Dominic wrote:Joe Q is a business man. He is less concerned with making it work for fans than with making the "Spider-Man" books marketable. It would not matter if Marvel had "more writers like that" because Joe Q is *actively* making Marvel what it is.
Quesada is Editor-in-Chief as well as the recently appointed "Chief Creative Officer" a position created to "ensure that all portrayals of Marvel's characters and stories remain true to the essence of Marvel history". Both positions really requires that he has responsibilities to the quality of the stories/characters. If he's more concerned with doing what he personally wants to do with a character rather than making it work, then he isn't doing his job. Part of keeping a book marketable is telling stories the audience enjoys and can follow, which is why it's important that they have good writers that have things mapped out, so that they themselves know where the story has been as well as where they plan to take it.
This is not a question of Joe Q being negligent so much as it is a question of Joe Q making decisions you happen to not like. (I may not like OMD. But, objectively, Joe Q is doing what he set out to do. He has a plan.)
No, it's a question of Quesada pushing his own personal agenda with out regard to the impact of said decisions. When his "plan" stops half way through, leaving the rest as "It's magic, we don't have to explain it", there is no question that he's making bad, neglectful decisions.
The post I was replying to read like "Joe Q is being negligent". I was pointing out that he is actively making decisions. (I agree they are bad. I just do not want to see the man unjustly painted as negligent.)
That said, Joe Q is not playing to the comic shop audience. He is playing to the Barnes and Noble crowd. They are fine with stories that are contained unto themselves, which post OMD "Spider-Man" does pretty well.
Dominic wrote:The post I was replying to read like "Joe Q is being negligent". I was pointing out that he is actively making decisions. (I agree they are bad. I just do not want to see the man unjustly painted as negligent.)
That said, Joe Q is not playing to the comic shop audience. He is playing to the Barnes and Noble crowd. They are fine with stories that are contained unto themselves, which post OMD "Spider-Man" does pretty well.
Just because he's making decisions doesn't mean they aren't negligent decisions. What else would you call it when someone only takes a story half way, getting what they wanted out of it, but not bothering to explain anything about it? Especially when JMS did the hard part of mapping that out for him? Sounds like negligence to me. And it has nothing to do with what crowd Quesada is playing at. Marvel has been telling Spider-Man stories in TPB friendly, self contained 6 issue story arcs for years before OMD.
Anyway, an issue I've been looking forward too for a long time now finally came out today. "Avengers: The Children's Crusade", giving us a new chapter to the Young Avengers story. It sounds like this story should once and for all deal with Wiccan and Speed's origins. It's been suspected they are the transmigrated souls of the children Scarlet Witch created but never confirmed. This issue in-particular has a focus on Wiccan potentially being as powerful as Scarlett Witch, which of course raises concerns over how dangerous his powers might be. I'm really looking forward to where this story goes.
Without a doubt, the best issue of the series up to this point. Things are really starting to pay off on several fronts. The issue confines itself to three storylines, and switches back and forth between them. So we get a bit of the Aquaman story, break to one of the others, and then back. And the issue finishes with a major revelation about Mera. Narrowing the focus seems to have made a major difference here.
A few quick thoughts.
Aquaman: the oil leak and burning rig makes this section seem very topical, even though it was doubtless written well before the BP rig disaster. And the surprising revelation about Mera on the final page is sadly very likely to cause a rift in the recently-healed Arthur/Mera relationship. I'm sorry to see that, but it's a great dramatic moment.
Deadman: Tries to resurrect Hawk's brother, but can't. Interestingly, the ring doesn't try to stop him, but first asks "what are you doing?" and then tells him "you shouldn't be doing this". Compare that to last issue, and it's clear that this white ring has its own intelligence and will, unlike the tools/weapons that are the Green Lantern rings and all the other corps' rings. The white ring is something entirely different.
Hawkman: Ends up in a violent and nasty place, where even he has trouble. And both Carter and Shiera realize that the black lantern influence is not entirely gone. Their storyline ends on a worrysome cliffhanger as well.
Overall: like I said, best issue of the series. I really enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to the next installment.
I was browsing the "Blackest Night" hardcover today. I missed the majority of that storyline, and I'll probably wait for the paperback if I actually buy it. I'm not a big fan of the zombie genre, but I had a couple of thoughts about Blackest Night.
