Marvel Comics Omnibus thread

[Jerome Miller]

http://www.comicsbeat.com/sdcc-16-moon-girl-smartest-person-in-world/

 

"Moon Girl" escapes the cancellation axe, getting rebooted as 'The Smartest Person in the World."  "Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur" is currently averaging about 12,500 in direct sales.

[Matt D]

I like Moon Girl way better than Squirrel Girl but I thought she would get pushed to the side for the new Iron Man book.

[Cliff Hanger]

Now, six months after it happened as it shows up on Unlimited, I get to be angry at Spencer over Constrictor's shitty shitty death.  Ever since Priest's Deadpool, he's been a character I was always really fond of and excited to see pop up (especially in Slott/Gage's Initiative run).

[Jerome Miller]

On 7/25/2016 at 3:44 AM, Matt D said:

I like Moon Girl way better than Squirrel Girl but I thought she would get pushed to the side for the new Iron Man book.

The Social Justice Warriors would eat Marvel alive if they thought Moon Girl was being phased out in favor of female black Iron Man.

[Cliff Hanger]

That is likely to be an unproductive line of conversation.

 

Meanwhile, I'm fascinated that Priest has returned to corporate comics, being very candid about how he felt that being asked to write mostly Black characters was a demotion, at the same time as the "why is a white man writing the new Iron Man series?" hubbub. I don't have any answers to anything, but the timing is nuts.

[Spritenaut 32]

On ‎7‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 11:18 PM, Cliff Hanger said:

Meanwhile, I'm fascinated that Priest has returned to corporate comics, being very candid about how he felt that being asked to write mostly Black characters was a demotion, at the same time as the "why is a white man writing the new Iron Man series?" hubbub. I don't have any answers to anything, but the timing is nuts.

I'm not sure I subscribe to the theory that you need a black writer to write black characters, though I'm sure it helps in a lot of books.  In a medium where you're mostly writing about aliens and people with super-powers, telling a good story is more important than having an authentic cultural voice (someone please call Reggie Hudlin and tell him that).  Beyond that, I'm rather skeptical there are enough black writers to go around.  How many black writers are there in comics, anyway?  Comics has always stuck me as an insular, sort of old-boy industry (read: white editors only hiring white talent) but I don't pay much attention to people in the industry outside their books, so I'm sure of the race of people in comics less than 10% of the time.  I always kinda assumed Dwayne McDuffie was black, but I wasn't certain until I googled him five minutes ago.  Aside from McDuffie, I can think of.... Denys Cowan and Chris Priest.  And Reginald Hudlin, I guess, but he's less a fulltime comics writer, and more like a guy who moonlights.  Literally the only editor in comics since 1980 who I could identify on sight is Karen Berger.

Given his last name, I'm assuming that Stan Lee guy is Asian, right?  OK, not serious about that one, but you get the point.  I literally have no idea who in the industry is black, white, Asian, etc. Steve Gerber could be African American, for all I know.  I don't think he is, but I have no idea what Gerber looks like.  My general impression is that it's a lily white industry, but, like I said, I could very well be under-informed.

As far as Priest goes, he really should have gotten runs on more high-profile books.  I don't doubt racism played a part in him not getting better assignments, particularly when he was still writing as "Jim Owsley".  But, I also think Priest being Priest had a lot to do with him getting marginalized in the industry.  Black Panther should have catapulted him to better gigs, but by then his reputation was pretty well established and I imagine a lot of writers and editors didn't want the headaches and controversy that comes with working with Priest.  That's not to say he should have kept his mouth shut, or that a lot of what he said was wrong, but general impression is that Priest has never met a foot he couldn't shoot himself in.

I hate to admit it, but I'm really looking forward to his Deathstroke run.  Partly because I like the character and I expect the book to be quite good; but also because I expect it to become a hilarious disaster by the time all is said and done.  Priest needs more fodder for his blog, lol.

(I still think it's hilarious he publicly blamed the problems for the Quantum and Woody reboot on Doc Bright.  Again, he may well be 100% correct, but given how long they were friends and worked together, at a minimum, he should have kept his opinions private.) 

