To be serious, though, this does bring me to a sort of sidebar digression, and this may be one of those so broad questions that you can't really answer, or it all comes down to what you read as a kid or something, but here goes anyway--
Could it be that the Marvel Universe has such a history of big event stories of heroes fighting heroes because there aren't enough good Marvel villains? Does a universe full of flawed, feet-of-clay, relatable heroes one where you actually don't *need* the absolute of an evil force to go up against as much as, say, a universe where the heroes tend to be iconic and without flaw or lapse*?
*Fine. The DC Universe. I mean, I was trying to not immediately make this a Marvel vs. DC comparison, but it is going to be that anyway.
And a big brainstorming session, with a lot of lists of ideas on white boards, rolled up sleeves, cups of coffee. It doesn't make for the same Alex Ross poster. You know what I mean? ;)
I do know what you mean.
I feel like I've seen this Alex Ross poster hundreds of times already.
And a big brainstorming session, with a lot of lists of ideas on white boards, rolled up sleeves, cups of coffee. It doesn't make for the same Alex Ross poster. You know what I mean? ;)
I do know what you mean.
I feel like I've seen this Alex Ross poster hundreds of times already.
Well, sure. They are definitely having him do that thing he does. I will admit, though, that instead of just seeing iconic painted poses of characters we've seen so many times before, I would enjoy seeing a big version of this one as there are a lot of tweaks and variations and character designs we've never seen before. I am not a huge fan of Ross (though I respect he is good at the thing he does) but this is the sort of image that rewards taking a closer look. In that way, this reminds me more of a big spread in Kingdom Come, when we are looking at characters and trying to figure out what two superheroes someone is the kid of, or who took on which mantle. I mean, at the moment we seem more focused on who is excluded from this promo image. But, come on, a Daredevil with a flaming staff? That's kind of fun.
But, come on, it is the Marvel Universe! The beginning of every team up is a misunderstanding and a fight. It's been like that from the start.
You'd think the characters would learn from that at some point, wouldn't you.
Well. Long-live superhero universes don't tend to be places where people learn or change. You'd think by now all the goons and henchmen of the world would know that you should shoot Cap during that time when the shield is bouncing around the room, rather than waiting for him to be holding it again.
To be serious, though, this does bring me to a sort of sidebar digression, and this may be one of those so broad questions that you can't really answer, or it all comes down to what you read as a kid or something, but here goes anyway--
Could it be that the Marvel Universe has such a history of big event stories of heroes fighting heroes because there aren't enough good Marvel villains? Does a universe full of flawed, feet-of-clay, relatable heroes one where you actually don't *need* the absolute of an evil force to go up against as much as, say, a universe where the heroes tend to be iconic and without flaw or lapse*?
*Fine. The DC Universe. I mean, I was trying to not immediately make this a Marvel vs. DC comparison, but it is going to be that anyway.
Could be. I was wondering, lately (i.e. last 10 years), how many single issues of a title really pitted hero against hero? Sure there are those times when 2 people first meet...like the Winter Soldier & Cap, and they fight. I was thinking more old school stuff like Cap vs. Wolverine.
Maybe good vs. bad guys is done so often in the ongoing, they switched to major events to go hero vs. hero. I would also think in major situations, there's probably more chances of heroes having different methods & ideals on how to solve the issue. As a result they clash.
Side bar: I did a college paper called "Will They Ever Learn?" It was an examination of how overlapping law enforcement agencies clashed instead of worked together to solve major crimes. I focused on both the Jack the Ripper & Jon Benet Ramsey cases. Hard to believe that paper is over 10 years old.
This isn't a justification (or to condemn), but Contest of Champions had heroes fighting each other. I think, at least as far back as I can remember, there's been more "who'd win in a fight: hero 1 or hero 2" instead of "who'd win in a fight: hero 1 or villain 1?" Hero vs. hero seems to generate more discussion because heroes are expected to always beat the bad guys.
It would sure be nice to see a giant Alex Ross poster of dozens of parallel-world Tony Starks and Hank Pyms and Bruce Banners and Reed Richardses and Doctors Strange and Doctors Doom working together to solve the converging worlds problem rather than stupidly fighting each other.
And, to be fair, the story may end up going that way. But, come on, it is the Marvel Universe! The beginning of every team up is a misunderstanding and a fight. It's been like that from the start.
And a big brainstorming session, with a lot of lists of ideas on white boards, rolled up sleeves, cups of coffee. It doesn't make for the same Alex Ross poster. You know what I mean? ;)
I don't know...Reed and Hank and Tony looking all sciency in lab coats with gadgets laying around. Beast hanging from the ceiling with a cup of coffee and the whole thing looking like Norman Rockwell paints "Tuesday afternoon on the Manhattan Project". I'd totally buy that poster.
