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Author Topic: Tell me about Marvel Unlimited  (Read 53394 times)
HaemishM
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Reply #35 on: July 11, 2015, 08:20:59 PM

I can give you another Unlimited recommendation. The new Cyclops book (there are 8 issues on Unlimited now) is pretty good. It's essentially a father-son buddy picture with the teenage Scott Summers from the past taking a trip through space with his space pirate father, Corsair. Greg Rucka writing with a few good artists, it's actually a lot better than I thought it would be.

Also, the new female Thor book is good. The artist is the same on both at least for the first 3 or 4 issues, Russel Dauterman. He's really good.

Khaldun
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Reply #36 on: July 12, 2015, 06:20:05 AM

How did they bring Corsair back from what looked like a definitive death even for comic books?
Pennilenko
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Reply #37 on: July 12, 2015, 09:58:29 AM

Damn you guys, I have been doing so much comic reading.

They really need to improve the browser based functionality of MU.

"See?  All of you are unique.  And special.  Like fucking snowflakes."  -- Signe
HaemishM
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Reply #38 on: July 12, 2015, 06:47:51 PM

Oh the tablet app is fucking horrible though it has improved since I first used it. The browser is not much better.

Also, they explain Corsair's return from the dead in the series. He's been injected with this illegal AI nanite solution - the nanites are intelligent so they want to survive but they require a living host. So the nanites keep him alive but he has to continually take injections.

Yes, it's comic books.  why so serious?

HaemishM
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Reply #39 on: July 20, 2015, 12:10:08 PM

More recommendations:

She-Hulk is good. Secret Avengers (both volumes) are good. Vol. 2's art takes some getting used to, but it has a bit of a Nextwave feel to it. Both the Rocket Raccoon and Legendary Star-Lord solo series are good, and the Guardians 3000 series is also good (the original Guardians of the Galaxy from the future).

The new X-Force series is fucking weird - it takes about 12 issues to lead to making something of a point, but the art is shitty and the characters are pretty poorly done. The only interesting one is Dr. Nemesis and he's wasted here for the most part. It kind of has a point about grimdark heroes but it's very muddled and I don't know why it chose the path it did.

Fordel
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Reply #40 on: July 20, 2015, 11:01:48 PM

X-Force has always been weird. It's a concept I can understand and get behind, but the execution is almost always lackluster in every volume of it. It just turns into an excuse to give a bunch of characters murder boners for awhile.


The X-Books in general, Force, Factor, the main line books, they are all in a super odd place. For the first time in a long ass time, they aren't the center of everything that happens in the MU and I don't think anyone has any clear idea as to what they should do with the line now. The shift started after all the CW and AvX and etc, but like the X-Books had virtually no tie in at all to the current setting wide event. All the X-Books are sorta in their own little pockets of the MU and the people writing them and overseeing them seem to be stuck.

I think there is literally some kind of 'emergency' creative summit going on specifically about the X-Line, with all the writers and editors or whoever deals with this shit.

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
Khaldun
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Reply #41 on: July 21, 2015, 03:53:49 AM

I think you get some sense of their overall diminishment in the current Secret Wars #4, where you're teased to think that Cyclops-Phoenix is gonna do something big and then, well, I won't spoil it.
HaemishM
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Reply #42 on: July 21, 2015, 09:06:47 AM

The Rick Remender X-Force run was good (though yes, it was a lot of murder boners) but everything since with the name has just been even more bizarre and disconnected. All the X-Books seem really disconnected from each other except for the 2 Bendis books (Uncanny and All New) and even that has been floaty. There's been some good work in them but for the most part, they all feel like they don't relate to each other in any meaningful way, despite many of them sharing cast members. Having Psyclocke be in all stabby-stabby in X-Force while also being a normal superhero in X-Men and sometimes the other books is just strange.

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Reply #43 on: July 21, 2015, 05:37:02 PM

I kind of wish they'd return to having a clear "main" X-book so you knew which one you should be reading. A long time ago Uncanny was the book, and if you wanted more then you could read the spin offs like New Mutants and the various mini series.

I don't have time to read them all and can't work out which one the main storyline is in, or even if there is a main storyline any more.
Khaldun
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Reply #44 on: July 21, 2015, 07:36:50 PM

There isn't. So don't worry. Not sure if there will be in the future. They did have a brief moment where you could kind of decide whether you wanted the 'serious' book (follow Cyclops as he goes full Magneto) or the 'fun' book (follow Wolverine as he tries to become the headmaster of the Charles Xavier School) and that could limit what you were reading. But you could feel the energy leak out of that like an inner tube with a hole in it as they had to deal with multiple crossovers and as Marvel itself very palpably cooled on mutants as a whole.
Fordel
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Reply #45 on: July 21, 2015, 09:42:16 PM

There's just no where to take the X-men anymore, not without actually breaking the status quo and accepting that yes, they are part of the larger MU in more then just name dropping cameo's.

