Aldo reads Marvel NOW! (even though you are, and he clearly hasn't learned his lesson)

Since I obviously don't know any better, I'm going to take on the Marvel soft reboot as well (not least because some of you asked me to). I'm far less familiar with the Marvel Universe, particularly the X Plot, and only really know anything about the recent FF and Iron Man out of the line, which maybe makes this a better fit than DC in that I'm the sort of person Marvel should be chasing in that I have the potential to be a new customer. So let's dive in...

Marvel NOW! 0.1: A guy from the future shows up and starts taking over the New York stock exchange, which maturally piques the interest of SHIELD. Maria Hill, Agent Coulson out of the films and Ultimate Nick Fury/Samuel Jackson turn up to interrogate him where he tells about the imminent collapse of America and spouts an awful lot of Warren Ellis-type dialogue. We get an origin story of sorts for the new Nova, who fights an old Nova baddie and ends the fight written like BMB's Ultimate Spider-Man. After a SHIELD interlud we get a thoroughly enjoyable piece where Loki tries to recruit Miss America for the Young Avengers over Korean barbecue. Then a Mike Allred piece on Ant Man that reads probably most like The All-New Atom (from when he was the Asian kid). Somebody who looks like an insane Tony Stark but according to the end papers is someone called Forge builds (or rather fixes) a giant steampunk computer and chops up a living brain for, it turns out, Cable. Back on the Helicarrier, future boy gets shot dead by Coulson after doing some body jumping. All of this prompts Maria Hill to start the Avengers. If this is supposed to be a taster, and try and suck me in to the reboot then it's done exactly the job it's supposed to as I want to read more of pretty much all of these stories. I'm kind of confused why the characters seem to be from different Marvel Universes, but I'm sure it'll be explained somewhere. This is how you do it, DiDio.

A+X #1: WWII Captain America and Bucky are sent behind the lines to break up a Nazi robot factory, and discover what seems to be a Nazi Sentinel. Then with a whoosh, Cable jumps through a time portal to "help" because it's all part of a time-travel plot by someone called Trask to wipe out mutants earlier in history. In a thrill-powered moment, Trask sends the Sentinel after Cable by programming it with the punched card he's already had made for the mutants he knows about. Bucky then blows it up. In the second story, a Hulk and Wolverine from the future come back to stop a Hulk and Wolverine from the present arguing about a slice of cake. They were sent back by a Red Hulk PotUS, who looks like either General Ross or JJJ. These are fun, but standalone tales which presumably are supposed to contribute to an overall plot by increments, and they're tremendous fun but the real truth is that they're just not long enough and so end up being completely unsatisfying. Like just eating canapes instead of having a proper meal. Strip this down to one story and it'll be as much fun as the late lamented Tangled Web, which I'm sure we'd all love to see back.

All-New-X-Men #1: It starts with a summary of A Vs X, which seems to be as follows - the Scarlet Witch gets rid of mutants, but then Phoenix comes from space and powers them back up again; then Cyclops kills Professor X which makes Phoenix sad and go back to space so now all the mutants are becoming mutants again. Alles klar? Beast becomes the Beast again, and the team-up of Cyclops, Emma Frost and Magneto (who may or may not be a good guy now) find a new mutant in Australia who has frozen time. The resolution of this section is kind of confusing if I'm honest, as they can get in her time bubble so why they don't just take her out and then collapse the bubble isn't clear and they seem to do it the way they do just so they can have a FITE (or, even more cynically, just so there can be that splash page of them having a fight). It rumbles on in the same way, until Beast goes back in time to try and persuade past-Cyclops not to be a baddie. Maybe. This feels like a single shot story rather than a reboot if I'm honest and although it's a great read I'm not sure I care for where it's going. I'm then further confused by the sarcastic end piece, which seems unsure about who the target market is. I have a nagging feeling if they're all like this issue then this could be a more painful experience than doing this for DC. Time will tell.

Deadpool #1: A Scottish magician guy brings back the dead PotUSes, Captain America decapitates Harry S Truman, a giant dinosaur turns up and Deadpool burts out of its chest... LOOK, JUST BUY THIS. It's exactly what you expect/want it to be but makes it clear it's not a reboot. Deadpool is dreaming of franchising his book. You should be celebrating.

Fantastic Four #1: The skinny - Reed's powers are failing and he wants to take the entire contents of the Baxter Building into space for a year and use a time portal to return when they left, ostensibly so he can discover an unknown universe. Despite the fact they won't actually be missing, the premise for the FF series is to make sure everything's fine when they're gone by putting in replacements. Franklin has a nightmare foreshadowing something going wrong when they're lost in space/time. This jumps about an awful lot and might seem kind of baffling to people who haven't been reading either of the other books for the past few years.

Iron Man #1: Unlikely as it sounds, despite all the years of battling it Extremis is back on the loose and Tony is trying to shut it down. Being a Greg Land book, this has lots of identikit women. Like, LOTS of women. Everybody who isn't Tony or the bad guy, pretty much, is a woman. It's like reading a Gail Simone book which is sexist for different reasons for a change. Only more entertaining.

Thor God Of Thunder #1: Taking place in three time regions, this story of a God killer is a great read but feels like it's all been done before. If this was an Alan Moore or Gmoz book we'd accuse them of going over old ground. Fun, but pointless. Like painting targets on your nipples and getting somebody to fire rubber bands at them or something.

Uncanny Avengers #1: THERE ARE MORE VARIANT COVERS OF THIS THAN THERE ARE PAGES IN THE COMIC. Is this the 80s again, again? Anyway, this takes place some time before All-New-X-Men as Cyclops is in custody and there's lots of harking back to what happened in A Vs X. Ultimately, some aliens or something turn up and stop Rogue from punching the Scarlet Witch by stabbing her. The Red Skull cuts out Charles Xavier's brain. I have no idea what's going on or how it relates to the other books, and I'm not sure I care.

X-Men Legacy #1: The son of Charles Xavier does some Dragonball Z cosplay in the Himalayas, then sucks the life force out of people who have names with lots of z and x in them in an alien space prison, which it turns out is only in his imagination. It then does a pile of desperate GMoz wanna pseudo-mystic bullshit and something or nothing happens. Impenetrable bollocks that thinks it's clever.

And onto the books which are part of Marvel NOW! but aren't being renumbered/rebooted/whatever...

Avengers Assemble #9: The Avengers before the Uncanny Avengers have a kind of goofball team-up adventure in the ice and snow of Russia. If this and All-New-X-Men both contradict Uncanny Avengers, can I ignore it as out of continuity? Please? It's one of the things I haven't liked very much, so it would be expedient to do so. Ta.

Red She-Hulk #58-59: Yet another different Avengers lineup tries to take down Betsy Ross (who, while nobody was reading, became the Sexy Rulk because hs was at the original Gamma event or something). They sort of fail. But not in a way that's good enough to care about.

Wolverine & The X-Men #19-20: Wants to be wacky teen fluff. Almost succeeds. Contradicts All-New-X-Men and (possibly) Uncanny X-Men. Thankful now I don't have any other books to read.

And that's it. I don't know what they're trying to do, and don't know whether they've succeeded or not. I can't work out whether there's supposed to be a continuity (because several things contradict each other already) and if there isn't then what's the point of the whole thing? And as enjoyable as they are, the whole thing just feels tired - like all the plots for the FF, Thor and Iron Man have been used up and are treading water. And the real-world setting just actively works against the titles. I mean, both Uncanny Avengers and Deadpool destroy New York AGAIN. INDEPENDENTLY. That can't be right, surely? A better read than DC's effort, but less of a success I think. Time will tell.

You are a brave man.

I hate to say it, but the first chunk of Nu-52 > first chunk of NOW.

god bless brother and god speed

THERE ARE MORE VARIANT COVERS OF THIS THAN THERE ARE PAGES IN THE COMIC.

so is this basically an attempt to line up the comic with all the movies?

Some of it feels like it, for sure. Coulson seems to be the most important SHIELD agent, Fury is the one from the films, Thor travels about like he's going to see Natalie Portman. Wolverine and the X Men is Saved By The Bell: The Mutant Years.

In all-new X-Men, I thought they were using Emma to talk to the time freezing mutant telepathically, and then Emma shut down the part of her brain controlling her powers so they could interrupt the bubble and snatch her.

That makes sense, I guess, but pre-supposes you know she can do that or even that she's a telepath. The young mutant says "how did you do that" and Cyclops just says it's a secret and doesn't tell her, then it's never explained. So if you don't already read X-Men then the art and dialogue tell a different story, that they're physically there.

Oh God, I've come over all Tuomas.

I don't necessarily disagree with you but I think Emma is an important enough X character that 90% of the intended audience already knows she is a telepath

I'd disagree. In First Class she's sort of a cool girl who can turn into a diamond. I had only really remembered she was because I'm playing MAA on Facebook and she gets mental attacks on that.

In the X comics I've read in the past, her main power seems to be standing about in a push-up bra, and her second power is sleeping with Scott Summers behind someone else's back. I don't remember reading a comic before now when she actually uses any powers.

