This is the thread to talk about Marvel Comics.
Marvel Comics Thread
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The Aaron and Asrar Conan stuff at Marvel was pretty enjoyable, but far from essential. I hear really good things about Savage Avengers but haven’t read it. It’s not on Marvel Unlimited, presumably for rights issues. May have to pick up the Omnibus later this year which is likely to be a collector’s item if Marvel have lost the license.
At Dark Horse, there were some great runs on the character. Busiek and Nord were excellent, as was the Woods run with Cloonan, Harren, and a bunch of other eclectic “indie” artists. Truman did solid pulpy work on the character too. I enjoyed most of it.
But, Marvel are a fool, and Dark Horse were before them, for not running with my Star Wars vs Conan idea.
A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far Away … There Came a Barbarian.
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This is the guy who controls the rights now, the CEO of Conan Properties International:
And the answer to his question of course is Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith.
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But, Marvel are a fool, and Dark Horse were before them, for not running with my Star Wars vs Conan idea.
A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far Away … There Came a Barbarian.
Well, both properties do have James Earl Jones in common.
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Marvel Comics reveals new Alien ongoing series
Alien returns this August with a horrifying new tale
Two years after securing the rights to the ever-popular sci-fi horror series, Alien, Marvel Comics has announced another new Alien series to debut this August. Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson with art by Julius Ohta, Alien #1 launches “an express elevator to Hell,” which sounds like a brand new nightmare.
In the first arc of the newly relaunching title, a secret colony of synths who have settled on a “backwater moon” must team up with soldiers from the United Systems to venture into a dangerous world to retrieve “biotechnology” that “could be the key to saving humanity.”
However, the Synths are faced with a moral quandary over whether to help the human soldiers in their mission or protect themselves from being potentially exploited and betrayed – themes that have become prominent in recent incarnations of the Alien franchise, including Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.
Alien #1 will feature main cover art by Björn Barends, as well as variant covers by Travis Charest, Carlos Magno, and Ryan Brown. The series debuts alongside Predator #2, keeping the two franchises as closely knit as one might expect, even if they don’t appear to be crossing over (yet).
This comic comes with a parental advisory, likely for frightening images and adult concepts. Alien #1 hits shelves in August.
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Coming soon: Alien vs. Wolverine.
We’re wise to you, Marvel.
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Hopefully he’ll have time to go finish off ASH now.
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Reddit threads about this are… trash fire. Someone here or there maybe getting the point that JQ has done a lot of good things but mostly just people being really angry about One More Day/Brand New Day.
Like, JQ has done a lot of good for Marvel over the years. Bringing Bendis in, creating the Ultimate Universe (which in turn has been a kind of blueprint for a lot of the stuff we see in the movies), bringing in new talent all across the board, to name a few.
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I mean let’s be honest, he quit years ago, he just didn’t know it yet… xD
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Marvel Solicitations for September 2022
https://www.gamesradar.com/marvel-comics-september-2022-solicitations-covers/
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Marvel Solicitations for October 2022
https://www.gamesradar.com/marvel-comics-october-2022-solicitations-covers/
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Savage Spider-Man was disappointing, to say the least. The second half of Joe Kelly’s return to the character; a direct continuation of Non Stop Spider-Man. You cannot read Savage without reading Non Stop first. This is one story, broken into two distinct mini-series for no real reason.
Chris Bachalo was the artist on Non Stop, and his work always brings out the best in Kelly. It had a frenetic energy and a wit to it that sparkled, even with the darker subject matter.
Unfortunately, Chris had some personal issues to deal with that resulted in an erratic and crazy release schedule. Marvel chose to move on without him for Savage and that’s where the whole thing falls apart. Unfortunately.
Geraldo Sandoval is no Bachalo. At first glance they may share an aesthetic, but Bachalo is a legend for a reason. He makes it work. Sandoval doesn’t. His storytelling is arguably clearer but, at least to my eyes, is just not as fun to look at.
Combined with Kelly’s story sort of taking a hard left turn into the implausible it leads to a disjointed and ultimately unsatisfying ending. This could have been a classic “ever green” run. Instead it’s something I just want to forget.
