While Joe Q himself was busy, this week's New Wacker Friday (man, that sounds like a dirty joke) had some interesting tidbits:
- A mini based on putting a fresh coat of paint on Iron Man's first meeting with the Mandarin? Usually I shake my head at "based in the past" stories because they usually are retcon factories that merely clutter up character back-histories, BUT...Mandarin spent a lot of time simply being Marvel's clone of Ming the Merciless, and has struggled in the modern era. I'd prefer they tried doing stuff with his son, but Marvel rarely does legacies much, so I am not surprised. I won't buy it, but Mandarin could use some fresh paint.
- Skeptical about a CAPT. MARVEL mini. THE RETURN sold well but was almost universally panned critically. Considering the character has been dead for over a generation, I am not sure there is much of a demand for him for their audience, no matter how cool the covers look. His return is a bit of a mess. It seems like a desperate stunt, undoing yet another classic death. They struck out once, we'll see if they go 0 fer 2.
- Immediately after ASM FCBD came out, we all were wondering when, or if, Dan Slott would ever answer the call of destiny and wind up on a Spider-Man ongoing series, having hit home-runs with SPIDER-MAN/HUMAN TORCH (an overlooked classic) as well as pretty much every guest appearence or story he has written with the wall crawler. Now it is revealed that he will be leaving SHE-HULK in a few months. Slott has admitted that his "comfort zone", that is, the amount of ongoing titles he can write while still handing in scripts on time, is 2. Seeing as the last time he sometimes had to juggle 3 or more issues of something within too short a time made THE THING late, it looks like Marvel has chosen to be smart and not allow him to take more than he can chew. With AVENGERS: INITIATIVE being his major title, with SHE-HULK off the schedule, it frees up his calender for him to move on some Spider-Book. There is a minor problem; Slott seems to be the type who probably preferred Spidey's status quo from about 2 years ago, before CW, THE OTHER, and unmaskings made it more complicated.
Still, only five words for the possibility of Slott on Spidey: It is about damn time.
- Not interested in OMD. But if the aftermath can give us Slott, it will be like the usual cycle of "underwhelming event leaves furtile ground for good comic launches afterwards".
t: Look, everyone is gonna hate something until it's proven that is shouldn't be hated. I don't know what's happening with She-hulk or spider-man, and I don't like that. Hell, what I do know I don't like. I will wait and see, and even when we find out who it is, It will still suck until I read the final product. 