The only X-books I'd read between 1990-ish and All-New #1 were the GMoz run (can't remember if she was in it) and the Whedon run -- from it and AvX I did know she was a powerful telepath. #anecdotalirrelevance

MAA on Facebook?

Marvel Avengers Alliance. A kind of shitty Flash gave that I'm inexplicably still playing.

My X-knowledge is limited to a bit of the Claremont era, a cursory read of GMoz's New X-Men and Ultimate X-Men. So my only real experience of Emma Frost is in Mark Millar's EF teen book.

In First Class she's sort of a cool girl who can turn into a diamond.

.. And also she's a telepath? There are big plot points in that movie that are directly tied to her mental abilities.

Also the diamond thing is a new development introduced by GMoz; up until then she had only been a telepath.

Is she? Shows what I took from the film.

Really? I've seen it more than once and really don't remember anything more than her turning into diamond on the yacht a couple of times, and turning into diamond when she gets caught by the good guys in Russia. And how she convinces the Russian guy to invade somewhere or something by being all the sexey towards him.

Maybe Marvel (or more specifically X-Men) is just not for me.

Although I do greatly appreciate your efforts here, aldo (and will be perusing them through splayed fingers, as I'm >1 yr behind on Marvel stuff and don't wanna spoilerize myself too much), I'm also curious as to what regular stans think of the changes. They seem monumental enough without having any meaningful narrative purpose that I'm inclined to think of Marvel Now! as a really great jumping-off point (speaking as someone who's been pretty up in the general Marvel U's business since Bendis took the Avengers' reigns and who's read pretty much everything X-related from Claremont on). I don't really care for this kind of (seemingly) marketing-driven rejiggering of a long-form narrative conceit. Maybe I'm laboring under a misapprehension tainted by the bad taste DC has left in my mouth (and the idea that Marvel's new look was at all inspired by the ill-advised New 52 clusterfuckery).

And how she convinces the Russian guy to invade somewhere or something by being all the sexey towards him.

She's telepathically manipulating him. He thinks he's boning the shit out of her and she's basically sitting off to the side rolling her eyes.

To me, Marvel NOW is 100% marketing; unlike DC's reboot, they could have easily kept the numbers and titles the same, and launch a new title or two and wrap a couple up. As far as I can tell it's no different than any other follow-up to a big summer event - SIEGE into HEROIC AGE, SECRET INVASION into DARK REIGN, CIVIL WAR into THE INITIATIVE, etc. They shuffled a few more artists and writers than usual, but that's about it.

I kind of think that Marvel is a lot happier with not giving a fuck about continuity than DC? Apart from the obvious Wolverine being on a billion teams, they've seemed happy just mostly freeze things in amber on a lot of titles - Franklin aging 7 years over the last 40, to pick the popular example - apart from the ones where there is so much going on all the time (Daredevil is a great example) that it settles into a hum of action, with no sense that there's a real permanent character history being written.

Also just sayin' that'd have to be a pretty cursory re-read of New X-Men, she's being telepathic pretty much on every page.

Yeah, what everyone is saying - NOW! isn't really a reboot, just another post-event change o' the kaleidoscope. Marvel is just making a bigger hubbub so it'll seem nu-52-ish, and reap whatever sales will arise from that.

Oh aye Dan, I remember that bit now. It's just before the good guys turn up in Russia and there's a big fight and then she goes all diamond-y.

YMOF - I meant a cursory read at the time, and I haven't re-read it since. I was a late adopter too, so all I really remember is Emma having an affair with Scott (that I think would test Jeremy Kyle, because I don't think he was even with the woman who gets all snotty about him going behind her back) and it being all OOOH XORN IS MAGNETO then they all die.

But yeah, I agree with the general tenor here and the frozen in amber comment - and maybe it's why I've never been a Marvel stan. It kind of seems like when you turn the last page the Marvel universe resets to some kind of perfect state. It feels like they're just telling the same stories over and over again - mutants get de-powered, mutants get re-powered, mutants get wiped out, mutnats come back again, rinse, repeat.

All this is sort of leading up to a blog post I've had in mind for a while, but reading Marvel NOW makes it feel like the right time.

It's interesting that, of all the changes that GMoz made, the one that seemed most likely to be reverted within 3-4 working days is "Jean is dead, Scott's with Emma", and that's the one that's lasted.

I kind of think of a lot of Marvel as pre-syndicated, like if you see a Spiderman newspaper strips there's three panels but there's also some quanta of story being told, and you don't need to know if it's 70s / 80s / 90s / 00s Spidey.

