showing remourse, to employing more resources against non-registered heroes than I have seen employed against ANY villianous threat in Marvel History (where were all these agents during "Maximum Carnage"? A half dozen villians had NYC under siege for days!), Cap was a saint, but that was one major part of why CW didn't work as a whole; the characters acted however the story needed them to, and to be damned if it matched who they were or made sense. That's not comic writing, that's WWE writing.
Glad I can move on. Or can I? New Avengers vs. Mighty Avengers next. Ugh. Of course, the "New Avengers" have been around over 2 years...not exactly new. The Mighty Avengers are newer. And much like the 90's, we have two Avengers team books again, although they at least have style variations and have better names then "West Coast" or "Forceworks".
Despite issues with CW, there still are plenty of great Marvel books running or due to start.