They are trying to somehow keep the scrappy underdog repressed minority theme, while also showcasing the awesome, powerful, we are the future theme. So they build them up as a force, have them succeed, have things flow along and improve then oh wait we took it too far, send in the genocidal purple robots and undo everything again. Then when someone goes 'where are the Avengers? the FF?' or any of the other dozen or so powers that be in the MU, why aren't they helping the poor dumb X-men... we get excuses like 'The Avengers aren't answering their phone' or 'We're the X-Men, we're the elite the Avengers should be calling US!'.

Like, the narrative won't allow the X-men or mutants in general any kind of unity, competence or just some good fortune. It's tiresome and repetitive and really getting stale. Oh the school got blown up... AGAIN. The mutant nation they were starting up was wiped out... AGAIN. The X-Men are being unfairly blamed for some random injustice... AGAIN. I feel like every other aspect of the MU setting is progressing in some fashion, while the X-men are at a standstill at best, if not flat out regressing.

Like, it's going to be super fucking weird when the Inhumans on their island city can manage to have somewhat peaceful relations with everything around them, while the Mutants can't keep a single school from exploding.

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
Sir T
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Reply #46 on: July 22, 2015, 07:12:39 AM

The theme of the Xmen was about predudice. It was always sort of in a world apart from the other MU as while they were talking about how everyone hates mutants and oh boo hoo, The Torch was bragging about how many fans he has. I mean the Hulk lays waste to a town because he is pissed but he is ok because he is technically not a Mutant? Spider-man has had a newspaper blaming him for everything and calling him a crime lord for 40 years, but they don't call him a MUTANT?

But frankly it has just gotten worse in the last 20 years. Its basically like that guy from Little Britain who goes around shouting that "I'm the only gay in the Villiage!!!" and no-one gives a crap but him. The whole distinction between mutants and the other supers was always an uneasy one, and frankly I don't blame Marvel for wanting to drop it. But if you drop it, then you largely have to drop the X-men as the only thing that distinguishes them form the other supergroups is "oh no-one understands me!!" mutant angst.

Hic sunt dracones.
HaemishM
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Reply #47 on: July 22, 2015, 08:42:58 AM

I got caught up with Bendis' Uncanny X-Men this morning (Unlimited caught up, which is 6 months behind), and they have spent the last like 4 issues having a conversation with the most powerful Omega level mutant that somehow Xavier hid for 30+ years until he went nuclear one day. Scott Summers is for some fucking reason trying to use this mutant the same way he did with the Phoenix Force in AvX and it gets him killed (that'll last about 1 issue I'm sure), and one of their new students (Eva Bell, who makes time bubbles and can travel in time in a pinch) decides the only way to fix it is to...

Wait for it...

Go back in time and tell Professor Xavier he can't do this thing to the Omega Level Mutant because it doesn't work. And then she brings Xavier to the present day.

I just... Bendis has totally degenerated into an utter hack who relies on the time travel gimmick WAY too much while his characters continually talk about the dangers of using time travel two panels before they USE TIME TRAVEL. I'm sure it can only get worse from here.

Sir T
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Reply #48 on: July 22, 2015, 09:19:29 AM


Hic sunt dracones.
Khaldun
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Reply #49 on: July 22, 2015, 06:20:33 PM

They really have to ban time travel after Secret Wars is over. Bendis in fact was the guy who abandoned the whole "time travel doesn't change history, it just makes a new time line" orthodoxy that held for about 15-20 years at Marvel, which at least meant that they recognized that their "alternative futures" could be storytelling platforms in their own right. But basically this is yet another consequence of having comics where there's a constant slow reset button that keeps the characters from ever really aging or evolving--time travel is the only way sometimes to tell dynamic, dramatic stories that nevertheless change nothing.
Fordel
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Reply #50 on: July 23, 2015, 01:10:30 AM

Totally agree, just no more fucking time travel.

It's almost always an awful idea.

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
HaemishM
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Reply #51 on: July 23, 2015, 10:22:30 AM

Thing is, in small doses, it's great. I loved Days of Future Past, which is I think the root cause of the problem. It was a great story but they just kept building on it and adding more time-tossed characters. Rachel Summers, Bishop, Cable (oh dear God, Cable).

Nevermore
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Reply #52 on: July 23, 2015, 11:04:26 AM

To be fair, Rachel Summers is in the original DoFP if I remember correctly.  Isn't she the one who sends Kitty's mind back in time?