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Hmmm. Probably. The core David written stuff is pretty great, but there’s a bunch of other things in there by other writers. I can’t vouch for their quality as I don’t think I’ve read most of it (or if I have it didn’t make much of an impression).
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First look – Marvel reinvents the Thunderbolts again ahead of their 2024 movie
already seen it. Looks interesting. got it on pre order.
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Mr. Immortal was a 20th Century explorer who was cursed by the tribe to which Dinah Soar belonged. Doorman was a scientist who had an accident with a teleportation experiment. Flatman admired Reed Richards and was trying to replicate his powers. Big Bertha was a millionaire fashion model who was obsessed with staying slender. She hired a team of researchers to work on the problem, and the result was a classic Marvel-style reversal of fortune.
Byrne’s work was fun and imaginative once he left X-men. Much more influenced by the Lee/Kirby period that he grew up reading combined with some of that natural Canadian version of working class absurdism that we got from Second City and SNL and Kids In The Hall. DEADPOOL the movie kinda did what Byrne had already done in She-Hulk.
Flatman is an interesting premise. It would make sense that scientists would be trying to replicate various superpowers that they know already exist. It’s a regular feature of the comics in the case of the super-soldier serum. Hulk’s origin has been fairly reconceptualized from the Gamma Bomb accident to trying to recreate the super-serum in the movies and in the Ultimates, but obviously a lot of Hulk’s comrades and antagonists were people trying to repeat his gamma ray exposure under controlled circumstances.
It was an idea I had for the reason Reed could never “cure” Ben. He immediately realized that if he could remove Ben’s powers, then it would be likely that any enemy agent or villain could use the same process to remove his powers, or Sue’s or Johnny’s. So, he first had to discover how they got the powers so he could get them back if they were ever neutralized. The real challenge wasn’t undoing the transformation, but in figuring out how to do it in the first place.
Also, with Reed (and alternate universe Reed’s) being portrayed more Machiavellian or ultra-rational, he might also be willing to sabotage or steal someone else’s work, like Flatman’s in this case, to ensure no one else discovers the secret before he does.
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Marvel Solicitations for November 2022
https://www.gamesradar.com/marvel-comics-november-2022-solicitations-covers/
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I just learned that, back in the 80s, Marvel planned to change She-Hulk’s name to Bombshell. Am I the only one who thinks that’s kind of generic sounding?
I came up with my own alternate name: Gammazon.
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The unfinished storyline begins next month! Get your first look at 'Miracleman: The Silver Age' #1 coming to you October 19: https://t.co/r1L1cglJsg pic.twitter.com/m8YqhBvdQz
— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) September 13, 2022
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The unfinished storyline begins next month! Get your first look at 'Miracleman: The Silver Age' #1 coming to you October 19: https://t.co/r1L1cglJsg pic.twitter.com/m8YqhBvdQz
— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) September 13, 2022
Pics or it didn’t happen.
Oh, there are pics.
Well, I still don’t believe it :P
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10 Marvel Retcons That Made Perfect Sense
https://www.cbr.com/marvel-retcons-made-sense/
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Marvel Solicitations for January 2023
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Oof! That cover looks like a bad Alan Davis impersonation.
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I just read the Silver Surfer Rebirth mini… it was great to revisit my favorite period of Marvel Cosmic… Classic SS, badass Thanos and Ron Lim on art… sure the story was kinda whatever and mostly a rehash, but damn it hit the right way… like going back to the 90’s, in the best possible way… you don’t get more classic than this:
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Marvel Solicitations for February 2023
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Marvel Solicitations for March 2023 – Part 1
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Rob Liefeld Makes His Grand Return to the Merc with the Mouth in ‘Deadpool: Badder Blood’
I misread the title and thought it said “Deadpool: Bladder Blood”. Considering the character, that title works too.