 

[supremebve]

5 hours ago, Vader does my taxes! said:

I'm not sure I subscribe to the theory that you need a black writer to write black characters, though I'm sure it helps in a lot of books.  In a medium where you're mostly writing about aliens and people with super-powers, telling a good story is more important than having an authentic cultural voice (someone please call Reggie Hudlin and tell him that).  Beyond that, I'm rather skeptical there are enough black writers to go around.  How many black writers are there in comics, anyway?  Comics has always stuck me as an insular, sort of old-boy industry (read: white editors only hiring white talent) but I don't pay much attention to people in the industry outside their books, so I'm sure of the race of people in comics less than 10% of the time.  I always kinda assumed Dwayne McDuffie was black, but I wasn't certain until I googled him five minutes ago.  Aside from McDuffie, I can think of.... Denys Cowan and Chris Priest.  And Reginald Hudlin, I guess, but he's less a fulltime comics writer, and more like a guy who moonlights.  Literally the only editor in comics since 1980 who I could identify on sight is Karen Berger.

 

I see where you are coming from, but there are plenty of black artists and writers who have been trying to get into comics and have been denied.  I think the bigger issue than whether or not a black writer has to write a black character is whether or not black writers are hired to write anyone other than black characters.  Your assumption that there aren't enough black writers to go around is how institutional racism works.  White people just assume black people don't want to do certain things, but we do, we really want to do all the shit people assume we don't want to do.  Trust me if there is a job, there is a black person who wants it.  There is a rather large black (both men and women) comic book community, but there are very few black comic book writers employed by either DC or Marvel.  Roxanne Gay is going to be the first black woman to write a Marvel comic in the upcoming World of Wakanda.  It is 2016, we should be past these first black person to do something benchmarks.  There are a lot of black people who want to work in the comic book industry.  There is a podcast called Fanbros where they address stuff like this.  They've interviewed everyone from basically every walk of black life, and you'll see that there is a passion for comic books in the black community.  Never assume that there are not enough black people to go around, especially in an industry where you don't see any black people.  There are black people at Trump rallies, it is idiotic to believe that there is a place on this planet where a black person doesn't want to be. 

[Cliff Hanger]

Yeah, I think the real issue is that since Marvel and DC didn't make an honest effort to recruit aND retain Black creators 15 years ago, thus there are none today with the kind of track record necessary to be allowed to take chances with franchises.  I just thought the juxtaposition of two related issues was interesting.

[odessasteps]

I was discussing a similar topic recently with someone. It feels like there will be some blowback nowadays if you have a comic featuring an ethnic minority or woman or LGBT character and dont have someone from that group as part of the creative team. Unless maybe you have a proven track record of writing those characters (like say Gillen and McKelvie). 

And if i was your traditional straight white middle aged comics writer, i dont know if i would want to deal with the ramifications of writing Black Panther or Young Avengers or Ms Marvel, for fear of accidentally alienating or infuriating a vocal part of the fanbase for not writing those characters "correctly" according to them. 

[Jerome Miller]

I wonder what will happen to Ms. Marvel after G. Willow Wilson decides to move on.

[J.H.]

Its ironic that we're having this conversation and bringing up Priest since when he did write Power Man i nthe 80s he was accused of not writing him "black enough".

James

[The Unholy Dragon]

Is that 'ironic' or 'indicative of how white readership/viewership viewed blackness as reflected in blaxploitation tropes'?

 

To me that just goes hand in hand with this:

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/01/17/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-138/

[Spritenaut 32]

I quite like Priest's run on Power Man & Iron Fist, but the way he wrote Luke doesn't do anything to bolster the idea that a black writer will give black characters more authentic voices.  Although I kinda assume it was an editorial directive that Luke still talk and dress like a 70's Blaxploitation cliché.

[Cliff Hanger]

Allegedly, he got hate mail after having Luke mention turning on the "angry Negro act", indicating that the over-the-top shit was posturing for the client and/or the enemy.

[odessasteps]

Obligatory Buck Wild reference here.

[Matt D]

It's relatively annoying how not good the X-books have become. There's decent talent there too. I think it's just traditionally very hard to have an X-line that isn't terrible and Nick Lowe was a miracle worker.

[supremebve]

2 hours ago, Matt D said:

It's relatively annoying how not good the X-books have become. There's decent talent there too. I think it's just traditionally very hard to have an X-line that isn't terrible and Nick Lowe was a miracle worker.

