Marvel Comics General

In the case of Captain Britain that mentions, he works because being part of an alliance of alternate selves kinda became his whole gimmick, helped by the fact the idea hadn't really been done before so it gave him a very unique niche, even helpfully avoiding stepping on the toes of the Nova Corps, who had similar - but different in key ways - concept as "Marvel's Green Lantern Corps". And there was thought put into into it, so it's not like Aaron's "bang random things together hope it sticks" approach to basically everything.

My favorite dumb thing was the good guys intentionally forcing a multiverse of Captains America by kidnapping Steves Roger from different universes and forcing them through training from hell to make them into an army of Caps

One was a dog

It’s just a completely bonkers thing for the heroes to be doing

Hilariously enough, you bringing that up makes me think that the idea of an arc where the Captain Britain Corps have to deal with a Captain America Corps stepping on their toes is actually a pretty clever idea with cool story potential.

Goes to show that sometimes there's less bad ideas and more bad execution.

Of course the Brits are the ones to colonize the multiverse.

Which is weird because Immortal Hulk introduced a prehistoric Hulk and he doesn't look like Banner's. His name was Tammuz.

Edited by Cortez on Apr 16th 2024 at 5:43:24 AM

Well like the regular hulk, I doubt the actual prehistoric hulk would have played ball with the prehistoric avengers, what with his origin being a human sacrifice and all.

That highlights what I mentioned earlier about Aaron being basically Ewing's evil mirror universe counterpart. They both hit on the idea of "prehistoric Hulk", but where Ewing made a very creative addition to the mythos with a lot of significance in terms of lore and themes - such that it's gone on to be a key plot point in the PKJ run on Hulk that's following up on Ewing's - Aaron didn't think any further "haha caveman Hulk and he's a Hulk cuz uh I don't know Starbrand" and his version has so little connection to anything that it may as well not exist.

I'm reminded Aaron's "first Black Panther" was just a regular caveman in Panther skins on a team of God's and superhumans, proceeded to do absolutely nothing, and then was killed off unceremoniously playing into the black guy dies first cliche straight by being the first of the prehistoric Avengers to bite it.

People have said the big buff terse She-Hulk was because Aaron wanted to use Hulk but Ewing already had dibs.

I guess him having a Starbrand that’s just a Hulk is how he got around that for the past time character.

In terms of evil mirror images, Aaron and Ewing did very similar things with She-Hulk and Harpy leaning into monsteryness because they were tired of being nice.

Only Ewing did it better and gave it more than one issue and Betty just overall got more focus than Jen did because Immortal Hulk was a more character focused book

Yet more evidence of "Aaron is the Anti-Ewing"

So Scans Daily has been doing some posts of the early issues of the Thunder Bolts.

Here's some stuff from issue 2.

The Mad Thinker taking note that this Rookie team works together a bit too well is interesting.

It's easy to forget because they lost to the Avengers quite often, but the Masters must have some good coordination and team work from fighting together for so long.

Zemo likely deliberately chose this particular group because they were the most skilled and the ones who stood the best chance of being able to work like a team...maybe.

He did include Moonstone, who manages to be the Token Evil Teammate of a group that's already made up of villains.

Moonstone was also pretty key to him being able to wrangle Blackout in the previous Masters incarnation, so for Zemo, it's a matter of being able to control Moonstone so she can control others. He pretty much miscalculated on this particular venture.

The original Thunderbolts are pretty well-chosen for teamwork. Atlas was never especially ambitious as a solo villain and was often a hired gun; Songbird was almost exclusively group filler; Fixer was clearly comfortable doing what Zemo asked of him in the Masters; Beetle generally functioned just fine taking orders for Justin Hammer, and probably had his ambition curbed by his time as leader of the Sinister Syndicate.

So there was really only one Wildcard in Moonstone.

And then later Jolt, who was not in on the original con.

I see your point. If Moonstone is the only Wild Card, then that means all he has to do is anticipate her, and he's got everything under control. In theory, it's not a bad plan.

But yeah, he definitely underestimated Moonstone.

In fairness, she flew face first into a mountain during the Masters of Evil takeover of Avengers Mansion

He probably thought she wouldn’t be hard to outthink

Iron Man confirmed to be ending with issue 20 by cover artist Kael Ngu

Hopefully the next run will be less tied into X stuff

Edited by Bocaj on Apr 16th 2024 at 6:56:19 AM

I actually didn't mind it.

Iron Man isn't a character you expect to guest star in X-men.

Also, it lead to the Mutants being more out there than they have been before.

This actually shows why leaving the X-Men stuff mostly in its own corner isn't a bad idea. When it is let out of its corner, it tends to overshadow everything else.