- It's actually an effective storyline in the sense that the threat is pretty overwhelming, but it's both universal in scope and personalized. There's the threat to the entire universe, and then there are individual threats to each of the main characters, usually in the form of friends or loved ones twisted by the black rings. So it works on multiple levels, and doesn't come across as a massive, abstract threat.
- The overwhelming nature of the threat, with the dead coming out of the ground everywhere, means that there's nowhere safe. There's a well-conveyed sense of constant tension as the living are badly outnumbered by the dead. This leads to plenty of moments for the surviving heroes to shine as they give their all to stay alive and fight the threat.
- On the other hand, the story illustrates just how many characters DC has killed off over the years, and it seems like such a waste. Death in comics is not only cheap, it's lost much of its effectiveness as a dramatic device, because that particular card is played far too often. Here's hoping 'death means death' sticks, even if it does mean we won't be seeing some great characters again. I hope it sticks simply so that lazy writers won't resort to "let's kill of so and so" as an easy way to punctuate some dramatic event.
- The art is great. It's irritating that Ivan Reis isn't drawing the main Green Lantern book any more. He's very, very good drawing Blackest Night.
Since "Comics are Awesome" had hit 100+ pages, I've split off the last few pages into this new thread. The old one can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=383&start=970
Anderson, do not forget to update the "pinned links" posting, if you have not already.
And, now a blog repost.
This is another week without comics. (More truthfully, it is a week without comics I am caught up on. "Transformers" ships tomorrow. But, I still need to read the last 2 issues and the "Ironhide" series.)
Instead, this week's blog will be an in-package review of Marvel's Iron Patriot figure.
(Note: From here forward, I am only blogging once a week, just for time reasons.)
Iron Patriot (Marve): -in package review
Dammit. I wait like 3 months for this damned thing to show up....and....it is terrible.
For the record, Iron Patriot was one of my favorite "new" characters from the last few years. "Dark Avengers" went from being a guilty pleasure to being my favorite book. And, a big part of that was Bendis' handling of Normal "Iron Patriot" Osborn. When the Iron Patriot figure was announced a few months back, I was positively giddy.
When I saw the figure at Harrison's last week, I almost dropped the (marked up) $15 without blinking. While inspecting the figure for paint-work and quality control, I noticed....."things" were out of place.
About the only good things to be said for the Iron Patriot figure is that fhe figure is well painted and the chest is a new mould, having a star rather than a circle or triangle. But, while Hasbro took the time to mould a correct chest, they went cheap with the lower body and legs. The hips are similar to the "Secret Wars" Iron Man figure, (sticking out and looking fragile), and the legs are taken from the new Exremis Iron Man.
The figure looked just wrong enough that it was worth it for me to spend no small amount of time in Harrison comparing the figure to comics they had on the shelves featuring the Patriot. (The clerk later noted to me that he could tell I was deep in thought about something, and thought it best not to disturb me. Given that I am a semi-regular at Harrisons, I figure I can get away with occasional intensive browsing.)
It is not entirely fair to blame Hasbro for including the moulded hip joints on the figure, as Marvel itself seemed to have at least 2 main character models for the Iron Patriot armour. But, none of those character models depict the hips, (with or without the pronounced joints), as red. Most of them assume the armour is blue, with one example, (most likely a mistake), depicting the hips as white. (I am not sure what the official word is on the depiction of the armour itself, regardless of color. Some art depicts variations of the joint-circles. Other art just depicts layered panels.) In any case, the toy's red hips are, (based on the art I looked over), not supposed to be red.
The legs are even more problematic. Even if the moulding looked correct, (which it does not), the colors are incorrectly mapped onto the figure. This sort of thing is bothersome enough that I would have to think twice (or thrice) about buying the figure even at mass retail.
Grade: D
To be perfectly honest, this kind of puts me off of Marvel figures.
Re: Iron Patriot. What if I'm not nitpicky and consider an Iron Man toy in Captain America colours as "Good enough?" I mean, he doesn't, like...fall apart or anything? No major problems with his actual functioning design? Articulation's good?
I mean, I'm not that picky.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
