I like comics, How 'bout you?

[Brendocon]

I think the slowing of the schedule toward the end was deliberate, as it let them finish Original Sins, Tenth Realm and Iron Man/Hulk before the finale.

But it's completely wrecked the pacing of it, which is BOOOO. Wouldn't have killed them to have multiple issues out the same week.

Understand what you mean on Fantomex - the stuff under Humphries really didn't help. But I'm genuinely loving what Spurrier's done with the character - had a full issue devoted to him having a nervous breakdown, properly stripped him down to who he is and what motivates him. How can he be the best in the world at absolutely everything when each of his team-mates is better at a specific thing?

At least he can translate what those French guys are saying, though!
http://i.imgur.com/HORxYL2.jpg?1

Oh.

At least it seems like we're pretending the whole "three Fantomexes" thing didn't happen. For the moment anyway.

Took a while for me to work out what the book was doing (being dropped into the middle of the plot through a first arc of character-centric issues is always a bit weird) but now it's settled down and revealed what's going on I think it's aces. Some cracking twists been thrown in too.

(Plus Doctor Nemesis. Spurrier writing Nemesis is always amaze. SCIENCE!)

Anyway. Loki: Agent of Asgard. We can agree on that one?

[Best First]

That we can - which was a special suprise given how amazing Gillen's prior work on the character was.

[Best First]

Ob - also Garth Ennis and Gorlan Parlov's Fury Max series - think it was 12 issues but covers everything from WW2 to now so great little self contained beast - and quite tragic.

[Brendocon]

Uncanny X-Men #25

Hey, Charles Xavier did something naughty back in his past and now there's a supercharged hang on are you sure this isn't a repeat?

[Best First]

That issue should have just ended with everyone high fiving Scotty for killing the big bald douche.

Like Kurt and Kitty hugging tho. Kurt and Kitty. Boo-ya.

[Brendocon]

So Marvel have announced what happens when TIME RUNS OUT...

We get a 30th anniversary multiversal Secret Wars.

Yay!

Yay?

Ah [composite word including 'f*ck'] it, why not.

[Yaya]

So you guys still buying comics?

What's good (in a Yaya kind of way)?

[bumblemusprime]

I believe Mike Costa is still shilling some stuff for the New 52.

[Yaya]

Hmmmm. Well played, sir. Well played.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

So wolverine is dead?

[Professor Smooth]

So wolverine is dead?

Seems that way. His death made that of Peter Parker look totally above board.

[Yaya]

It all goes back to the relationship between Marvel/Disney and Fox. Marvel sold the movie rights to Fox and Fox refuses to sell it back. So what did Disney/Marvel decide to do? Kill off mutants and likely end the comic series. Disney did the same thing with The Fantastic Four. They don't own the rights so they said "[composite word including 'f*ck'] you, no more FF comics".

Disney is playing hard ball. They don't give a ****, there is no limit to what they do. You play their game, or they crush you. Look at The Clone Wars. Huge hit and despite fan appeal, they axed the show instead of continuing it, said "we'll make our own show" and so we have Rebels.

They are all about the dollar and care nothing for the fans or the franchise itself. Disney is a plague and a serious threat to entertainment as we know it. They will try to define entertainment itself.

They are in negotiations with Sony to try to get Spiderman in Marvel movies. If talks fail, expect Marvel to stop Spider-Man comics. Sounds crazy. But look what's happened to FF and Wolverine.

[Brendocon]

The current volume of Fantastic Four's ending dovetails into the events of Time Runs Out (the team has split up during the eight month time-jump) and the post-Secret Wars relaunch.

Just like it ended when Johnny Storm died and was then relaunched.
Just like it ended when they relaunched everything in Marvel Now.
Just like it ended when James Robinson took over for the current run.
Just like every Marvel series ends whenever a new writer takes over nowadays anyway. Or not even for a new writer. Uncanny Avengers is about to relaunch with a new #1 after Axis, FFS.

Let's wait and see if the book comes back after Secret Wars before buying into conspiracy theories.

As far as Wolverine being killed off in order to get Fox to stop making Wolverine/X-Men films goes:
1) Good
2) Good
3) Theory would make a bit more sense if Marvel were capable of going three days without starting a new X-title
4) The amount of Wolverine-related books seems to have ******* INCREASED in the wake of his death.

I'm not saying that there's no truth in the paranoid ramblings of the "Marvel are binning their most popular stuff to spite themselves just because they don't have the film rights" brigade. I'm just reserving judgement until it's happened and the dust settled and we can actually see what was really going on.

[Yaya]

it's not really Marvel per se, but Disney.

We know the comic industry has been dwindling over the past two decades, and were in not for the movies, there is a very good chance Marvel would have gone under. (Remember their chapter 11 bankruptcy filing? http://www.eonline.com/news/33907/marve ... bankruptcy) The movies saved Marvel, and they know it. So of course the focus is on where the big bucks are now, which is cinema. The comics are now glorified advertisement for the movies. Disney holds no love of the comic industry like Marvel, it's readers, and creators, like Stan Lee. And Disney is notoriously monopolistic in how they do things.

Who can blame them for giving a rat's ass about the comics? Marvel might be sentimental about such things, but Disney isn't. They see Sony and Fox as competitors for their dollars at the movies, so what do they do? Stop advertising for them. Stop advertising Wolverine. Stop advertising The Fantastic Four. And likely, if things don't shake out with Spidey, they might stop advertising for the wall crawler as well. Only thing is Disney has hopes that Sony will consider the options, which are they are negotiating. It will be interesting to see how things turn out.