It is true that Krakoa has been a big deal in all the comics, and the Avengers are even taking the fight to Orchis now.

That being said, this has also meant that nobody will be able to claim the Avengers did nothing when the mutants are being wiped out after this.

In fact, this should basically put an end to that particular idea for a while. Thank god for that.

I know this was like twenty pages ago, but I still wanted to QFT this because it's something I've been thinking a lot about, regarding adaptations, sequels, continuations, etc:

Thinking about that, something I've been noticing regarding this sort of thing is that if you ever see a child character - like, one the audience has gotten to know and even follow extensively as a child - as an adult, they're almost always going to be very thin, petite even if they're taller, maybe even to the point of having noodle limbs, plus still retain childish facial features like bigger eyes and so on.

You'll rarely see them getting big or burly, and they'll only very rarely ever get a design that's sexualized in any way (even in those slight ways people don't really think about) - over in DC, the choice to make Jon Kent just as incredibly jacked and prone to tight clothing as Clark is as an adult stands out as something of an exception.

It's all because if people really got to know a character as a kid, they'll subconsciously still see them that way at least in part even when they're not a kid any more: their brains will still slot them as "that's X character, just as an adult."

I just find it fascinating. It's legit something that I've been mulling over for a while.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 16th 2024 at 7:48:01 AM

That is something I've noticed before. It's weird. Maybe it's because time skips instead of real time progression can make it hard to really clock the passage of time, so it feels weird to go from "this person is a kid" to "this person is grown". Or maybe part of it is just parental instinct kind of thing; like how you first meet someone as a kid when you're an adult, they still mentally register as "kid" even after they grow up, even if you never experience that sort of feeling with someone else the same age as them that you only met when they were adults.

This isn't even something that only applies to drawn/animated stuff. I remember hearing once that some people found a sex scene Maisie Williams did in the last season of Game of Thrones uncomfortable even though she was well into adulthood when she did, simply because she was still a kid when the show started and grew up as it went, so a lot of people tended to still click her as a kid in their head even though she objectively wasn't anymore.

Edited by immortaleditor on Apr 16th 2024 at 8:27:50 AM

Roxxon Presents Thor is now out:

Bad enough that Chad Hammer works for Roxxon and speaks in thicker Dorkinese even more than the actual Thor does, he's a "leading influencer in the field of AI-based hedge funds" and the Roxxon-branded Mjolnir is called Mjolnir Premium. The Thor-Truck is made from uru and doesn't have crumple zones, wing mirrors or door handles (haven't been following automobile or truck design trends but that's gotta be a jab at either Tesla trucks or some other company). Opening the door requires swiping Mjolnir Premium w/c sends a 20-digit OTP to Chad's Smart Bracer where he needs to log in to his Roxxbook acct, enters the OTP, agrees to the T&C, etc. We get a jab at Trump steaks w/ Roxxon-branded steaks. The "ecoterrorists" who work for Loki are actually millenial and zoomer-age protesters who're what conservatives honestly believe liberals are (entitled brats who've never worked a day in their lives). Loki's back to being the god of lies like climate change and cancel culture who's just using the protesters for his own nefarious purposes. A few jabs at the heavily Republican-tilted US Supreme Court. A Roxxon ad promoting blockchain that lowers emissions by 20% complete w/ 2 kids and Captain Roxxon saluting an oil well in the middle of a corn field. A love triangle between Amora, Ex-cutioner (the Ex now stands for EXTREME!) and Heimdall. Bifrost has been turned into the Rainbow Superhighway. And a few others I missed. Jesus Christ this comic is not subtle.

Though there is a break in the farce when the real Thor is reading and tries to resist the comic's narrative that's changing his reality only for Dario to explain to Thor that the comic being a parody is the point and how parody and memes are a potent weapon in these modern times, especially against someone susceptible to narrative change like Thor.

The comic also ends w/ 1 last jab, this time directed at EA's Star Wars Battlefront Lootbox fiasco, via an ad about a microtransaction-riddled multiplayer FPS developed by Roxxon subtly titled Microtransaction Warz w/ a poster character looking like a Master Chief knockoff.

Edited by KRider on Apr 17th 2024 at 5:51:28 AM

More announcements from Marvel —

• An Annihilation 2099 event later in the year.
• A new Daredevil: The Woman Without Fear series starring Elektra
• A new Werewolf by Night red-band/mature readers series spinning out of Blood Hunt, by Jason Loo.

The dudebro Thor we see in that Roxxon issue reminds me of the parody version from Dexter's Lab.

Thinking back at that ad for Microtransaction Warz, would it be too much if it was instead an ad for an expy of Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League? Like Thunderbolts Kills Squadron Supreme?