Civil War

[Lantyssa]

Isn't Mar-vell a cosmic level hero?  And taking orders from the US government now?  Huh?

[HaemishM]

Yeah, it's like that. He's taking orders because he's friends with the Sentry (in that pocket universe where the Sentry didn't wipe everyone's memories of him).

I'll take continuity punches over this shit any day.

[Velorath]

Maybe I"m wrong, but I've always been under the impression that Captain Marvel's original series wasn't particularly a huge seller.  The only story he appeared in that people have any memory of was the one where he died, which was published all the way back in 1982.  So who is his return supposed to appeal to?  His small fanbase who fondly remembers his adventures from over 25 years ago?  For a company who doesn't seem to care much for continuity these days, why create a new Captain Marvel series that is apparently building directly off of a story that was published a quarter-century ago with only this cheesy, filler one-shot as build up?

[HaemishM]

I've come to the conclusion that a lot of these writers today loved these characters as kids, just like I did. And just like I did (and do), they wanted to write these characters. But unfortunately, many of these characters were dead or unusable. Editorial should have been the ones to say, "No, you can't use Captain Marvel." Or at least, "You can't use him unless you come up with something better than this shit."

Editorial is culprit at Marvel. There's just such a lack of control over really bad ideas and bad execution of good ideas that every shittastic story is greenlit.

[Velorath]

The other thing I don't get is that Marvel has a big cosmic crossover story going on, but they choose to bring back Captain Marvel in a Civil War tie-in (with the explanation that he's "off-screen" for pretty much the entire Civil War)?  Not only that, but since Captain Marvel #1 hasn't been solicited yet, that means it's at least three months off.  Hell, they haven't even announced a creative team yet, though given Starlin's abrupt departure from the Thanos series a few years back I'm guessing he won't be coming back to the character.  Why make a big deal about his return, and then let momentum die off by launching his book months later?

[HaemishM]

I think Starlin has pretty much written off working for Marvel ever again. I could be wrong about that.

[Llava]

I hate you for that avatar, Velorath.

[Velorath]

You have a problem with the Pale Man?

[Llava]

He eats babies.

[Margalis]

How was Pan's Labyrinth?

[Velorath]

How was Pan's Labyrinth?

I don't want to oversell it, but it's pretty damn good, and very brutal.

Edit:  It's a shame more of the f13ers don't live near the Bay Area.  I'd be willing to have a movie night once a week or so given that I can get 3 people in with me for free every time I see a movie.

[Zetleft]

I will oversell it (but im drunk) it was fucking awesome.  The visuals were fucking fantastic and a great fantasy story to boot.  Damn glad I saw it and would go see it again for sure, wonder if its as good when not stoned though.  Some very unexpected brutal imagery in that one so be wary of that :p   Still highly recommended if you don't mind the reading. 

[Llava]

I highly recommend it for anyone who likes grim fairy tales or dark fantasy of any sort.  And if you don't like either of those things, you still might like it.

[Velorath]

Spoiler Warning for final issue:










Final issue of Civil War is out.  Black Panther reroutes the Negative Zone portal to it's other entrance near the Baxter Building and Cloak teleports everyone through.  Lots of fighting (Thor Clone destoryed).  Then Cap gives up when he sees the damage being caused.  Tony Stark becomes head of S.H.I.E.L.D., heroes offered amnesty, Cap in jail, Sue returns home.

Seriously, did Cap not realize when he was making his plans that a dragging a massive superhero battle into the middle of New York might not be a great idea?  If his side had won the fight did he for some reason think that it would change U.S. law?  This series made no sense, and we've still got an issue or two of Frontline left.

Edit:  Spoiler warning for the one or two people who might care if this gets spoiled for them.

[Lantyssa]

I may be repetative in asking -- Huh?

[Llava]

Yeah. Have to agree.

Sudden change of heart was stupid.

And that parody posted for the last issue with the final panel saying "And now for a massive superhero battle that I'm absolutely sure will resolve everything and fix all the problems!" really nailed it.

