Bought/Thought Thread: September 9th

[Dread]

Yet you still seem so totally unconcerned!

Reposting my past posts is stretching the board for those who don't want to read them. I'm not the one who wants to continue the debate anymore when it clearly has hit a dead wall. Give it up and let's get back to comics.

Perhaps I went overboard with my belief that by accident, SECRET INVASION had found some political relevance that makes it seem "timely" and may be helping with interest in what is a very basic "alien invasion" story.

 

[fifthfiend]

Wow that's what I get for not refreshing before posting. Now I have to quote and all that.
I'm willing to blame that one on Yu, to an extent; he's a great artist in most respects but a lot of his stuff straddles the line of "cluttered mess" even when that's not what the writer is specifically asking for. But he's given ****all to work with here, and I get that. Hell, half of the characters that he's supposed to make look heroic here are just random zergs who we've never even met before this event. The specifics of the scene doesn't annoy me nearly as much as the context, which is "let's make big splash pages of people fighting, no text whatsoever, and call it telling a story."

But then, I'm contradicting myself, aren't I? In truth I'd really rather just look at some pretty pictures on the page instead of having to read Bendis' stuttering Nonvengers sound like Bendis trying to sound like them.

A fair argument.

What gets me is I was reading this and went man, Claremont wrote better action scenes than this.

...Which is a little unfair in that Claremont did write a really quite good action scene. It's just that he then wrote the exact same action scene thirteen thousand times over the next fifteen years.

Switch partners, mein freud!

 

[Dread]

Can we at least agree that SECRET INVASION is better than HOUSE OF M thus far?

I mean, I still am expecting a mind**** ending.

Part of the issue is that Bendis is a writer who does not write "fantastic" things and people well. He wants everyone to be common. So both heroes and villains act like they have little experience or brains for logic. And civilians act like bums. That sort of thing. You saw it with Dr. Doom when he kept saying "Yeah" all the time, which is Un-Doom like.

He mistakes common for "stupid". He isn't the only one. Many writers have tried to keep Peter Parker "the common everyman" by making it appear he is inexperienced and inept.

 

[fifthfiend]

I mean, I still am expecting a mind**** ending.

Second-to-last page:

"Hey guess what Reed - WE BUILT A GUN TOO"

Last page: SKRULLS WIN

...Bendis on Newsarama: "Know your terms! Stop getting all fancy!"

 

[Dread]

Second-to-last page:

"Hey guess what Reed - WE BUILT A GUN TOO"

Last page: SKRULLS WIN

...Bendis on Newsarama: "Know your terms! Stop getting all fancy!"

And the final panel, where their real leader was The Hood. Because he's better than Kingpin now.

 

[fifthfiend]

Can we at least agree that SECRET INVASION is better than HOUSE OF M thus far?

Sure, but it just feels like arguing that the second Fantastic Four movie was better than the first Fantastic Four movie. I mean yeah it was, but how much does that really say?

And the final panel, where their real leader was The Hood. Because he's better than Kingpin now.

Okay yeah you're right. It should have been Last page: HOOD WINS.

And then eight issues of New Avengers showing you how the Hood was really a science genius all along! Which Bendis was totally hinting at the whole time.

 

[BrianWilly]

It's definitely better than House of M, though I'll be damned if I could tell you why at the moment. More things happen, sure, but none of those things particularly stand out as being very good...

 

[kguillou]

I dunno i enjoyed House of M, but the thing with me is i read it all in succession as opposed to waiting a month after each issue. I think Bendis' stories work much better when they're read in one sitting instead of apart. I enjoyed House of M and i enjoyed Secret War but i enjoyed them in TPB form.

 

[Blader5489]

I dunno i enjoyed House of M, but the thing with me is i read it all in succession as opposed to waiting a month after each issue. I think Bendis' stories work much better when they're read in one sitting instead of apart. I enjoyed House of M and i enjoyed Secret War but i enjoyed them in TPB form.

That would be the upside to decompression.

 

[SonOfCthulhu]

1. Clinton started the policy of regime change in Iraq. Bush just followed it through to the fullest extent.

2. Clinton thoroughly enforced Iraqi sanctions and prevented them from being lifted which are responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis as well. When asked if the deaths of a half a million Iraqi children was worth it, Madeline Albright said it was.

Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were complete idiots when it comes to handling Iraq and the entire Middle East. And whomever becomes the next President, whether it be John McCain or Barack Obama, looks like will end up inheriting that complete idiocy in not knowing how to handle it.

Oh well, I voted for Ron Paul.

And here's a little known fact, back in 1994, the Clinton administration argued that the president has "inherent authority" to order physical searches — including break-ins at the homes of U.S. citizens — for foreign intelligence purposes without any warrant or permission from any outside body. He thinks that torture like Jack Bauer's is okay. And it is a well known fact that he too has lied to Congress and the American public. He is nowhere near an innocent person. Like Bush, he too is a guilty man.

