Episode 1344 Talkback: Marvel Now Round Ten

Pants

In this round of our Marvel Now coverage we discuss Guardians of the Galaxy #0.1, Uncanny X-Men #1, Nova #1, Secret Avengers #1 and Fearless Defenders #1. (1:35:27)

Listen here.

Thor_El

This was a well-timed episode, gentlemen.

Despite being a Marvel Guy at my core, I'd dropped a HUGE part of my Marvel books back during the beginning of Avengers vs X-Men. The $3.99 price tag on most of their series, combined with the ever-growing number of ancillary Avengers-related books became far too unwieldy for my wallet to contain. Granted, I didn't have any DC books cutting into that budget any longer, but still, it just became too much.

So, I dropped everything except Thor and Journey Into Mystery. And I've always felt like part of me was missing ever since.

I tried new series (and loved them) such as Hypernaturals, New Crusaders, and several others, but for as good as they were, the Marvel Universe just feels like home.

I've recently had a friend loan me a large portion of multiple issues of the Marvel NOW! series, and had an opportunity to begin reading them. I'm far too far behind at this stage of the game to try to catch up on the floppies, so I've resigned myself to trying to jump back onto books I missed like GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, and NOVA. Hickman's Avengers, I've been buying digitally, so I'm up-to-speed there.

Everything else, I'm hopelessly far behind. Too far, given the cost of trying to catch back up.

FEARLESS DEFENDERS was a series I wanted to buy because of my love of all things Asgardian, but didn't do so. But your discussion and reviews, coupled with the opportunity to read the first issue myself today, has brought me onto this with a vengeance.

I'm debating whether or not I should just jump onto the other series I want to collect again with the newest solicited issues and work my way back, or just wait for trades at this stage. Either isn't especially appealing.

Regardless, great episode guys.

Greg

The only series I'm reading out of this round is Fearless Defenders. I really lkied it, good set up, an unlikely team-up and and an under appreciated villain in my opinion. You'll get nothing but a buy reccomental from me on this one.

I think it was in Comic Shop News, may have been elsewhere, I read something that said Misty, Valkyrie, Annabelle and Moonstar will be the core group and the remainder of the team will be rotated but will continue to be female characters and I thought that Bunn teased that we might see some of the former female Defenders make appearnces but may not be on the team, which would be cool to see Hellcat, Moondragon and I would love to see Tania Belinsky (the female Red Guardian) make her way back into the Marvel U.

nweathington

I am on totally the opposite end from Matt on the topic of Ed McGuinness’ art. I was very slow to warm up to his DC stuff. It all looked a bit too much like he used He-Man action figures as his models for my taste. But his work on Hulk with Loeb was gorgeous, not just in the figure drawing, but the panel compositions and storytelling. It was the best of his career. I say “was” because I think he’s topped himself with this first issue of Nova. Okay, yeah, I’m not a big fan of the two-page credits spread either, but the rest of the book was fantastic.

LibraryBoy

I liked Nova #1, but I was left with the feeling of wanting to like it more. I think it just felt a little thin to me... like a lot of Loeb books, it read a little quicker than I was hoping for, like maybe half an issue's story stretched out into a full one (the giant art spreads, though great looking, didn't help that). I'll probably try to catch up to it once it's collected, though, because I do want to see where it goes.

Fearless Defenders #1, though, was one of my very favorites of the whole Marvel Now launch. I love it when characters as disparate as Misty and Valkyrie are thrown together, and this was done especially well by way of Bunn giving them such clearly defined voices and personalities (above and beyond the whole "this one talks fancy, this one talks street" thing that a lot of other writers may have just left it at). Really looking forward to seeing how Bunn brings the rest of the "band" into the book, and the role this archaeologist character is going to be playing. Added this to my pull list pretty much immediately after reading it.

rebis

Guys, there was a story early in the Thomasi/Gleason run on Green Lantern Corp that featured GL Black Ops. Gardner was recruited to be part of the team, but discovered that he didn't have the heart for black ops. I believe the story is collected in a trade.

mguy1977

Happy anniversary to you guys for the podcast & the same to Bryan Deemer & Peter Rios (where they are)!

I'm so eager to read Wolverine #1 (NOW!) as my first Marvel book in months.

Matthew

JDick

I'm not reading these but I do have a question. Magneto is saying Scott needs to be stopped yet Magneto broke Scott out of prison where he was neutralized. Doesn't make much sense. Are they ignoring AvsXmen consequences or did I miss something.