And as a side effect you don't get the generational thing so much, where the original JSA have mostly retired and/or handed on their legacies.

I can't say I really bothered by the whole "frozen in amber" thing either way 'round. I tend to dip in and out of Marvel superhero comics, so I'm generally more concerned by internal consistency and clarity (and, y'know, fun) than caring about where everything sits on the General Index of All Continuity Ever. And like Andrew said, I think Marvel's much happier not giving a fuck about that sort of thing anyway. Good.

DC's different -- indexing the various alternate earths and variations between costumes and cleavage levels and origin stories is all part of the fun (or "fun") for us longterm DC readers/stooges.

What seems to have changed for me lately is that the summer event stories -- since maybe Dark Reign and Blackest Night -- have been basically unfollowable clusterfucks, dragging down the whole continuity rather than just poisoning their own little summer event pool. Which is what ends up drawing me to single-character comics like Daredevil and Hawkeye, with continuity of creators (or at least writers) and the status quo not being reset every six months.

Anyway, the Marvel Now comics I have read -- FF, All New X-Men and Uncanncy Avengers -- did seem on another level to whatever DC is managing these days -- but I can't say I'd go back for the second issues of any of them. They did seem like the least "issue 1" issue 1's ever.

I adored All-New X-Men because this is the first depiction of Scott Summers that has really felt RIGHT to me since the days when he ran out on his wife and son to court his high school girlfriend. The cheesy X sign he gave the security camera after his dramatic speech was just perfect.

(Storywise I think it would have been a better read to have had the girl's time bubble drop to see her surrounded by prone policemen and carnage with Scott reaching a hand out to her saying something like "Come with us, there's not much time" especially since they had a backup fight in place with the jailbreak later on)

Captain America #1: Steve Trevor should have known it wasn't a SHIELD train when it has Mogwai songs as the password to get on it. Surely the good guys aren't still listening to them? Although maybe Steve still is, since it's his 90th birthday. Maybe he's just confused because his bllod sugar is low? He and Sharon clearly thought they were going to a bar for a drink or some food rather than him being transported to Dimension 5 by Arnim Zola, where he's now stuck. This is at times charming, funny and thrilling and is a great, great read. It makes explicit though that Marvel NOW isn't anything other than a marketing gimmick, as it refers to something which happened in previous issues of Captain America? The Avengers? Who knows, and it isn't explained.

Deadpool #2: A zing-rated wazzer if ever I saw one, Deadpool is joke after joke after violence after joke. Zingy dialogue about sound effects? CHECK! An elephant burned to death? CHECK! JFK can't keep his hands off theladies? CHECK! Bugs Bunny and TV advertising references? CHECK! If this sounds like snark it isn't, because I really enjoy reading this, but then I was buying Deadpool Max before the jump so go figure.

Indestructible Hulk #1: Mark Waid's take on the Hulk is simple. Bruce is upset that Tony Stark and Reed Richards get all the credit for being the brains in the Marvel Universe and feels intellectually cuckolded so decides to be the Bruce Banner/Hulk from the recent Avengers film because people liked him. Eventually it turns out the Hulk might be stronger than anyone ever thought he was and might defy mathematics. Yes, again. Enjoyable enough, but feels like it's been done before.

Iron Man #2: More Greg Land! At one point, the entire frame is full of a woman pouring a martini at chest height. Why? Because BEWBZ! (Apart from that, this is wordy and Tony fights some other people in Extremis suits, this time inspired by King Arthur and the Round Table. OK if you like some near-identical people blasting repulsor rays at each other. I think we're supposed to recognise the woman in the final panel and draw some conclusions but, you know, Greg Land.)

Journey Into Mystery #646: Sif leaves a domestic dispute to scratch a dragon's neck and then cut someone's head off. Seriously, are there any books in the Marvel Universe that aren't supposed to be funny? This is jam full of jokes, about half of which vaguely come off, and if I knew it was like this I would have been buying it already. Like Deadpool Prince Valiant, if not nearly as good as that sounds.

Wolverine and the X-Men #21: Rehashing the plot of Mojo Mayhem, reset in a circus, might just work. Although even I, who has read very little Marvel, spot it so maybe not.

A+X #2: Hey, these are fun and all but like last month they're too short to take seriously. An entertaining diversion though.

All New X-Men #2: Okaaaaay... present day Hank goes back in time to get the original X-Men and bring them back to the present day, because if he does then Scott will realise what he's going to do and... something will happen. Instead they come back and love what they've done with the place. Jean gets her mental powers because Hank tells her she'll get them at some point in the future. Anyway, they decide to stay and fight against present day Scott because present day Hank might not be that well. I can see what this is doing, but it feels like awful fanwank if I'm honest.

