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Face Front, True Believers! A Marvel Comics Thread

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
What story are you talking about with X-Men? I haven't read all of it but all I can think of is them returning to the Blue Area of the Moon.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Planet Size X-Men and Hellfire Gala concluded with the X-Men terraforming Mars and making it the capital of the Solar System
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
Well, I just read the final Runaways issue in MU and what a waste - you can tell it was canceled because it didn't reach a conclusion, and the twists they introduced clearly show Rowell had a lot of story ideas left in the ink bottle.

I wonder how much this series was hurt by it being character driven instead of an action fest. And it was great character driven stuff - Nico's and Gert's arcs alone were top notch stuff.
 

LBD_Nytetrayn

..and his little cat, too
(He/him)
This is why I think more series from the Big 2 shouldn't be ongoings... seems that only the top-tier stuff can really sustain them. Spider-Man, Batman, X-Men, etc.

I think they should do more mini or even occasionally maxi-series that are basically designed more for trade, rather than ongoings that get cut down before any resolution is struck. If it does well, great! Do another if there are ideas for it. If not? Well, at least the work will live on as complete and maybe find an audience to make it worth revisiting down the road. If it does REALLY well, THEN maybe look at an ongoing.

Hell, it's worked for licensed stuff plenty of times!
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
I don't thik that would have worked for Runaways, though. Being character driven, no character was "full" at the end of eqch arc. Nico, for example, didn't face her addiction to physical contact until the middle of an arc waaay after one character pointed it out and after months of having a healthy relationship for once - so it felt natural and earned. Forcing it to be recognized in one "self-contained" trade and the never addresed again in cae there are no more followups would feel weird.

I'm OK with runs ending prematurely, that comes with the comic book reading territory. I just bemoan the loss of Nico and Xavin trading words and Gert and Chase's future adventures.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
This is why I think more series from the Big 2 shouldn't be ongoings... seems that only the top-tier stuff can really sustain them. Spider-Man, Batman, X-Men, etc.

I think they should do more mini or even occasionally maxi-series that are basically designed more for trade, rather than ongoings that get cut down before any resolution is struck. If it does well, great! Do another if there are ideas for it. If not? Well, at least the work will live on as complete and maybe find an audience to make it worth revisiting down the road. If it does REALLY well, THEN maybe look at an ongoing.

Hell, it's worked for licensed stuff plenty of times!
This is pretty much what they do already. A lot of "series" don't last longer than 12 issues and don't seem to have been planning for more than that when they end.
 
This is pretty much what they do already. A lot of "series" don't last longer than 12 issues and don't seem to have been planning for more than that when they end.

Yeah I think the perception is that a miniseries that isn't an event tie in that fans will feel tricked into buying out of completionist obligation won't sell, so almost everything is marketed (often deceptively) as an ongoing.

Sometimes you get lucky and it goes for a few years anyway like Runaways, sometimes you get unlucky and a great series is smothered in the cradle like Christina Strain's Generation-X.

Since comics basically exist as an IP mine for Disney and WB these days where they mostly exploit underpaid freelancers to crank out extremely low print run pamphlets that will maybe someday be a movie, IMHO they should give more of them a chance to breathe in the hopes that they catch on, but obviously I care more about a story resolving than the bottom line, so...
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
I'm really enjoying the new X-Men - love Synch growing up and stepping into the big leagues. Really let down by X-Corp, where I was expecting more boardroom shenanigans and instead we get the usual superhero fare, and by Trial of Magneto, where we have fridged eternal Marvel punchbag Scarlet Witch yet again, even if it's temporary (in case you're wondering, she's still human for now)
 
Not loving the update to Marvel Unlimited.

The era of darkness is coming to an end:

Y8EbAvf.png
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
Good to hear they fixed some issues, I'm going to subscribe soon since it's cheaper and quicker than buying collection on sale from Comixology.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Started reading the new Darkhawk in Marvel Unlimited.

Far and away the most implausible part of this comic where a teen gets hit in the face with an alien super-suit that cures his multiple sclerosis is that people look at Darkhawk and instantly recognize him
 
So it looks like the web interface for Unlimited is trash and the app is the way to go?
The answer to this question used to be a simple, "Yes."

For the past two months, it depends on what you want to do, because a major updated killed a lot of searching and browsing features in the app, making it hard to do anything other than read the newest week's additions or to read every issue of a run in order.

