Jul 29
Hiatus
Posted on Sunday, July 29, 2012 by Paul in Uncategorized
As mentioned on the last podcast, we’re taking a break for a few weeks following my wedding, and we’ll be back in mid-August. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll see you then!
I know Martin, I’m just sure you can consider Marvel’s “editors” as editors when they consistently fail to edit the books they’ve been appointed to.
When I read a Wildcards’ book, I know that I’m not going to read two stories that contradict each other. I know that characters are not going to appear in scenes that they could not possibly be. I know that George R.R. Martin is going to have communicated with the writers of each short story to make sure that two stories don’t contradict eachother. If you’re not doing that kind of thing, then you are not an editor!
Why comics’ editors seem to belive that lesser standards apply in comics than in other media, I cannot tell you.
And for this week’s AvX continuity screw-up, New Avengers 29 is definitely set before numbers 27 & 28 (and 26, really). Remembering, when #27 came out it was clearly happening ahead of the main series, so this mess-up was entirely avoidable.
Review for Avengers 29…….
Leaving aside that Dave is entirely correct that the continuity doesn’t make sense if you put it altogether. I also think if you’re going to tell a big slam bang story with big moments, it’s a mistake to keep selling issues that occur well after the moment has come and gone. But as for the issue.
Here’s the thing. Brian Michael Bendis wites some really good dialogue. It can get a little ticcy (kind of like Aaron Sorkin or Woody Allen have a “voice” in their scripts) and it can be very entertaining. In an issue where nothing happens, i found myself wanting to see what would happen. even if you feel it’s a little predictable, I kind of like taking a little time to acknowledge that Steve Rogers and Namor have a relationship that’s older and deeper than this conflict should be able to shake. When reading this issue I liked it and felt it did some justce to that relationship.
Thinking about it later on, there are some things that don’t make sense.
1. Why does Steve invite the Illuminatti instead of just inviting Namor to meet with him. How will they help?
2. The Illuminati were a disaster and Steve objected to them. Mentioning in the text that this is inconsistent, isn’t the same as explaining why he changed his mind.
3. Xavier having an emotional outburst and saying “I’m reading your minds, so what?” seems out of character.
4. when did 616 Iron man turn into Robert Downey Jr. i don’t read a lot of the character, but i seem him around enough that i don’t remember the constant snark. It’s funny and I like it in the movies, but it didn’t fit anything else I’ve seen in a while.
Anyway, I think you see my now long winded point. In short, a good read that gets weaker on reflection and would have made a lot more sense a month ago.
I enjoyed Avengers #29.
The scene between Namor and Cap was well written. Reed’s arguments were well made.
Xavier, on the other hand, continues to not make it clear exactly what he is objecting to. Since this issue takes place before Namor’s Wakanda incident and the Limbo prison, what does Xavier find so offensive about the Phoenix 5’s actions?
I thought New Avengers 29 was very well done and covered a lot of important (in the context of the story) viewpoints and questions … up until the moment when Namor arrived, and I realized the story was set before he lost the Phoenix powers and so obviously couldn’t actually affect anything (if there was a clear indicator of when the story was taking place before that, I missed it). Sure, without the Phoenix, winning Namor over isn’t as big a deal, but if anyone can convince Cyclops that the Phoenix is influencing his decisions, it’s someone who was under the same influence and now doesn’t agree with what he had been doing.
It was nice to FINALLY see someone addressing what Reed Richards is doing during all this (my fantasy ending for AvX: Reed, Madrox, and Songbird show up as representatives of the “Our Teammates Are Involved in a Crossover and We Weren’t Invited” support group and Reed hands the Ultimate Nullifier to one of Madrox’s dupes, who says “No more Phoenix” and pulls the trigger – feel free to use that Marvel) but it seemed a little that no mention was made of the fact that Ben Grimm is being hunted across the globe by the X-Men while Reed does the math and figures both sides have a point. And if you’re Reed Richards and you’re going to a meeting with the specific point of talking sense to Namor, wouldn’t you bring Sue? (I’m just going to fanwank that to say she was there, but she was invisible, and she left when Reed did before Namor showed up)
Oh it would be wonderful if the crossover ended with all the (few) characters not involved showing up en masse and figuratively slapping some sense into both sides. It could end with Cyclops and Captain America sheepishly shaking hands but not quite able to look at each other while Reed Richards stands there, arms crossed, tapping his foot.
I also like the idea of Reed using his wife as bait to lure in Namor (fish references, you see, because he’s a fish).
RICHARDS: “The Phoenix is dangerous and must be stopped, the truth’s as plain as the large number four on my wife’s perky yet softly rounded breasts, as you can see here. Don’t you agree?”
NAMOR: “I boobies … I mean boobies agree … er … boobies boobies … I’ll just be in the Men’s room for a while, excuse me.”
SUE: “If I knew I was dragged here for this sort of purile objectification, I’d never have agreed to wear this unstable wonderbra”
As for X-Men Legacy.
This issue jumps in a whole different direction with Rogue being shunted through dimensions and away from the Avengers vs. X-Men brohhaha. (And I think out of the story for good unless this title doubleships and she returns quickly.)
