Marvel Comics blabbery

someday I will remember to convert those html tags

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I think Roger Stern was a much better Marvel Comics writer than Bill Mantlo, Micronauts maybe excepted (and it sure didn't hurt having the first twelve issues of that drawn by Michael Golden). Just for starters, Stern's Captain America run with John Byrne and his run on Avengers with Buscema/Palmer are excellent, and far less slapdash than Mantlo in superhero hack mode.

Made the mistake of buying "X23: The Complete Collection" during that recent digital sale (I know & enjoy the current incarnation of the character in "All-New Wolverine," but not the backstory). It is so, so bad. Totally cliched writing; bad (and inappropriately "sexy" art); graphic violence and tons of gore; child abuse used as a cheap plot device. Marvel in the 2000s was so bad! I'm sure there are exceptions (and I've come across a few), but geez. Seeing how low they sunk, when I was largely looking the other way, makes the "renaissance"/turnaround that started with Marvel Now! look all the more remarkable.

i wouldn't defend nyx and the x-23 series as great comics, but i liked them, especially the sadness of the runaway stories
actually i just looked up the collection and realized nyx 1/2 aren't even in there so :(

They recently put out three of those collections, one for the complete NYX and two for the remainder of the solo X-23 stuff.

Yeah the NYX material isn't in the one I bought -- it's a few "origin" miniseries (which are what I'm primarily referring to in my rant above), and then some random stuff from way later, after she's been hanging with the X-Men a while.

Al E has a great list of comics up on the "Discover" tab on MU right now

LOL @ these pics: http://ew.com/movies/thor-ragnarok-exclusive-first-look-photos/thor-chris-hemsworth/

(Both current "Thor" series are so good, btw. "THE UNWORTHY THOR" wraps up next ish... supposedly it will be revealed what was whispered to Odinson that made him unworthy!)

from all the way back in Original Sin? geez that's a long payoff that will inevitably disappoint

Definitely a long tail on that mystery. (The whispered secret: "MOST COMICS WILL NOT INCREASE IN VALUE")

"No more mutants."

Probably something shameful about how he could have saved lives, or secret Asgard shame

"You caused Jane's cancer."

why is hemsworth doing thor as god of war now?

nah it's thor as maximus

IIRC, the next Thor movie is supposed to be a gloss on Planet Hulk. He probably got a style upgrade against his will.

I took Fury's whisper to Thor in Original Sin as some sort of Asgardian cheat code. So it was probably just something like 'up down up down left right right left A B start, and poof you can no longer lift your hammer but now you have infinite health and ammo, you're welcome.'

It reminds me of "Hitchhiker's Guide" -- that machine which reveals the true scope and complexity of the universe, and each individual's utterly insignificant place within it; and anyone who goes in emerges a crumpled, gibbering heap... except Zaphod, who walks out whistling and asks, "When's lunch?" [b/c he was in a replica/pocket universe created just for him]. ...Anyway, whatever this "secret" that caused Odinson to lose his mojo, probably shouldn't have had that effect on a *true* Thunder God. I bet Odin would have just laughed in Fury's face!

WmC on to something

Missed this story a while back:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/3/11853862/marvel-thanos-infinity-gauntlet-oven-mitt-recall

I would've totally burned the shit out of my own hand if I'd known that existed.

fuckin' lootcrate

I don't understand the point of it. Hey, here's a box of completely random garbage with maybe one thing in it you think is maybe kinda okay but wouldn't actually purchase on its own, give us your money, thank you.

it's for dorks who have too much disposable income and a fetish for getting surprises in the mail i guess

Ohhhh, right, that dude at the comic shop who presumably already has a spot on a shelf in a dedicated room for the Rogue bust that he's buying.

I think I have some nerdy coworkers who don't usually buy comic/video game/movie merchandise but were looking for an excuse to do so and they were getting them. I think their small children were into the whole surprise aspect

it's basically a slightly-more-adult happy meal package afaict

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel like Charles Soule's Marvel work is somewhat serviceable but complete hack work?

I'm disappointed he's picking up a new Darth Vader series, but it fits the pattern of work he's had so far. I might be giving him too little credit, but everything he's done for them has felt like an editorial meeting put together the basic outline of a comics event (Death of Wolverine, Inhumans/X-Men stuff) and he's scripted the most pat stories that hit all the required points.

