"Late" Sunday Post - What Really Grind My Gears..

...about comics.

There are a couple but I'm going to go with the one that is the most on my mind: overexposure of certain characters while great characters go under or unused.  Now, I know that many of my recent posts have bashed Marvel, and unfortunately, while I love many Marvel characters and teams and stories, one of my biggest gripes for the last few years is that too many of their most popular characters are overused.  Wolverine has at least two solo books, as well as being two Avengers teams, X-Force and at least one X-Men book.  Spider-Man also in his own titles published twice every month, a team-up book, two Avengers teams, and two Fantastic Four books.  Recently, Hawkeye was in Avengers, Secret Avengers and Avengers Academy.  Storm was in two X-Men books and the Avengers.  And it doesn't look like much will change with MarvelNOW!

Now, do I understand the want to put the most popular characters in many titles.  I think when Bendis put Wolverine and Spider-Man on the New Avengers it was ballsy and interesting.  I think putting Spider-Man onto the solo FF titles when Johnny Storm 'died' it was cool and made sense.  With Schism, the X-books allied into two camps, where four X books took place in the Utopia/San Francisco area and two other X books took place in Westchester, NY.  Again, it made sense to me that characters that live in the same area or work for the same school could cross into each other.  I am even ok with characters being on two Avengers squads when both squads are based from Avengers Mansion crossed over as well.

But it's too much.  Does DC do it too?  Yes. Three Batman solo books, with Batman & Robin, and Batman in two teams in the beginning of the New 52. But he's the only one.  Marvel has so many great Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four characters related and connected to those teams and at one time have been members.  While characters like Black Knight, Photon/Pulsar, Hercules and Black Panther are unused, Spider-Man, Wolverine and the cast of the Avengers movie are in everything and everywhere.  And it sucks.  And it's hard to make sense how so many characters are in so many places. And mostly it's frustrating.

I'm ok with a character having two solo books.  I'm ok with a character having a 'team-up book' - such as Avenging Spider-Man, Captain America and _____, and Batman & Robin.  I'm ok with a character being on more than one team and even regularly guest-starring in a book that is integrally linked with one of the other, such Captain America showing up semi-regularly in other Avengers books or Wolverine showing up in X books that are linked by the Jean Grey School.  What drives me crazy is Storm being part of the X-Men on the West Coast and being with the Avengers in New York City.  What drives me crazy is Wolverine being everywhere at once and on every team and Spider-Man who has a job and seems to be everywhere in NYC and on four teams?  What drives me crazy is the same the ten or twelve characters being used everywhere in everything and great characters never being used.

At the end of the day, Marvel and DC often are very conservative in how they use characters.  Unless they are supremely confident in their writer, they usually have at least one or two of those two or twelve characters in their teams.  I think it would be ballsy and great for Marvel and DC to take more chances on less known but fan/cult favorite characters that just might reach out to knew audiences.  You want to get more readership- well the female market is largely untapped.  You're telling my a Bat book with one or two female leads might be great.  If you have four Avengers teams with MarvelNow! why not populate one with unused characters who are mostly female.  It's really two bad that so many great characters are waiting on 'top' writers to give them a shot. 

Marvel Now! Part 2 Point 1 Again....?