Over and out.
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Reply #53 on: July 23, 2015, 11:14:24 AM

Yes.
Fordel
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Reply #54 on: July 23, 2015, 12:26:31 PM

Basically the only time travel stories that work in comics, are ones that are causality loops. Things that have already happened and upon the return of the traveler everything is still as it should be, no lizard people replacing humanity or anything. Just a quick excuse for Deadpool to pretend he's playing Assassins Creed in actual Renaissance Italy or whatever.


Anything else falls apart because mainstream superhero comics are not the vehicle to provide the tight knit rules necessary for a more complex time travel story. Any scenario where say, the future sends someone back in time to prevent the future, is going to end in a pile of shit. It has to end in a pile of shit, because if you can send one person back to stop X future, that means someone else can send a different person (or a variation of the same person) to stop ABC futures too and it never ever fucking ends and now we have 15 Summers running around.

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
HaemishM
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Reply #55 on: August 03, 2015, 09:01:04 AM

Go back in time and tell Professor Xavier he can't do this thing to the Omega Level Mutant because it doesn't work. And then she brings Xavier to the present day.

I just... Bendis has totally degenerated into an utter hack who relies on the time travel gimmick WAY too much while his characters continually talk about the dangers of using time travel two panels before they USE TIME TRAVEL. I'm sure it can only get worse from here.

And in the very next issue, after new Omega Mutant kills fucking everyone including Xavier, Eva convinces past Xavier to go back further in his own past to make the Omega Mutant's parents not meet, thus making sure he was never born and saving Scott Summers life.

 Argh! Argh! Argh! Argh!

Fucking hack.

On a good note, I'm 11 issues into Matt Fraction's Hawkeye series and am LOVING IT. It's very offbeat but entertaining and the artwork is fantastic. I love David Aja's stuff.

Khaldun
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Reply #56 on: August 31, 2015, 09:33:43 AM

I finally broke down and got Marvel Unlimited, since I stopped reading regular weekly comics about five years ago for the most part. It's kind of nice to catch up with some stuff.

I have ambivalent feelings about that Nova series, though. Partly because it strikes me as a very thinly rewritten/ripped-off version of DC's charming reboot of the Blue Beetle, only without the really well-developed supporting cast that Blue Beetle had. But also because there's at least some stuff where the mandated rewriting of the Marvel Cosmic stuff overall grates on me a bit--I loved the Abnett/Lanning stuff so much and some of the rewriting here and in the Bendis GotG is just kind of dumb.

Plus it has a common problem that a lot of comics that move the home action away from New York do, which is that the supporting cast doesn't seem to even live on the same planet as everyone else. I don't get how people in Sam Alexander's town could argue with a straight face that there are no aliens. That should be even less credible than arguing in our own universe that there's no such thing as evolution: the Marvel Universe folks would have thousands of films on their equivalent of YouTube with aliens in them, there have been numerous alien invasions including some that were global in scope or that were confirmed by the U.S. government in some way or another, etc.  I always want something closer to Astro City out of both DC and Marvel--being clever at showing us how everyday life in these worlds, even in the boonies, is a bit different than life in our world. I love it when Dan Slott does something like have a law firm that specializes in superhuman law or when there's a firm like Damage Control--I think that should be a part of every single title Marvel publishes. 
jgsugden
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Reply #57 on: August 31, 2015, 09:50:06 AM

... I don't get how people in Sam Alexander's town could argue with a straight face that there are no aliens. That should be even less credible than arguing in our own universe that there's no such thing as evolution:...
I think that answers your question right there.  There are plenty of places in the US where the overwhelming majority do not believe in evolution.  It'd be nice if Goggle Maps had a feature that would shade those areas a different color on the map so that you knew not to stop there....

For those Marvel loyalists: If someone was going to start picking up and reading Marvel comics after a long hiatus and they were going to use MU to do it, what would be the point in time / event you'd suggest they use as a starting point to pick things up?  In other words, would you start reading after Civil War?  After Secret Invasion?  Or would you go all the way back to 2001 or so?

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
Khaldun
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Reply #58 on: August 31, 2015, 11:04:21 AM

I would basically jump over Secret Invasion all the way to The Heroic Age books. There's a few gems hidden back there in the Civil War-to-Siege period but find them after you've caught up, or read them without worrying about completism. (Basically, all the Abnett/Lanning Annihilation books and their sequels are worth your time, and they rarely get tied up in the Bendis-coordinated books; Ellis on Thunderbolts is deeply tied to the post-Civil War stuff but it's glorious and a relatively short run.) 