[Yaya]

Wow. Did I really kill this thread for a month? Gotta be some kind of record!

[Best First]

Is he still talking rubbish or is it safe to come back?

[Computron]

Anyone reading the new Thor? How is it?

[Brendocon]

There've only been two issues so far, but it seems to be on a par quality wise with the stuff that came before (which it should be as it's still Jason Aaron). Sad that it's not being drawn by Ribic anymore, but he's busy on Secret Wars so hey ho.

[bumblemusprime]

Enjoying it, although the contemporary English asides in thought bubbles are giving me an Eric Masterson era vibe.

[Best First]

liking it a lot - but as Brend says its the same creative mind behind it so i had confidence. Might just be me but release schedule feels a bit slow so far.

Enjoying Spider-verse for the most part.

AXIS is enjoyable in a fairly unremarkable way - altho obvioulsy far less so when the epically over rated Terry Dodson is drawing it. That said it seems a bit of a shame that New Cap has been launched and has instantly been turned into anti-Cap.

X-Men comics seem to be a bit of a mess between AXIS and Death of Whathisname. The whole last will and testament of Chuck seems to have got lost in the mix.

Shame about X-Factor - it is good.

Oh, and New Ghost rider (not that new, but new to me) is quite fun - picked it up after reading Daneil Way and Jason Aaron' run which is a pretty nice slice of comics.

[Brendocon]

X-Books definitely suffering from too many concurrent plot threads going on. Last Will & Testament, Ultimate Adventure, Death of Wolverine, Axis. All with wacky release schedules and overlapping narratives and meh.

I've not been overly keen on Axis as a whole (too little focus on character for the players who actually need it. Also agree completely on Dodson, spectacularly average but treated as a superstar), but #7 was quite good.

And it's nice to see Marvel still reserve the right to take any past plot twist and undo it for the lols. Especially where Wanda's concerned.

Time Runs Out continues to be good. The more it goes on, the more I can't help but wonder about all the characters who aren't in it...

[Best First]

Time runs out is good - to be fair to Marvel they have let Hickman play one hell of a long game. Sometimes feels a little bit padded though - lots of the same stuff from different angles/

New Thor was super again.

Very much enjoying Hulk as well

Agree Axis 7 was fun - i think you are right though in terms of character - its got an 80s/90s cross over vibe in that sense - everyone is just there to drive the story along and hit each other rather than any real character dev. Although given they are all acting out of character i suppose fair enough.

Anyway some nice plot device driven shuffling going on:
- Wolvie is dead so let's make Sabretooth a good guy
- Sony blah blah oh look we aren't actually Mutants

Main problem is every wednesday when MTMTE comes out is a bit of a let down

[Brendocon]

Acting out of character is fine... it's just the whole thing where a few bigwig mutants got inverted and now the entirety of the X-Men are following Evanpocalypse and it's like nobody has a problem with it. Don't buy it. Feels sloppy and forced.

I mean at least Evil Cap shrinkrayed all the Avengers who might have argued with him. There's just no depth on the mutant side of things.

Very much looking forward to redemptive Angelus. I mean Sabretooth.

(Also I'm necessarily reading it that they're not mutants... just that they're not from that bloodline. I mean Pietro still got decimated, though I don't remember his repowering making much narrative sense. Will see where it goes.)

[bumblemusprime]

Thors was so not what I expected. Liked it, though. A cop show, with Throg as the cranky forensics guy!

[Best First]

Just caught up on the first two trades of Buffy Season 10 (currently cheap as **** on comixology). Totally, totally nailing it.

Agree on Thors.

The Secret Wars spins offs are generally good so far, despite being ultimately totally inconsequential I am guessing.

[Brendocon]

There's not been a single SW tie-in book I've read that wasn't at the very least entertaining. Really good strike rate.

I think a fair bit of it's going to port over into whatever they build off the back of it. A-Force is going to be an ongoing, and Old Man Logan'll be in whatever we're calling the new universe. We'll see yo.

Still haven't finished Buffy season 8 because I am a bad geek. However I'm currently doing a rewatch and will be straight into the comics after.

[Best First]

On another SW note, apart from Terry Dodson's horrible art - the Star Wars books have also all been pretty much amazo as well.

Yayness.

[bumblemusprime]

Renew Your Vows was a lot of fun, but had way too much of a "What If" vibe. Spidey doing things he would not ever do, and all other heroes being conveniently out of commission. Also, no sign of a certain awful devilish plot twist.

[Brendocon]

To be fair, Marvel never marketed it as having anything to do with OMD. We all just sort of assumed it'd have something to do with it, but it's clear from the set-up in #1 that whatever the divergence was happened long before that anyway, what with Brock still being Venom, etc.

Yeah, there's a "what if" vibe to all of it, but that's true of all SW tie-ins. As far as Spidey doing things he'd never do, that's sort of the point. That he's sacrificed who he used to be in order to protect his kid.

As far as the other heroes being out of the way, I wouldn't call a supervillain who's stealing their powers "convenient". But as a plot device to get to the story they want to tell, I don't see it's any more of a contrivance than the idea of a newspaper chief who would even know the name of the freelance photographer.

But yeah, lots of fun. (Though I haven't read the last issue yet)

Actually, there's not a single Secret Wars tie-in book I've read that I wouldn't class as, at the very least, fun.

If you only read one issue, make it Hank Johnson, Agent of Hydra.

[bumblemusprime]

I really had fun with Renew Your Vows; I just thought it could have been so much more. I found the rationale in Spider-Girl more convincing--that he would only stop Spider-Manning if he had an injury that prevented him from doing so.