Glad to see Joe Q's getting healthy and losing weight, but he still didn't lose his ignorance. The thing that amazes me is that, well, he is doing well for Marvel and Marvel has been doing very well with his leadership. As
iloveclones would say, it isn't a fluke. There have been relaunches, and even good events (ANNIHILATION) and some good ideas under his watch. That is what makes his blatent blunders, misconceptions and mishandlings mind-boggling.
Joe Q believes the opposition to his smoking ban is because fanboys just want to hate on him for any ol' reason. While that is indeed true of many, that is not the point. The main point of criticism is that, bluntly and simply, his "ban on smoking because it is bad for kids" seems to be bullocks when his comics and merchandise have no qualms about gorey violence or sexual images. Hollywood is doing the same thing, and it is still stupid there. A film can have decapitations, swearing, and even crude sexual humor, and be rated PG-13. One bare nipple, R. And now, apparently, one cigerette close-up, R. It makes little sense.
Quite frankly, I would rather kids see smoking than see gore. I actually am not so hard-arsed on sexual images because we're bipolar about sex in America anyway (always display it, joke about it, use it to sell stuff, but want a serious discussion on it, and everyone blushes, like a pimp who is suddenly embarassed when his mother brings up her romances).
No, people find the smoking issue silly because it seems hypocritical. Especially since, well, smoking is a legal activity, while violence is not. It may not be healthy, or encouraged, but it is legal. Where does it end? Drinking causes more crimes than smoking, how about we ban scenes in bars or drinks in character's hands? Censorship is a slippery slope, and even our Founding Fathers knew that. Having no qualms about violence or superheroes-as-softcore-porn-actresses-in-poses yet getting righteous about smoking just doesn't gell well. America's morality is out of wack, and this is simply part of the problem.
It's not always just about people disliking you, Mr. Q.
This is another example. MJ is bent over, in full "doggy style" pose, revealing a THONG and shoving he **** out barely enough to cover the nipples (Nippes are R!), and washing the costume. Admittedly, we have seen simular fare in comics quite often, even at DC too. But, I'm not surprised people, especially women, are offended. When was the last time they saw a statue of some male hero, maybe Sentry, wearing low ride jeans so you can just barely not see his package or rear, shirt off, handing a box of chocolates to the audience. That would be a simular equalivent image. But we don't because comics are assumed to be for men by men. As a man I understand this, I wouldn't want to see that imaginary Sentry statue, but I also don't put my head in the sand and wonder why women would be offended. Perhaps it simply shocks the EIC to get reminded that sometimes Marvel enforces all of those ugly stereotypes people have of the comic book medium, one of which is that is it sexist and misogynist. Granted, to be fair, Marvel is usually the offender when it comes to sexualizing heroines; DC does that too, but DC is far more likely to butcher them these days, in vivid detail.
Plus, it was a slow news day.
When some people are confronted with something, they might stammer and admit it. They might lie. But the way Joe Q can cooly come up with complete and utter baloney is sometimes staggering. I envy and yet loathe it. It's the stuff of politicians.
Women can like hentai, or at least know men enough to know they like hentai. Artist Adam Warren sometimes would joke that his bondage artwork always sold better and garnered more attention. Secondly, it is easy to forget about how powerful your heroines are when they are bound, arms overhead to make the breasts more apparent, while moist tentacles menace them. To deny the hentai accusation is the most blatent disregard for the reader's intelligence I have seen in a while. Just admit it.
"HEROES FOR HIRE sells like garbage, so we resorted to using sex to sell it. As these are comics, half the time sex is not consensual. Just as my good friend Kevin Smith who uses rape in most of his stories." But instead, he goes with the "What, me worry?" approach.
So, Joe is trying to say that despite not reading manga, and being the EIC of the world's biggest comic company, and having grown up in Queens and been in the biz over a decade, he has no clue what hentai is. Bull. Spit. It wouldn't be the first time someone use such a theme to sell a copy. What about that cover of WW being arrested with her panties halfway up her rear? Just admit it, really.
- and then JMS literally quotes from TEDDY ROOSEVELT to justify SINS PAST. Really, how self-righteous is that? It would be like if I jusified over-analyzing MIGHTY AVENGERS by quoting from The Book of Genesis. It just continues the trend of most A-List writers believing none of their stories are flawed. It is very true that JMS brought ASM up from the Top 60 into the Top 10, but that tale is almost universally panned. Even the suck-ups at WIZARD called for a retcon of it. Get over yourself.
- Joe Q at least gives a reasonable explaination as to why the kids in THE INITIATIVE are fighting The Hulk in WWH by comparing it to 9/11 when everyone's help was allowed. Of course, years later, plenty of those volenteers are dropping dead of illnesses caused by the dust and the city/feds are denying coverage, or at least making it difficult. The lesson is disasters breed collective heroism, but once the dust settles, everyone else forgets you existed.
There it is again. Joe Q has done a lot of things right. Yet this smacks of the conception that Joe's Marvel is a company that can't stick to their guns for anything and where one hand doesn't know what the other was doing. Gravity was meant to become the new Capt. Marvel, but then they decided to revive the real deal, 20+ years after anyone gave a damn about him, in the most boring and dull one-shot written in a year, and then had to cobble together some way to undo the damage done to Gravity by McDuffie playing along. No wonder it seemed pointless in FF in the end. It was. Why can't these guys have a meeting and keep all of their crap in line for a year? These mistakes, blunders, and rewrites happen all the time. Lord knows CIVIL WAR reaked of some last minute rewrites and misconceptions (the pro-SHRA's were supposed to be the heroes, so why overplay your hand and have them appear to be fascists in not only the beginning of the story, but half the major tie-ins?). It's like a boxer who can win 50 matches TKO and yet can't defend himself from an unarmed mugger. When Joe's Marvel does something incredibly well, it boggles the mind to see them utterly mishandle something.
Don't get me wrong, Gravity is more interesting as a street level hero than a cosmic demigod, especially as Nova already is doing that thing. But then why off him just to pretty much have him revived with no change over than the loss of his secret identity? It just seems pointless, and miscommunicated, and poorly planned, which it was. About the only benefit was it kept him out of CW. But it just reaks of many of the pointless deaths in X-Books. Someone dies, there is over-the-top emoting, then they return in some mundane way and it results in a collective shrug. Gravity never should have died in the first place in BEYOND if the plans had changed. Marvel delayed CW books for months on end, the last issue of BEYOND could have been altered to avoid this mess.
t: 20 minutes just wasn't long enough. x.x
