Marvel Comics General

Why not just make other X-Men more powerful or have Jean take a backseat for a few arcs? Claremont gave Storm all manner of ridiculous feats and it didn't stop the development of other characters.

God only knows

I don’t even remember her taking up that much of the spotlight anyway but Byrne evidently did. According to him he was the one who suggested that Jean be the one who ends up with Beast when the X Men get split up in Antarctica so she’d be out of the action for a while so they did in fact sideline her for an arc or so

Ah, the D'Bari. Forever cursed to be either the Dark Phoenix's punching bag or the reason why the Dark Phoenix got let out in the first place.

(Yeah, it's never not going to irritate me how Old Fox couldn't be arsed to at least refer to the Shi'ar in that blasted movie. Seriously, the sooner the MCU introduces mutants, the better.)

Honestly, I get why the Shi'ar weren't referenced. The Fox mutants have had zero space references in its all franchise, so to introduce aliens with all this history with the X-men in the last movie would be weird.

Then again, I didn't watch Dark Phoenix, so I don't know how they messed that up the second time.

I saw one review that basically said that they had a really good first two thirds of a film but then ruined it with the third act.

Ya know I find it kinda darkly funny that at the end of Jane Thor that after all that insanity, all the Godly power & energy she must absorbed, the absolute stress she put on her body, she still ends the series with cancer.

Like despite being resurrected by the 2 strongest Norse Gods while channeling a literal God Storm, it’s not even a little bit healed.

Damn that cancers some strong shit.

Cancer killed Captain Marvel, so it's pretty strong stuff. (Wasn't there a What if where he managed to get rid of it but it spread to everyone else instead?)

Kinda but not a What If as much as a major event. That's the Cancerverse from the Realm of Kings/Thanos Imperative cosmic stuff.

Looks like we're both right! https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/What_If%3F_Vol_2_14

'In "What if Captain Marvel had not died?" (v2 #14), Captain Marvel was cured of cancer. Unfortunately, everyone around him starts getting sick with cancer and it's contagious. He caused plagues on Earth and among the Skrulls and the Kree before he realized what was going on.'

Edited by lalalei2001 on Nov 29th 2020 at 2:41:26 PM

I learned a thing today and I’m bemused

Okay I’m reading War of the Realms & wait that’s answer? Time travel to gather your past and future selves to help you solve the problem?

Why can’t we do that for every major problem? And why stop at only gathering 2?

Well at least in War of the Realms the downside to doing it is if your enemy manages to kill the youngest version of you it handily takes care of all of yous. Which doesn't happen, obviously, but almost happens a lot to doesn't-believe-in-shirts-Thor

Alright that makes sense. Its a risky gamble.

So what are the thoughts for War of the Realms?

I just kinda find it dull. Like its just a lot of flash but nothing of much substance. Its very much relying on the idea that automatically adding elves, trolls, and making everyone use Norse gear is inherently awesome, which it is but it only goes so far.

It just feels cluttered with the extremely large cast and so the action winds up feeling flaccid. Not really helped by Malekith's forces being just faceless mooks, even his stop lieutenants. I think a good approximation of the arc of showing only a single panel of She-Hulk fighting Ulk & thats it. Nothing more is shown and next time Ulk is mentioned, he's already imprisoned offscreen.

Right, right thats the main issue I have. It falls into that bad tendency for events in that their fight choreography just becomes incomprehensible mob battles & thus none of the intended set-pieces wow me as a result.

Edited by slimcoder on Nov 29th 2020 at 11:05:00 AM

Just like in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog!

I overall liked War of the Realms. It felt properly built up to rather than springing out of nowhere because the clock reads event o'clock.

It did have a problem where a lot of stuff gets resolved in the tie-ins. There's always a difficult balance between how much to keep in the main books and how much to put in the tie-ins, to justify them.

And many of the tie ins were weak. And often had trouble keeping consistent with the main book about what was supposed to be happening. Like how Dr Strange evacuated the entirety of New York and yet the X-Men and Punisher tie-ins require people to still be in the city. And despite affecting the entire world, unsurprisingly the majority of the tie-ins focused on North America so basically just frost giants when there was so much going on everywhere. There was barely any focus on the Enchantress and her undead invasion of South America. Despite Malekith being the head honcho, very little focus on his takeover of Europe. Still, you had a Marvel story written by Clint Mcelroy that was a roadtrip comedy. Spider-Man befriending a horse. The start of the new Agents of Atlas.

And it launched some interesting ideas too although the market being what the market be, not all of them lasted all that long, unlike the aforementioned Agents of Atlas.

The main event itself was a suitably epic way to have Thor finally accept worthiness after an extended so long since the whisper. And also a suitably epic way for Jason Aaron to end his run on Thor, although there was some last words like the King Thor mini.

Edited by Bocaj on Nov 29th 2020 at 2:20:29 PM

As epic as it was, I cringed hearing Gorr was right again. He was not right, he was never right. All he was was a fucking psycho who blamed others for the misfortune caused by his own people.

Granted I have not read Aaron's run so obviously I would not have the intended emotional involvement in reading what is basically his finale story.

Like earlier this month I also read Absolute Carnage & I did enjoy that better because I found it more focused. Keeps Eddie consistently in the spotlight, furthers his motivation, & the cast isn't too big, its basically just him with Dylan, Maker (a reoccurring antagonist in the Venom run), & Spider-Man which of course lead to great moments between him and Eddie for the most part.

It helps that I was reading the Cates Venom run so I did get suitable buildup.

Edited by slimcoder on Nov 29th 2020 at 11:33:15 AM

Yeah, when I saw Gorr show up in the recent Thor run I about shouted 'give it a rest already!'

I too am tired of that dingus.

Wait do you mean the illusion of him in the Cates run or the King Thor miniseries?

TBF, that was just an illusion of Gorr the Black Winter created to mess with Thor.

Edited by M84 on Nov 30th 2020 at 3:43:37 AM

Yeah, the illusion. I think it fell right on a cliffhanger.

He also got frustrating showing up again in King Thor but at least the way it wrapped up was ultimately satisfying.

While Absolute Carnage is a great book, my main problem with it is the same problem I have with Three Jokers. The main villains don't get enough focus.

Absolute Carnage is a good venom book, but it's lacking as a carnage book.

I mean I don't think that counts as the same thing.

That was just an illusion among other illusions of Thor's enemies. Sure him & Mangog got some emphasis in a single close-up panel and a dirty look from Thor, but both are quickly dealt with like the rest of the illusions. The close-ups is more just an acknowledgment from Cates that yes they were major before but his run is gonna move on from them like how later on its stated that Thor will no longer become the one-eyed armless king Thor.

Its very different from when he essentially hijacked the King Thor miniseries to become the final boss.

Really, I thought he had a good amount of panel time.

Edited by slimcoder on Nov 30th 2020 at 12:01:40 PM

Granted, it panned out differently being more of a 'here's a bunch of Thor villains' but I'm talking about my impulse in the moment because I was reading King Thor at the same time.

Huh that is funny timing.

Still can't believe Gorr survived all that fucking time. Jesus are some bastards hard to put down.

Today I learned there were plans for a book called Liberators around the time Marjorie Liu was writing X-23. The book would have starred Black Widow, Elektra, X-23, Cecilia Reyes and... Mystique?

Okay, Elektra is one thing but Mystique?