Marvel Comics General

And that takes place during the Time Skip, right? Good to know.

You know, Ewing's been pretty coy about just what's going on with the Maker, and apparently there's no word on what's happened to our Reed...

...You don't think...?

Any word on Sue?

edited 4th Sep '15 10:41:24 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Then again, you get the opposite approach were humans are deemed the greatest thing in the universe. I remember one of the biggest criticisms levied at the Transformers movies was Bay's metaphorical hand job to the U.S military and I don't need to explain the frustration with the Batgod. Sometimes, we humans can have a pretty high opinion of ourselves. Look how many stories in the MU take place on our insignificant little blue ball.

...You don't think...?

That the Maker is 616-Reed? Nope. He looks much too young. (And I know the Maker is actually thousands and thousands of years old by now, but he still looks like a teenager.)

Any word on Sue?

Not yet. There's been some rumors that Reed and Sue will be "mourning" for some reason, but that was a while ago and there's been nothing yet so far.

edited 4th Sep '15 10:47:15 PM by alliterator

I remember one bit where an alien leader was talking about invading Earth and all his advisers were warning him that that's the interplanetary equivalent of invading Russia in the winter.

edited 4th Sep '15 10:47:13 PM by rikalous

We don't know about Reed, Sue or Doom post secret wars. My guess is Reed and Doom take each other out.

And then Tony Stark meets Richard Rider and its basically the greatest thing ever. He just buries Civil War and all its nonsense for being completely trivial minuscule bullshit while he's saved the universe over and over.

There was a great bit in X-Men #105, from 1977. A Shi'ar warship was chasing after Lilandra's small craft, and approached Earth. The science officer is reviewing what their files say, and is shocked when she sees the Earth has beaten back Galactus four times. The captain immediately orders the ship to turn around and raise shields.

"I pulled Annihilus inside out and saved the universe. What have you done lately?"

See what I mean?

I honestly thought the Maker looked a little older than a teenager, but I've always been terrible at guessing people's ages, and it's not like I'm especially familiar with the character.

I had an idea that was basically along the lines that either our Reed or the Maker dies at the end of Secret Wars, and somehow his mind gets trapped in the other's body and starts influencing his actions (kind of like what happened with Lukin and the Red Skull). This would work best if it was the Maker in 616-Reed's body, but I suppose it could work the other way around. Helping Reed would be a good arc for New Avengers, I think, although not the only one, of course.

Sue was made head of SHIELD, right? Wouldn't that mean that Hawkeye would be reporting to her? That would allow her to get involved in such a plotline, and would give her a book important to her character - although if she is the head of SHIELD, then she would probably show up in other books, and the focus would still need to be on Sunspot's team.

edited 4th Sep '15 11:18:03 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Sue was made head of SHIELD, right?

She wasn't the head of SHIELD, she was just a SHIELD agent. She ran her own Avengers team from SHIELD, which is where she hunted down the Illuminati and her husband. (But actually she was a mole, helping her husband and the others avoid SHIELD.)

edited 4th Sep '15 11:18:26 PM by alliterator

Huh. Disappointing. I suppose it could still work...although doesn't "Susan Richards: Head of Shield", have a nice ring to it? Okay, "Susan Storm" would probably sound better, but still...

I just decided that Peregrine is awesome. Marvel Comics Presents #125 starts with his narration: "We French have a saying I am about to make up." That is one of the best lines I have ever come across. I genuinely love that line.

The thing is, I don't see this as some error the writers made that should be "corrected" with nonsense like what All-New Spider-Man is apparently doing. Being the underdog is an important part of Spider-Man's character.

The Spectacular Spider-Man addressed this head-on at the end of the third episode, where Peter's been crapped all over after saving everyone from the Lizard, and he's about to angrily scarf down a gene cleanser that'd remove his powers:

Would that episode seriously have been as compelling if it'd ended with the Connors family giving Peter a pat on the back and a giant cake and telling him he did a good job? And then Jameson would recant all the bad things he'd said about Spidey and Peter would get a million dollars and Uncle Ben would come back from the dead and Spider-Man would defeat all supervillains ever from then on with no genuine hardship or sacrifice and the public would sing his praises every single time? Yeah, that'd really improve the Spider-Man formula.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'd love for Spider-Man to get a happy ending where the public realizes he's a hero, but that'd require the story to, y'know, actually end, which isn't gonna happen so long as Spider-Man comics still make money.