They announced they'll be bringing back the eliminated searching and browsing features this month, but they still hadn't last I checked. If everything is re-implemented successfully, the app sounds like it will be better than ever before, but they're in the middle of an awkward one step forward, two steps back, then take two steps forward again process.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
At least in the app you can add storylines or series to a list to read later and I don't see anything like that on the website.
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
So, I read Heroes Reborn 2K21 and it started strong and fizzled at the end, IMHO. I was hoping for something deeper and cooler than Avengers club Squadron Supreme, steal i-cant-beleiev-its-not-the-cosmic-cube and snap everything back. It feel derivative in thre worst way, down to the post-credits reveal of The Council of Red, which is just a play on the Council of Reeds in the worst "am I not clever?" way possible. Worse, I'm way past jaded by the heel-turn revolving door: since when is Coulson a villain? Is this characterization out of the blue? Is tis because now that SHIELD is no longer on TV the character is disposable? And they never explain why Blade didn't get mindwiped - is it because he's a vampire?Comics, everybody!

I have also given on keeping track of the Squadron Supreme continuity. I don't know it these are the same guys who have showed up before who weren't the same guys who had showed up before that but might have been the same guys who showed up before before that.

Or maybe the problem is me. I haven't found a single Squadron Supreme story I can tolerate since the original. At least Busiek's Avengers tried,
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
A lot of that was a big part of Aaron’s Avengers run; the Squadron are all clones of the original, brainwashed by Coulson, to be a super patriotic jingoistic replacement for the Avengers, Coulson died at some point and was resurrected by Mephisto so that made him A Bad Guy Now, and the Council of Red was the big threat his whole run was building up to (this being the first time they got the name though), and Blade was immune to reality getting changed because he’s so inured to supernatural chicanery that it doesn’t affect him the same way it did others. And mostly because Jason Aaron *really* likes Blade..

The Blade thing is just really dumb though.
 
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Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Not going to make any kind of evaluation yet, since the one issue on Unlimited is entirely set-up, but if my prediction about how things are going to develop pans out, Dark Age is going to be one to watch. The story escalates so fast in at least three directions before the first issue is done, and yet still ends on a “Now things get real” cliffhanger.

Im immediately reminded of Al Ewings excellent Avengers: No Surrender from a couple of years ago.

Im keeping an eye on this one
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
Unlimited has been updated so you can filter issues by date. This can only be done across the library and not within a specific series. Was that there before? Seems like it would be smart.
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
Thanks for reminding me this existed - yeah, it's setup but it's good setup. And it's a lot less gory than the preview we got a few months ago promised, so this is going into the reading list.

As an aside (and spoilmarking this even though this is literally a second page reveal) I love how when writers get permission to go all alternate universe, most of them go back to an intact Spider family - I wonder if Marvel will ever get the hint. Hey, it's only been 15 years, I'm still hopeful!
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
But dude if Spider-Man is married or even has kids he wouldn't be relatable to the youthful, spritely audience of superhero comic books.
 
Unlimited has been updated so you can filter issues by date. This can only be done across the library and not within a specific series. Was that there before? Seems like it would be smart.

I forget the specifics but it used to matter less because there was a grid view, which meant that even for the longest running series a few flicks would easily take you from the 60s to present day, quickly and painlessly. Now everything is in a list view, which makes a filter really necessary because navigating any long series is quite tedious. So, they need to either bring back grid view or add a filter, definitely. On the whole it's still much worse than it used to be.

As someone who used to use MU primarily for reading X-line back issues in publication order, it's honestly been basically unusable to me for months and the updates haven't made it usable again yet. Some of the promised updates seem like they'll fix this and could even leave it better than it used to be, but I'll believe it when I see it...
 

Jeanie

(Fem or Gender Neutral)
Not going to make any kind of evaluation yet, since the one issue on Unlimited is entirely set-up, but if my prediction about how things are going to develop pans out, Dark Age is going to be one to watch. The story escalates so fast in at least three directions before the first issue is done, and yet still ends on a “Now things get real” cliffhanger.

Im immediately reminded of Al Ewings excellent Avengers: No Surrender from a couple of years ago.

Im keeping an eye on this one
Tom Taylor, man. You give him an alternate reality book to write and he knocks it out of the park, like he did with the Distinguished Competition on Injustice and DCeased.
 

LBD_Nytetrayn

..and his little cat, too
(He/him)
But dude if Spider-Man is married or even has kids he wouldn't be relatable to the youthful, spritely audience of superhero comic books.

Yeah, gotta appreciate Marvel making sure that EVERY version of Spider-Man is in high school now, instead of just leaving the one.

Oh wait, we still have the newspaper version.

Oh, wait again -- no we don't. It ended when Stan Lee died and has been in reruns since, even after Morlun spared him when he couldn't adapt to the "one step back, one step forward" time table of that universe.
 

LBD_Nytetrayn

..and his little cat, too
(He/him)
Oh, right. But that's what they want him to be... I guess it's just too much of an asspull for them to find a way to actually do it.

Sorry, it just drives me nuts that editorial decided that the one Spider-Man I'd always known had to be like the one they grew up with... just like almost every other version of the character already was, including/especially Ultimate.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
It just seems like editors are really high on the idea that some characters are not allowed to have any true happiness or stability for an extended period of time.
 
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