FF #1: So, now we know what's going to happen while the Fantastic Four are away for FOUR MINUTES. This is so heavily foreshadowed that something going to go wrong it's not true, but I'm guessing we'll end up with this being the Kirkman FF book and the Fantastic Four being Challengers of the Unknown In Space. This issue pretty much does what's required to set up this premise, but since most of this is told in single pages it feels like it jumps about a bit too much. As somebody who was with the FF books at the end, I kind of just want them to get on with it.

Thor God of Thunder #2: After having set up the three time zone premise, this is set entirely in the past. Thor and Lord Voldemort punch each other in the sky for 10 pages until Thor remembers he can call down lightning, which ends the fight pretty quickly. Yes, I'm being harsh (because I did actually like this) but given this is only a five part story - because the one thing I'm getting from all of this is that Marvel only want to tell stories they can print in a single-volume trade these days - it doesn't feel like that much happens.

Uncanny Avengers #2: PO. FACED. Possibly Wanda is going to do what she did in A vs X which got undone by the end of A vs X again, because the Red Skull tells her to. After all, why just use a plot once when you've paid for it, right? Some heroes look guilty because they smashed up New York, but it's OK because an old guy tells them he wanted it smashed up really. The Red Skull stands very heroically, but not as much on the cover of #3 where Cap looks like he's going to kick him in the balls.

X-Men Legacy #2: Wow. Even worse than the first one. Some people who may be an alternative X-Men turn up to get Dragonball Z guy out of his Tibetan monastery while he simultaneously fights Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean in his head and Chinese Parademons in Tibet, guided by the Fluoronic Man. A pair of floating eyeballs turn up and he starts wearing an 80s bodywarmer. This version makes more sense than the published one.

All New x-Men #3: We get, in the following order, the following scenes: Scott and Magneto set up their bad mutant base in the Weapon X facility because "nobody would ever suspect that bad guys would be there"; we see Scott and Magneto bust out Emma (where she admits her powers are screwed and turns into a diamond a couple of times to show she can still do SOMETHING) and she joins them out of desperation because the police turn up; Scott has a bit of a cry and Magneto talks through his daddy issues with him; and finally the 60s X-Men turn up to tell them they're naughty mutants. This is so mired in X-history and continuity I can't be arsed, and I can't see how this is much fun for anyone else who isn't bought into the whole X-thing.

Avengers #1: Tony decides the Avengers need to go to Mars to take over the planet as a base, because the Avengers aren't big enough, but it turns out somebody else had already had the same idea. They have a fight and Cap gets away and back to earth, where he plans a rescue mission because of guilt over Civil War or the Illuminati or some other crossover I didn't read and couldn't care less about. To do this, he expands the Avengers membership to 13 which might stretch the defention of "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" slightly.

Deadpool #3: Even by the standards of the first two, this is like watching a hyperactive kid running round zinging bits of furniture. It works, but by God it's tiring to watch. Two issues in one sitting might just be too much, although Deadpool acting as the editor's explanatory boxout is a moment of greatness.

Iron Man #3: Blah blah extremis blah blah sick girl blah blah guys in super suits fight with rays. Only one real Landism to report, which is the first panel Firebrand's in. No woman's ever sat like that though, surely? And what's up with her left thigh? Poor quality lightboxing there. I'm sure there's something to like here but I'm not seeing it.

Red She-Hulk #60: The Red Hulk Avengers fail to capture her, but notice she doesn't seem to be as bad as they think she is. Except Cap. He hates her. Machine Man discovers that the Earth actually is the supercomputer from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the Eye in the Pyramid tells him that SHIELD has it built. Because of this he chooses to help her beat up a super-soldier training camp run by DUN DUN DUN...! General Fortean! Presumably mates with Brigadier Blavatsky? It's really not very good, this.

Thunderbolts #1: General Ross' Rulk is recruiting bad guys, so obviously picks the Punisher, Deadpool and Elektra. This aims for Ennis (Punisher, and bits of Preacher seem the most obvious comparators) and mainly succeeds, but the retouching of Steve Dillon's artwork to give Elektra bigger boobs sticks in the throat a bit too much to take it seriously. We'll see where it goes from here.

Deadpool sounds just as intolerable as I've found all previous iterations (note: I've never read Kelly's run).

Kelly's run is AMAZING

Gail Simone's run is also great - though I didn't read Kelly's or Priest's, maybe the first one you see is the best?