It would sure be nice to see a giant Alex Ross poster of dozens of parallel-world Tony Starks and Hank Pyms and Bruce Banners and Reed Richardses and Doctors Strange and Doctors Doom working together to solve the converging worlds problem rather than stupidly fighting each other.
And, to be fair, the story may end up going that way. But, come on, it is the Marvel Universe! The beginning of every team up is a misunderstanding and a fight. It's been like that from the start.
And a big brainstorming session, with a lot of lists of ideas on white boards, rolled up sleeves, cups of coffee. It doesn't make for the same Alex Ross poster. You know what I mean? ;)
I don't know...Reed and Hank and Tony looking all sciency in lab coats with gadgets laying around. Beast hanging from the ceiling with a cup of coffee and the whole thing looking like Norman Rockwell paints "Tuesday afternoon on the Manhattan Project". I'd totally buy that poster.
To be serious, though, this does bring me to a sort of sidebar digression, and this may be one of those so broad questions that you can't really answer, or it all comes down to what you read as a kid or something, but here goes anyway--
Could it be that the Marvel Universe has such a history of big event stories of heroes fighting heroes because there aren't enough good Marvel villains? Does a universe full of flawed, feet-of-clay, relatable heroes one where you actually don't *need* the absolute of an evil force to go up against as much as, say, a universe where the heroes tend to be iconic and without flaw or lapse*?
*Fine. The DC Universe. I mean, I was trying to not immediately make this a Marvel vs. DC comparison, but it is going to be that anyway.
Could be. I was wondering, lately (i.e. last 10 years), how many single issues of a title really pitted hero against hero? Sure there are those times when 2 people first meet...like the Winter Soldier & Cap, and they fight. I was thinking more old school stuff like Cap vs. Wolverine.
Maybe good vs. bad guys is done so often in the ongoing, they switched to major events to go hero vs. hero. I would also think in major situations, there's probably more chances of heroes having different methods & ideals on how to solve the issue. As a result they clash.
Side bar: I did a college paper called "Will They Ever Learn?" It was an examination of how overlapping law enforcement agencies clashed instead of worked together to solve major crimes. I focused on both the Jack the Ripper & Jon Benet Ramsey cases. Hard to believe that paper is over 10 years old.
M
I think you're right-- good guys defeating the villain is a typical issue (or, these days, six issues) and the reader knows who to root for, and likely knows how it will end.
But the clash between hero and hero, especially if set up in such a way that both sides seem justified, is higher stakes. The outcome is less clear. And it is more likely that the status quo of the universe might shift, because no matter what happens, some good guy ended up on the wrong side of something, or against an ally. So it makes it seem like a bigger, more memorable, thing is happening. Therefore, an event.
I'm in for Ribic's art. When the guy has enough lead-time, his art is absolutely breathtaking.
Hickman's involvement could be a positive as well. He's definitely a good writer. It's just that when left to his own devices he can be overly obsessed with ideas that start off interesting but then begin to seem boring the 272nd time you hear about them spoken in the same foreboding, omnibus, and vague terms.
His Avengers/New Avengers/Avengers World/Infinity saga has just gone on for way, way, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long.
There have been good ideas in it. Doesn't a "Crisis"-like incursion sound interesting? See how interesting it sounds to you after you keep hearing about it for no less than 80 issues, after which only like three or four incursions have actually happened, and it's taken the characters hundreds of pages to argue over the same moral points.
Maybe it will all read better when I go back and read it all at once. (Rereading his run up through Infinity earlier this year made me like those issues better, but I liked them okay the first time through. And since Infinity I'm not really liking the story the first time through so much. It's just... okay.)
Maybe it's all naturally leading up to this new "Secret Wars". But the idea of "heroes fighting each other" mixed with the idea of "alternate versions of heroes" is combining two very tired motifs, imo.
I'm in it for Ribic's art, and praying that some editor finally gets Hickman to care more about telling a story than about invoking the same foreboding tones about the same one or two "big ideas" for 137 issues in a row now.
I think I'm going to tap out in this event now after just finishing the regretful Original Sin and just go find a copy of Deadpool Kills Deadpool instead. Pandapool. Tee hee. It's funny 'cuz he's a panda.
Doesn't a "Crisis"-like incursion sound interesting? See how interesting it sounds to you after you keep hearing about it for no less than 80 issues, after which only like three or four incursions have actually happened, and it's taken the characters hundreds of pages to argue over the same moral points.