Frankly, I think by the point Spider-Man's reached in All-New Marvel where he's super rich with gadgets and traveling the world and stuff, that's when the credits ought to be rolling. And if the story doesn't stop there, then some other kind of problem will have to arise in Peter's life because stories have to have conflict, and if it's not an ungrateful public, it'll just be something else.

edited 5th Sep '15 8:59:07 AM by spashthebandragon

Can't dealing with supervillains be enough to count as a 'conflict'? I'm not saying there shouldn't be more than that, (and there should,) but I'd figure just going up against homocidal maniacs bent on robbery, murder, world domination, or any combination of the three would provide plenty of conflict as is.

You don't have to make it too easy for Peter. I prefer it where there's a balance - some people hate him, others appreciate him and that can be shown. The stories shouldn't lack conflict but not every story needs to be an endless cycle of the universe pissing on Peter. It runs the risk of the audience growing apathetic and Peter can look like a masochist at times.

edited 5th Sep '15 9:39:53 AM by windleopard

Well, yeah, fighting supervillains is conflict, but there's only so much of "supervillains shows up, Spider-Man beats them" the audience can take before it gets a little stale. I mean, if the conflict is only focused on supervillains, why even bother showing Peter Parker's personal life at all? Why not just have him be in costume all the time?

Oh, I agree, there does need to be balance, but right now I almost think the balance is swinging too far the other way. I think Peter's living conditions in All-New Spider-Man sound a little too good.

Though to be fair, this is coming off the heels of Superior Spider-Man, where Peter spent months as a meat puppet, Spider-Verse, where a bunch of alternate universe spider-people were slaughtered like fruit flies, and Secret Wars, where the whole universe exploded. But I still think making Peter super rich with Batman-esque gadgets is taking it too far.

edited 5th Sep '15 9:45:37 AM by spashthebandragon

Spash really working overtime as Captain Straw man today.

edited 5th Sep '15 9:44:59 AM by SonOfSharknado

Are you saying that I'm being a straw man myself or that I'm trying to turn you into a straw man?

Either way, great job rebutting my points there. But hey, at least you didn't call me a cunt, which is your other favorite standby to resort to.

I'm 90% sure Slott is just gonna have all this stuff taken from him at the end anyway

I wouldn't bat an eyelash if that happened, yeah.

We do have Miles (and Gwen, for that matter) as "underdog Spider Hero (no hyphen)", so I think we've still got that angle covered. Not the quite the same as Peter, sure, but I'm guessing they figured they played that angle out. Not course, they could still give him plenty of challenges.

A Strawman Fallacy occurs when a "debater constructs a more easily defeated version of his opponent's position to attack, rather than addressing his real arguments." I didn't see Spash doing that, Son of Sharknado. You, however, appear to be trying to use the Fallacy Fallacy, "claiming that a position must be false because the argument used to get to that position is invalid or used a fallacy," even though, in fact, no fallacy was used.

My favorite Cosmic acknowledgment of Earth was when the planet was declared an interstellar No-Fly Zone on the grounds that humans are backwards dipshits but genetically unstable and prone to mutating at the slightest provocation, and constitute a threat to ourselves and others.

The writers could just have Peter retire (WITHOUT killing him in a stupid manner and then reviving him unceremoniously like in the Ultimate Comics) and then let Spider-Gwen and Miles and Silk and all the other Spider-People fill that role in the Marvel universe for a while. Except, of course, Civil War's gonna hit theaters, and then they'll want Peter to un-retire so he can sell more comics...

I think he was referring to this part specifically:

But I don't even think that's too exaggerated from what Sharknado was saying unless he literally meant all he wanted was for Aunt May to bake Peter a cake. Also, am I not allowed to use hyperbole to emphasize my point without it being a "strawman?" Thought it was pretty clear from the context I was being hyperbolic.

edited 5th Sep '15 10:02:41 AM by spashthebandragon