Marvel Comics General

It might seem contradictory, but case where I think successor legacy really could have worked for Marvel is a New Warriors one. I think Dwayne should have stayed dead and Donyel should have remained Night Thrasher in honor of his memory.

I don't understand why bringing back Dwayne and killing off Donyel was preferable to anyone. I really dislike that Civil War event, but Dwayne's death and Donyel's redemption are the kind of permanent consequences that would justify its existence to me.

Edited by IndirectActiveTransport on May 4th 2024 at 3:49:46 AM

Don't worry. Microbe is still dead.

Poor Bastard.

Though only White Tiger/Ava Ayala graduated to an Avengers team.

Here's a Scans Daily post of the Great Lakes Avengers fighting the Thunderbolts.

You know, it took me years to realize the GLA were supposed to be a joke, mainly because I don't think they were totally played as a joke when they first showed up (and I have that comic).

They also have something in common with Hawkeye, in that he started training them as well.

But then, Meta-humour happened. And while the idea of a mugger seeing two dudes in costume and still trying to rob them (and being a genuine threat) is kinda funny, that's the kind of thing that can kill a character's momentum.

They were played as competent but having goofy concepts in their first appearance. And in one of their early appearances, they completely save the day during the evil ancient bacteria story.

Lord knows what Byrne’s plan for them was because he could barely make one avengers team interesting over two books, let alone three teams. And he seems to have lost interest in the Great Lakes Avengers after hardly any time

That's a shame.

Nothing destroys a team or character more than when a writer loses interest, or has no interest in doing anything good with them.

The point of the Great Lakes X-Men/Avengers/Initiative/...Lightning Rods... is that they were/are a joke team, but the joke is that they are confident in spite of their very niche and or stupid powers.

Squirrel Girl has the ability to talk to Squirrels...and heightened accuracy, speed, reflexes, balance, strength, teeth/bone density, calcium structure regeneration and claws all at levels that give Doctor Doom and Bibeast pause. Doorman can open any door to any other door, anywhere. Big Bertha can expand her mass, bolster her durability and increase her strength mass by absorbing matter, at the cost of becoming fat and needing to vomit it all up if she wants to return to size, etc. Their Arch-Enemy is Death Urge, the lying hypocritical herald of the Cosmic Entity Oblivion. He should be in the same weight class as Silver Surfer and Thanos, but is basically a joke because he loses to the joke team. That's not to say he's weak though, his Nemsis are like America Chavez level beings, even if their powers are all stupid in their glaring weaknesses, physical deformities or whatever.

Rereading House of X/Powers of X, I suddenly remembered Hickman's reputation for being too plot focused and cold on character work. Which is false, the man is good at character work which makes me realize the reputation probably came a lot from X-Men.

Now Krakoa is a compelling idea but the way he get there meant he had to bulldoze characters character to form the idea of a Mutant nation. And this includes stuff like the alliance with Sinister and the Quiet Council because he wanted to do morally ambitious/working with demons plots. And it requires a lot of moral compromising from characters that we don't see since Po X starts with Krakoa already a thing.

Granted these are criticisms that already existed with his Avengers run, but the key difference is we see the character development there, Avengers did have a lot of onscreen character work. Mostly from the Illuminati side where we actively see on page them grappling with their increasing moral degeneracy in the face of Armageddon. We at least see the changes that happen in characters from the result of the plot which does make it character development.

With X-Men it either skips all that or in the case of Moira a massive retcon to facilitate the story its going too. X-Men is where it truly reaches the zenith of that issue.

Its very much a conflict of Plot vs Character.

I personally feel more like it's just that Hickman has steadily gotten much better at character work as he's gotten older and more experienced as a writer. Read a lot of his early stuff and he was very much an ideas guy over a character writer, but as he goes along he kinda refined his talent for giving characters varied voices and motives. Culminating in his current work on Ultimate Spider-Man and G.O.D.S., where he's seemingly purposefully taking a stab at telling smaller-scale character study kind of stories than he's known for and doing very good at it for the most part.