Hey there all,

Something I forgot.  Well two things actually.  First the Defenders, many think will continue on as before, even though it features a lot of important Marvel characters.  What I forgot to mention was Marvel Now Point 1 coming out - the writers are Bendis, Loeb, Fraction, Gillen and Nick Spencer and the characters are Nick Fury Jr ( Nick Fury's new son who is African-American and while it sounds confusing, it is, but the hope is the people who have seen the Avenger's movie won't be too confused) Nova, Cable, Starlord (and hopefully with the Guardians of the Galaxy), an unidentified Ant-Man, and a group shot of Wiccan, Kid Loki and the new Miss America.  Now, I hope Gillen is on a New Young Avengers with group of Wiccan, Loki and Ms. America and Spencer (who I loved on THUNDER Agents for DC) will be on Nick Fury Jr. Fraction, it would make sense, would be on Ant-Man since he's writing a newly alive Scott Lang in the Defenders.  However, that leaves Loeb on Nova (Rich Rider will probably be dead for a while more, because money is on the new Nova from Ultimate Spider-Man, Sam Alexander) and probably Cable and Bendis on Starlord. (Unless Spencer or Fraction is on Starlord, leaving Bendis to be on Ant-Man and/or Nick Fury Jr. We'll see when we see I guess.)  Now, the good news is that in Marvel's last point one, we had Brubaker write the story that couched everything, Bendis write a tease for Age of Ultron, Fraction write a Defenders intro, Loeb write a Nova story that led into A vs. X, and Jeff Parker wrote a great story about two super powered teenage twins that went nowhere.  Basically, what I am saying is that just because the are listed of the writers on the Point 1, I hold out hope that somehow Bendis or Loeb won't be on Guardians of the Galaxy.

Marvel Now! - a Friday post.

So Marvel has responded to the New 52 by DC, and are relaunching many of their core titles.  Many titles are getting new #1's, while others will have a change of creative teams without the #1.  And there will be a few new titles launched as well.  As I talked about in my previous post, after my experience with Marvel at SDCC, I am making a conscious decision to whittle down what books I get from Marvel.  A creative change helps with a lot of those choices, and over the past week, Marvel has hinted at some of these changes. I'm going to be focused on writers for most of this post, because I am fan who follows the writers.

First - the books that don't seem to be relaunched mostly because they just were launched not too long ago (thought for books with big name characters that doesn't seem to matter)  Captain Marvel, Hawkeye, Winter Soldier, Gambit, Dark Avengers, X-Factor, X-Treme X-Men, Wolverine and the X-Men, Daredevil and the Spider-Man titles (Amazing, Avenging, Scarlet Spider, Venom).  We also know Hulk will now re-titles Red She-Hulk but will keep the same writer at the very least.  We do not know about if X-Men, Uncanny X-Force, Astonishing X-Men and Secret Avengers will have any kind of changes.  We do know Bendis will be leaving Avengers Assemble but not if it'll be relaunched.  So let's talk about what we do know:

Hickman will be writing Avengers which will be bi-monthly and New Avengers- which we can expect to be pretty connected.  Which is both good and bad.  Bendis tried and at times succeeded to keep the titles apart, but if Hickman's FF and Fantastic Four are any kind of indication, they most likely will be ties together. I like Hickman's writing and have always loved the Avengers so I'm ok with that and most likely will be getting both of these.

Bendis will be writing All-New X-Men which seems to take the spot of Uncanny X-Men.  It features the five original X-Men somehow in the present and sticking around.  I'm done with Bendis and this really doesn't interest me.

Rick Remender will be launching Uncanny Avengers - now this line up seems awesome and I'm a big fan of Remender, so I'll be picking at the very least the first arc of this book.

We also know Slott and Loeb will be writing Avengers and X-Men - seems to focus on the New York based characters from both books.  I like Slott at times, but have really come to not like Loeb's writing.

Announced this week.

A new Deadpool book.  No thanks.

Kieron Gillen on Iron Man.  I've only heard great things about Gillen and have enjoyed his Uncanny run from what I have picked up.  But Iron Man has never been a favorite of mine, and I think I'll leave the character with Fraction.

Jason Aaron on Thor.  Again, I like Thor in the Avengers but never been a big fan of his solo adventures.  Also, I like Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men but not enough for this.

Fraction on Fantastic Four and FF.  I picked these books up because I enjoyed Hickman so much from his runs on Secret Warriors and SHIELD.  However, I have never really loved these characters and Fraction is so hit or miss in my opinion.  I've like his Iron Man, Hawkeye and Iron Fist, but not so much his Defenders or Fear Itself.

