Marvel March 2007 Covers/Solicits

That Mythos Captain America looks sweet!

 

There are some advance solicits on CBR.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=12602

 

"No matter where... or when... Cable runs." Time-hopping = fun. This Cable series sounds better and better.

X-Factor is the "only game in town" after MC? I don't know how I feel about that. I don't really want to see all the X-Men scattered to the four winds, as the solicitation for Uncanny seems to indicate they've done, but so long as the comics keep following them I guess it's all right.

Rahne's ambivalent look on the cover of that X-Force issue just convinced me to try the series out.

John Romita Jr.'s cover on X-Men: First Class looks great, if a little plain.

As much as I love BKV and Risso, was another Wolverine mini-series really necessary? Oh well, I'll probably try it on the basis of their names alone.

 

You try to hide it, but your fanboyish love for Wolverine is apparent. You're totally going to be buying 3 Wolverine titles a month next year.

 

You do it Corpy, and our pseudo love is over.


However, seeing Vaughn on it might prompt ME to look.

 

Petey on the cover of Uncanny warms my heart

 

- The Cap solicit seems to scotch any theories that the new Cap is under the Skull's control, and that it's anyone other than Bucky (what with the Black Widow team-up and all; he gets a hot female partner just like Steve did when Brubaker was writing).

- That UXM solicit is so far from anything I'd expect Ed Brubaker to write that I still don't know what to make of it. Has he been spending too much time with Matt Fraction?

http://comics.ign.com/articles/841/841891p1.html

- Wiccan has a rather weird pose on Young Avengers solicitation (it looks like a different costume, too). Looks like a good story, though, and I kind of enjoy picking out all the various artists whose work is collected in the background collage (Perez, Kirby, and Byrne, most notably).

- Yeah, I'm sure Ms. Marvel is a Skrull.

- Huh, I thought the Doom story in Mighty Avengers was only three issues, but it's five; so they squeezed a bit more work out of Mark Bagley before he left.

 

Awesome, dood

 

Ew, I'm not a fan of Wiccan's new costume. What is that **** on the side; woodgrain?

 

Good to see Alina Urusov is doing more work for Marvel.

 

It's four. Bagley's arc ranges from #7 to #12, and the first two issues deal with the symbiote virus in New York.

 

Now if only they'd do the smart thing and put her on Runaways.

 

Yeah, they need to fix that **** Wiccan is wearing. Just No.

 

Seriously

 

It looks like he's wearing hooker boots.

 

Wiccan's in his normal costume; someone just miscolored the side of it. That part's supposed to be black or dark blue or whatever the rest of his costume is colored.

Anyway, coloring error aside, I'm looking forward to that issue a lot. Master Pandemonium! I haven't seen him since Avengers West Coast.

Wow, I'm slow. I only just realized that Billy and Tommy complement each other in almost every chromatic way: Billy has dark hair with a black and red costume, Tommy has platinum hair with a white (silver, but close enough) and green costume. That's kind of neat.

 

Initial thoughts:

- As underwhelming as Alex Ross' costume design is, Steve Epting makes it look much, much, MUCH better than it has any right to. Further confirming my belief that Marvel really should have had more faith in Epting for the Cap redesign, not Ross. But, buzz always wins over substance at editorial meetings. Naturally, CA always looks cool.

- Marvel is now beyond parody; they have cancelled EXILES, only to immediately relaunch it a month later as NEW EXILES. This is the sort of approach to relaunches that fans used to joke about. Granted, it is a Claremont book and he helped cement this farcical practice.

- Wolverine: First Class? Why? Because apparently Wolverine was in too few books, that's why. Woe be the day when a kid can stroll into a comic shop one week and NOT be able to find something, anything, with Wolverine in it.

- Marvel is solicting the second issue of the Millar/Hitch run for 3/2008. When does the first issue come out? Eh, as cynical as I am, Millar & Hitch usually were on time for Ultimates runs for at least the first 2-3 issues most times. It was just AFTER that where things got sticky. Enjoy it while you can.

- X-MEN is going to be re-titled as X-MEN: LEGACY?

- CABLE gets his upteenth relaunch. The only title where he was in it, at least moderately, that has had any staying power was CABLE & DEADPOOL, which dies with issue #50 (and which has had Cable off panel for many stretches). They have tried to jolt some life into this flat, cliche of a character from the 90's maybe 2-3 times since Joe Q took over, and it never takes. If Cable last needed to be carried by Deadpool to last over 4 years (a great run by today's standards) in a buddy comic that usually starred Deadpool solo for maybe at least 12+ issues worth of material, does anyone expect another solo ongoing effort to last half that?

