The Comic Book Thread (spoilers)

[TKz]

It doesn't matter, we've already seen the peak of what a Spider-Man could ever achieve.

You'll always be the Superior Spider-Man to me, SpOck.

[Johnny Latino Heat]

I'm loving Ock as Spider-Man, as I've so often been advocating here, but I'll be damned if the ending for Superior Spider-Man #30 didn't have me grinning like a fool.

[Your Mom]

I'm loving Ock as Spider-Man, as I've so often been advocating here, but I'll be damned if the ending for Superior Spider-Man #30 didn't have me grinning like a fool.

I bought and read it based on this post. SO WORTH IT!

[Skummy]

Carrying on my big Marvel event read-through thing, I just read Infinity Volume 1.

It was a bit crap. Maybe it's because I don't much care for a lot of the space stuff in Marvel; I can handle Skrull invasions or whatever, but I don't give a shit about an intergalactic organisation of every alien race they've ever mentioned. I get that it's part of a wider arc that's probably going to Change The Marvel Universe As We Know It, but there just didn't seem to be anything to it. No character development, no particular forward motion, just variants of the theme of "we're fucked", and none of the big awesome set-pieces that Marvel crossover events are good at providing. It just jumped all over the place between a hundred locations and a thousand characters, but none of them seemed to actually have anything to offer. Yes, the fate of the universe hangs in the balance, but when doesn't it?

[Johnny Latino Heat]

I'm loving Ock as Spider-Man, as I've so often been advocating here, but I'll be damned if the ending for Superior Spider-Man #30 didn't have me grinning like a fool.

I bought and read it based on this post. SO WORTH IT!

You should get the whole Goblin Nation story. It's been really good and it really emphasizes everything that led to that final moment in #30.

[=BK=]

Avengers Disassembled, House of M,Civil War, World War Hulk, Secret Invasion,Dark Reign,Fear Itself,Schism,Spider-Island,Avengers vs. X-Men.

Am I missing anything big after Dark Reign?

If I were wanting to do a similar readthrough list for DC(Pre New 52 obviously) what would I need to read?

[Skummy]

Skummy's Marvel catch-up continues, and I'm about halfway through Battle Of The Atom.

I normally don't like a lot of the forced time travel stuff, because there's only so many ways you can do "if you do this in the past, it will have CATASTROPHIC CONSEQUENCES in the future!" while ignoring all the other things the characters do that would undoubtedly also have significant ramifications for the future. There are only so many ways that the X-Men can discover that the future's a shitty place full of Sentinels before it starts to get a little boring.

That said, I like the future X-Men in this one, because they raise more questions than they answer. Seeing Beast of the future finally snap and become the sort of thing he's always fought against was a powerful moment, and future Beast in general is really bad-ass, I love the design, the implication that he's really long-lived (has that come up as a side effect of his mutation before?), and that he's likely to continue mutating as time goes on.

There's some fun Cyclops and Jean Grey stuff, with their past and future selves interacting, and exploring the specifics of their relationship - the horrible things that happen to them, and what causes Cyclops to become something of a monster in the future, with Emma Frost basically calling him out on putting himself and Jean Grey on a pedestal being a particularly nice touch.

It's a shame that the "false" future X-Men aren't really the X-Men, because it's a cool line-up. Future Deadpool has a great look, and him saying "I used to think I was in a comic book" is either a silly throwaway line or a suggestion that, while everyone else has become a little more unhinged, Deadpool has actually become more sane. His speech about how the future's so fucked up that they let him be an X-Man, and that he just doesn't find things funny any more, was a really powerful, emotional moment from a character who - by his very nature - is rarely allowed one. It's a shame it turned out to be a lie, but it's no less powerful for it.

Having not been following the comics in-between, I'm not really sure why Cyclops - after becoming a threat to the world, and murdering Charles Xavier - has just been allowed out to lead his X-Men again, rather than remaining imprisoned, but I'll Wiki that one to fill in the gaps.

As for the "real" future X-Men...Ice Man being some sort of wizard is amazing, but not as amazing as Colossus having a moustache. Quentin Quire seemingly being the next Phoenix is a really interesting touch - I can't see how that could possibly end well.

Not finished yet, so I'm sure there'll be other revelations - particularly involving Xavier's future grandson, and stuff like that.

It's really not a great story, but there's enough to keep a life-long X-Men nerd happy.

RE: Cyclops, I just Wiki'd it and;

So...he broke out of prison? With Magneto's help. And they went back to wherever they are now...presumably Utopia still...and that's that? I understand the logic of Wolverine's X-Men not wanting to challenge the methods of Cyclops' X-Men because they don't want to start a civil war between the few remaining mutants and whatnot, but why is nobody

else doing something about it? Do The Avengers, SHIELD, SWORD, anyone like that just not care that a wanted terrorist, bonafide supervillain, guy who brought the world to it's knees and may still harbour part of the force that gave him that power, has gone back to the one place everybody would expect? Where he has the means, and the motivation, to start a superpowered army? Was there ever any justification for this bit?

