House to Astonish Episode 80
We’re back after a one-week hiatus, with discussion of the sad passing of Moebius, Marvel’s Infinite Comics and AR app, the announcements coming out of Wondercon and Amy Reeder leaving Batwoman, as well as reviews of Saga, Avengers Assemble and Saucer Country and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe has little man syndrome. All this plus X-Treme F-Men, exploding sanitary towels and significant quantities of alveolar trill.
For some reason, Garageband didn’t detect the mic this time round, so it all sounds a bit echoey, but we’ll survive.
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You’d have thought Marvel would have learnt how to spell “Extreme” since the days of That Claremont Book.
I don’t think that Larry Hama is known to be right wing. He apparently said in the development of the Barack Obama/Conan pastiche he did that he ‘leaned towards Obama’, and I don’t know of anything else about his politics.
From reading his GI Joe run he’s always struck me as a non-partisan political sceptic.
The new Ms Marvel costume looks so much like Miracleman/Marvelman that you really wonder how much coincidence is that. This would be the only Marvel book with a solo-heroine, or?
I don’t think the new Captain Marvel costume looks Marvelman-ish. It mostly reminds me of Phyla’s original look, in a good way: http://www.captainmarvelculture.com/images/phyla2.jpg
I thought I might actually be able to avoid buying X-Treme, but no, if 616 Dazzler is really in it, I will end up picking it up.
I guess I’ll probably end up dropping X-Men then. I’m currently reading every X-book save Wolverine, and it’s beginning to feel like a bit much.
A little surprised that Paul didn’t groan at the ressurection of quite possibly the single worst title for an X-series I can think of. X-Treme indeed.
Also in total agreement about Saga. Great to have a new BKV book, and it will be interesting to see how he writes a new world created from scratch. It is a good way to get away from his worst tics as a writer, IE characters randomly popping off about pop culture/obscure American history. I suppose he could replace it with made-up references, but at least that constitutes as world building.
I still think the most interesting thing to come out of the Pak Astonishing story was Cyclops drinking Newcastle Brown Ale.
I don’t mind Bendis on team books, but he’s really ruined Norman Osborn as a character and villain for Spider-Man. The two characters exchanged about one line during the whole Dark Reign/Siege in Bendis books.
I think the difference in redemption rates comes down to the fact that Marvel makes it standard, while DC sells it as a more expensive variant *with a different cover*. That’s just asking for your sales to go to the goofballs who don’t open bagged comics.
My biggest problem with Bendis on team books is that he assembles a big group of characters he likes whether they have a logical reason to be there or not, then doesn’t do anything with them. (see Iron Fist, Daredevil, Mockingbird, Storm, Thing, Protector, etc.) Oh, and half the scenes involve the team sitting around having breakfast in their costumes.
The two sleeping women in FAirest were Sleeping Beauty and the Frost Queen. Few issues ago, they were finally snuck out of the Imperial City, where they had been since the War vs the adversary.
There’s also the great line from the Chris Sims review of the Obama book that “Priest has said that Hama carries an Uzi in his briefcase, likes to use his permit to carry a concealed firearm as photo id, and once told him ‘never let the white man push you around’ which taken alone suggest very different political leanings, and taken together suggest someone who’s a lot of fun.”
I’m not a numbers guy so I have to ask what were the numbers on Moon Knight? Can we compare them to the end of Bendis’s Daredevil run? I think Assembled shows how stretched thin he is creativly.
I suppose it’s only of a matter of time until Uncanny X-Force is canceled and relaunched as “Secret X-Men.”
http://www.the-isb.com/?p=1758 Is the Sims article where he talks about Hama.
Kind of interesting trying to pothole Hama politically, he did pen the best ode to the military ever in G.I.Joe…is it the last issue of his original run which is just a letter from Snake Eyes going over the pros and cons of military service? It’s awesome.
At the same time he did have ‘the jugglers’ the cabal of top ranking US generals who control the military and they seemed to be portrayed as a pretty bad bunch.
To me G.I.Joe is more of an ode to the individual, all those file cards he wrote detailing the Joes always have some great individual feats spattered throughout them.
That’s what I hated about the film, exo suits…real G.I.Joes wouldn’t need exo-suits they were all awesome enough already….except for the rubbish ones obviously like Quick Kick or if you want to talk about Cobra…Raptor….yeah Raptor….
I’d guess Hama = Crazy Libertarian…but then I may just as well call him a neo-republican I guess
Jacob: Actually, Quick Kick was based on Larry Hama himself. 🙂
The selling point of Saga for me really has to be the art. The premise, aside from the quirkiness of things like King Robot III and so on, is nothing really new, and I’ve never been a huge Brian K. Vaughan fan (I tried my best to get through both Y and Ex Machina, but got bored/frustrated through both of them and quit), but Fiona Staples’ art is absolutely gorgeous, and that should make it worth picking up for a while, at least until Vaughan gets too Vaughan-ish.
Quick Kick wasn’t based on Hama. One of the comic’s artists (allegedly/jokingly) drew Storm Shadow to look like Hama and then the character Tunnel Rat was properly modelled on him by Hasbro’s sculptors.
And even a lame character like Quick Kick was made to look good at various points in the series thanks to Hama. Until getting mowed by down a guy with a machine gun, obviously.
By “a few issues ago” Alex actually means “last July” for the issue of Fables that set up Fairest #1.
Also, you guys forgot the New Deadwardians as a new Vertigo book this month.
I stand corrected. 🙂
Over the past few years Marvel has dropped off my pull list — in large part due to Bendis’ as it happens — and more and more Image titles have been added to it. This has been something of a surprise to me given what Image were like back in the 90’s, but when they’re putting out stuff by Paul Grist, Brandon Graham, James Stokoe and so on, there’s not much to argue with there.