- John Romita Jr. doing a cover for X-MEN: FIRST CLASS of all places? That's...unexpected. Pretty looking, but very random.

- BKV's LOGAN begins, which means in March 2008, Wolverine will appear in 4 books a month. Who is still saying the 90's aren't back? I'd still have rathered another DR. STRANGE ongoing or mini from Vaughan. But, he likely has a solid Logan story to tell, and because it is WOLVERINE, it will automatically sell well regardless.

 

I hope Cable last a while. The solicitations for it sound good, and the character's got some interesting aspects to him. I like when they play up his pseudo-zen, calm-in-the-face-of-everything attitude. I prefer when he's got monstrous psychic powers rather than lots of guns, but his current deal seems to strike a nice balance between the two. With Olivetti on art, it might be pretty good.

 

- AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE looks interesting. Is that someone else wearing Armory's gauntlet thingie?

- Bagley is so fast, Marvel is pushing 2 issues of MIGHTY AVENGERS. They'd have to in order to salvage what has become a late run. They are promising "an ending that you have never seen in the Marvel Universe." To that I say, UGH. Every time Bendis decides he wants to **** some **** up to grasp immortality ("I will be the man who turns Scarlet Witch from dependable B-List heroine to unworkable, unstable, plot device wench!"), he usually produces the worst stories in the history of the Marvel Universe. My expectations are now in the tiolet. Predictions? Dr. Doom is foiled by someone with boobs, saying something sassy, usually in that obnoxious, "why hasn't anyone done _____ unil now?" attitude that Bendis always has. But, nice to have Bags back on his final work for Marvel in the near future.

- NEW AVENGERS, on the other hand, promises a solo story about Echo. Bendis is actually strong with character-driven one-shots, which is why he bedazzles fans by rarely writing those. Otherwise he'd live up to his rep, and then the world would collapse unto itself. Anyway, I actually am interested. Especially since, hey, it's ECHO. What is the worst that could possibly be done to her? She's Elektra 2.0. Any flatter and she'd be a board.

- Hopefully CAPTAIN MARVEL will have a satisfying ending, not merely one that shills BENDIS RETCON PARADE, also known as SECRET INVASION.

- Wiccan has donned some weird leggings for that YA SPECIAL. He almost looks like he's trying to hail a cab in Grenwich Village.

 

Cable's one of those rare characters that no matter what the circumstance, writer, or storarc, I just don't care for. Maybe it was the horrible cliches of the 90's. Maybe it is the fact that time-travel is rarely my favorite genre, especially since Cable's future has already been designated into the "alternate reality" category. Maybe it is because all he stands for is fighting Apocalypse. Or maybe those ridiculously huge guns. I don't know. Many writers have realized how flat he is, so they try to play around with him doing other things, like wanting to be a messiah figure, which really makes no sense at all.

But, I am an equal oppurtunity hater of X-Time-Jockies. I can't stand Bishop, either.

 

I liked that Bishop: The Last X-Man series, where Bishop got shot into a post-apocalyptic future. Anyway, Carey's been playing up some very weird son/father drama between Cable and Cyclops, which I enjoy. I don't think Cable really needs to be an X-Man, but I like how he plays off of many of the X-Men characters.

And his being a messiah figure made a lot of sense. He was sent back to stop Apocalypse from utterly ruining the world. An alternate universe counterpart to him had power practically on par with Jesus, which he also attained eventually. And he had what he thought was a way to bring peace to the whole world with Providence. I'd say he fits the messiah mold better than most.

 

Considering Cyclops abandoned Maddie Pryor & Nate the moment Jean Grey came back for months and then didn't seem to cry too much about punting the kid into the future, I'm surprised Cable isn't somewhat irked at Scott. I mean I think there was some hooey where Scott & Jean were able to transmit their psyches through time into some robots that Cable knew to raise him, but that's fairly ridiculous, even for comics. I always hated it.

Yeah, I know all that (X-Man was a stupid character, too). But it is like seeing John Matrix from COMMANDO suddenly want to become the messiah. Because, let's face it, that is what Cable started as.

 

How can you hate Nate grey, hes the X-man?!!!