Countdown: New Weekly Series

This is one of the reasons I like browsing Hype. I read a story, most times I just want some back info, sometimes I just want to stay black, sometimes I want to know where a story is going, but there are always one or two people who's childhood dreams are being crushed by a new upcoming story. I don't want anyone's dreams crushed, but I guess that happens in comics. I guess I'm lucky enough to know very little about the Marvel family, so I'm not upset at Countdown in that respect-- they just aren't telling the story as well as they could-- but it's always neat to see very wide interpretations of comics in message board format.
 
You know what sucks? As someone who slowly brought himself back into comics in 2004, I had only started to get into the Marvel family. Just as soon as I started to love them for the childlike powerhouses they are, DC started warping the hell out of them. They just alienated a new reader.

Now if I want to see Mary Marvel, I'm gonna have to start tracking down "I Can't Believe It's Not..." and "Formerly Known As..."

Which is just as well, because I hear those comics were funny and awesome.
 
Hey, what the **** happened to Trials of Shazam? That **** just dropped off the face of the Earth apparently.
 
It should've been over long before now. This is what happens when an artist tries out a totally new, wildly hyper-detailed, painted style on a series.
 
Manic said:
You know what sucks? As someone who slowly brought himself back into comics in 2004, I had only started to get into the Marvel family. Just as soon as I started to love them for the childlike powerhouses they are, DC started warping the hell out of them. They just alienated a new reader.

Now if I want to see Mary Marvel, I'm gonna have to start tracking down "I Can't Believe It's Not..." and "Formerly Known As..."

Which is just as well, because I hear those comics were funny and awesome.
Click to expand...

If you want to read some good Marvel stories and don't mind that they'll just make you feel worse about the matter then I recommend (all graphic novels):


Shazam/Supes: First Thunder
Shazam Power of Hope
Kingdom Come (not exclusive Cap. story, but he's a major character)
Justice (same deal as above)
Shazam: Monster society of Evil (the first half's good, the second half is preachy)
 
It is good. I think Corps point is that it is an obviously labor-intensive style, and just takes too damn long.
 
Yeah, I like Porter. His anatomy is sometimes questionable, but he's got a unique style with a lot of personality and vibrance. I just think, if they knew he was going to be using a totally new style--a painted one, no less--they should've probably waited until he had at least, like, 3/4ths of the series in the can before beginning to release issues. No painter can crank stuff out all that quickly, with the possible exception of Ariel Olivetti (I don't know how much lead time he had on Punisher: War Journal, though).
 
Manic said:
You know what sucks? As someone who slowly brought himself back into comics in 2004, I had only started to get into the Marvel family. Just as soon as I started to love them for the childlike powerhouses they are, DC started warping the hell out of them. They just alienated a new reader.

Now if I want to see Mary Marvel, I'm gonna have to start tracking down "I Can't Believe It's Not..." and "Formerly Known As..."

Which is just as well, because I hear those comics were funny and awesome.
Click to expand...

Well, my intuition from the Dini quote--but also I'd like some clairification-- is that Mary Marvel will probably turn good. I think they are doing this to her to just bring her back up to speed whilst updating her standing in the DCU and in reader's minds. Because of this story arc you'll probably end up seeing more of her. If she turns good, and I think she may now, don't be surprised to see her on team when they start doing post Crisis books.

I don't know the Marvel family. I know at one time they were big, but with as many comic shops and things as I've been in, and as much money as I've spent on comics, as much time as I've researched comics, I wouldn't go as far as saying they were important now. Of course, when something changes, people love to come out and say "oh they shouldn't have done that." I'm not saying that's you. I'm not even trying to hint that you are one of those people; but lots of people do that.

Last thing is this-- comics change, characters change. In my mind they exist in broad strokes. Some people feel that characters should be narrowly defined; I'm not that way. It's your money you can feel whatever way you'd like, but I think all the people who have trouble dealing with change in comics should just get with the program.
 
I really never got the notion that the Marvels were too innocent for their own good or whatever. Yeah, it could be played for laughs (and done so brilliantly in Giffen's minis), but Billy and Mary (heh, I almost typed "Mandy") are both orphans and Freddy is a cripple. That's lead to loads of angstage in the past; Ordway's series featured it a lot, as well as Winick and Smith. Imo these kiddies strike a pretty good balance between innocence and darkness.

And then Mary goes crazy and kills people. WOO YAYA COUNTDOWN WOOO!!
 
Yeah, they've had a lot of personal darkness, but their attitude has always been very upbeat and slightly naive. That's what's changing--subtly in Billy's case, really, really, ridiculously over-the-top in Mary's.
 
I think decent enough stories could be told with the new status quo if someone would stop drinking on the job and finish the Trials of Shazam already. Instead, two-thirds of the Marvel Family are stuck in really slow limbo while Mary continues to be fcktarded. A few more months of this and they'll be at the Wonder Woman Family levels of fcktarded, which isn't irreversible so much as it is painful as hell to watch reverse.
 
I'm sure there are writers who can squeeze a good story out of everything, but the naivete of the characters was fun to me.
 
I've come bearing some gifts, a gift, for you all. Some new Countdown interviews at Newsarama, somewhat interesting, a little better on average than IGN's Countdown interviews. I just posted a little about my take on Mary Marvel (always looking for new info on the story). It scans from the next story near the end if you're worried about spoilers though.

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=132790

Enjoy yourselves. Don't stay up too late tonight lurking them boards.
 
Why, in the hell, is Countdown still sucking? For like 2 issues a while back it looked like there was some hope. :(
 
Well, I don't know what your own cut-off point is (I imagine you've reached it already), but there is always hope, until issue 2 or so... cause if they haven't done it by then!

Actually I'm happy they didn't do a parade of horrors with Mary Marvel, they definitely had a little class there, by not just dive bombing her into out and out villainy. Well, we see how much page time she gets next issue.
 
Nah, I've been collecting the title the whole time. But the only reason is that I want to know exactly what's going on with this next big event.
 
But you know, if you were to not buy it, there are so many different resources on the net dedicated to delivering weekly-synopses of Countdown. I just posted the Newsarama one, but IGN also does a weekly interview, I think Wizard does as well, and Countdown's quality is low enough that whatever you read in the interview of the synopsis would probably be good enough!

If I were to have taken that that route with Green Lantern/Corps I guess I'd know vaguely what was happening; but unless someone very talented were recounting the event, I'd be missing a lot. With Countdown, it wouldn't be the case. So you can save yourself what, 50, 60 more dollars (whatever currency they use in Atlantis!) if you're not into it. And don't think DC won't try and sell a 1-shot lead in to Final Crisis.
 
Thanks a lot. Have you read Shadowpact (that's also to anyone else)? Is it any good? Do you think they can take Mary Marvel? I doubt they will but I don't know if they will just be annihilated or if they will end up retreating. You'd think they'd put in a call to the JLA or JSA just to be on the safe side, but w/e.
 
I've been reading Shadowpact. It's not particularly good. The last issue by Matthew Sturges with Mitch Breitweiser on art has been by far the best of the series, which is sad because Sturges is a guest writer. Bill Willingham is the regular writer.

Shadowpact should be able to do all right against Mary Marvel. They managed to win against the Spectre in Day of Vengeance.
 
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