I was starting to feel the burnout on the "Incursions" storyline as well. But then Dan Slott has started to reference it in his most recent Spider-man storyline (Amazing #7), and for some reason it is all of a sudden interesting and exciting again.
And, to be fair, the story may end up going that way. But, come on, it is the Marvel Universe! The beginning of every team up is a misunderstanding and a fight. It's been like that from the start.
Even when I was a kid, that bugged me. Marvel heroes are passed of as scientific geniuses, evolved mutants, and gods, yet they continually get into sitcom-level misunderstandings which result in fights, and they use the full measure of their lethal powers against each other. It would be like the U.S. and England declaring war on each other every couple years, then quickly apologizing before figuring out the real enemy.
And, to be fair, the story may end up going that way. But, come on, it is the Marvel Universe! The beginning of every team up is a misunderstanding and a fight. It's been like that from the start.
Even when I was a kid, that bugged me. Marvel heroes are passed of as scientific geniuses, evolved mutants, and gods, yet they continually get into sitcom-level misunderstandings which result in fights, and they use the full measure of their lethal powers against each other. It would be like the U.S. and England declaring war on each other every couple years, then quickly apologizing before figuring out the real enemy.
Well, there are good executions of that old Marvel trope, and bad ones. Personally, I have found Hickman's work so far, such as the recent Avengers issues, as well as the whole Avengers vs. Illuminati that he has been building to, to be well executed ones. And that encourages me about his upcoming story. I would say the same of Civil War. And I think even the throw down in the Avengers movie between Thor, Iron Man, and Cap, worked, and was an example of that enduring trope.
But there are certainly a lot of ridiculous ones to be had, too.
When the first one happened, it was an annoyance to me. I liked the idea of a Big Crossover, and DC had already announced History of the DC Universe , which became DC Crisis, and so on. But there was a lot of perception at the time that Marvel was attempting to beat DC to the punch with a Big crossover maxi-series…and I’ve since learned that that was a part of it. Shooter said that a toy company came to them with a deal, they took it and decided to try to beat DC to the punch and gave us Secret Wars.
I know some people like it. However, they were kids when they read it, and it is suffused in the glow of nostalgia. I was 20 when it started and it read like it was written for 12 year olds. Secret Wars 2 was so painfully awful, I’ve never made it thought the damn thing. Secret Wars 3 was an interesting storyline in the Fantastic Four which tried to mitigate the damage to Marvel’s “Cosmic” characters The Beyonder did…if Galactus is the living embodiment of entropy, how can some guy with a mullet have more power than that?
Bendis did a nice mini-series using the name, and it probably would have more impact if it didn’t take two years to put out 5 issues. Still, the name seems to be something that resonates with people, so Marvel doing a new version (and it looks to me like it’s the wrap up to Hickman’s Avengers storylines) is exciting. I try to avoid hype, but I like Avengers vs X-Men, I haven’t read all of Original Sin yet (waiting on the deeply discounted hardcover), but Secret Wars looks to be Big and Fun.
And it’s got to be better than the original. I could crap in a box and it wouldn’t stink as much as the original.
I know some people like it. However, they were kids when they read it, and it is suffused in the glow of nostalgia. I was 20 when it started and it read like it was written for 12 year olds. Secret Wars 2 was so painfully awful, I’ve never made it thought the damn thing.
Bendis did a nice mini-series using the name, and it probably would have more impact if it didn’t take two years to put out 5 issues.
I really like that Secret War. I read it as a trade and thought it was a fun story. It was New Avengers with Daredevil. I think SW started before New Avengers, but I could be wrong because I read as Civil War came out (to find out why Fury was gone, I was just getting back into comics after a few years break).
I recommend this Secret War to people; heroes fight bad guys.
I know some people like it. However, they were kids when they read it, and it is suffused in the glow of nostalgia. I was 20 when it started and it read like it was written for 12 year olds. Secret Wars 2 was so painfully awful, I’ve never made it thought the damn thing.
I know some people like it. However, they were kids when they read it, and it is suffused in the glow of nostalgia. I was 20 when it started and it read like it was written for 12 year olds. Secret Wars 2 was so painfully awful, I’ve never made it thought the damn thing.
I have never agreed with you more.
It was good guys vs. bad guys, though!
M
Um...no. Thew first one was a lot of standing around and talking, some pointless fights and a lot of people pointing at Galactus and saying, "LOOK!"
2 was Spider-Man teaching a cosmic entity how to take a dump. I AM NOT KIDDING, THIS WAS AN ACTUAL STORY POINT.
I know some people like it. However, they were kids when they read it, and it is suffused in the glow of nostalgia. I was 20 when it started and it read like it was written for 12 year olds. Secret Wars 2 was so painfully awful, I’ve never made it thought the damn thing.