Has it been explained how the Red Skull came back to life, other than "lol continuity schmontinuity"? I thought Brubaker managed to kill him pretty thoroughly, though his daughter followed in the family business.

Not that I've seen. I'm assuming it's just lol continuity.

Actually, they explain Red Skull very clearly in issue #2, so I think Aldo must be glazing. This is the REAL Red Skull, who was put in suspended animation at the end if WWII; all the prior villainy was but a Red Skull clone created by Arnim Zola.

And Deadpool is crap, as Deadpool has always been crap.

Actually you're right, just re-read and it's pretty clear. I must have been glazing, because on first read I thought that was Rogue in disguise (using a power that she absorbed off-panel somewhere between here and her last escape) and was just making shit up to try and fool the Scarlet Witch.

The Red Skull's plan makes no sense though - he goes into suspended animation to come back in a time when "the world had forgotten me and my perceived atrocities". But, you know, those atrocities are kind of fun so I'll create a clone who's just like me that can keep on doing them in the 70 years I'm going to be frozen. Because that's a really good way to help people forget what happened, continuing to do it.

The reasoning is utter bullshit, and the comic itself is probably the worst of the big NOW! launches. Which is surprising, in that Remender's Uncanny X-Force was one of the peaks before all this marketing.

I'm not really feeling Deadpool; the jokes are there but the underlying menace isn't, and that juxtaposition was my favorite thing about Kelly's run and something I haven't really gotten from any of the other Deadpool runs I've read.

I am enjoying Uncanny Avengers in spite of myself? I had forgotten how much of a Havok fanboy I used to be before this series.

Did you read Havok in X-Factor? That was a fun little run.

haha of course I did! PAD + Havok = instant good times

as someone who has found Scott borderline irredeemable since the beginning of X-Factor, Alex quickly became "the good Summers brother" to me and it's always bummed me out that he never attained the status Scott did, so seeing him tapped to lead the flagship crossover team between the X-Men and Avengers is kind of a dream come true for me that is making me gloss over a lot of annoying storytelling quirks

Totally fair. I like Havok too, and thought the "X IN SPACE" (you have to say it like the Muppets Pigs in Space. Trust me) stories were well done. Scott's been a dick long before X-Factor; pretty much since he had to come back from retirement with Maddy.

... that was the beginning of X-Factor, wasn't it? Scott ditching his wife and son to run after his high school girlfriend? Or am I forgetting another piece of Scott Summers dickery? (I know there was some nonsense around the time when Storm took over leadership, where he basically acted like The X-Men would fall apart if he wasn't there to lead them and then Ororo handed him his ass without any powers, lol.)

Yeah, X-Factor #1 featured Cyclod running out on his wife and kid when he discovered Jean was alive.

I thought he was back before X-Factor, though that is when he finally threw off Madelyne; isn't the patronizing Storm bull before then? Though he came and went so often between Krakoa and X-Factor it's hard to keep straight.

But no matter how much of a dick he was back then, he wasn't as bad as Xavier when he got the ability to walk again. Scott basically turned into that guy in the intervening years.

VERY GOOD

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/12/16/marvel-digital-xomics-unlimited-comes-to-ipad-and-iphone

I wish I knew how to get in that beta.

I think if you subscribe they will email you with the beta address, so worth a punt for a month I guess

They haven't mailed me shit and I've been a subscriber for most of a year. Buggers.

This might work for a bit, sort of

I'll give it a go.

Got it working! A little slow, but single page view looks gorgeous on the ipad. This is a game changer.

Ah, ok. That's what I get for quick skimming.

yeah, that is why mags is wearing his classic costume, too. that's the alt-world version of the illuminati or whatevs

I have read now Hickman's New Avengers up to #8 and Avengers to #13. Personally, I like the epic nature of the whole scope, even if some of the dialog is perhaps a bit stiff. I'm working on the last prelude to Infinity issues in Avengers and will start the main story next. I like it in that it feels big in the way some of Jim Starlin and Grant Morrison's cosmic comics seem. I like that Aim and the High Evolutionary showed up. It would seem that Eternity or the Celestials should show up at some point, if nothing else to see how they tie back into the Builders etc.

Funny thing is that the whole multi-verse in Marvel looks a heck of alot like the Bleed and the Monitors shown in Final Crisis. Perhaps it is all one and the same really...

I'm not sure if the Celestials are locked into Uncanny Avengers right now and they're unavailable or what

Infinity and Hickman's run on Avengers is pretty good. It's probably the best big Marvel story since the Annhilation.