Thor_El

Listening to the episode again. Regarding the "Black Novas", as far as I can remember, the only time we've seen a Black Helmeted Nova was Garthan Saal, aka Supernova (which is even a line tells his Dad, "Black Supernovas"). Rich wore a Black Helmet during the New Warriors series done by Faerber, I think? Pretending to be his own kid sidekick.

I like the idea that there was/is this black ops splinter Nova group. It not only offers up the possibility that Garthan Saal was a member, but maybe Rhomann Dey was actually on his way to Earth to get Jesse to help him with battling Zorr, but his injuries necessitated a change in his plans.

Just a random thought.

Elsiebub

JDick said:

I'm not reading these but I do have a question. Magneto is saying Scott needs to be stopped yet Magneto broke Scott out of prison where he was neutralized. Doesn't make much sense. Are they ignoring AvsXmen consequences or did I miss something.

Yeah, kind of a glaring inconsistency. I suppose it could be easily explained away in "No Prize" fashion. We could say that perhaps Magneto came to the full realization that Scott needed to be taken down only AFTER spending more time with him. Or we could hypothesize that Magneto is always working in an underhanded manner, playing both sides against each other for his own benefit: he broke Scott out of prison because doing so would increase the power structure he (Magneto) was aligned with... and then he turned against Scott because doing so would ally him with the power structure of the government.

Still, as of yet I don't get the impression that the writers and editors really thought about this beforehand. So far it seems much more likely that Gillen used Magneto to break Cyke out in AvX Consequences simply because that was a cool thing to have happen in those issues. And now Bendis is having Magneto become a traitor because that on its own terms is a cool thing to have happen. I have been really, really liking what Bendis has done with the X-franchise so far, but these sorts of blatant inconsistencies were what turned me off of his Avengers stuff and I hope they don't become frequent in his X-Men work. As readers, we can always come up with our own explanations for these things, but it really gets disappointing when you begin to suspect that the writers and editors don't even notice or care about these contradictions.

Great episode, guys.

JDick

That's true. Everyone is all upset about Batman having 4 Robins in like 5 years (which actually isn't the correct timeline...he was Batman before that Justice League story). Yet Captain America is in Zone X or whatever and also in the Avengers. Fantastic Four are off planet yet in other books. I'm not a continuity nut but whats good for one company should be good for the other.

Also, I wonder if Pants is liking these Marvel books so much now simply as a direct reaction to being turned off by the changes in the New 52. I know the geeks say they aren't reading a ton of DC anymore but my LCS said that he is already in single digits on some of these Marvel Now books (X Men Legacy comes to mind) and he isn't in single digits on any DC book. He didn't know if it was a commentary on the quality of the books or the fact that Marvel puts out too much, too quickly, too expensive, with no clear schedule and DC books come out with a monthly schedule so its very consistent and the price point is better.

Brack

Some people elsewhere have suggested that Magneto's referring to himself in the third person during his telling of the story was not a clumsy cheat done by Bendis so you wouldn't guess his identity, but a hint that he is not actually Magneto (and instead Mystique in disguise).

I suspect they are being too kind, given Bendis' history for ignoring events in other recent comics.

JamieD

JDick said:

That's true. Everyone is all upset about Also, I wonder if Pants is liking these Marvel books so much now simply as a direct reaction to being turned off by the changes in the New 52. I know the geeks say they aren't reading a ton of DC anymore but my LCS said that he is already in single digits on some of these Marvel Now books (X Men Legacy comes to mind) and he isn't in single digits on any DC book. He didn't know if it was a commentary on the quality of the books or the fact that Marvel puts out too much, too quickly, too expensive, with no clear schedule and DC books come out with a monthly schedule so its very consistent and the price point is better.

Just the opposite for Golden Eagle, many DC books in Single digits, your shop sells over 10 copies of Savage Hawkman? more power to him but I watch our numbers and we sell far more Marvel then DC at the current moment so I think its curiosity now and it should level out in the coming months

nweathington

JamieD said:

JDick said:

That's true. Everyone is all upset about Also, I wonder if Pants is liking these Marvel books so much now simply as a direct reaction to being turned off by the changes in the New 52. I know the geeks say they aren't reading a ton of DC anymore but my LCS said that he is already in single digits on some of these Marvel Now books (X Men Legacy comes to mind) and he isn't in single digits on any DC book. He didn't know if it was a commentary on the quality of the books or the fact that Marvel puts out too much, too quickly, too expensive, with no clear schedule and DC books come out with a monthly schedule so its very consistent and the price point is better.