I know some people like it. However, they were kids when they read it, and it is suffused in the glow of nostalgia. I was 20 when it started and it read like it was written for 12 year olds. Secret Wars 2 was so painfully awful, I’ve never made it thought the damn thing.
I have never agreed with you more.
It was good guys vs. bad guys, though!
M
Um...no. Thew first one was a lot of standing around and talking, some pointless fights and a lot of people pointing at Galactus and saying, "LOOK!"
2 was Spider-Man teaching a cosmic entity how to take a dump. I AM NOT KIDDING, THIS WAS AN ACTUAL STORY POINT.
The good guys didn't fight each other,,,aside from the splinter group& Spidey. Other then that, the good guys fought the bad guys, which is what @WetRats prefers to the good guys vs good guys.
I know some people like it. However, they were kids when they read it, and it is suffused in the glow of nostalgia. I was 20 when it started and it read like it was written for 12 year olds. Secret Wars 2 was so painfully awful, I’ve never made it thought the damn thing.
I have never agreed with you more.
It was good guys vs. bad guys, though!
M
More like good guys & bad guys vs. bad writing.
Still my favorite Marvel event. Simple & self-contained. No tie-ins or extra mini series to collect. Plus, it's a One Year Later precursor.
I'm not entirely sure when it became cool to hate Secret Wars but as somebody who missed it when it came out and didn't read it until I was in my twenties, I still enjoyed it even though I was probably beyond the target range. I just got back into comics about a year ago after One More Day led to a five year absence and cynical crap like Original Sin has essentially driven me to pursue mostly indie titles now. I'll take some silly fun like the original Secret Wars any day over the confused and boring mess that Jason Aaron churned out recently. Hickman's not giving me any proof I'll feel differently toward his contributions to my favorite fictional universe.
I loved Secret Wars at the time, I was in ten years old and in hospital, I was the ideal audience for a comic that packed full of superheroes.
Reading it as an adult, particularly when read alongside contemporary books from Marvel like Simonson's Thor or Stern's Avengers, it's not very good. The problem isn't the simplicity, or the silliness, it's more things like the sexist portrayal of female characters or the way people are vastly out of character compared to their regular books.
Compared to Secret Wars 2 however, it's a work of art. I could tell that thing stunk even as a child. Who starts a massive crossover event with an issue mocking a disgruntled former employee? Well, it turns out Jim Shooter was the answer to that question.
Anyway, I've been really enjoying what Hickman's been doing with Avengers (even if it sometimes takes him a while to get there), both in terms of the doomed earth scenario and the pushing of underused characters in extreme, but logical directions (the current embracing of Sunspot's entrepreneurial background), so looking forward to this too.
I loved Secret Wars at the time, I was in ten years old and in hospital, I was the ideal audience for a comic that packed full of superheroes.
Reading it as an adult, particularly when read alongside contemporary books from Marvel like Simonson's Thor or Stern's Avengers, it's not very good. The problem isn't the simplicity, or the silliness, it's more things like the sexist portrayal of female characters or the way people are vastly out of character compared to their regular books.
The sad thing about it was that. according to many people who worked at Marvel at the time, Shooter would use scenes from the book to show how to do proper characterization. I still am annoyed at how AMAZINGLY sexist the portrayal of the Wasp was, Wolverine was just a psycho, not a man barely holding his darker side in check, and so on. Everything became one-dimensional...it was as if Shooter wrote the damn thing to be edited by Mort Weisinger.
But, as you said, if you were a kid, it was GREAT, all of the heroes in one book, fighting each other, fighting bad guys, etc... I think if Marvel would have pushed it as a toy-tie-in instead of a"big Universe Changing story" I would have cut it some slack.
Comments
Could it be that the Marvel Universe has such a history of big event stories of heroes fighting heroes because there aren't enough good Marvel villains? Does a universe full of flawed, feet-of-clay, relatable heroes one where you actually don't *need* the absolute of an evil force to go up against as much as, say, a universe where the heroes tend to be iconic and without flaw or lapse*?
*Fine. The DC Universe. I mean, I was trying to not immediately make this a Marvel vs. DC comparison, but it is going to be that anyway.
I feel like I've seen this Alex Ross poster hundreds of times already.
Maybe good vs. bad guys is done so often in the ongoing, they switched to major events to go hero vs. hero. I would also think in major situations, there's probably more chances of heroes having different methods & ideals on how to solve the issue. As a result they clash.