"I wonder why he bothered making Cannonball and Sunspot Avengers if he was hardly ever going to do anything with them."

I don't know, considering that neither character is really a key part of the big plot (at yet), I think he has incorporated both quite a bit, usually for levity. Maybe it is because I have been reading that era of Avengers in Essentials, but the scenes they do popup in remind me a bit of the old Beast/Wonderman friendship.

I also got caught up and read Mark Waid's Indestructible Hulk 1-16 and the Jeff Parker written Annual. That also was a pretty fun read. Walt Simonson's artwork on the 3 parter with Hulk and Thor versus Ice Giants was fantastic. It looked really good, much better than the few issues of Avengers Simonson did a while back.

star wars NOW
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/how-star-wars-marvel-move-668465

that's gotta be a bummer for that fanbase, niche as it is

not that it's a thing for me, but it's gotta demolish a lot of hard built canon; wonder if marvel will even pretend to honor that

Can't wait for some heroes to time travel too many times, crack open the universe, and have some jedi pop through into good ol' 616

Han Solo/Bishop limited series teamup

Darth Doom

Darth Doom the Annihiliating Conquerer of Coruscant

Emperor Thanos.

Avengers World really reminded me why I like Hickman. Just so many bat-shit ideas thrown into twenty pages.

Anything else worthwhile from ALL NEW NOW!!!

Superior Foes of Spider-Man has been fun. Bendis is doing his best work in a decade with the out of time X-Men. Al Ewing's Mighty Avengers is charming me despite Land's art, which is a mighty feat indeed. Others are loving Hawkeye and Young Avengers, though I'm ambivalent toward them at best.

But I'm a few months behind. Is that the newest Hickvengers?

Okay, I just read about NOW2. Most of those look and sound dreadful. Phil Noto's Black Widow at least looks good.

Young Avengers just ended. Hawkeye rules. You have to get Mighty Avengers because of we support our own and it also happens to be great (plus it has Monica Rambeau in it). The X-Factor reboot was suprisingly fun but I like PAD on autopilot, so

I wondered what happened to her after Nextwave

But I'm a few months behind. Is that the newest Hickvengers?

― EZ Snappin, 9. januar 2014 03:17 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup, with help from Nick Spencer (Superior Foes of Spider-Man). Hickman really makes people like Johns and Bendis look myopic with all their heroes-fighting-heroes stuff.

Last issue of Young Avengers was awesome.

Yeah, new x-factor was non-earth-shaking fun.

I really enjoyed the original Madrox detective show setup of X-Factor and lost interest when it drifted from that -- then read the last issue before the relaunch out of loyalty and was glad I skipped it. BUT what's the new one like?

Mighty Avengers has such a lovely tone of voice and hangout vibe, it's already a keeper - actually kind of reminds me of PAD's original X-Factor run from the 90s.

I still think Daredevil is terrific if also auto-piloty (but folks here are ambivalent)

Speaking of loyalty, I read Justice League 3000 and it made me :(

It looks like PAD is exploring the X-Statix/Youngblood idea of a corporate hero team, only with PAD-humor rather than overwhelming cynicism.

I'm just glad he's well enough to write anything at all.

i dig new direction iron man

Mighty Avengers has such a lovely tone of voice and hangout vibe, it's already a keeper - actually kind of reminds me of PAD's original X-Factor run from the 90s.

Oo, I think I'm sold. i loved that too-short run he did then.

New She-Hulk was awesome. All lawyering, all the time. Loke #1 was great as well. Also, did people see that Ms Marvel #1 apparantly topped Marvel's digital sales chart? 2-7 was issues of Hawkeye...

Really liked She-Hulk, and Ms Marvel was very promising--didn't get far into the plot, but was really well done.

Is anyone else a Jeff Parker fan? He's more good-times fun writing than the cerebral Hickman end of the Marvel universe but I think his stuff is pretty clever

Jeff Parker is way better than alot of people ahead of him on the food chain.

Quite a few of the good writers over the years in super hero comics seem to oddly never get the main titles. Maybe it is because they can sell comics that many other writers couldn't get done. I guess I would be referring to guys like Steve Gerber or John Ostrander, guys that were really good writers and created stuff that lasted but never really got any real run with the top characters for various reasons. I figure Parker might end up in that kind of company in the super hero comic world.

I can see Ostrander wanting to get a main DC title with his great Suicide Squad work - did Gerber want to pen X-Men/Spider-Man etc?

Any Jeff Parker recommendations that don't require knowing everything that's happened in the Marvel U for the last few years?

