Do I hate Marvel?
I think I might. Or at least...I'm starting to. It's like everything I read from them lately is just crap.
Newly added onto the pile of doo-doo is Ultimates Vol. 3 #1. Yes, it's a stupid way to have to say the title, but necessary since they can't keep an ongoing series happening with this book for some reason. Creative team:
Jeph Loeb
Joe Madureira
Christian Lichtner
So right away as you're reading that list your reaction should be "FREAKING AWESOME"! And, yes, the art is spectacular. Here's a small sample; click the link for a larger image:
One of my favorite flisters, gdg, posted his review about it before I had a chance to read it. Grant's comic reviews are usually spot-on and I love his Heroes commentary. So I was already anticipating the badness when I got the comic. But JoeMad has to be my favorite artist of all time, so I knew I'd at least enjoy the visuals, which I did.
Grant's review was a little harsher than I would be. He gave it an F. The art alone probably elevates it to a C for me, but the writing is absolutely crap. Poop on a stick. Turd-burger. It's that bad. What makes it bad you ask? Well, the dialogue is completely awkward. Captain America, who has been fighting and supposedly living with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch for awhile now is apparently completely oblivious to the fact that the brother and sister team are, in fact, kinda weird in the way that they interact. Meaning they act more like lovers than brother and sister. Totally gross, I know, but still it's pretty damned obvious. Except to Steve Rogers who apparently can't spot that kind of thing because he's from 1944. And this makes him unable to perceive obvious things. Apparently in the Ulimate universe, the death of Captain America will be by a Mac truck when he's crossing the street...and they'll chalk it up to it being because he's from 1944 and didn't see it coming. (OK, kidding, but you get the point.)
Everything in the dialogue...and I mean EVERYTHING...seemed completely forced. And we jump into the middle of a story, which I don't normally mind, but we're given little to no update on what's been happening in the story. The #1 just treats us as if we're supposed to know what's happening. Now, I have some faith that they'll likely go back and catch us up...or at least I HOPE they do, but it's really confusing.
And then I start thinking..."Wait a sec...Jeph Loeb is involved in Heroes. Which started off slow and got awesome, then kinda stunk a bit in season 2." Could this be the reason why? Could Jeph Loeb, like Chris Claremont, have taken a complete nose dive into the Swamp of Suckitude and not been able to climb out of the morass that is their own writing? It's all too possible.
That said, the art is really amazing. It's awesome to see JoeMad back on a regular book. But come on, we can already predict the shipping delays with him involved in the book. It's a very, VERY pretty book to look at. But the writing is terrible and drags this book WAY down.
And that brings us around to Marvel. Almost every book I've picked up from them, with rare exception, has me shaking my head wondering what happened to "my" comic company. I used to love Marvel and even defend them, but their quality has suffered big time. When they went through bankruptcy and Joe Q. came onboard, they did some great stuff to recover and there were some really neat stories and interesting comics that came out. But something has happened at the House of M and the number of books they churn out has increased and the quality of those books has dropped drastically.
If things seriously don't improve in the next months I am going to drop nearly all of my Marvel titles and just collect the gems. Thoughts and comments always appreciated.
Newly added onto the pile of doo-doo is Ultimates Vol. 3 #1. Yes, it's a stupid way to have to say the title, but necessary since they can't keep an ongoing series happening with this book for some reason. Creative team:
Jeph Loeb
Joe Madureira
Christian Lichtner
So right away as you're reading that list your reaction should be "FREAKING AWESOME"! And, yes, the art is spectacular. Here's a small sample; click the link for a larger image:
One of my favorite flisters, gdg, posted his review about it before I had a chance to read it. Grant's comic reviews are usually spot-on and I love his Heroes commentary. So I was already anticipating the badness when I got the comic. But JoeMad has to be my favorite artist of all time, so I knew I'd at least enjoy the visuals, which I did.
Grant's review was a little harsher than I would be. He gave it an F. The art alone probably elevates it to a C for me, but the writing is absolutely crap. Poop on a stick. Turd-burger. It's that bad. What makes it bad you ask? Well, the dialogue is completely awkward. Captain America, who has been fighting and supposedly living with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch for awhile now is apparently completely oblivious to the fact that the brother and sister team are, in fact, kinda weird in the way that they interact. Meaning they act more like lovers than brother and sister. Totally gross, I know, but still it's pretty damned obvious. Except to Steve Rogers who apparently can't spot that kind of thing because he's from 1944. And this makes him unable to perceive obvious things. Apparently in the Ulimate universe, the death of Captain America will be by a Mac truck when he's crossing the street...and they'll chalk it up to it being because he's from 1944 and didn't see it coming. (OK, kidding, but you get the point.)
Everything in the dialogue...and I mean EVERYTHING...seemed completely forced. And we jump into the middle of a story, which I don't normally mind, but we're given little to no update on what's been happening in the story. The #1 just treats us as if we're supposed to know what's happening. Now, I have some faith that they'll likely go back and catch us up...or at least I HOPE they do, but it's really confusing.
And then I start thinking..."Wait a sec...Jeph Loeb is involved in Heroes. Which started off slow and got awesome, then kinda stunk a bit in season 2." Could this be the reason why? Could Jeph Loeb, like Chris Claremont, have taken a complete nose dive into the Swamp of Suckitude and not been able to climb out of the morass that is their own writing? It's all too possible.
That said, the art is really amazing. It's awesome to see JoeMad back on a regular book. But come on, we can already predict the shipping delays with him involved in the book. It's a very, VERY pretty book to look at. But the writing is terrible and drags this book WAY down.
And that brings us around to Marvel. Almost every book I've picked up from them, with rare exception, has me shaking my head wondering what happened to "my" comic company. I used to love Marvel and even defend them, but their quality has suffered big time. When they went through bankruptcy and Joe Q. came onboard, they did some great stuff to recover and there were some really neat stories and interesting comics that came out. But something has happened at the House of M and the number of books they churn out has increased and the quality of those books has dropped drastically.
If things seriously don't improve in the next months I am going to drop nearly all of my Marvel titles and just collect the gems. Thoughts and comments always appreciated.