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Marvel Solicitations for March 2023 – part 2
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Twitter and Reddit are ripping into the latest issue of Black Panther, and rightfully so:
https://www.cbr.com/black-panther-marvel-criticism-tchalla/They did NOT just have Steve Rogers tell T'Challa to go back to Africa. pic.twitter.com/NZdsUrk78w
— nightskin (@RealNightskin) January 11, 2023
Like I really hate this page, HATE, I truly am curious what the writer's thought process was here, feels like Steve is calling T'Challa BOY pic.twitter.com/MgGvfNQwSJ
— (INSERT BLACK CHARACTER) Deserves Better (@GL2814_3) January 11, 2023
Evil pic.twitter.com/KCIzNa4tRt
— Z (@TheeDCstan) January 11, 2023
Why wouldn’t Cap give T’Challa the same treatment he gave Carol? (Spoilers for Black Panther #13) from comicbooks
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What is the context?
It’s obvious; Steve wants to get on Marjorie Taylor Greene’s good side.
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Next: Captain America and the terror of the space lasers!
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It’s obvious; Steve wants to get on Marjorie Taylor Greene’s good side.
Can we blame the Cosmic Cube again?
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Marvel Solicitations for April 2023
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I am reading A.X,E at the moment. It’s a pretty good crossover, the concept is strong and Gillen as a writer is in a good phase at the moment.
It’s bloody hard to follow though, I am using Marvel Unlimited so availability or cost is not an issue but the convoluted way they publish this stuff.
The main story runs through a dedicated mini series but then a ton of one-shots, a random 2 issue series. AXE: Avengers is a one-shot with only one Avenger in it. Almost all of these are written by Gillen too and follow directly on from previous issues. Which begs the question of why not just make the main mini-series longer and put it all in there? It’s easier for the reader and I can imagine much easier for the editors, as it is they must have some convoluted map to put it all in order.
You do get a reading order at the back of each issue to be fair (X-books always have since the Hickman relaunch) but if I come back to the story after a week I can’t remember where to go next.
The only benefit I can see is maybe lots of first issues sell more, maybe.
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I think the first issue thing is definitely part of it. I’m having a similar issue with the Dark Web event in Amazing Spider-Man at the moment, which gets built up in an ASM setup issue, kicks off properly in Dark Web #1, then comes back to ASM for the main through-line story for several issues (with lots of subplots veering off into other tie-in titles halfway through) and then ends not with a “Dark Web #2” but with Dark Web Finale #1.
It’s bad enough that a mediocre crossover event like this interrupts an otherwise decent run in the first place (the Wells/JRjr ASM run has been particularly blighted by this so far, less than a year in), but making it all so piecemeal only makes it all the more difficult to follow.
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It’s a feature, not a bug.
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Talking of which, I just read the latest ASM and it does that shitty event comic thing of having a major, pivotal event happen in one of the tie-in series – so the story has completely changed between ASM issues, despite this nominally being the core title for Dark Web.
I buy very few Big Two comics these days but have been picking up ASM because the Wells/JRjr issues have been so good. But shit like this reminds me why I dropped most company superhero books in the first place.
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This happens to me a lot. There is a superhero book that gets good reviews and recommendations. I buy the first two trades and enjoy it. By the third trade there is a crossover that makes absolutely no sense unless I buy some other comics, or it makes sense, but several of the chapters are made by other writers and artists than the ones I enjoyed, and I drop the book.
Is there ANYONE who actually enjoys this? Who are the people who are excited about crossovers, and really want the story in their favorite books to be interrupted by them?
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Re: Dark Web specifically, Dave, do you think your indifference to the arc is related to how much you may or may not like Ben Reilly? I guess if he’s just another bad guy to you then that reduces much of the emotional resonance that they’re going for.
I think they’ve definitely struggled to make him feel like anything more than just a generic bad guy in this arc. There’s so much chucked in here, a real kitchen-sink approach, that they seemingly haven’t found the space to write him with any depth or complexity beyond being a cackling villain with a personal grudge.
(Although they’ve wasted so much time dicking around with stupid demon side-story stuff that they could have spent a bit more time on Ben and less on that.)
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For crossover / event stories the writers on the books it is tieing into need to know how to use it for their story, old examples are:
Brubaker’s Cap run
Pak’s Incredible Hercules
David’s X-Factor
All linked into various events but also used those events to emhance and boost their book so it didn’t feel like a directed interruption.
