Jan 9
Housekeeping
Posted on Sunday, January 9, 2011 by Paul in Uncategorized
No reviews tonight. Working. Plus, there’s about two weeks’ worth of books and I only got them yesterday.
Maybe reviews tomorrow. Maybe not. We shall see.
Also, we’ll try and let you know shortly when the next podcast is being recorded. (We were going to do one this weekend, but, yeah, working.)
*Another* batch of delayed reviews?! What am I *paying* you fo… oh, wait.
Something strikes me as odd here.
Paul, you approach this review blog, which you do for free, in your spare time, with more professional courtesy than Marvel approach their comics.
I was never ONCE apologised to, nor given a reason for, EVERY FUCKING ISSUE of Astonishing X-Men running late, holding up the entire line, and generally FUCKING the entire franchise for a few years.
(For those who do not agree with that last part, consider: Post M-day, nothing was done with the setup untill the gave up waiting for the ‘flagship’ title and moved. Since then, regardless of their success, they have been moving forward on the idea. The minute they gave up on it they started working towards Messiah Complex.)
I’m not sure why AXM was late, but if it was because Whedon couldn’t be bothered getting his scripts in on time, then I can’t say I blame him. Consider, that within his first storyline, Whedon did the following:
1) Repositioned the X-Men as a superhero team because, according to Cyclops, “The FF and the Avengers don’t get chased by angry mobs with torches.
2) Introduced a mutant “cure.” Something he left looming in the background after the first arc wrapped up, possibly because had plans to revisit it.
Within two years of this did Civil War (in which superheroes were chased by angry mobs with torches), and House of M (in which Wanda “cured” most of the mutant race).
I’m sure this wasn’t deliberate, but I’d have been pissed off if I did all of that set-up only for Marvel to indiscriminately knock my dominoes over like that. If Whedon said “Screw this! I’ll get to the scripts when I feel like it.” then, again, I don’t blame him.
Sorry, that should read: “Within two years of this, Marvel did Civil War…”
“Paul, you approach this review blog, which you do for free, in your spare time, with more professional courtesy than Marvel approach their comics.”
Marvel doesn’t owe you anything. You pay for their comics, you get their comics. The fact that Paul exhibits professional courtesy has no bearing on Marvel.
To Brian –
Yeah, that would be irritating. Except, of course, Whedon did it to other writers as well during his AXM run.
I suppose I _should_ be annoyed by late comics, but I’m really not. Lateness is WAY down the list of things that I’m annoyed with Marvel about (behind, at least, too damn many books, lack of compelling stories in those books, and a general tone and status quo for most of their heroes that I don’t particularly like).
I also stay perpetually behind on my reading, so I never have any idea when something’s “supposed” to be out anyway.
“Marvel doesn’t owe you anything. You pay for their comics, you get their comics. The fact that Paul exhibits professional courtesy has no bearing on Marvel.”
I’m sorry, I didn’t realise customer service was too much to expect from a professional publication.
If it’s a monthly title, it should come out monthly. If it doesn’t, I expect “hey, sometimes shit fucks up and we’re sorry for that”. If it comes out when ever it comes out, then state “this book will be out when it is finished”.
I believe there is a much used term called a ‘deadline’. It means you get your shit done. Don’t expect me to support your way of life by buying your product when your employees treat getting out of bed as an optional extra.
@errant: What are you referring to? I can’t think of what Whedon wrote in AXM that might have derailed what other writers had planned.
The X-Men decided to have a go at being heroes again because the Avengers don’t get attacked by angry mobs. Then the climax of Civil War had Captain America being attacked by an angry mob.
If you wanted to be a hero after that, you were a government lackey, something the X-Men obviously wouldn’t want to do when the Government had Sentinels camping on the Mansion grounds.
Prior to that, HOM got rid of all the mutants, which only served to cripple the book. There may have been a lingering theme with the cure situation that was meant to play across the entire line.
Maybe Whedon was aiming for a different ending than Kitty being stuck in a bullet that he couldn’t do anymore because the HOM got rid of the mutants, and Civil War got rid of the heroes. Anything he was possibly setting up as a long term change in the first arc couldn’t be done anymore. Whedon probably couldn’t have cared less about undoing the editorially imposed M-Day, and just set about finishing his story.
Though, now I think about it, maybe Marvel had originally liked the cure idea as a way of scale back the mutants, then decided a x-over with the Avengers (and a line wide tie-in scheme) was more profitable than telling a decent story. Something which HOM obviously wasn’t.
The cure idea would definately have been a more reasonant way of going about it than the Scarlet Witch.
Oh, and the name of the cure was ‘Hope’, too…
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise customer service was too much to expect from a professional publication.”
I’m sorry, I didn’t realize Marvel was a restaurant where you tip the waitress.
“If it’s a monthly title, it should come out monthly. If it doesn’t, I expect “hey, sometimes shit fucks up and we’re sorry for that”. If it comes out when ever it comes out, then state “this book will be out when it is finished”.
I believe there is a much used term called a ‘deadline’. It means you get your shit done. Don’t expect me to support your way of life by buying your product when your employees treat getting out of bed as an optional extra.”
That’s up to them to decide, not you. You’re free to spend your money as you will, but if you think they owe you something extra than the product you pay for, don’t hold your breath.
@Brian – it didn’t “derail” anything, but for some reason he had the Danger arc move to Genosha to put her face to face with Xavier. except he didn’t bother looking up the status quo on Excaliibur at the time to know that mechanical and electronic technology didn’t work there. aside from Danger operating there, there’s a scene of Xavier driving a truck into her.
@errant – That’s what editors are supposed to watching for and Mike Marts was editing both titles. I’d therefore put any inconsistency between those titles on his head, not Whedon’s.
aside from Danger operating there, there’s a scene of Xavier driving a truck into her.
Sod anti-technology fields, a more pressing issue surely is that Xavier’s legs don’t work, so who’s pushing the pedals?
@kelvingreen
uh, yeah. that. too.