[HaemishM]

SPOILERS!






This issue was shitty shit shit shit.

Sue goes back to Reed just because he blubbers? Captain America, the ultimate tactician doesn't realize shunting the big superhero fight to the middle of fucking New York is going to cause civilian casualities? Everything's ok because Tony Stark is in charge of keeping people's identities secret, despite his obvious callous disregard for their identities and feelings when he send cape killers and known homicidial manica villains after his own friends? Will his amensty include any future acts of unregistered superheroics, or just the past? Captain America's in FUCKING JAIL? Did I open a copy of Bendis' last issues of Daredevil by mistake?

And if you haven't read New Avengers: Illuminati #2, be prepared to vomit. Reed Richards decides to gather all 6 of the Inifity Gems together into the Infinity Gauntlet so no one else can get it.

When did it become OK to completely ignore all past continuity with a character to tell a mediocre story?

[Llava]

I read Illuminati 2.

I thought the Infinity Watch had the gems.

That was, like, the whole point of them, wasn't it?

What happened to that?

[stray]

I'm going to give this another shot. I stopped reading last time around when the Thunderbolts came in.

[stray]

Lol. I don't know a lot about Deadpool, but he's funny. Is he like the Marvel character without a 4th wall or what?

Basically, he's saying that Civil War sucks and will fuck up Spider-Man's continuity for years to come.

[Luxor]

So, lets sum up the whole of civil war shall we. Maybe we could do it in 30 seconds

http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2007/02/civil-war-in-30-seconds.html


I forgot about the pym particles :)

[Johny Cee]

Maybe I"m wrong, but I've always been under the impression that Captain Marvel's original series wasn't particularly a huge seller.  The only story he appeared in that people have any memory of was the one where he died, which was published all the way back in 1982.  So who is his return supposed to appeal to?  His small fanbase who fondly remembers his adventures from over 25 years ago?  For a company who doesn't seem to care much for continuity these days, why create a new Captain Marvel series that is apparently building directly off of a story that was published a quarter-century ago with only this cheesy, filler one-shot as build up?

Ummm...

Captain Marvel was the half-kree dude that somehow swapped powers (while dieing) to Ms. Marvel,  who then got her powers absorbed by Rogue, right?

They need Silver Surfer to get a series so they have a place to ditch the cosmic level people.  And because I might actually start buying a comic again if the Silver Surfer had his own.

Never was 32 pages of someone depressed and brooding about their god-like power so much fun....

[Llava]

Lol. I don't know a lot about Deadpool, but he's funny. Is he like the Marvel character without a 4th wall or what?

Basically, he's saying that Civil War sucks and will fuck up Spider-Man's continuity for years to come.

Yeah, Deadpool is one of the best things Marvel has going for it.  He's a Liefeld creation, but Nicieza really took him and made him worthwhile.  He does regularly break the 4th wall, which only he seems to be allowed to do.  Any Deadpool stuff written by Nicieza or Gail Simone is worth reading.  Also, if you can find Gail Simone's Deadpool run, see if you can pick up her run on Agent X, which picks up where Deadpool left off.

In one Simone issue, Deadpool is hired to cut off the Rhino's horn by an old man looking for a little potency.  The Rhino proceeds to kick Deadpool's ass until DP runs into the local MercWerks (the gym where all villains go to work out) and frantically rummages through the various hero accessories they've collected over time (thinking "Heroes always win, right?").  He sprays the Rhino with Antman's spray, shrinking him dramatically.  He then saws off the horn and keeps the mini-rhino for himself as a keychain.

At some point later, the Rhino unshrunk himself.  In a recent issue, written by Nicieza maybe 5 years after the aforementioned issue, Deadpool sees the Rhino on TV and says, "Hey, that's my old keychain!"  I almost didn't catch the reference.

[stray]

Johhny: There is a new Silver Surfer series (just titled "Silver Surfer). Well, not new exactly. Probably like two years old by now. Not as "poetic" as the older stuff, but what I've read is alright. Good artwork too.