Side bar: I did a college paper called "Will They Ever Learn?" It was an examination of how overlapping law enforcement agencies clashed instead of worked together to solve major crimes. I focused on both the Jack the Ripper & Jon Benet Ramsey cases. Hard to believe that paper is over 10 years old.
M
M
Dr Zero makes an appearance above Falcon. I loved the Shadowline Saga.
That is all.
Maybe they could get Radio Shack as a sponser ;)
But the clash between hero and hero, especially if set up in such a way that both sides seem justified, is higher stakes. The outcome is less clear. And it is more likely that the status quo of the universe might shift, because no matter what happens, some good guy ended up on the wrong side of something, or against an ally. So it makes it seem like a bigger, more memorable, thing is happening. Therefore, an event.
Hickman's involvement could be a positive as well. He's definitely a good writer. It's just that when left to his own devices he can be overly obsessed with ideas that start off interesting but then begin to seem boring the 272nd time you hear about them spoken in the same foreboding, omnibus, and vague terms.
His Avengers/New Avengers/Avengers World/Infinity saga has just gone on for way, way, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long.
There have been good ideas in it. Doesn't a "Crisis"-like incursion sound interesting? See how interesting it sounds to you after you keep hearing about it for no less than 80 issues, after which only like three or four incursions have actually happened, and it's taken the characters hundreds of pages to argue over the same moral points.
Maybe it will all read better when I go back and read it all at once. (Rereading his run up through Infinity earlier this year made me like those issues better, but I liked them okay the first time through. And since Infinity I'm not really liking the story the first time through so much. It's just... okay.)
Maybe it's all naturally leading up to this new "Secret Wars". But the idea of "heroes fighting each other" mixed with the idea of "alternate versions of heroes" is combining two very tired motifs, imo.
I'm in it for Ribic's art, and praying that some editor finally gets Hickman to care more about telling a story than about invoking the same foreboding tones about the same one or two "big ideas" for 137 issues in a row now.
But there are certainly a lot of ridiculous ones to be had, too.
but there are sometimes I love it. Like the poster to this event.
When the first one happened, it was an annoyance to me. I liked the idea of a Big Crossover, and DC had already announced History of the DC Universe , which became DC Crisis, and so on. But there was a lot of perception at the time that Marvel was attempting to beat DC to the punch with a Big crossover maxi-series…and I’ve since learned that that was a part of it. Shooter said that a toy company came to them with a deal, they took it and decided to try to beat DC to the punch and gave us Secret Wars.
I know some people like it. However, they were kids when they read it, and it is suffused in the glow of nostalgia. I was 20 when it started and it read like it was written for 12 year olds. Secret Wars 2 was so painfully awful, I’ve never made it thought the damn thing. Secret Wars 3 was an interesting storyline in the Fantastic Four which tried to mitigate the damage to Marvel’s “Cosmic” characters The Beyonder did…if Galactus is the living embodiment of entropy, how can some guy with a mullet have more power than that?
Bendis did a nice mini-series using the name, and it probably would have more impact if it didn’t take two years to put out 5 issues. Still, the name seems to be something that resonates with people, so Marvel doing a new version (and it looks to me like it’s the wrap up to Hickman’s Avengers storylines) is exciting. I try to avoid hype, but I like Avengers vs X-Men, I haven’t read all of Original Sin yet (waiting on the deeply discounted hardcover), but Secret Wars looks to be Big and Fun.
And it’s got to be better than the original. I could crap in a box and it wouldn’t stink as much as the original.
I recommend this Secret War to people; heroes fight bad guys.
M
2 was Spider-Man teaching a cosmic entity how to take a dump. I AM NOT KIDDING, THIS WAS AN ACTUAL STORY POINT.
I do recall Parker potty training the Beyonder.
M
M
Reading it as an adult, particularly when read alongside contemporary books from Marvel like Simonson's Thor or Stern's Avengers, it's not very good. The problem isn't the simplicity, or the silliness, it's more things like the sexist portrayal of female characters or the way people are vastly out of character compared to their regular books.
Compared to Secret Wars 2 however, it's a work of art. I could tell that thing stunk even as a child. Who starts a massive crossover event with an issue mocking a disgruntled former employee? Well, it turns out Jim Shooter was the answer to that question.
Anyway, I've been really enjoying what Hickman's been doing with Avengers (even if it sometimes takes him a while to get there), both in terms of the doomed earth scenario and the pushing of underused characters in extreme, but logical directions (the current embracing of Sunspot's entrepreneurial background), so looking forward to this too.
But, as you said, if you were a kid, it was GREAT, all of the heroes in one book, fighting each other, fighting bad guys, etc... I think if Marvel would have pushed it as a toy-tie-in instead of a"big Universe Changing story" I would have cut it some slack.