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Face Front, True Believers! A Marvel Comics Thread

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Apparently there is an Ant-Man miniseries to celebrate his 60th anniversary.

And naturally, on it’s face, I don’t care because it’s Hank Pym.

However… this is an Al Ewing comic so it starts off *bonkers* and I am *all in*
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
While I prefer Hank Pym in his Dr. Pym identity, Al Ewing is one of the few writers I trust to make Pym's character something other than 'slaps Janet on the face', so I gotta check that out.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
I wish Marvel didn't backtrack on him being scientist supreme cause that's kind of a fun take on the character. Of course, it helps Dan Slott is a fun writer.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
He is presently as dead as any comic book character has ever been, like wow, this guy ain’t coming back dead, even by comic book standards. And I’m sure this story is going to end with him back to lofe
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
And I’m sure this story is going to end with him back to lofe
Pullman-Loaf-Lede-new.jpg
 
I wish Marvel didn't backtrack on him being scientist supreme cause that's kind of a fun take on the character. Of course, it helps Dan Slott is a fun writer.

I don't know if Marvel really backtracked on this so much as it was never really a thing to begin with, since it was a joke on Pym by Loki that happened in ~6 issues or so all by the same writer. Is there an interview where Slott says he wanted to make it official but he wasn't allowed by Marvel corporate? It really read to me as just a story where Pym is tricked into thinking that this is true. This might also be the difference between reading it in real time (where the joke lasted half a year so readers had time to feel like it was a real thing) vs my reading it in back issues (where the joke lasted an afternoon).

Although I guess it's Loki so you could easily write it so the reveal that it was joke was a lie, actually he really was Scientist Supreme the whole time. But it really read to me at least like it was just a big joke at Pym's expense.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
See, I read the story where it happens but not when it is undone. If I read it together, it might be easier to tell if it was part of a narrative gag or if it feels like a backtrack. Reading on wikipedia, I assumed it was a "next writer" thing, like pretty much undoing a lot of New X-Men a month later. With Chuck Austen.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
Loki told Hank it was his trick. That might be true or not, but either way it didn't really come up again.
 
if carol had just kept hanging around with the x-men for like another few weeks in the 80s she could have met rachel summers and learned that alternate future children are sometimes mutually exclusive with your present timeline, so this is not a big deal
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
If I had a nickel for every time there was a rocky relationship for an African American legacy superhero who had become an independent and awesome hero in his own right and his girlfriend that frequently fights in wars in space because someone took a trip to the future and saw a possible future child, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
I finally read Inferno, Hickman's last X-Men story. Since he left the project early because nobody else wanted to move on from the new status quo he created, there aren't any major changes, besides a reshuffling of the Quiet Council. I liked it a lot, though. Classic Hickman, combining intricate sci-fi plotting with hard-hitting personal drama. I'm looking forward to his next thing which should come out next year, which seems like it will be pretty weird.
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
My favorite twist in Inferno is that both sides feel trapped in a corner because of their limited information. Moira is doomed to always think mutants will lose because she only dies and reincarnates in the timelines where they do lose, while machines think they will always lose because they don't Rachel Summers somebody into the past in the timelines where they do win. A self-sustaining endless cycle.
 
I want one of those X-Men Forever style limited series like what Claremont got to write an alternate universe ending to his run, but publish it ASAP instead of decades after the author has lost the spark, and it's just the full Hickman story starting over from scratch post HoXPoX, as if it wasn't interrupted by COVID and the rest of the writing team deciding they'd rather write a Krakoa-based coffee shop AU while the plot spins its wheels. I'm glad the Krakoan coffee shop AU books have done a lot to explore the extended cast and rehabilitate many characters who have been ruined since the 90s (including many personal favorites), but I'm always going to be sad Hickman never got to complete the story started in HoXPoX.

To be clear, Gillen and Ewing are like a best case scenario to replace Hickman as big ideas writers, so it's not exactly the worst thing in the world. But I'll always wonder about what could have been...
 
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SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Final issue of Jessica Jones: The Variants came out yesterday, and I think it was a good finale to wrap up the miniseries., for the most part.

At first Jewel's motivations seemed pretty flat and generic. As a teenager she obsessed over Cyclops as her future husband (ugh) until he announced he was marrying Jean, whereupon Jewel jealously murdered all the X-Men in a 'if I can't have him no one can' sort of deal (double ugh). Jewel's powers, as it turns out, are different than Jessica's and much closer to Rogue's. She ultimately goes on a multiverse-hopping murderspree looking for her ideal partner but she just ends up draining and killing the partners of all the various Jessicas. Which is why she has a squad of variants backing her up, they're there under threat.