[stray]

Another Civil War sucks post. Bah. It's been said too much.

Deadpool was right though. It sucks.


So....

Besides the Ultimates, are there any other alternate Marvel universes? Because they've pretty much fucked this one up for good. And the Ultimates as well.

[HaemishM]

Well, the regular X-Men books have been living in what could be described as an alternate universe, even though they are actually in the Marvel Universe. It's just that they've ignored pretty much all the Civil War shit completely.

[Velorath]

So, quick summary of Civil War Frontline 11:

Ulrich and Sally go to interview Cap and then Iron Man.

Paraphrasing Sally's conversation with Cap: "You don't know what myspace or youtube is, and you don't know who won last seasons American Idol.  You're so out of touch with America, how dare you cause property damage that tax dollars will have to pay for?  How come you didn't realize in issue 1 that Marvel's writers were just making you fight other heroes without ever giving you a plan to actually accomplish your goals, so they could portray you as an out of touch bully by the series' end?" (Note:  The actual rant is much longer and more painful to read than this, but I'm keeping it short for my own sanity).

Sally to Iron Man; "I know you're secretly the "traitor" and you used Norman Osborne to attack the Atlanteans in an attempt to increase the chances of a war with Atlantis, thus causing more super heroes to register to defend their country.  I just want to thank you for all your evil behavoir that could easily cause 1000 times more distruction than anything Cap did throughout this mini because I know you had the American peoples' best interests at heart.  Your secret is safe with us Tony!  "

If I had actually bought this issue, I'd being sending a piss soaked copy of it back to Marvel's office right now.

Ordinarily I'd just say "Fuck it, most of Marvel's crossovers are this bad.  I'll just ignore it and move on.", but I can see that Brubaker's work on Cap's book is going to keep getting dragged down by this shit.  Bru's stories don't move forward at the fastest pace at it is.  Dealing with Civil War related shit has made the main story slow down to a fucking crawl, and now Brubaker is going to have to figure out a way to get another one of his characters out of jail.

[stray]

Sally's the brunette reporter chick, right?

I was reading some issues where she was literally on a crusade against the Registration Act, and on the Cap's side. Then all of the sudden, some Senator, whom she hated, somehow convinces her to change her mind. From there on out, the "rebels" had no one in the media to speak for them -- and it never really explained why she went 180 so quickly.

Later on after that, I ran into another issue where she just took a big dump on Captain America's face. He wasn't worth an interview anymore to her, and wouldn't even let him speak.

Then... Her and Ben get all giddy about discovering the "truth" about Stark. But now his secret is safe with them?

Weird.


Also, there was a Cap/Iron-Man issue where both of them had a secret talk. Iron Man's reasoning, in that issue at least, was much more personal and about ideals -- and about salvaging whatever good he could from Registration -- since it was going to happen anyways. He told the Captain that he almost killed innocents himself once, that the New Warriors incident could have been his own, and that he saw the wisdom of keeping people like him (i.e heroes) accountable for their actions. Then he went on to tell the Cap that he's fighting the Government just like Captain America is -- but he just knew one part of the battle was already lost. He was trying to convince the Captain one last time to help him salvage whatever good they could from the situation -- but wishing for no Registration at all was pointless.

It was the one issue where I was sympathetic to Stark. It made complete sense, and fit everything I knew about Tony Stark from the past.


But now, somehow, he's really just Haliburton, and all that shit about accountability and being a reckless and drunken superhero was bullshit? Wtf?

[Velorath]

Too many cooks involved in making Civil War and they seemed to pick the wrong one to write the main series.  Millar seemed to have little interest in the political aspect of the story.

Well, I'm hesitant to point to political allegory. It's there for the people who want it, but any story I write tends to be shaped more by headlines than my back-issue collection. You're either into that or you aren't, but I think it's part of the reason I seem to sell especially well to new, mainstream readers. I read the papers, I watch the news and this is what seeps into my writing as opposed to Lord of the Rings.

