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2021 Marvel Comics Omnibus Thread


odessasteps

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21 hours ago, odessasteps said:

Since i now have a page from it, i’ll say Dr Fate. 

Limited series w/ Giffen or the ongoing monthly?  I like the limited series a lot for the writing.  It was DeMatteis at his prose-heavy, navel-gazing best.  

The ongoing monthly has some very good issues, but also a lot of one-liners and a lighter tone. It's DeMatteis trying to write a serious book while also relying on a lot of the same style he used in JL.  That doesn't work for much.  On the other hand, Shawn McManus was the regular artist on the book for the first two years (it may have only run 2 years; don't remember) and he inked his own pencils so the art looked fantastic and really suited the series.

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I suppose Hickman should be happy that writers want to keep parts of his first phase for more years.  But seems he would have undone it all in the end with the last extra life of Moira.

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58 minutes ago, Eoae said:

Limited series w/ Giffen or the ongoing monthly?  I like the limited series a lot for the writing.  It was DeMatteis at his prose-heavy, navel-gazing best.  

The ongoing monthly has some very good issues, but also a lot of one-liners and a lighter tone. It's DeMatteis trying to write a serious book while also relying on a lot of the same style he used in JL.  That doesn't work for much.  On the other hand, Shawn McManus was the regular artist on the book for the first two years (it may have only run 2 years; don't remember) and he inked his own pencils so the art looked fantastic and really suited the series.

 

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On 8/17/2021 at 1:34 PM, D.Z said:

Kind of mixed on this. I like much of the new world Hickman and co. set up so I don't mind seeing it continue for a while. On the other I would have liked to have seen where Hickman would have taken everything so it sucks to hear he is done and likely whatever plans he had for it.

I am happy to see him sticking around Marvel even with the substack stuff going. Curious to see what his next book will be.

Edited by Eivion
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By completely dumb luck I stumbled upon Hickman fairly early in his career (someone dug the first issue of Pax Romana so much that they basically threw it in front of me) and while I dig him a lot the one knock I always put on him was that he seemed to always like laying out the whole giant timeline of his big story idea more than actually seeing it through to the end (Pax Romana ending with a giant timeline showing that we only saw maybe 10% of what happened is also largely responsible for this). Him checking out of his big three act X-Men story after just one is disappointing but not completely unexpected. Not sure I'll bother checking it out now though. 

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The big three superheroes are Batman, Spider-Man and Superman. Grant Morrison's written two of them. I LOVE Morrison's 2006-2013 run on Batman, best comic book run I've ever read. I keep going back to it such is my enjoyment.  I really like his Superman, All-Star Superman is terrific and Action Comics from The New 52. 52 and Final Crisis are also great. Liked his New X-Men as well. For those reasons be a dream for Morrison to write Spider-Man and see what he's come up with. Ongoing, limited series, anything. Shame it's not happening, @Brian Fowler.

Edited by The Natural
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What's the backstory with Hickman leaving X-Men?  I stopped by the lcs today for the first time in a while, and the employees seemed to think Hickman is leaving because the reboot is so successful that Marvel doesn't want to move the story forward.  Apparently, Hickman originally planned the story out in three phases.  I assume phase 2 would be cracks in the utopia they've built and phase 3 would be Mystique or whoever burning the thing to the ground (maybe literally).

Bleeding Cool said much the same thing, but that's really the only opinion I've read.  I'm not much more than a casual comics fan these days.  It's been two decades since I had a pull list and trips to the lcs are down to a couple times a year.  I do have one or two books I follow monthly, but, for the most part, I don't read comics news or use comics message boards.  I'm currently following CBR and Bleeding Cool on Twitter, but I get most of my news from this board.

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4 hours ago, Eoae said:

What's the backstory with Hickman leaving X-Men?  I stopped by the lcs today for the first time in a while, and the employees seemed to think Hickman is leaving because the reboot is so successful that Marvel doesn't want to move the story forward.  Apparently, Hickman originally planned the story out in three phases.  I assume phase 2 would be cracks in the utopia they've built and phase 3 would be Mystique or whoever burning the thing to the ground (maybe literally).

There is a link on the other page with Hickman explaining why. In general though the story has run away from him somewhat since the other X-writers wanted to spend more time in the first phase. He is letting them do that and choosing to focus on his substack books and whatever else he has planned Marvel wise. Now its only a question of how long this stuff lasts and how much of Hickman's original plan they use when it finally ends.

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Honestly, my main interest in Hickman's run was seeing how it all turns to sh** and comes crashing down, so I'm kinda disappointed there probably won't be much payoff.  I really liked Powers of X and House of X.  Been hot and cold on the monthly.  Really haven't cared for the creative teams on the other books (except S.W.O.R.D.), so I'm basically just picking up the issues Hickman actually scripts., which makes the overall story tough to follow in spots without reading up on the books I'm not reading (not doing that either).

Still quite curious about Inferno.  Some people think it will be an abridged version of whatever Hickman's original plan was.  That might be for the best.  It seems unlikely Hickman was ever going to get the story completed in it's original form without being derailed by a reboot or cross-over.  And I've got zero faith in other writers carrying the story forward in a decent fashion.

I feel like this run would have worked best as an Elseworlds story with a definite end date and a hard reset (presumably Moira resetting everything after it all goes bad).  It's an ambitious, fascinating take on the X-Men but it also very "out there" and hard to pull off once you hand books off to other writers and try to bring in the entire Marvel universe.  It feels like it was always going to be hard to keep the quality up unless Hickman wanted to write every single X-book itself (and even then...).  I feel like the nuance was going to be lost eventually and books would be back to "Whif!  Bam!  Pow!  Let's beat up supervillains for being bad actors".

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2 hours ago, Matt D said:

Timing seems odd as they’d milk the Reilly story for a year and a half. What about Captain America or Daredevil? 

Daredevil is getting canceled.  The issue in the November solicits is advertised as the last issue.  That said, Marvel said the Zdarsky run isn't over and teased an announcement for the end of August, so I expect they are going to renumber the book or continue it in some other way (Elektra #1?)

Has Hickman ever written something like Spider-Man or Cap?  I've only read his runs on FF, Avengers, and X-Men, as well as a little bit of East of West, but he seems more of a big idea guy who likes to tell big, broad stories with large casts and cosmic implications.  Don't feel like he'd be drawn to more down-to-earth characters like Spider-Man and Daredevil.

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Been reading through Dawn of X. Just finished Volume 14. In general I like the overarching story with Krakoa and mutants creating something special for themselves. Individual books definitely vary in quality. The main X-men book is somewhere between Hickman's New Avengers & Avengers in terms of story telling vs. character focus. I find New Mutants generally solid. Excalibur as well. Didn't care for the Psylocke book, but it was decent. Hellions is way better and more interesting as a premise focusing on damaged mutants. Marauders is fine. Cable is ok, but nothing great. It is nice to see older Cable return, and I did like seeing teen Cable interact with Wade. Wolverine is another solid book. X-Factor has a solid premise, but the writing isn't quite there yet. Feels like it is trying to pull too much from the current gen too much that it come across a a weak parody at times. Empyre was nothing special but pretty fun. X-Force is a decent book, but it doesn't feel like it will ever hits in an impactful way. 

As a whole the X-books are an interesting read that I enjoy though few of them stand out strong on their own. Its easy to see why some have been down or mixed on this current run as a result. I actually think they may end stronger with less of their hands tied though I admittedly that hope doesn't run far for some of the books as I think part of this is definitely a weakness in some of the writers themselves.

 

As far as Hickman's next book goes, something to keep in mind is that Hickman did mentioned wanting to write Guardians of the Galaxy years back when he was done with Avengers/Secret Wars. Its clear he likes the cosmic side of Marvel so I wouldn't be shocked if he is finally getting his chance be it with Guardians or something else.

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Wasn't expecting the twist in the Kindred story:

Spoiler

Apparently, Norman Osborne made a deal with Mephisto, and it's being heavily implied by Amazing #72 that Harry ended up in Hell and eventually became Kindred because of Norman, not Peter.

So....

Spoiler

Norman sold his son's soul to Mephisto in exchange for material success, then an alternate version of Norman got restored to life via One More Day?

Assuming this isn't a red herring (and I haven't read the actual issue yet, just out today), I like the idea, but I'm also wondering if Spencer isn't piling up too much baggage considering his run on the book is virtually over.  The Kindred story doesn't really need more plot twists.

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I read Jim Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey from Epic Illustrated. I've been reading quite a few Marvel magazines lately, and I feel like they were an untapped avenue for Marvel's creators to enjoy creative freedom and explore their own original ideas instead of trying to shoehorn them into the monthly books. Very few creators took advantage of the possibilities of this new format, and there weren't a lot of successes, but Metamorphosis Odyssey was definitely a success. It was gorgeous to look at and the concept was intriguing. The execution wasn't perfect (it felt a bit rushed to me), but it was magnificent in its scope. I must admit, I immediately thought, "Wow, it's Green Arrow" when Vanth finally appeared. 

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20 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I read Jim Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey from Epic Illustrated. I've been reading quite a few Marvel magazines lately, and I feel like they were an untapped avenue for Marvel's creators to enjoy creative freedom and explore their own original ideas instead of trying to shoehorn them into the monthly books. Very few creators took advantage of the possibilities of this new format, and there weren't a lot of successes, but Metamorphosis Odyssey was definitely a success. It was gorgeous to look at and the concept was intriguing. The execution wasn't perfect (it felt a bit rushed to me), but it was magnificent in its scope. I must admit, I immediately thought, "Wow, it's Green Arrow" when Vanth finally appeared. 

The Rick Vietch stuff from EpiC Illustrated is good. Heartburst IIRC was first printed in there.

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I don't remember what was in Epic Illustrated.  I did find myself browsing Wikipedia for the list of books published under the Epic label.  Fair number of books I liked at the time (Blood, Moonshadow, Alien Legion, The One, etc.), but the only title I have a lot of interest in rereading in 2021 is Dreadstar.  Probably go through that again sometime this year.  Starlin issues, anyway.  Don't think the David run will hold up for me.

Was the Dreadstar limited series published by Malibu any good?  Don't think I ever read that. 

 

 

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