Si Spurrier on X-Men Legacy.  Ehhh......no thanks?

Rick Remender on Captain America.  For sure picking up the first arc.

Mark Waid on the Hulk.  Interesting -I love Waid.  Not a big fan of the artist, Yu.  But I'll be picking up the first issue.



So my Marvel pull list:

Definite:

Hickman's Avengers and New Avengers
Remender's Uncanny Avengers
Winter Soldier
Wolverine and the X-Men
Daredevil

Maybes:
Captain America
Hawkeye
Hulk

And if Remender stays on Secret Avengers and Uncanny X-Force - them too.

Now, a lot of the X-Men books have not been announced.  And some current writers have not been assigned or announced.  Also, many are expecting a Guardians of the Galaxy book, so I'm waiting to see who will be on that book too.  And hopefully Abnett and Lanning will be writing some book since New Mutants are getting canceled.

Earth 2 Designs

So recently DC Comics has launched a new title named Earth 2 which chronicles an alternate earth to where their main heroes are, an alternate earth that allows them to do new things, but also use heroes that belonged to the WWII era superheroes of the Justice Society of America.  So far the heroes I've shown are the ones which have appeared.  All of these characters have been re-designed.

First up, Superman.  I do like the a lot.  I wish his New 52 costume was like this. Stylized S, but this is a much more of a slight variation of his classic costume versus the armored version he has now.






Next up, Batman.  We assume this an older Batman, but we know it's one locked in a World War. In the comic, his costume was shades of gray and heavily armored.  I wouldn't want it for his regular series but I loved it in this book.

















Next up is Hawkgirl.  Hawkgirl, classically has been a Caucasian, red haired female, and whose costume often took after Hawkman, usually in red, green and tan colors, hawk symbol mid chest, and a large orange headdress that is much like a hawk in attack mode.  This however, is very, very different and I think it's great.  The blue and black are striking, especially with the white wings.  It seems much more like modern day armor, versus the often ancient warriors in a combination of different cultures classic armor that Hawman and Hawkgirl have often been seen in.  And I love the helmet - the helmet scream Egyptian, but sleek instead of aggressive.  The silver goes so well with the black and blue. Also great that they chose the Kendra Saunders incarnation who gives Earth 2 a little diversity.

Now technically, this was not a design for Earth 2 but for the New 52 reboot, but Mister Terrific has landed on Earth 2 and hopefully will be part of the cast.  I like the color combination of red, white and black, but unsure of tattoos or the no-sleeve look.  I also find chapped pants to be very odd.  However, it's not awful, but could be improved upon.  I do like the red in the face mask.

One of the best redesigns of recent years.  On Earth 2, Bruce Wayne was Batman, and his daughter, a teenage Helena Wayne, was his Robin.  This combines the classic Tim Drake look made famous on the Batman animated show, but modernizes it and makes it looks like a functional armor.  It blends in some of the former outfits shown in the flashbacks of the New 52 of both Dick's and Jason's Robin outfits in DC's new continuity.

 So this Supergirl does a much better job of matching with her Superman's costume than the current one does.  However, the biggest issue I have with this costume is the lack of skirt.  I've always felt that the skirt seems a little more common sense for an indestructible Kryptonian, a little more teenage girlish, and the unitard with bare legs always seems odd to me.

 Ahh...Wonder Woman.  I've show the design sketch that was publicized by DC.  This design got a lot of controversy, but I feel intrtepreted by Scott, it made a lot more sense.  The biggest issue that many had was whether the arm/wrist and foot/leg guards made sense.  As Lee drew them here, some could say that they would impede movement.  Others would argue why would Wonder Woman need those kind of guards, and if she did, why would she let some of her body so exposed. With out the guards, her costume harkens back to the WWII  era skirt but also evokes classic Wonder Woman as well as more Greco-Roman influences.

