Marvel Comics General

Speaking of which. Would one be able to pick up and enjoy Champions without having read any of the other books the characters have been in? Because that's part of what's putting me off of reading it

I loved the recent issue where Cyclops came back as an adult. It was so nice, because he wasn't the cynical Cyclops of Uncanny X-Men, he was back to being the optimistic Cyclops of Champions, at least for a little while.

Yep, you can pretty much start with Mark Waid's Champions #1. There's a crossover with Waid's Avengers, but I think that's all collected into one trade.

Edited by alliterator on May 20th 2019 at 4:31:17 AM

So if I'm not reading Ms.Marvel or Morales!Spiderman or Nova or the rest, I'd still be able to enjoy it without feeling like I need to read a bunch of other books to properly understand these characters?

Edited by kkhohoho on May 20th 2019 at 6:33:22 AM

Yep. If you do need to know something that was revealed in a different series (like why Nadia van Dyne wasn't with the team last issue), they will tell you within the issue (she had a manic-depressive episode and learned she was bipolar). But those don't generally come up that often.

Occasionally, the book will get embroiled in a larger crossover event (like the current War of the Realms), but they always explain what's going on (Malekith and his forces are invading Midgard).

Edited by alliterator on May 20th 2019 at 4:41:53 AM

Just skip to issue #19 of Champions. That's when it gets good.

Jim Zub's been doing a fantastic job keeping the series new-reader friendly. I think he - and the rest of the creative team - are probably trying to keep to the spirit of Shooter's old motto of every comic being someone's first. So even if you pick up any random issue, everything you need to know to understand that issue is made clear in that issue.

On the idea of a Kalama Khan Ms. Marvel Animated Series, I would want it to resist the tempation to be too crossover heavy, at least for the first season.

The occasional guest appearance and cameos to establish a shared universe would be fine, but I want it to generally be Kamala-centric, and really develop her supporting cast and world.

Edited by megaeliz on May 20th 2019 at 9:00:13 AM

In sad news, Justin Ponsor has died. He was a phenomenal colour artist who worked on a lot of major comics. He actually did the colour for that very famous Sara Pichelli Ms. Marvel cover. He was also the colourist for Ultimate Spider-Man when Miles Morales was introduced, and for Civil War II, among a whole lot of other comics. He was even doing the colours for Aaron's Avengers run, and was working while in the hospital.

And from what I've heard, he was also just a legitimately great guy.

So comics lost a good one today.

Awful news. His coloring really brought the second run of Ultimate Spider-Man to life. Colorists really don't get the props that they deserve.

I was reading Dan Slott's Fantastic Four run where it mentions that Franklin can only use his powers for a limited time before they're gone forever. This is just another example of Marvel Editorial not doing their job. Mutants apparently have a limited amount of time they can use their powers before being reduced to normal humans. Talk about a rip off.

Do the writers ever talk to each other, or...? Because that'd really mess with the X-books until Franklin says it doesn't.

Edited by Blueace on May 21st 2019 at 2:35:12 PM

Pretty sure that's just a Franklin thing. He was always a little different.

Edited by Eldritcho on May 21st 2019 at 2:35:38 PM

If this was the 1960s and 1970s, I would buy this was a Franklin thing, but we've had a bunch of mutants like him since then like Matthew Malloy, Marquis of Death, Legion, Proteus, Jamie Braddock, and maybe Wiccan (not too sure if he's a mutant or not).

That's all the mutants with similar powers I can name off the top my head, so I think it's a bit beyond just a Franklin thing.

But did any of them literally create the multiverse from scratch? Kid's been under a major strain, it's not unreasonable that he's overpushed himself and his powers have been severely strained and are burning out. Besides, sooner or later his powers will be working fine again, either by magic or a machine or a retcon, you'll see. It's a comic book. No need to get upset.

Except Franklin Richards isn't an ordinary mutant like those others; he's what's called a Universal Shaper. There are only two mutants so far who are categorized as Universal Shapers: Franklin Richards and Eden Fesi and Franklin was classified by Celestials as "Reality distortion/Universal shaper/Galactic constant."

So Richards isn't just a reality warper: he can create worlds, something no other reality warper mutant can do. At the end of Secret Wars, Franklin was the one dreaming up new universes for the Multiverse, then Reed would use the Beyonders power to place those universes in the Multiverse, and then slice off a part of the Molecule Man to "anchor" those universes. It stands to reason that Franklin's "powers" aren't gone, just the "Universal Shaper" powers that allowed him to create entire universes, probably because they used up all of the Beyonders power they had.

Edited by alliterator on May 21st 2019 at 1:00:59 AM

Read the first issue of Champions.

Meh.

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. The main thing against it was that despite rumor to the contrary, it does feel like you need to have already read everyone's books to properly understand them. It doesn't bother to really introduce everyone or flesh them out solely in the context of Champions. If you haven't bothered to read, say, Nova or Miles' titles, then good luck knowing what their characters are like or what they're about with the minimal characterization they're given here. (Though at least I saw Spiderverse so that's something.)

On top of that, the story was far too on the nose. It's not as bad as it could've been, but it's still about how a bunch of kids are trying to make a difference because the adults aren't 'with it'. Probably could've described it better but you get the idea. It reads like an effort to relate to The Young People while trying too hard, and it falls flat on its' face in the process.

What the books need to do are A) stop trying to be so anvilicious or 'trendy', and B) don't assume the reader is already familiar with these characters. Because they may very well not be. You don't need to go into their supporting casts or everything about them, but at the very least take the time to reintroduce them and give us an idea of what they're like before going all-in plot-wise. Which this issue didn't really do.

It never gets better.

Issue 19 when the writing duties change hands. Hop to it.

Here's the only things you need to know about the Champions before Zub takes over.

Nothing. It's very easy to pick up and read new, and nothing of significance happened in Mark Waid's run. Even Viv kissing Amadeus was completely inconsequential and now it looks like they're going for Vivheart.

Read the first issue of Zeb's run and it's already an improvement. Still not fantastic, but it's better than #1. And I'm assuming it gets better as it goes along.

Also Sam's an idiot

Edited by kkhohoho on May 21st 2019 at 11:36:27 AM

Zeb's run gets a lot better, I dropped Waid's Champions mainly due to the weird Lisa Simpson-voice he used for Kamala and while I appreciate him tackling social issues, it kinda feels like he overstepped his lane in terms of portraying them.

And I sort of think that the team should be named something else other than "Champions," I would've preferred a new name or the New Warriors, but it looks like they want that branding for Speedball and the others.

I loved Waid's run, especially the crossover they did with Avengers — and the storyline that followed, Human Viv and Robot Viv trying to live together. That was a pretty big gutpunch.

I feel like Jim Zub's run only got good when it was relaunched. The "Deal with the Devil" arc was damn good and I loved the last issue.

Wait, the school shooting issue was also really, really good.

Edited by alliterator on May 22nd 2019 at 12:32:07 PM

Gwenpoole Strikes Back by Leah Williams and David Baldeon.

Edited by alliterator on May 22nd 2019 at 10:47:38 AM

In Wednesday spoiler news, the list of those Worthy of Mjolnir has gotten one name longer.

Its Devil Dinosaur

Edit: A picture

Edited by Bocaj on May 22nd 2019 at 2:00:47 PM

Of course!