It’s such a change of pace that I actually can’t quite decide whether i like it. On the one hand, it’s an amusing riff on a JohnCarter/swords and sorcery tale. it also takes time to make how Rogue’s powers work an important part of the story and looks at how the inhabitants of this new world might react to those powers. So i think it might turn out pretty well.
Perhps I’m reacting to this seeming to cme out of the blue when so much of the previous story was tied in to what was going on elsewhere in the X-verse. I think going in it’s own direction is good for this title and Rogue so maybe I’ll warm up to it.
And by the way, I’ve enjoyed seeing people’s reviews/thoughts in Paul’s abscense. I’m off for two weeks myself now and will be off-line. I’ll be back to at least reading here when our host returns!
“It’s such a change of pace that I actually can’t quite decide whether i like it.”
The problem is that it feels like a completelly new storyline, with a completelly different setting and different antagonists without first resolving the previous storyline. PAD could pull off setting aside one storyline while doing something else but this isn’t PAD. The only way I see this working is if rogue becomes one with the swarm, takes it over and returns to fight the demons and free the prisoners. The swarm will get killed by the demons or get trapped in limbo so no long term damage done.
As for AVX as a whole, i really hope they on’t kill Cyclops because he could become a great villain in the post AVX marvel universe(something that has been missing for many years). My guess is that Emma will start to go mad, as was hinted in issue 9 and he will be forced to fight and kill her. After all in the last few years, Emma has been turned from a great character into a hero’s wife. After what happened with Spider-man and MJ, I think they prefere their heroes to be unmarried.
Jumping on the well done Bendis wagon for actually making Reed seem likeable and level headed for once.
Kind of hoping nobody dies at the end of AvX; it’s gotten senseless to punctuate a major crossover with the death of a character and Fear Itself had a fake out with Bucky’s ‘death’.
That said I’ll sit and hope in vain that the Scarlet Witch gets some sort of smackdown for her ‘no more mutants’ BS. It won’t happen, the mass depowering of mutantkind will never be undone while Joe Q. Is at the helm and it will never be touched on in storylines because of the problems it creates.
Has any character had a go at Magneto for being a mutant supremacist whose own daughter did far worse for mutant kind than any sort of sentinel or mutant hating senator?
What Legacy reminded me of more than anything was the Judgement War arc in X-Factor 43-57, a plotline that just went on forever in which X-Factor (back when they were the five founding X-Men) got transported to an alien world in the middle of a civil war during the Acts of Vengeance crossover (I can’t remember whether it was part of the crossover or just what X-Factor did in lieu of taking part in the crossover). It had that “can’t decide if I like it or not” kind of feel too, because it was an interesting change of pace but it had absolutely nothing to do with anything. There were Celestials and alien mutants and the team got split up and half ended up on either side of the war and I think some of them lost their memory and had to fight in an arena and baby Cable got kidnapped as was his specialty back then and the thing just went on and on and on and on.
@Jacob: I could swear someone did bring that up and Magneto just sort of brushed it aside with a “she’s a grown woman; clearly my influence over my kids ran out when they left the Brotherhood to join the Avengers” sort of attitude, though I could be thinking of someone calling him out on being a bad father in general.
(Oops, that should say X-Factor 43-50, which is 7 issues, not 43-57. It wasn’t quite THAT long)
it just felt that long.
I loved that X-Factor story, though I don’t know if it would hold up for me today. It was the first X-Factor that I actually enjoyed. It was a clever plot device that the planet was entirely populated by different castes that reflected the X-Factors themselves – without actually being mere reflections, so it revealed a bit about the characters as the story went on.
Reflected without being reflections? Um, let me rephrase that so it makes sense. There wan’t just a caste of laser shooting, uptight generals, one of scientist monsters who overcompensate for their looks by being urbane and intellectual, etc. But each caste had something that you could identify with Cyclops, Beast, etc.
I liked it too. The first time. But it really drags and nothing of consequence really happens upon re-reads.
I was thinking about buying some new comics to review, but I ordered the acts of vengeance omnibus instead. Maybe I’ll review that if I read it (and it gets delivered) before the hiatus ends.
I read Judgement War for the first time recently and it was a bit of a slog. About two or three issues too long.
There was an Acts of Vengeance crossover though, wasn’t there? Or was it just a side-scene of Apocalypse recognising Loki as being behind it all? (twenty odd year old spoilers there).
I’d actually really like a review of Acts of Vengeance. Of all Marvel’s crossovers, it’s probably the one that has the highest ratio of high much I liked to concept to how much of it I actually read. Most of Marvel’s big events I either didn’t care about or I read most or all of the books involved in the crossover, but that’s one that I thought was a really neat idea, but I was only reading a few of the books it crossed over between and didn’t track down any of the issues of books I wasn’t regularly reading.
If I get it and manage to read it in the next few weeks the I’ll see what I can do. Only book I read that tied in was the wolverine issues, so I’m looking forward to getting into it. Didn’t get the crossovers omnibus, though. If I enjoy the main series I may order the crossovers.