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The thing is they do boost sales or at least they used to when they last published comics sales charts. It seems that must be the driving factor in these things.
Yeah, I mean these things are typically marketing-driven and rarely spring organically from the ongoing books.
But I think it’s a short-term boost that sells out the longer-term success of these titles for immediate gain.
The various crossovers (at least three by my count) inflicted on ASM since the start of this run less than a year ago risk killing one of Marvel’s best new titles in ages. I’m only hanging on now for the promise of the JRjr arc in March that pays off the teases of #1, and after that I’ll probably jump off before the next big symbiote crossover kicks off.
It’s the dilution of quality that’s the problem, and it’s typical Marvel to take a good thing and kill it by trying to milk it for all it’s worth. You need a strong editorial hand to say no to this marketing-driven stuff, and I don’t think Marvel has that.
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I think it’s structural with Marvel so hard to change. I remember a Word Balloon interview with Joe Quesada just after he moved upstairs from the EiC role. He was asked about a glut of Thor comics one months and he said that basically Thor: The Dark World was coming out and marketing told him he had to have 6 Thor books on the market. The content of those books was down to editorial but marketing were very heavily influencing what came out and when.
Similarly Jonathan Hickman said he wanted the death of Johnny Storm in his FF run to be a surprise in a random issue. Marketing instructed them to trail the death and relaunch as FF#1 after it. Hickman had to concede that was the best idea because it was the highest selling FF book in decades but as a reader I’d have preferred the surprise approach.
So it wouldn’t surprise me if they demanded a crossover, Gillen came up with an idea of a 12 part story and they’ve asked it be split like that for more #1 issues. Maybe lower level books than Spider-Man and X-Men can get away with it, Immortal Hulk was a full several year run from Al Ewing and had no crossover issues I can recall, if they were they were very ‘light touch’ ones.
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Pretty certain I heard somewhere Marvel wanted to do an event blowout on Immortal Hulk, but Ewing refused. Had it not been a sales smash they might have been able to push him into it
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Marvel Solicitations for May
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Jonathan Hickman and Bryan Hitch are teaming up for a new Ultimate Marvel comic
Ultimate Invasion will tell a new story about The Maker and Miles Morales, two key characters from the once-influential imprint.
Bit unexpected.
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it looks like a good book and I will buy it but… I had a dream that they were going to join up and restart the LSH as the project for their collaboration. Maybe they will enjoy this so much that they will want to do more work together.
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Marvel Solicitations for June 2023
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Perlmutter’s been fired! Bye bye bastard, don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out.
Probably a lot of unease at Marvel Comics, as Disney’s public statements have said they’ll be folded into other parts of the organisation.
Be surprised if the Marvel Comics name vanishes, as it still a very successful brand in comics.
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https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/gods-teaser-announcement-jonathan-hickman-valerio-schiti
Jonathan Hickman and Valerio Schiti Conceive a Grand New Design for the Marvel Universe in ‘G.O.D.S.’
An original, daring, and magnificent mythology of the Marvel Universe! Get your first look at Hickman and Schiti’s highly-anticipated mystery project, ‘G.O.D.S.,’ launching in Fall 2023.
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In the ad for Ultimate Invasion, it say the transformation of the M U begins! I wonder if G.O.D.S. will continue that story.
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Jesus
Why did I click on that fucking bullshit?
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Jesus
Why did I click on that fucking bullshit?
Someone had to make the sacrifice.
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MARVEL SOLICITATIONS FOR JULY
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Marvel are about to hop on and floor the controversy train’s pedal to the max with Amazing Spider-Man 26 out this week.
It’s easy to find online so no need to post it here. Suffice to say it sounds a truly stupid, tone deaf move, but it’ll get them attention they don’t deserve.
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Marvel are about to hop on and floor the controversy train’s pedal to the max with Amazing Spider-Man 26 out this week.
It’s easy to find online so no need to post it here. Suffice to say it sounds a truly stupid, tone deaf move, but it’ll get them attention they don’t deserve.
I saw the spoilers regarding the death.
I’m sure the character’s return will tie into a real life event a few months from now.
I think this is another example of how Big Two character deaths are absolutely meaningless.
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