Obviously, there's a certain amount of political allegory in a story where a guy wrapped in the American flag is in chains as the people swap freedom for security, but I really made an effort to just make that stuff the gravy.

Above all else, this was a beat-em-up featuring every hero in the Marvel Universe. One of the huge differences between Marvel and DC for me as a wee boy was that Marvel guys would always meet, fight and then realize the error of their ways. It was peculiar, but also very unpredictable and exciting. That was honestly my big intention with the book. Superheroes fighting. Does it get more lowbrow than that? I'm sorry, but that's what excites my inner-ten year old and I'm heartened to hear retailers and friends tell me how much kids are into it.

The closest thing to porn when you're nine years old is seeing that explosion of color with 50 superheroes together in a single image. I used to stare at the insides of my hardback Marvel Annuals every year as a little kid on Christmas morning. It genuinely got me off trying to remember all the names. That's why I insisted on all those big multi-character covers. This was aimed at the eight year olds as much as the 40 year olds. Something happens on every page.

All I can say about Frontline and Jenkins, is that most of his recent work has been shit.  It's a shame because he's done some good stuff in the past.  I don't know what it is about this Marvel in-crowd group-think, but it's drained formerly talented creators like Bendis, Jenkins, and Brevoort, and Millar to an extent, of all their talent.

[HaemishM]

So the only reason the writer wrote what he did is because he wanted a big super-hero beat off fight scene?

WHAT... THE... FUCK?

Does no one understand just how badly this has fucked the Marvel Universe? Does no one in editorial care that all the writers from here for the next decade are going to have to perform serious gymnastics to work around this giant hole of shit that Civil War is?

I read Frontline, and holy shit it was awful. Sally suddenly becomes a fascist lover? WHAT? Urich and her make their own little blog site? WHAT WHAT? Cap is now in jail and Sally tells him because he's out of touch with fads like MySpace and American Idol that he's suddenly a bad hero and should go sit in a corner?

WHAT... THE... FUCK?

And the Stark thing. That's retarded. It made more sense that he'd do the whole thing for money or to take over S.H.I.E.L.D. than for him to try to start a war with the Atlanteans. The war with the Atlanteans wasn't even a major part of the regular series. It was a footnote. No one was shown to be suddenly for registration in order to fight the greater threat. Fuck, the damn Inhuman war in Silent War has had more made of it than the Atlantean war. I swear, it's like no one was even TRYING to write a good set of stories, or even one good story.

If they just wanted a big superhero punchout, do a new Secret War or fucking Contest of Champions. Don't soil the Marvel Universe with this shit.

Brubaker's going to have a helluva time with Cap in jail. Way to torpedo 2 good years of stories.

[Ironwood]

Reading that interview is like a University Class on Self-Delusion.

They have fucking delusions of adequacy over there.

MM: Like all my pals, the TV and movie people have come calling and even the computer game people (which is weird because games are for pedos and I have no interest). Comics are my first love, but it would be crazy to turn down some of these gigs and so we're all biting at the moment. I've been developing King and Country as a TV thing as well as an original graphic novel, but my main area of interest is genre movies in Hollywood.

What ?

[Lantyssa]

It "was a joke".  Yeah, right.  The only pedo is the one who gets off to his 10-year old self...

[Tebonas]

Wow, by now I would almost be willing to pay money for NOT having to read Civil War.

[Llava]

Yeah, I always include my jokes in parenthesis as a side thought with no sense of irony or humor (which is weird because Mark Millar is a douchebag) so I can see how it was a joke.

[Velorath]

I read Frontline, and holy shit it was awful. Sally suddenly becomes a fascist lover? WHAT? Urich and her make their own little blog site? WHAT WHAT? Cap is now in jail and Sally tells him because he's out of touch with fads like MySpace and American Idol that he's suddenly a bad hero and should go sit in a corner?

Hey, only people who are up to date on the latest in pop culture get to be involved in politics.  Everyone else just needs to shut the fuck up apparently.