Heroic Age is where they really started letting creators do what they wanted and stopped trying to coordinate everything too tightly, an approach which got stronger and stronger over time. There was a certain amount of dragging the MU closer to the MCU that had a heavy editorial hand to it, and there were the ultra-dumb crossovers like Fear Itself and Original Sin (both of which I've now read on Marvel Unlimited and they're as bad as I thought.)
HaemishM
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Reply #59 on: August 31, 2015, 12:04:39 PM

I've read most of the Marvel output since the Avengers Disassembled shit that started the Bendis-led decline in some of the key titles. I would say you could probably just start with the Marvel NOW branding and move forward from there. You'll miss all the shitty Bendis Avengers titles and provided you don't read Avengers vs. X-Men or Age of Ultron, most of it is decent.

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Reply #60 on: August 31, 2015, 03:50:50 PM

For those Marvel loyalists: If someone was going to start picking up and reading Marvel comics after a long hiatus and they were going to use MU to do it, what would be the point in time / event you'd suggest they use as a starting point to pick things up?  In other words, would you start reading after Civil War?  After Secret Invasion?  Or would you go all the way back to 2001 or so?

I'd just give them a list of good runs on books. Very little of the good stuff requires you to have much understanding of what's going on in the larger MU at the time, and someone took a long hiatus it's probably because they got tired of big events and constant shitty crossovers so I'm not going to suggest they read any of that.
Khaldun
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Reply #61 on: August 31, 2015, 05:27:27 PM

I think basically this, yeah. That's better advice than starting at a particular point. Especially once you hit Marvel NOW, because at that point it's so heavily creator-driven--you just go with what you like and don't fuck with the rest. The continuity really started to unwind at that point in a good way.
HaemishM
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Reply #62 on: August 31, 2015, 05:40:23 PM

I actually think the continuity unwinding was a major distraction. Anyone that follows more than one book can often see shit just be completely contradictory, as one issue Captain America is white and young, the next he's black and has wings. Or one issue Iron Man's in space with the Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel is an Avenger, the next their positions are totally reversed with no explanation. And the necessity for some of the books to be included in the universe-spanning crossover events really fucks up the flow of some of the stories. Mark Waid's Hulk is a great example. He had a good run going, then that idiotic Original Sin things comes in and shits all over the book, and all the air gets let out of the narrative he had been building.

Fordel
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Reply #63 on: August 31, 2015, 07:23:41 PM

Marvel NOW branding or things slightly before it. There's a very real shift in art and story telling in most books with the NOW branding.


There are very few things from before that period I would bother recommending to anyone.

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
Khaldun
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Reply #64 on: September 01, 2015, 04:42:27 AM

The events still mess with stuff, yes--both Original Sin and Axis were dumb. But I really like the degree to which continuity fetishes stopped being quite so big a deal. There's a looser, more fun feeling to the Marvel NOW books even when they're not at all light-hearted.
HaemishM
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Reply #65 on: September 01, 2015, 09:30:54 AM

I actually didn't mind Axis quite as much. It still wasn't great mind you, but better than fucking Age of Ultron. That book... just assloads of WTF.

Actually, I'd recommend the main X-men books BEFORE Schism. It was Schism that sent them all to shit, though the Wolverine and the X-men book that came out of that was aces. The one after that though? Total shit.

NowhereMan
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Reply #66 on: December 04, 2015, 08:35:23 AM

Nearly everything tied to Annihilation was worth reading. I really didn't know much Cosmic Marvel prior to that outside of a little FF and X-Men stuff and absolutely loved it.

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Ard
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Reply #67 on: December 04, 2015, 09:30:46 AM

Pretty much all of cosmic marvel from Annihilation up until the Annihilators was pretty fantastic.  Some of the random tie ins were pretty bad (avoid anything involving the son of hulk).  Annihilators was terrible and was kinda a coffin nail though, but had a fantastic Rocket side story.

http://www.comicbookherald.com/marvel-cosmic-reading-order/
Pennilenko
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Reply #68 on: December 04, 2015, 09:32:34 AM

I cancelled my sub to this. If they ever get around to making the web and mobile readers more organized I will re-sub. To somebody who enjoys the comics but doesn't have a ton of knowledge about the different series and runs, it is incredibly annoying to try to find stuff.

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Teleku
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Reply #69 on: December 04, 2015, 10:59:00 AM

Agree, yeah.  I subscribe to this off and on, and I think its great.  But I have to google comic reading order lists and then flip back and forth trying to go over big cross over events (which is pretty much 50% of any given marvel issue thats been done over the last decade).  Always boggled my mind they didn't build in an instant link/reading order function for the shit ton of cross over events they did.  Really easy to do in a digital format....

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