Its interesting cause his early runs did have good character voices like Fantastic Four I hear had a great voice for Reed and the others.

Which I think is what makes X-Men so unique in his work. Keep in mind X-Men wasn't even an ongoing, he wasn't writing a mainline book like Avengers and New Avengers, Fantastic Four, and currently Ultimate Spidey.

His X-tenure is so weird, its a series of miniseries and events but no mainline book that progresses the story forward. He did write X-Men but that was largely about setting up stuff for other writers to use. Which I think is the biggest weakness with his X-Men, he's more of an architect than a writer, his stories all heavily connected and reliant on other writers of varying quality.

Like the main set-up and primary collaborator in his X of Swords event was Tini Howard's Excalibur, which anything Howard has written is akin to a rancid rotting pizza compared to the immaculate deep dish meat special of Hickman's writing.

At least with Avengers you're following Hickman, but with X-Men you can't and have to read the work of other writers.

Another Thunderbolts post on SD.

Moonstone proves that good psychologists would be very successful in the Marvel universe.

Damn. Why the hell did you become a Super Villain again, Moonstone? You could have made good cash by being an actual good psychologist....or psychiatrist...?

Which one is she? What's the difference?

A psychiatrist is a licensed medical doctor who can prescribe drugs to patients.

And remember that Karla Sofen was never a good therapist even before she became a supervillain.

She drove her clients to suicide as a hobby.

Edited by M84 on May 5th 2024 at 10:06:14 PM

I mean, she's pretty good at manipulating people, which requires at least some understanding of how they think.

She may not be a good (person who is a) Therapist, but I'm sure if I can say she's not a good (actual) Therapist.

A therapist who drives her clients to suicide isn't a good therapist in any sense of the word. I wouldn't call a doctor who deliberately poisons patients for kicks to be a good doctor.

And seriously, you think it's hard to take advantage of vulnerable people who trust you and think you are trying to help them?

Edited by M84 on May 5th 2024 at 10:13:48 PM

Fair enough.

Let's try the word "skilled" instead of "good".

Not even skilled. Like I said, not hard to manipulate vulnerable people who think they can trust you.

It's also not hard to manipulate someone like Graviton. For all his power, he's a pretty petty and small-minded guy.

Edited by M84 on May 5th 2024 at 11:11:26 PM

As I understand it, Graviton did exactly what Jolt feared he would do.

Re-evaluate his life and come back with an actual plan, while living up to his full potential.

All because Moonstone managed to actually convince him to figure out what he really wants.

So maybe he was, but if thanks to Moonstone, he stopped being that, at least for a bit, since I'm not sure if this character development stuck.

So I definitely think she's something. I mean, I myself questioned if Moonstone was half as smart as she thought she was after she punched Zemo and gave him that "The Reason You Suck" Speech. Maybe she mostly sticks to people who're already a mess and easy to manipulate, but I do wonder if maybe she herself could be more if she didn't focus on easy targets.

Lets hope no-one ever makes her realize she could be more if she applied herself.

Karla probably would be a very good psychiatrist if she cared about anything other than her own little sadistic whims and money. This is the same person who made a game out of getting her patients to commit suicide, bear in mind.

The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes, indeed. I believe in The Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling tells Hannibal Lecter that he should turn his high-powered insight into other people's mentalities onto himself for a change, but that he may not like what he sees in himself. I think that advice applies to pretty much all villainous psychologists, but Kara in particular — even if she's skilled at analyzing and manipulating other people, her own character flaws hold her back.

That's a good character trait for a villain, actually — it's part of what makes Doctor Doom such a great character.

Guy would rather blow up a universe than become Reed Richard’s bff.

I read Black Panther (2023). Ngl nice to have a comic where T'challa isn't treated terribly and gets to do heroic things.

He's doing alright for himself over in Avengers too.

Its truly wild how marvel decided to derail what could be one of their most profitable characters for no real reason.

No-one at Marvel wants fictional monarchs.