Yep, him and Jeff Lemire. Both seem super boring but get a lot of work.

I don't mind Lemire -- his characters seem more relatable, but he's got a lot on his plate

haven't really read much by Soule but definitely agree that most of what I've read from Lemire is just okay, sad because I definitely dug Trillian

He's not very well-suited to writing ensemble books like his take on X-Men, I think; Essex County works because he's able to sympathetically inhabit his protagonists while also suggesting the ways in which their perspectives are naive or self-serving, but he hasn't been able to translate that tension into compelling comics with more complicated character systems.

His Moon Knight is interesting.

I guess Chelsea Cain doesn't need more work from Marvel as she writes proper books, but I wish they'd given her more to do after the trolly awfulness around Mockingbird (which was overstuffed but pretty good! and had a distinctive voice, like charles soule doesn't)

That said i've dipped back into Daredevil to find out how Soule retcons his way out of the Waid status quo. Not looking good so far. Retconning female characters is basically just a kinder, gentler fridging.

I enjoyed soule on she-hulk... He is a lawyer in real life, and brought interesting legal ideas to the stories. Other stuff by him not so much.

I haven't read his She-Hulk and that sounds like he'd have a natural angle.

But Chuck is right, Chelsea Cain definitely had an authorial voice that I enjoyed. Lemire's Moon Knight stuff has been interesting, and I enjoyed his Bloodshot series for Valiant and a couple of his own books, but the ensemble stuff and the publisher demands they're subject to haven't been good at pulling out his best work.

His Animal Man was pretty good, and his Vertigo series Sweet Tooth was lovely - slightly surreal, tense, post-apocalyptic.

I've only read his She-Hulk run; thought it was v good.

Btw (on a different tack) -- I saw the Logan movie today. It's the first X-Men movie I've seen in ages; looked like one not to miss. I thought it was very well done... better even than I hoped/expected. Intense, super violent; but largely nails the right "tone" and steers clear of action-movie cliches (though it maybe grazes a few here and there).

The depiction of the Laura character, and the young actress who plays her, are both excellent. Logan and Xavier are played a lot differently from what I've come to expect from comics (and previous movies); but their portrayals are def. interesting, and fit the story, (I'm not sure where the story belongs in the X-Movie saga; is it an alternate timeline, or something?)

I had minor quibbles with a few plot points and "directorial choices" -- but on the whole, I came away very pleased (and I don't see many movies, so when I do, it's a big thang).

Threadkiller Jones, back with another journal entry...

I got this miniseries collection "Karnak: The Flaw in All Things": https://www.amazon.com/Karnak-Vol-Flaw-All-Things/dp/0785198482. I wasn't really familiar with the character or the writer, but I read a few pages when the first issue came out, and was intrigued enough to take a gamble and wait for the TPB.

It was worth it -- the book's great. I read it in one sitting (didn't want to put it down). The writing is very good, and undercuts the character's dead seriousness with frequent (and effective) dry humor. Karnack's "philosophical" musings are a bit silly, but the book doesn't require you take them seriously (and, in fact, the story nicely complicates their underpinnings). It's also a SHIELD-heavy story, something I have complained about upthread; but the Coulson-and-Helicarrier schtick works well enough here.

It's very cool that Marvel puts out relatively offbeat, "uncommercial" series like this. Check it out!

You're unfamiliar with Warren Ellis?

Didn't know Ellis did that, will totally read now

You're unfamiliar with Warren Ellis?

Yep, checking out his Wikipedia entry now. Looks like he broke into mainstream comics around '94(?), which was right after I checked out for a few decades.

I see he cowrote (with Kelly Sue DeConnick) a few issues of Captain Marvel in 2015, which I have read.

Yeah man, you must've checked out hardcore. Ellis is one of the most-known comics writers of the past couple decades.

Most well-known, most-known, whatever.

Would Transmetropolitan still be the best way to get into him these days?

Trees, Karnak and Moon Knight are all recent and great.

I'd take Planetary over Transmet any day.

And Nextwave. Nextwave Nextwave Nextwave.

Also, Nextwave.

Nextwave is amazing, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it for Rip Van morrisp

i'm a big transmet fan, nhex. check it out esp if you like cyberpunk/posthumanism urban genre fiction (which i love).