Because it seems like we're right back at Schism, and Wolverine and Cyclops just plain don't like each other very much, not that Cyclops is an escaped fugitive that the world should be terrified of. Wolverine talks to him as if he's a professional rival, not the guy who nearly wiped out the world.

On a wider X-Men point, I'm getting annoyed at how often a new mutant is OH MY GOD SO SUPERPOWERED. It's like every new mutant has to be more powerful than the last, and it kind of dulls the idea. There are only so many times the fate of the world can be in the balance before you think "well, is it any worse than last time?". I miss the days when Xavier and Magneto were recognised as the two most powerful mutants in the world - it made them feel special, and justified their relationship. And when the Phoenix came along, it was scary that she was stronger than they were. But now you get teenagers who are ten times more powerful than they are, so why are they still a big deal?

I'm not just talking about people like Hope who are recognised as having the power to save or destroy the mutant race - every once in a while, that's a nice dynamic to play around with - or even Quentin Quire, as a super-powered, crazed psychopath (though that's pushing at my limits), it's when one-shot new mutant villains you'll probably never see again are drawing up monsters from the depths of hell and levelling a town within minutes of discovering their powers. It's a bit much.

What happened to half the new mutants being like the weird red hairy guy who keeps getting victimised in the cartoon?

[Johnny Latino Heat]

Regarding Cyclops:

They're actually hiding in the old Weapon X facility because they figured it was the last place anyone would look for any mutants. And being "allowed to remain free"... They're not, actually. In the Uncanny X-Men books, they've had several encounters with SHIELD and the Avengers (Uncanny and adjectiveless, IIRC) who are pursuing them, but since one of the new X-Men in training has a power that lets her create time bubbles where everything that's caught in them freezes in time, they always manage to slip away using Magik's teleportation. But they are being chased, as recently as a couple of Uncanny X-Men issues ago (the last interaction between them and SHIELD was in #17, and the latest release was #18).

Also, Wolverine and Cyclops were forced to team-up by circumstance in the final issues of Wolverine and the X-Men (just checked, it was in issue #40) and, whilst catching a breather, had a little heart-to-heart where... well, they didn't patch things up per se, but Wolverine was left seeing Cyclops at a new light - not as a horrible murderer, but as someone who did something horrible and deeply regrets it.

Regarding the new mutants... Take a look at Uncanny X-Men. There's a batch of mutants with pretty diverse powers. One's a healer, one creates time bubbles, one can control technology, one's a shapeshifter, and one shoots gold balls. Seriously. His alias is Goldballs.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Johnny Latino Heat

[Skummy]

Thanks for that.

I can't get hold of a lot of the standard comics here without ordering them, so I've only really got the TPBs of the big crossovers, and I'm left having to fill in the blanks sometimes - all that makes a lot more sense.

Goldballs actually pops up in Battle Of The Atom, with Future Deadpool being a massive fanboy of his. I figured he was one of the jokey mutant students that pop up now and then with silly insignificant powers; I remember whenever I was last reading the comics regularly, you had stuff like…I want to say the Y-Men, but looking it up on Marvel Wiki it looks like that's not them…but there was a group of young students, who were all mutants with shitty powers, who tried to form their own team. I always liked that idea; it got back to the ideas of prejudice against mutants, without playing the "they're too dangerous!" card, but rather with them just being freaks.

I get that there are still more "standard" mutants out there, but it seems like there's just too many overblown super-powered ones showing up. Omega level mutants, right? I think that's what they call them. It just makes the likes of Xavier and Magneto seem less special and less important when at least once or twice a year there'll be a teenager running around that's more powerful than they are. Though I'm impressed that, as far as I can tell, after all this time, they've still managed to make the Phoenix force seem like something genuinely scary; kind of like the reaction when you get a glimpse of Galactus' silhouette or something, you know it means shit just got real.

[Johnny Latino Heat]

Wolverine and the X-Men also have mutants with fairly "normal" powersets, at least not as extreme as Omega-level mutants. For instance (and this is just talking about the newes mutants), there's a boy with eyes all over his body (he's Eye-Boy, by the way), there's a girl who changes into a shark form (kind of like Wolfsbane), there's Oya, one of Hope's Five Lights, who has pyrokinesis and cryokinesis, a girl that looks like a mix between Colossus (super strength, metallic form) and Pixie (wings)... There are too many Omega-level mutants around, yes, but there are also many mutants whose powers just aren't that special (relatively speaking).