The robots in Saga sound an awful lot like Kanti/Atomsk the Pirate King from FLCL; I wonder if there’s an influence there?
No one asks the Fantastic Four for help because Reed Richards is a git.
In the United States, if you sell a product with, for example, “Chicken Fingers” on the package, there are laws regarding how much actual chicken must be contained in it, but if you put something like “Chik’n Fingaz” on the package instead, you can put whatever crap you want in there.
I assume that’s the reasoning behind “X-Treme X-Men.” For liability reasons, they don’t want to put “Extreme” on the cover. They want to be able to put whatever crap they want in there.
Also if it was called Extreme X-Men they might have got Dan Vado to write it.
Does “The Avengers” really open in the UK on the 5th of April? It doesn’t come out in the US until May 4th.
Also, I wonder if Avengers Assemble #1 is not quite so dreadful as most Bendis Avengers comics because it’s a 2nd draft. His notion of the Zodiac is exactly the same as his notion of The Hood & his gang.
I had no familiarity with Bendis until Ultimate Spider-Man #1 came out, at which point I immediately viewed him as a much-needed breath of fresh air. Now I wish he’d just go away.
I also agree with Al about the Marvel line having turned into “The Story of the Marvel Universe.” It’s the complete opposite of what they did during the ’90’s with their “Marvelution” initiative (segregating the Marvel Universe and keeping the concepts apart). They’ve gone from one extreme to the other. God, I miss the ’70s and ’80s.
Bendis doesn’t have a problem. He’s a decent writer. The problem is that Marvel don’t seem to realise that Bendis has limits. When Marvel finally realises they’ve over-exposed Bendis, or when Bendis finally gets bored of what he’s doing, I imagine I’ll be able to enjoy his comics again.
Ultimate Spiderman has been a great read from start to finish – so long as you weren’t reading any of the other books in the Ultimate line.
“Bendis doesn’t have a problem. He’s a decent writer. The problem is that Marvel don’t seem to realise that Bendis has limits.”
Then wouldn’t it be fair to say that those limits are a problem?
That’s like saying there was no problem with Michael Jordan, only that Michael Jordan thought Michael Jordan should try baseball.
“Who was the only person to hold jordan under 20 points?”
Dean smith
Does “The Avengers” really open in the UK on the 5th of April? It doesn’t come out in the US until May 4th.
We got Thor a good few weeks early, so it happens now and then, but Avengers Assemble doesn’t open until the 26th according to the imdb.
@kelvingreen – Thanks for the clarification. A week of dodging spoilers is not as bad as a month. Still, I find it interesting because it seemed like for a while there studios made a big deal about releasing blockbuster films like this simultaneously worldwide. Guess that model didn’t work out.
Michael, all writers have limits. That’s one of the reasons they have editors. Those limits are only a problem if the editor acts like they’re not there. If Bendis was treated the same way as the average Marvel writer, we wouldn’t be quite as familiar with his weaknesses. His best work happened before he was given the keys to the universe.
@Andy: Some studios do, because it’s found to help to counteract piracy, and allows a more global buzz via social networks. Marvel and Disney do it differently.
Marvel has a tendency to put stuff out to Australia and the UK on 3-day weekends, which normally fall just before the US release date.
Disney put out “Tangled” and “The Muppets” in February 2012 in this country, and November 2011 in the States. Which is *INSANELY* slow, and skips the entire Christmas season.
I think the idea is that it gives them time to set up a separate “premiere” event, but it still barely makes sense.
@Tom Clarke
Wow, thanks. That’s really interesting. I hadn’t made the connection that it was different studios employing different strategies. I can understand Marvel going for local holiday weekends, but I agree that Disney’s strategy is harder to fathom.
Now I’m really glad I asked. I could have just looked up the UK release date on IMDb, but I wouldn’t have understood the larger picture any better.
The Bendis Avengers book work infinitely better in the trade format. I was buying the Avengers books in trade up until Secret Invasion, when I made the jump to serials in order to avoid spoilers. (I was really into that storyline)
I stuck with the serial format until Seige began, when I finally got fed up enough to practically give up on comics for 2 years and start trade waiting again. I’m now up to Fear Itself and have been enjoying the Avengers books much much more. While Bendis team books do tend to be Main Character + Friends, it gets masked somewhat in trade format, because the characters all get their moments.
Seriously, the serials are a pain in the arse these days. I was going to the comic shop every thursday to get 10 middle chapters of various stories featuring many of the same characters.
Bendis tends to work better on solo books in part because he doesn’t write ensembles. That is, even when he has an ensemble cast, he doesn’t really write it as an ensemble.
He’s been a very odd fit on the Avengers titles for me for a another, high-faluting sort of reason. Bendis seems to write about the fallibility and untrustworthiness of institutions and large concentrations of power. The Kingpin’s empire, Dardevil’s failed stint as a “Kingpin against Crime,” the Registration Act apparatus in Dark Reign, SHIELD in Secret War and Secret Invasion and so forth are all institutions — some well-meaning, some malignant — that collapse under the weight of their own internal weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and/or inherently corruptibile natures. Institutions always fail in Bendis stories, and the more powerful or established they are, the more spectacularly they fail.
Ah, but that’s exactly what the Avengers are, a big institution, and so Bendis’s Avengers stories are about the team essentially failing, and failing even to learn from its failures. They tend to win when their opponents are similarly damaged institutions or power-holders, but the victories are virtually always hollow.
He doesn’t write ensembles well because he doesn’t seem to much like groups, especially stable or structured ones.