I think they've just gone so far away from what made the X-Men great in the first place that it is nearly impossible to tell compelling stories.  The reason I fell in love with the X-Men is the soap opera stuff between the team.  Even the villains were part of the day-to-day interactions with the team.  Sabretooth, Magneto, Juggernaut, etc. all had relationships with people on the team that made them more intriguing than the villains in other books.  There are too many X-Men, too many teams, too much nonsense that takes them away from the X-mansion, and not enough of the interpersonal stuff that keeps me interested.  I loved the All-New X-Men run, because it put characters I cared about in a situation where they had to figure out their relationships with each other as much as the situation itself.  That is the core of what the X-Men series is to me, and without that dynamic I just don't care.

[The Unholy Dragon]

Yeah. Blockbuster style X-Men stories is kind of like trying to do Morrison JLA style stories without the solo books to reinforce. Ends up being a lot of stuff happening but who cares because there's no room for the characters to breathe. There's a reason so many X-Men are beloved and it has everything to do with how the books used to have smaller downtime stories to build characters as well. 

 

The current Wolverine series is very good, at least.

[J.H.]

Say what you want about Claremont but when it came to X-Men he was master of the small moments. Whole issues dealing with day to day life at the school with personal interaction with every character. I mean has there been a sexier couple in X-Men than Nightcrawler and Amaba Sefton? That felt like a relcouple even given heir backgrounds. Hell even the Juggernaut/Colossus bar brawl issue was post Secret Wars downtime issue. It was all about Logan teaching Peter a lesson about how he two-timed Kitty. One of those "Wolverine is dick but the other guy had it coming" moments. I mean he basically set Peter up to get his asskicked by Juggernaut.

James

[Eivion]

I loved the bar issue. I think the trouble you have with getting proper downtime issues today is the pricing. Comics are just a bit too expensive for such issues.

10 hours ago, The Unholy Dragon said:

The current Wolverine series is very good, at least.

Which one?

[Matt D]

All New has been very strong including a squirrel girl issue that was so much stronger than her solo book but I'm dreading Enemy of the State 2.

Old Man Logan had a very strong first arc but once Logan lost his focus, the comic did as well.

[The Unholy Dragon]

All New is what I meant, yeah.

 

I don't know about 'Comics being too expensive now' really works to explain the shift. It sort of assumes that readers are only seeing value in the action stuff but from this discussion alone that's clearly not true, not to mention the success of indie comics ala Invincible or even in house stuff like Ultimate Spider-man under Bendis and shit like Squirrel Girl which still use that form. 

 

If anything I think it speaks to how most of the time runs are shorter now. Creators need to sell the book hard, consider eventual collections, and consider that they could be bounced any time. No one's getting a decade on a book to settle in and do whatever the fuck. If you're only getting 6-12 issues that's not a lot of room for filler.

[Eivion]

Perhaps I'll check out All New Wolverine then. I've never known much about Laura outside of her appearances in cartoons and Bendis's book since I start late reading comics.

26 minutes ago, The Unholy Dragon said:

I don't know about 'Comics being too expensive now' really works to explain the shift. It sort of assumes that readers are only seeing value in the action stuff but from this discussion alone that's clearly not true, not to mention the success of indie comics ala Invincible or even in house stuff like Ultimate Spider-man under Bendis and shit like Squirrel Girl which still use that form. 

If anything I think it speaks to how most of the time runs are shorter now. Creators need to sell the book hard, consider eventual collections, and consider that they could be bounced any time. No one's getting a decade on a book to settle in and do whatever the fuck. If you're only getting 6-12 issues that's not a lot of room for filler.

I still think pricing plays some part of it as its likely why some of those runs are shorter, but you make a good point that consideration of those things is probably the bigger reason. I'm curious now what are the longest runs still going on right now at Marvel?

[The Unholy Dragon]

I mean, if you view Miles' book as an extension of Ultimate Spider-man then that's pretty continuous from 1999. Past that? Slott's Spider-man maybe? He's been the main writer since 2010 and was one of the main BND dudes for two years prior.

 

Past that I struggle to think of anyone who's gone past a year on the current slate. It doesn't help that they did creative deck clearings pre and post Secret Wars.

 

EDIT: Seems to be Bendis' GotG followed by some order of Wilson's Ms. Marvel and Duggan's Deadpool. Otherwise no one has been on longer than about a year and a half.

[Eivion]

You forgot about Aaron on Thor. I could only think of him and Bendis on Miles offhand. I can't believe I forgot about Slott.