Just the opposite for Golden Eagle, many DC books in Single digits, your shop sells over 10 copies of Savage Hawkman? more power to him but I watch our numbers and we sell far more Marvel then DC at the current moment so I think its curiosity now and it should level out in the coming months

It’s funny, but I think a lot of what sells at a store depends greatly on the staff of the store. For instance, back in the early ’90s when I worked at a shop, we sold DC and Marvel about equally well, and we always did pretty well with indie books. The store three blocks down the street was always Marvel-heavy in sales, and didn’t do well with indies. The owner of that store was very much a Marvel fan, and I think that rubbed off a bit on his customers, whereas we very much talked up the indie books. He racked his books by publisher, whereas we racked ours alphabetically across the board. I think all that taken together made a difference in what sold for each of us. And it could be that certain types of customers felt more comfortable at one store over the other, which would play into that. I’m not saying any of that is the case in this instance, but in general fans tend to go where the buzz is.

Webhead

Like this episode guys. I agree with what you said about Nova and the GotG, I did not read the other books.

I have always been a big fan of the Marvel cosmic and I remember reading Nova, GotG and Star-Lord when they first were on the spinner racks. I still have my compete runs of all those titles.

The idea of a Black Helmet members of the Nova corp is not to much of a stretch because in the original run, one of Nova's villans Powerhouse turned out to be a member of the Syfon division of the Nova corps that had been brainwashed by another of Nova's villans. So it has been established that the Xandarian used had more that just the Nova corps so why not have a separate division of The Novas.

In GotG I loved how they stuck mostly to the origin of Star-Lord. Bendis seems to be using more of the recon version of his origin then the original from the 70's. Which makes more sense because things like being a member of NASA on a space station and the earth never getting beyond are solar system would not fit with the current Marvel Universe.

matchkitJOHN

Crap! These guys have done 10 of these? I have a lot of listening to do. Superior Spider-man has pulled me into reading a few issues but I have to read AvX I think to fully appreciate the new status quo. I'll catch up during Easter break.

mwhitt80

Was Matt thinking about the Guy Gardner GL team Emerald Knights during the Nova talk?

Matt

mwhitt80 said:

Was Matt thinking about the Guy Gardner GL team Emerald Knights during the Nova talk?

Probably. I just knew the black ops idea was in GL before this Nova book.

M

mwhitt80

Matt said:

Probably. I just knew the black ops idea was in GL before this Nova book.

M

I read those issues I don't remember a lot about them, but I think they were "hardcore/extreme" GL team. I've never been a fan of GL, but I've always liked Guy.

Corwin

rebis said:

Guys, there was a story early in the Thomasi/Gleason run on Green Lantern Corp that featured GL Black Ops. Gardner was recruited to be part of the team, but discovered that he didn't have the heart for black ops. I believe the story is collected in a trade.

Oh that's one of my favorite GL stories...The group was called the Green Lantern Corpse. They didn't use rings but instead ingested something that gave them powers like their rings for like 24 hours. That way if captured nothing tied them to the Corps. I've seen pencils of a mini series that got canned. It was a really a great idea that DC let wither and die. Every time something big happened in the GL books I keep hoping they'd show up.

Elsiebub said:

JDick said:

I'm not reading these but I do have a question. Magneto is saying Scott needs to be stopped yet Magneto broke Scott out of prison where he was neutralized. Doesn't make much sense. Are they ignoring AvsXmen consequences or did I miss something.

Yeah, kind of a glaring inconsistency. I suppose it could be easily explained away in "No Prize" fashion. We could say that perhaps Magneto came to the full realization that Scott needed to be taken down only AFTER spending more time with him. Or we could hypothesize that Magneto is always working in an underhanded manner, playing both sides against each other for his own benefit: he broke Scott out of prison because doing so would increase the power structure he (Magneto) was aligned with... and then he turned against Scott because doing so would ally him with the power structure of the government.

Still, as of yet I don't get the impression that the writers and editors really thought about this beforehand. So far it seems much more likely that Gillen used Magneto to break Cyke out in AvX Consequences simply because that was a cool thing to have happen in those issues. And now Bendis is having Magneto become a traitor because that on its own terms is a cool thing to have happen. I have been really, really liking what Bendis has done with the X-franchise so far, but these sorts of blatant inconsistencies were what turned me off of his Avengers stuff and I hope they don't become frequent in his X-Men work. As readers, we can always come up with our own explanations for these things, but it really gets disappointing when you begin to suspect that the writers and editors don't even notice or care about these contradictions.

Great episode, guys.

Much more simplier than that.

Magneto's powers didn't start acting up until afterwards when they tried to break Emma out. There has been a lot of debate as to whether or not Magneto would betray Cyke just because of him having broken powers. At the time I called double agent I just don't see Magneto siding with S.H.I.E.L.D. but recently we got our answer.