Reading forum posts talking about Ms Marvel #1 full of people complaining "why are all of the white people racists" is really the funniest fucking thing

Quite a few of the good writers over the years in super hero comics seem to oddly never get the main titles. Maybe it is because they can sell comics that many other writers couldn't get done. I guess I would be referring to guys like Steve Gerber or John Ostrander, guys that were really good writers and created stuff that lasted but never really got any real run with the top characters for various reasons. I figure Parker might end up in that kind of company in the super hero comic world.

I would assume that at least some of these writers preferred the more obscure titles because they were allowed more creative freedom there? Like, Ostrander could do things with Suicide Squad that he never could've done if he was writing the Justice League, and the same applies to Kieron Gillen with Young Avengers, Christos Cage with Avengers: The Initiative/Avengers Academy, etc.

Oy, I think Gage is pretty dreadful though.

Parker's Agents of Atlas stuff is mostly divorced from mainstream Marvel continuity. I've only read part of his X-Men: First Class runs but due to it being in that timeframe, it's also pretty divorced from current Marvel.

His Red She-Hulk run is a little more linked in, but he ended up doing something kind of neat with it (using some of the SHIELD-as-centuries-old stuff Hickman introduced) that gave it kind of the secret society feel that the Atlas series had.

Jeff Parker wrote a bunch of those alt-continuity, all-ages Marvel Adventures titles, where he basically got to do his own Ultimate Spider-Man under the radar.

<I>Like, Ostrander could do things with Suicide Squad that he never could've done if he was writing the Justice League, and the same applies to Kieron Gillen with Young Avengers, Christos Cage with Avengers: The Initiative/Avengers Academy, etc.</I>

Bearing in mind that at the same time he was writing Young Avengers, Gillen established that Tony Stark is adopted...

I have to say that the past few years have really made me into a big Remender/Hickman/Fraction fan. I really dig all of those dudes, ESPECIALLY Fraction.

Also in completely unsurprising news, Al Ewing has been killing every Marvel project he's touched. Kind of amazing/crazy/awesome that One Of Our Own is the hot new talent at one of the Big Two.

I think the Jeff Parker / Gabriel Hardman stuff was a few years ahead of it's time. Like, with the right kind of project they would fit right into All New Marvel Now along with Daredevil and Hawkeye and She-Hulk and Loki and Young Avengers and Ms Marvel. Agents of Atlas was really good, but at the time it was seen as too 'marginal'. Now She-Hulk spends an entire issue arguing about the inventions of Jonas Harrow...

Marvel really is on fire these days. Wonder how soon it will collapse.

What's interesting is that I don't think they've got anyone other than Bendis on an exclusive (okay, possibly a "Don't do DC", apart from She-hulk's writer) - all of them have some side gig or other going, many with Image.

Parker's run on Thunderbolts was amazing. The time travel stuff was probably my favorite Marvel storyline of the last several years.

oh THAT was Parker? yeah that was super fun, also TROLL!

xx-post: I think the fact that they allow their writers to do Image-stuff is quite important in them being able to get the best and brightest. Like, why not do 2½ Avengers-books and your own stuff at the same time?

Over on twitter I suggested to Parker a Thunderbolts spin-off called HYDE AND TROLL SEEK. He said he wished he could but it wasn't in the cards. :(

aw

"Parker's run on Thunderbolts was amazing."

Parker also made the Rulk readable and enjoyable. Definitely taking lemons and making lemonade as comics.

I'd love to Jeff Parker get the Fantastic Four. Probably won't happen, but I bet he could do some fun F4 comics.

Steve Gerber maybe not doing a run with one of the marquee titles may have just not happened as the whole Howard the Duck ownership thing derailed that relationship. I'd love to see what he would have done in a Fantastic Four or Avengers run.

Jeff Parker deserves some Marvel U. props for how he used Man-Thing and Satana in that run on T-Bolts. That was ace and really did well to tie-in to the old appearances in a way. I'd think he could do some cool stuff with The Defenders if they would only let them use Dr. Strange, the Hulk, Valkrie with Kev Walker. Walker is really good and if they hit with the right comic together, I think it could catch on.

Decent gossipy interview with Sean Howe:

https://www.nerdist.com/2014/02/nerdist-comics-panel-29-sean-howe/

Did you know that the first issue of Spider-Gwen sold more than 300.000 issues? And I think that's just direct market, Marvel keeps claiming that these types of series sell better digitally. That is kinda insane.

I heard lots of good things, and tried it, but as is so typical in modern superhero comics, despite being #1, it seems to be halfway through a story.