Marvel Comics General

Peter can join the ranks of Rachel Grey in terms of all the times he gets possessed.

Edit: Well, this makes less sense as a page topper.

Edited by Dr.XXX on May 25th 2019 at 6:10:34 AM

So if I wanted to get into Power Pack, what books would you recommend?

Power Pack Classic Vol 1.

So I'm reading the Hickman run of Avengers and... it's okay? It's not bad persay. It certainly fits the bill of 'Big Superhero Action'. The plot is very high-concept and epic in scope, and I can see how it took off. But it just feels lifeless. I'm not saying it needs to be soap or anything, but even for this sort of book, there isn't a lot of focus on the characters. Even when it tries to, it only fleshes out certain characters and only to a point. The strength of the Classic Avengers was that it managed to balance Big Superhero Action with character and heart, but so far there's none of that here. It's readable, and there are parts that are interesting, but it's not very fun. Which for something like this is problematic to say the least.

New Avengers is, I believe, where the character-driven stuff is. But again, there's really only a few characters that get a lot of character-based stuff: Reed Richards, Namor, Black Panther, and, eventually, Doom.

Hickman's Avengers is why I'm worried about his X-Men. He's all high concept and epic action and apocalyptic consequence with absolutely zero character.

So the X-Men will go to space to fight The Proper Nouns who control all destiny and are eating time or whatever, and who even cares.

I would highly recommend reading Hickman's Fantastic Four run. That really did well in regards to its characters, especially Reed, Ben, Johnny, and Val and Franklin.

In fairness to Hickman, there was a lot of character in his simultaneous New Avengers book.

It was mostly breaking the characters down to itty bitty pieces but thats how it be sometimes.

I dropped both of Hickman's Avengers books, they were just so incredibly...dry. Not sure how I will feel about the X-Men run, but it's nice that the X-Books will finally be high profile again.

So ultimately I decided that the Hickman run was shit and skipped to the current run. It's not bad. It's still not Avengers at its' best, but it's enjoyable without feeling like a big souless mass. It's got character, it's got heart, and it's got life, and that puts it above Hickman if nothing else.

So with Avengers I've got three ongoing Marvel books I'm currently reading, the other two being Champions and Unstopabble Wasp. Which is about all I can afford without going overboard.

Edited by kkhohoho on May 26th 2019 at 11:49:17 AM

Hickman’s run needs to be read alongside new avengers.

If I wanted Hickman to do anything, it is to create lore. That is where he truly excels. Characters, not so much. His Fantastic Four run seems to be the exception to this where he balances both character and lore pretty well.

X-Men lore has grown stagnant lately, repeating the same plots of extinction and utopia over and over expecting different results. I'll be happy if Hickman slapped a new coat of paint on the thing.

Edited by Dr.XXX on May 27th 2019 at 11:30:26 AM

Grant Morrison intensifies

Almost makes me wish he had his 16 years. At the very least it would probably be better than what we got.

It is nice to have an inarguably A-list writer on the X-Men again. The past fifteen years of the comic have just seen so many goddamn Happy Ending Overrides that I'm wary about getting sucked in by this fandom again...

Even Hickman thinks that Morrison was the last biggest milestone that hit the X-Men. That says a lot about House of M to now.

X-Men: We're going extinct again!

Me: You've dealt with people who have been trying to kill you for decades. I'm sure you have a plan to deal with a disease being blasted into the air or nano-sentinels being dumped in the water supply or an army.

X-Men: Let's sit in the corner in fetal position and scramble like there's no tomorrow.

Me: WTH?

Hickman admires Morrison's run?

<Palpatine voice>   GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!   </Palpatine voice>

I thought the NOW period was good for the most part.

Edited by HamburgerTime on May 27th 2019 at 2:49:38 PM

I'm not particularly fond the Marvel NOW days since I wasn't particularly fond of brining the X-Men from the past and having them stick as long as they did.

I feel like, if there's any reason to be optimistic, it's the return of X-Statix. That's a team that simply wouldn't work in Blood 'n' Guts Rosenberg-land where the average person's reaction to mutants is frothing, homicidal rage.

I think one of the victims of Rosenberg's X-Men has been the sun. I seriously don't remember any sun with the Cyclops X-Men team. It is either cloudy, rainy, snow, or at night.

Also, given that Rosenberg's run was due to the aftershocks of a reality-warp storyline, would it be overly optimistic to think a Snap Back is possible?

It's not just Nate's actions. It's the fact the government also outlawed being a mutant by labeling it as a disease and requiring a vaccine to halt the x-gene.

After typing that, I felt like we stepped into Ultimate X-Men.

Did they? I don't think that's happened — the vaccine has become widespread, but they haven't outlawed being a mutant.

Marvel civilians are beyond saving.

This bit from Champions comes to mind: