the vynsane asylum

Finally caught up on ASM to the point where I'll be starting Spider Island next issue. As much resistance as I had to it, I've adapted to the new Parker status quo and actually think Dan Slott is doing a pretty decent job. Very interested in seeing how the big event goes, but I'm going to pace it out over the next couple of days as I believe it wraps tomorrow so I won't have to wait for anything.

Whoever did the art on 665 did a great job too, almost McFarlane-esque, but not quite as extreme. A beautifully drawn book.

Slott's run has been nothing but fun. I'm still miffed about OMD and OMIT, but there's no denying Slott is having a great ride on this book.



And now to switch gears a tad. In the latest issue of Avengers, Cap and IronMan have a talk about rebuilding Avengers Tower that go knocked down during Fear Itself. Cap is adamant about rebuilding it and even evokes the WTC. While I agree with his sentiment, do you think it's disrespectful to rebuild a fictional building when the real towers mentioned in the argument won't ever be rebuilt like they were? Or is it a surrogate symbolism?

I think it's a collective take from Marvel on their position re. the rebuilding of the towers. I found that passage a bit preachy, but it did raise a small lump in my throat - can't lie.

Should also clarify I started my catchup run with "Big Time". I don't know where I left off, but it was somewhere just before the famous (for 10 minutes anyhow) Obama issue, so I've likely still got at least 50-60 issues sitting in the box to go through some other time. I do recall One More Day (with the sniper rifle & Aunt May if I'm not mistaken), but I don't know about OMIT (One Moment in Time I'm assuming?).

Yeah OMIT was the 'bookend' to OMD. It's horribly contrived and is basically a character assassination of MJ in order to justify the split. Read any other book she's been in about her inner strength and love for Pete and his role as Spider-Man and then read that and you'll vomit.

So, I was reading FF 11 this morning and I was thinking: the property value of the buildings immediately adjacent to the Baxter Building have got to be in the toilet. Some super villain is attacking or blowing it up or it's getting sucked into the negative zone every weekend. I wouldn't rent out of the brownstone next door. No way no how.

There's Damage Control.

I still say that, in a universe where New York is trashed almost weekly and Damage Control can fix buildings in minutes, the 9-11 attacks should be considered "just another Tuesday."

Looks like the House of Ideas is doing some end of year housecleaning. Black Panther, X-23, Ghost Rider, IronMan 2.0 and All Star Band of Brothers are Joining Heroes for Hire and Alpha Flight in the 'We got cancelled' line. And a couple other series like Von Doom and Destroyers got shelved before the first issue even hit stands.

I foresee Thunderbolts getting the axe very soon.
And I can't see how they're going to sustain eight different X-team books.

So that effectively ends Daredevil's original run, which had already been renumbered then re-renumbered before it got hijacked by the Panther.

I'm not buying any of those books so it doesn't really concern me. I'd said all along fewer, better books is the way to go.

jjreason wrote:So that effectively ends Daredevil's original run, which had already been renumbered then re-renumbered before it got hijacked by the Panther.

Until the inevitable legacy renumbering.

I'm not buying any of those books so it doesn't really concern me. I'd said all along fewer, better books is the way to go.

Well, Black Panther sucked ass anyway, so no loss there.
I've read somewhere that Marvel is stepping up the shipping schedule on its big selling $3.99 A-list titles like Avengers and X-Men so they'll be double shipping in some months and it comes out to like 16 issues a year instead of 12. That revenue more than makes up for whatever low sellin shit titles they cancel en masse.

So here's a No-Prize waiting to be solved. In the post-FI Marvel U, Tanarus is the new ThunderGod, and has ALWAYS been the ThunderGod in people's minds.
Meanwhile, over in Avengers and New Avengers, Osborn has gotten together a brand new Dark Avengers team, and his Thor is the Clone Thor now called Ragnarok from Civil War.

So, isn't everybody going to look at Ragnarok and think 'who the fuck is this guy?!'. They don't know who the hell Thor is anymore. They've only ever known Tanarus. So they certainly Won't know who the Evil robot Thor is supposed to be.

How "old" do you figure Peter Parker was in 1984 in terms of Marvel's sliding Time Scale? Early twenties? The reason I ask is because I'm currently reading the early Bill Mantlo Cloak&Dagger series. I got both the 4 issue mini and the shortlived 11 issue ongoing for $2 a few weeks ago and just getting around to reading them.
Anyway, in issue 3 of the ongoing, Spider-Man guest stars and at one point, while Spidey is trying to convince the 16 year old Dagger(dressed in her skimpy skintight white navel and cleavage baring costume) that she should go back to Cleveland and live a normal life, she pulls his mask off AND THEY START MAKING OUT!!!

Yeah. Spidey puts the moves on a 16 year old. Fuckin' pervert.

Marvel announced its big 2012 Event.

Avengers vs X-Men

The cynic in me sees this as the most obvious cash grab in history.
The Fanboy(the one that will be inevitably let down by the conclusion of this) in me says "Kewl!"

I think its funny that people are already bitching its not titled "X-Men vs Avengers". Their argument being that Marvel has marginalized the X-franchise (and Fox studios) in favor of the Avengers franchise which movies are produced in house.

I'm guessing that the editors were sitting around discussing what the plans for 2012 were.

"Well, people say they're sick of crossovers."
"Good point."
"And the last two we had, by Fraction and Bendis, were massive critical failures. They sold well, but people very vocally felt ripped off."
"Let's take that into account, too."
"And everyone's sick of heroes not being heroes, and want them to start saving the day again instead of this 90s 'fighting each other for no reason' bullshit."
"Excellent point as well. So we're looking at a 12-parter, written by Fraction and Bendis together, with heroes fighting each other."

Really, do the major heroes actually get a chance to be themselves in their books in between crossovers anymore?

It's funny that people bitch about 'Event Fatigue' but then when you look at sales numbers, people are eating that shit up.
I guess Marvel's take is 'You can bitch all you want and label every story we do as a critical failure. As long as you do it after you buy the books you're bitching about, we don't care.'

The numbers are up on crossovers, relatively speaking. Numbers are slipping fast all over the place, though. Could it be that people are putting their money where their mouths are and dropping the Big Two because of all the crossovers, but the people who remain feel like they pretty much have to get the next crossover in case they need it to understand huge development with in the characters they read? In other words, every Spider-Man reader, every Avengers reader, every Wolverine reader, every X-Men reader, every X-Force reader, every reader of every other book starring a character in or tangentially associated with X-Men vs Avengers (even stuff like Black Panther, since he's an Avenger and married to an X-Woman, whether he's in the teaser or not), whether those readers are the same people or not, thus making the combined numbers of the crossover higher than the numbers of the regular books.

It's funny you mentioned Storm, because I can almost see the choices made in editorial retreats leading up to these big events. I thought it was kinda random that they had her join the Avengers. But now I see it's so they can build in some artificial drama for the AvX Event.

It was the same thing when they had Ares randomly join the Avengers. I'm now sure it was because they always planned on Sentry killing a major powerhouse and they didn't want to sacrifice Thor, so they ramped up Ares' presence in the MU, knowing full well he was gonna die in the Sentry story.