I'll admit that I haven't read this thread in full (bad me! bad me!) but I wanted to point out that #1 above is false. George H. W. Bush started the policy of regime change in Iraq with the first Gulf War and by offering to back up attacks by the factions that were against the Baath party. The fact that we then backed off after retaking Kuwait doesn't alter that fact.

 

[Dread]

Sure, but it just feels like arguing that the second Fantastic Four movie was better than the first Fantastic Four movie. I mean yeah it was, but how much does that really say?

Hey, when I bash Bendis for over 5,000 words and refuse to acknowledge things he does that are positive, people complain. Here I am genuinely saying, "he improved in something" and everyone is all, "yeahbuhWHAT?"

Improvement is improvement, even if it is just a tiny one.

Okay yeah you're right. It should have been Last page: HOOD WINS.

And then eight issues of New Avengers showing you how the Hood was really a science genius all along! Which Bendis was totally hinting at the whole time.

"Now read SECRET INVASION again, knowing what you do about The Hood. And broccoli."

It's definitely better than House of M, though I'll be damned if I could tell you why at the moment. More things happen, sure, but none of those things particularly stand out as being very good...

Hey, moving from a D to a C is still improvement, even if a C is hardly anything to get TOO jazzed about. In terms of events, Bendis moved from dire to mediocre. I'll take what I can get, considering it's being crammed down my neck. At least some of the tie-in's have been good, and it spawned CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI-13.

The fact that I was also the only person here who gave BIG HERO 6 a try may be an omen to the low debut sales.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

It's definitely better than House of M, though I'll be damned if I could tell you why at the moment. More things happen, sure, but none of those things particularly stand out as being very good...

Thor was in this. That makes it automatically better than House of M.

The real Thor was in this. That makes it automatically better than Civil War.

 

[yenaled]

This week I disliked every comic that tried to make me join the US Navy.

 

[CaptainCanada]

This week I disliked every comic that tried to make me join the US Navy.

"Hey you, join the navy!"

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Those inserts are annoying. Good thing I keep a trash can next to my toilet.

 

[Hans]

What inserts?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Navy inserts. Mostly in DC comics, as far as I saw.

 

[Hans]

Huh. I don't remember any inserts. I read some DC books, too.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I think I had one in this week's Trinity.

 

[Ion Kenshin]

They have been in quite a number of books i picked up....at least 4 our of the 6 that i got

 

[hippie_hunter]

I'll admit that I haven't read this thread in full (bad me! bad me!) but I wanted to point out that #1 above is false. George H. W. Bush started the policy of regime change in Iraq with the first Gulf War and by offering to back up attacks by the factions that were against the Baath party. The fact that we then backed off after retaking Kuwait doesn't alter that fact.

Wrong.

The reason why George H.W. Bush did not start the policy of regime change in Iraq. He's even been stated: "We could have rode into Baghdad in 48 hours, and then all hell would have been broken loose. And we would have been standing alone making a martyr out of a defeated brute and tyrant, Saddam Hussein."

The mission of the first Gulf War was to simply liberate Kuwait from Iraq. That was it. They did not overthrow Saddam's Baathist government because he feared it would make his international coalition fall apart and they believed that Saddam's government would fall down internally without the need for US support.

We did not provide any support to protesting Shiite and Kurdish factions within Iraq. Saddam and the rebelling forces expected American support for the rebelling factions but none came. That is why he easily crushed them.

It was in 1998 under the Clinton Administration under the Iraq Liberation Act that regime change in Iraq became official American foreign policy and authorized assistance to anti-Saddam factions in and out of Iraq.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Hey, how about we not have any politics in this thread, ever? That'd be cool.

Moving on: I finally read the first part of the Superman/Batman arc with the kid versions of the characters. It was, in a word, hilarious. Albuquerque's art helped immensely with that. He made the kid versions adorable without sacrificing any detail or otherwise "cartoonifying" the real Batman and Superman. I'm curious about what Mxyzptlk's up to; last time I saw him he was actually helping Clark and Lois in Rucka's Adventures of Superman run. He (like much of the DC universe, unfortunately) seems to have regressed to his Silver Age persona here, though. Oh well, if the rest of the issue's any indication, that might not suck as much as it usually does in DC's comics lately. I'm looking forward to the next issue.

 

[yenaled]

I do want to read that - the scans of pages I've been reading have been hilarious.

I haven't got round to reading I Kill Giants #2 yet but I saw the comic strip on them making the comic and it made me laugh.

 

[fifthfiend]

So not a lot of SI: Inhumans talk.

What, people don't like the Inhumans?

...I'll grant there was a pronounced dearth of Lockjaw, as based on my personal calculation that anything Inhumans related should be like, 60% Lockjaw, 35% Medusa, 3.5% that guy who does weak points or whatevs, 1.5% everyone trying not to piss off Black Bolt.

 

[Dread]

Thor was in this. That makes it automatically better than House of M.

The real Thor was in this. That makes it automatically better than Civil War.

That works.