So at this point I'm a bit disappointed especially since the writer of this arc is Gail Simone and 'jealous murder stalker' feels a bit lacking in terms of main antagonist for her. Until Jessica makes the observation that makes it all work, at least a bit better: Jewel is no better than Kilgrave, immature, petulant, and narcissistic. She's not literally a Kilgrave variant, she's still a Jessica, but 'What If Jessica were as bad as Kilgrave' is a more interesting and appropriate hook than what she was shaping up to be otherwise.

Anyway, Luke shows up to save Jessica (meh?) and it turns out that when you bring a bunch of superpowered variants of yourself to a fight and threaten them to help you their loyalty only lasts as long until they smell blood in the water. All of the variants dispatch Jewel and then a Scarlet Witch variant of Jessica shows up to haul her away to multiverse prison, Jewel's variants apologize for everything (Cowgirl Jessica especially has an absolutely charming accent and is 'powerful sorry' about it) and queue sunrise, the end.

Overall it was a fun miniseries that I wish went just a bit farther in what it was trying to do. But honestly I'm just glad to see JJ getting some attention.

Kind of a bummer none of the variants in the series was an explicit nod to the Netflix series, though. Missed opportunity there.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
There are plenty of Event style crossover stories that I think are Fine, and a whole bunch of deem “really fun”. Some that are horse apples. But I really didn’t think any would be able to equal, let alone top, DC One Million…

And then here comes flippin’ Judgement Day and gal darn, this is a hell of a series.


image.png
 
It's hard to fault any of the creatives on the books for what happens in late 90s X-titles because it was infamously editorially driven, but wow it's rough.

I'd heard that the Kelly and Seagle run and X-Men and Uncanny X-Men after Scott Lobdell leaves is pretty good, but I don't think it works at all. Seagle especially seems to be constantly doing tie ins to his Alpha Flight run to the detriment of his X-book. They start a bunch of plot threads that all get shut down so editorial can relaunch with a new team that integrates the fan favorites from the recently cancelled Excalibur, which was itself maybe a good decision but in effect it means the Kelly/Seagle X-Men run is just two separates series of fits and starts that go nowhere, because they're pushed out soon after. Maybe reading what comes after this will make me regret my words and deeds, but if so wow this is going to be a rough period to get through. I just can't agree with the assessment that this is a bright spot in a bad era, unless it gets a lot worse.

A few years ago Maggot was a meme character on Twitter and people pretended to be big fans of the character, and it got him some modern day cameos. I figured there was maybe some period of appearances that I missed where he got to do anything at all, but looking into it basically all of his appearances occur during this run, and he has two character traits: (1) Constantly hits on women in an annoying way and (2) every line of dialogue contains Afrikaans slang exclusively written by writers who aren't familiar with Afrikaans slang. Maybe it's accurate for all I know, but I'm skeptical and it's really over the top, making Claremont accents seem subtle by comparison. He's an interesting in theory when introduced, but no one ever does anything with him or defines who he is, and then they kick him off the book, and that's basically all his appearances, ever.

Generation-X feels like it got a mandate to become a children's book. In itself this is fine I guess, but I don't think Larry Hama made it work during his run and Jay Faeber doesn't seem to be doing much better. Again there's the issue of completely dropped threads during changeover. Hama introduces this new character named Gaia to be a major story focus, and granted she's arguably a bit of a Poochie, but then right after Faeber takes over she has an issue where she basically has a Poochie exit, getting a brief scene saying, "I don't think I belong here" and that is apparently her final appearance, ever.

As a general diagnosis for this era, it feels like everyone is still writing in the old Marvel paradigm, as if they'll get to be the next Claremont who sticks around on a title for two decades, or at least get something like Hama's run on Wolverine, but that time is gone. So, the effect is that you get a series of huge shakeups that last maybe 7 issues before either editorial orders another huge shakeup or a new writer comes in who ignores what just happened, or both. This general situation unfortunately persists into modern day, but at least now no one expects to get more than 4 or 5 issues or two years if they're lucky, so they write stories that fit their potential scope. But in the late 90s X-titles there's this constant mismatch between creative team ambition and editorial and author shakeups that means nothing goes anywhere and no new plot or character will ever matter.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
It can be explained by the everyday pressures of capitalism and maximizing short term gains, but it sure feels weird that Marvel saw a guy with a creative vision transform a failed idea into their most popular franchise by just doing a good job with it for many years, and avoided allowing anyone else to do that again. Occasionally a writer will manage to stay on a book for more than five years and it seems like a miracle.
 
The mid-late 90s were an extremely turbulent period for Marvel managerially, which may account for some of that. They did eventually let someone transform the franchise- Grant Morrison- who I think kinda ushered in the modern era.

For more on this I highly recommend Marvel Comics: The Untold Story to anyone and everyone even sort of interested in the company's corporate and creative history.
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
I've lost count of how many times I've read that book. It's really wonderful.
 
In issues #53-54 of Generation-X, Paladin (mercenary who shows up mostly in street level superhero type books) grooms a 15 year old high schooler to get her and her friends to help him complete a contract.

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#CancelPaladin
 
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