Marvel Comics General

Re: Avengers United

I was a little disappointed by the very end.

We got the serious plot behind it all - Ghesh reacting to terrorism with a blockade, disrupting food and medicine supplies to try to force surrender and taking "disproportionate" retribution until war became genocide.

(And yes, from the way it's written, I'm sure Landy had some real world parallels In mind for that)

But then Sof, the most interesting villain, gets a Neck Snap from one of her own Fear Teachers, and the grand finale is just a group of Fear Teachers vs. the Avengers. And as the Fear Teachers have identical powers, similar appearances, no names and not a lot of characterisation, it's a bit of a letdown.

Edited by Mrph1 on Mar 29th 2024 at 9:44:07 AM

Ultimate Spider-Man #3 is already getting a second printing.

Its funny to think that while Gods probably underperformed, Hickman has prolly made back all that money with Ultimate Spidey.

I gotta say, while I was initially very iffy on G.O.D.S., it's definitely grown on me a lot and I've come to really love a lot of the work it's done for Marvel's cosmology. I think it was always going to be a bit of a Sleeper Hit.

The last couple of issues of G.O.D.S. have been much stronger. Possibly because they were smaller scale stories, possibly because Mia's role makes the story more interesting.

I’m only up to issue 3 on unlimited and it’s still not hooking me

I’m basically reading out of obligation because future issue 5 has lodged into my library and I can’t get it out

But my problem with it is basically my problem with Hickman’s writing at the start of a run. Whole lotta nouns and not much character. There’s not none but it’s hard to appreciate through establishing all the Nouns

Yeah, it's a wobbly start. Big fight, Doctor Strange, status quo change, lots of cameos...

But none of that made me care about the core cast. Dimitri is pure exposition, Wyn makes plot happen in interesting ways but doesn't quite grab me as the lead in his own right.

Edited by Mrph1 on Mar 29th 2024 at 9:27:26 AM

I think the thing I'm loving about G.O.D.S. is more the ideas and worldbuilding than the character writing.

I'd say Wyn is probably what prevents the concept from the excelling the most.

He's too much of a "protagonist guy", essentially being a Doc Strange/Constantine hybrid without any of the flaws that makes either so compelling.

So he ends up being the generic male lead of the book.

I gotta agree with that. Compared to how weird and inventive so much of the premise feels, Wyn really is just Dollar Store Constantine and a terrible main protagonist.

Yeah the science side has a conceptually interesting organization, but the magic side is just this one guy whose not even a wizard but just a Constantine-esque rogue.

He's too much of a vanilla protagonist and visually isn't that unique considering how many people have pointed out how he looks identical to Strange.

If Gods were to continue and improve, something needs to be done about Wyn, either he gets a huge change to his character or the magic avatar role is transferred to someone else.

Isn’t Strange the Sorcerer Supreme? Why is there a separate highest magic position?

Yeah, that's another big problem with the character. He's basically trying to fill a position that's already filled. The Centum is something that hasn't really been done before by contrast.

It's the issue where the Sorcerer Supreme position gets reduced due to serial escalation.

I'm reminded how the Midnight Suns game treats the Sorcerer Supreme position as a magic version of the The Man/authority so the rest of the magic characters like Nico Monroe treat him akin to a long-winded blowhard trying to force his strict rules on their free-spirted magic and being a sellout for working with the Avengers.

Huh, guess Doom was better off not being the sorcerer supreme.

Yeah, that shit's annoying. It's easy to forget that Doctor Strange is supposed to be, like, one of the most powerful and important people on the planet. The Sorcerer Supreme position is supposed to be a big deal, not glorified middle management.

Dr Strange didn’t save the world a hundred times to put up with Nico’s guff

Her superpower is literally nepotism

Nico in the MS game is kind of a snob.

She considers the Avengers joining the Lilith conflict as a betrayal because they aren't magic people and takes a very "they are too mainstream" mindset with anyone not apart of the magic community thinking they shoukd be able to handle all problems in-house without outsider influence.

To the point she gets mad at her magic friends like Robbie or Magik for getting chummy with the Avengers cause she considers it selling out.

Yeah, like, to give an idea for those who don't know as much about Doc Strange, that interaction between him and Nico is comparable to the Pope showing up knocking on the door of a Catholic priest's house and saying "yo dude you need to do something" and the priest responds by telling the Pope to get bent.

That's such bizarre characterization.

Edited by immortaleditor on Mar 29th 2024 at 6:59:41 AM

She suffers the same "adults suck" bias the rest of the Runaways have.

Yeah I'm not a fan of the MS characterizations. It tries too hard to be fun and lovable.

Robbie is basically Jaime Reyes while Blade is turned into a soft gruff teddy bear whose most significant arc in the game is having a crush on Captain Marvel and starting a book club as an excuse to talk to her.

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 29th 2024 at 7:03:09 AM

Isn't she basically an adult at this point, or the sliding timescale kept someone in stasis again?

God that's rancid. Particularly the Blade thing. When you write a character who's biggest and most notable personality trait is being a massive misanthrope who shows more empathy towards literal insects than his fellow human beings as crushing on pretty ladies and holding book clubs, you know you've gone off the rails.

Yeah, I'm feeling fuzzy on how old the Runaways are meant to be by now. A lot of other characters who were teens back when they debuted have aged to adulthood, like Pixie or the Young Avengers. But the Runaways don't seem to have changed much themselves.

Edited by immortaleditor on Mar 29th 2024 at 7:18:56 AM

The Runaways are now young adults who have no idea what to do with their lives.

So they are in a similar position to the old New Warriors characters.

The funny thing a out the book club is it wasn't supposed to be a book club, Cap simply overheard him talking to Carol and wanted to join leading to the club forming with Blade unable to get rid of him.

And Blade then invites the Hunter player character to join so it's not just him Cap, and Carol cause Blade is incapable of telling people his straightforward intentions whether his crush to Carol or telling Steve it's not a club.

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 29th 2024 at 7:23:42 AM

Which gets worse with the Runaways since their whole thing is hating adults. Wonder how most of them react when told "you are an adult"

Edited by Blueace on Mar 29th 2024 at 11:23:24 AM

“You have become that which you swore to destroy.”