Now begins that new and heavily critiqued section.  This is the Flash, once an grandpa like figure in the DC Universe, with a classic Hermes/Mercury metal hat, a red shirt with a lightning bolt and blue pants, now we have a modernization of his class blue and reds with the lightning bolt.  I am actually ok with the outfit, though I feel it could be improved upon.  What I and most fans have a problem with is helmet.  Again, its intended to be a modernization of the classic hat, morphing it into a helmet.  However it just doesn't work.  It looks big, bulky, and uncomfortable.  It just doesn't work.  And while face visor makes sense on paper, it doesn't visually.  I hope that since Jay's speed now comes from the Roman god Mercury and he can create his own costume by thought, that it will change for the better in the future.  My last note, that from cover to page, Scott makes the costume look a ton better.

 Next up, and making headlines due to his changed sexual orientation is Alan Scott, the Green Lantern.  Originally Scott's GL costume was an crazy combination of colors that made sense in the 1940's but not really today.  However, this design makes him to fit in more with the Green Lanterns in the new52 universe, which Scott is not, and never really has been.  In the comic itself, the Lantern symbol was changed, and the black parts here have all been shades of green, which actually makes it worse.  I like the design, a modernized knight, but with no contrast it just looks like a blond guy wearing all green.  I'm hoping that in the near, near future, they add some color, maybe even grey or white would be a nice departure from the green and black that most accent most Green Lanterns.

Finally, the Atom.  Not the size changing hero that some may know, but what the comic and the character design has done is combine the original Atom with two related characters, Damage and Atom-Smasher, along with his new origin of being part of the Army.  Therefore, the goggles, camouflage, and helmet make sense.  The colors and seeming energy coming from the hands evokes Damage character (who was the WWII's Atom's biological son) and the size changing ability he demonstrated in #4 harkens to Atom-Smasher (the WWII's Atom's god-son).  I like this a lot, and hope that Booth - who did Atom and Hawkgirl's designs, and Scott do the future designs of characters for Earth 2 in the future.

So that's it for me for about a week or so.  I'm working on a week long retreat with my fellow Campus Ministry teammates and will be unable to blog.  So have a great week!

Some thoughts for Tuesday!

So yes, I skipped Sunday...mostly cause myself and my wife Katie just got back from a wedding...and congrats to Jess and Jay!

Some today's blog will talk about my biggest impression and thought about my very first trip to San Diego Comic Con just a few weeks ago.  I should first say that it was thanks to my wife and my Uncle that I was able to go - so thanks to both (especially and more importantly my wife ;)

So the SDCC was great.  Overwhelming but great.  However my biggest problem was not organizational, thought it was at times chaotic at best, was the Marvel area and schedule.  Especially when compared to their chief rival, DC Comics.

So let me explain - the DC area was a carpeted area, where at two corners were signing booths, the other two area were comprised of the DC Collectibles display cases and a stage where they had artists do live demonstrations of their techniques.  In the middle was display cases of the Comedian and Nite Owl costumes from Watchmen and the Arrow costume from Arrow.  Also at one section they had the ability for fans to play the new Injustice game.  Every time I entered, I would recognize one of DC creators, just standing around talking to editors, fans and fans in costumes.  I saw Jim Lee stopping to take a picture with two members of the armed services that had been wounded and had come to the Con.  I had two conversations with one of their co-publishers, and many times, shook hands with some of my favorite writers.  And while I didn't go to all their panels, most were full of their writers and artists who are creating DC's top books.

The Marvel area was impossible to get into.  The main part was the armory of Tony Stark from Iron Man 3, displaying the suits used in Iron Man 1 & 2 and the Avengers.  On the 2nd or 3rd day, the brought out the new armor in Iron Man 3.  To it's sides were the two booths which were very hard to stand on line for.  And the mob in front of the Iron Man 3 display was crazy at all times.  Their signing schedule that I printed out on Tuesday had two of my favorite Marvel writers, but they actually weren't on the schedule to come - so glad I bought their books to be signed.  And finally, none of their 'Architects' that are responsible for their big summer cross-over Avengers vs. X-Men were there.  None.

It seemed to me that 70-80% of DC's writers and artists were at SDCC.  It seemed to me that 20-30% of Marvel writers and artists were there (more artists than writers).

Is Marvel making more and kick-ass movies? Yes.  However, it seems that that was all they cared about at the biggest Comic Book Convention of the year.  Will I still buy Marvel books?  Yes...but not as many as I have been since it seems that I, as a comic book fan, don't matter to them as much as I as a movie fan do.

Thursday - Comics Review

So I'm going to try to do quick reviews of the comics that I have read this week.  I hope that for you reading, this will give you a new perspective and for those who are interested in perhaps picking up or reviewing comics. So here we go....

DC Comics

Aquaman #11 - Very good but very serious.  Geoff Johns has been on a mission to make sure the world knows that Aquaman is a badass.  Peter David & Will Pfeifer, in my opinion already did a good job at that, but Johns continues to do so.  In the tapestry of the New52 - DC's new rebooted continuity,  he is able to weave a tale of intrigue of the sinking of Atlantis, a group of super power individuals that Aquaman was hanging out with before the Justice League, and a intense connection with Black Manta.  A

Green Lantern #11 - Unlike Aquaman, GL hasn't changed that much from before the New52.  At most it streamlined some of the Green Lantern past continuity, the New52 has given us a buddy-buddy cop scenario with what was arch enemies of Sinestro and Hal Jordan.  It also gives the intrigue of what the Guardians of the Universe has planned as well as brings back Black Hand, a big part of the Blackest Night mini-series.  This was a solid issue bridging the last arc about the Indigo Tribe and the next on Black Hand.  A-

Justice League Dark #11 - Just added to my pull list.  Jeff Lemire has done a great job with pairing down the team and tying it into the main Justice League book.  He also uses the ability of the New52 to continuity to tell a great story with some new twists, especially with changing some preconceived notions about characters.  B+

Marvel

I'm going to tackle the non-AvsX Marvel titles for this week.

FF #20 - Fantastic Four and it's sister title, FF (Future Foundation) are very connected -very good but the downside is you really need to buy both books.  But they are awesome.  This issue both deals with the after affects of Hickman's last storyline a few issues ago but also sets up future issues of both titles and perhaps the larger Marvel Universe. B+

Winter Soldier #8 - Another great chapter.  If you enjoy espionage comics set in a world with super-heroes this is the book to buy (in the same vein, check out Secret Warriors by Marvel and Checkmate by DC for other great super-spy tales).  Also great to see Bucky back as Winter Soldier but with all of same concern with the rage that comes with his past actions.  Also, we see a villain who is smarter than Bucky and seems to be at least 10 steps ahead of him....which is really cool to see how he can get out of it.  A

Captain America #15  I have loved Brubaker's Cap, but this feels like the end.  And not in a great way. I hate seeing the Falcon constantly hurt, and I really hope this arc pays off to see Cap take it to Bravo and Queen Hydra.  C+

Uncanny X-Force #28 - A great X book, and better by the unexpected twists that Rick Remender gives to this book.  Really fantastic, and after what we expected with the bomb shell of a certain characters apparent death and the surprise of who is setting the wheels against X-Force in motion, a jump to the future was what was least expected.  A+

Secret Avengers #29 - I truly appreciate that Remender has taken up the Shadow Council that Brubaker set up in his issues and Ellis dealt with tangentially in his.  He ties it into his first arc which was great, and frankly I truly hope to forgot the mess that his arc that tied in AvsX.  By itself, it was ok, but considering it didn't match what was happening in other tie in books, it was at best confusing.  This is a good first issue of what I hope to be a good arc against the Masters of Evil.  B-

First of all, let me tell you that I have really been disappointed with the vast majority of the Avengers vs. X-Men tie-ins, as well as some issues of the main book.  But here's so very quick reviews of the tie-ins for this week:

Wolverine & the X-Men #14 - the best of the A vs. X tie-ins by far, and this is no exception.  Great story of a truly possessed Colossus and shows the issue that many X-Men do and should have about the Phoenix Five's hunting down of Avengers. A-

Avengers #28 - Thunderbolt Ross aka the Red Hulk takes it on himself to kill Cyclops.  It really is an examination of Ross as an Avenger - which is interesting- but in a lot of ways, we all knew where this story was going.  For a Bendis fill in issue it was not bad. C

X-Men Legacy #270  - Good - I'm just tired of Rogue.  She isn't my favorite character and in some ways, its hard for as fan to buy it took some X-Men so long to figure out the problem with the Phoenix Five- especially since Chuck Xavier kind of new the problem in the first issue it happened in.

Tuesday Blog Post Part 2 - the Guardians of the Galaxy

I meant to post this last night but went to bed instead.  Here is part 2:

So one of my favorite recent titles was a book called Guardians of the Galaxy by Marvel.  It was written by two British writer, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, who I recent had the pleasure of meeting at the San Diego Comic Con.  They are currently writing Resurrection Man by DC, New Mutants by Marvel and Hypernaturals by Boom! In the GotG, they had the cosmic corner of the Marvel Universe to play with.  Their work on Guardians of the Galaxy was, in my opinion, especially great.  It was group of very quirky characters often thrown into situations that were over there heads.  Really, really good stuff and I recommend picking up the trade paperbacks (for you non-comic readers, a trade paperback is a collection of a comics- usually a story arc that goes anywhere from 5 to 12 issues.

 Marvel Studios at San Diego Comic Con announced their next five movie projects, three of them being sequels to Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, one being an Ant-Man film which has been in development for a long time, and the last is the Guardians.  Many fans believe that this films will tie into the post-credit ending of the Avengers which features the cosmic villain named Thanos who wants to kill eveyone and everything.  The concept art is featured above.

With the release of the Avengers movie, Marvel released an in-continity book called Avengers Assemble, written by long time Avengers writer Brian Michael Bendis and starring the cast of the movie.  The most recent issue, #5, featured the Guardians.  Except they weren't.  Two of the members of the team were dead when last seen, and none of the characters sounded like themselves.  So while it is the Guardians, a team I love and characters that I love, who appeared, it really wasn't.  It was what seemed to be Bendis' version after reading a memo of the different characters but not actually reading any of the issues of GotG by Abnett and Lanning.

I don't want you to think I don't like Bendis.  I do.  I like a lot of writers.  But as a fan, and an aspiring writer, I have to say, that not every writer can or should write every character.  Lots of writers have, recently brought back characters that haven't been used in a long time.  For example, Bendis use of Spider-Woman, or Paul Cornell's writing of the Black Knight are great examples of bringing a character back to the fore-front who haven't used in any substantial way in over a decade. And when you bring a character back, it gives you lee-way to write a character in a more jarring or different way than before.  However, at times, some writers brings back or write a character in a way that takes a character in a new direction, that at times, does not work.  When Grant Morrison wrote the X-Men, I thought his take on Magneto was interesting, but it didn't sound like Magneto.  Matt Fraction writes a great Tony Stark, but his Captain America doesn't sound like Cap.  And Bendis writes Spider-Man and Luke Cage in a great way, but his GotG just doesn't work.

Recently, I read an interview of Greg Rucka where he said that in his cross-over called the Omega Drive with Punisher, Daredevil and Spider-Man, he said that he gave the most of the writing of Spider-Man to Waid, cause he didn't feel comfortable writing Spider-Man.  I wish more writers were like that.

So here's the thing.  Marvel, if you're bringing back GotG, please don't just go with a big name writer, please go with writers who get the characters and will do interesting things with them in cool plots.  I'd love it if you got Abnett and Lanning back, but even if you don't, please get writers who understand their limitations and understand the characters they are writing.