[Maxx]

Superior Foes of Spider-Man, so so wonderful

[TKz]

Superior Foes of Spider-Man, so so wonderful

It's almost as wonderful as Superior Spider-Man was!

Stupid Peter Parker.

[Your Mom]

So happy Peter is back!

[HailtotheYo]

Superior Foes is fantastariffic.

Anyone else reading All New Invaders ? I LOVE the last page of issue 3 ....

[Skummy]

Infinity Volume 2 was a bit naff.

Too much "ON THIS PLANET, THIS HAPPENED" with no real context or emotional weight behind it. It had a couple of bad-ass moments; almost exclusively belonging to Thor, but it was mostly just things happening without rhyme or reason. And the ending was awful. Just "THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE HANGS IN THE BALANCE, EVEN WORSE THAN LAST TIME. BUT OH NO, THE NEXT THING WILL BE EVEN WORSE". At one point does it become the worst it can possibly me? And

how much worse is it than the time before?

As much as I love a big Marvel crossover event, and I think they do them very well, you can only have the entire world/universe/multiverse threatened so many times before it stops carrying any meaning, especially when not only is the world not destroyed, not a single significant character dies. I'm not saying that killing off a character would automatically make it a better story, but it would make the threat seem more real than "this is the greatest threat we've ever faced, worlds could end...but we're all fine".

Marvel's strength has always been in character, not in superpowers. Compared to DC, they do a better job of making their characters feel human - I'm talking about superhero comics here, so it's a little bit like being the tallest midget, admittedly - but that's always been Marvel's best feature. When in DC, every superhero was an interchangeable whiter-than-white good guy, calling each other "chum", and distinguishable only by their costume and powers, Marvel superheroes had flaws and personality defects. I remember an article about how it wasn't the superpowers that blew kids' minds, it was seeing the stubble on Reed Richards' face when he'd stayed up working all through the night. It's the humanity that makes you care about the characters, not that they can run really fast or shoot lasers from their eyes, or whatever.

My point is that when you neglect character in favour of a universe-spanning "Everyone fighting all over the place to save the world" story, you lose what makes Marvel fun. It's just endless fight scenes between people in stupid costumes, and weird aliens, and there's no emotional investment.

I'd rather the story arc surround one character's life being at risk, than the entire universe. Because if I think, say Wolverine or Cyclops might die, I'm going to be more emotionally invested in that possibility than the risk of the entire universe being destroyed - because that's obviously not going to actually happen. If the end result is two long-standing friends falling out, that carries more weight than the end result being "guess we saved the world again, go team!".

[HailtotheYo]

SSM 30 ..... awesome, even more so for Ock than Peter. Just awesome.

[Benji]

Anyone use Marvel Digital Unlimited? Contemplating getting it but not sure if it's worth it. Does DC offer a version of their own yet or are they doing their usual thing of lagging behind by about half a decade?

[ZJ Penn]

Anyone use Marvel Digital Unlimited? Contemplating getting it but not sure if it's worth it. Does DC offer a version of their own yet or are they doing their usual thing of lagging behind by about half a decade?

DC don't have anything remotely similar as far as I'm aware.

Marvel Unlimited is either okay or awesome depending on how you'll use it. If you're already familiar with a lot of stuff or a casual reader who just wants the main, popular story arcs there's a delay on things coming out so you'll always be waiting on new stuff to be added. There are also some gaps in certain parts of the library although there's a way to request missing issues. The interface is also hit and miss at times and I hear people who use it on portable devices get frustrated with the amount of issues you can save for offline viewing, although it has recently been upped.That seems like a lot of cons but Marvel are getting better at taking on customer feedback.

On the flip side if you're the type who likes to read things from the beginning it's an absolute treasure trove and a steal at £40 for the year and over 15,000 included issues with more added every week. There's a couple of reading orders if you want to go publication or chronological order. I use the Travis Starnes one which is up to the mid-1990's. I'm about 600 issues in and it's still only around 1968. There have been very few gaps (Ant Man is the only one I can think of regularly having missing issues, which is kind of a blessing in disguise) so far.

So yeah, depends on what you want from it. Personally if you've got £40 to spare I'd put it down and see how much use you get out of a year then cancel afterwards if it's not what you expect.

[Benji]

I'm basically looking for regular updates on main series (not immediate, I don't care about being up to date to the week) and a good back catalogue of the classics (Days of Future Past, The Day Gwen Stacy Died, Galactus saga etc), so by the sounds of it then it'll be something I'd get plenty out of.

[ZJ Penn]

Yeah easiest way would be to check the database for stuff you're typically interested in and see if it has the U in the bottom corner. Might even be a trial available.