Episode 1304 Talkback: Marvel Now Round Four
Pants
Posts: 567
We take a look at the next batch of Marvel Now branded books in this episode - Captain America #1 and Indestructible Hulk #1 as well as Deadpool #2 and Iron Man #2. (1:13:52)
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Comments
That era is one I wished could've been deleted from Bats' history.
M
Only read Indestructible Hulk #1 from last week's Now releases, but I really enjoyed it. The typical "Bruce shows up, Hulks out, smashes stuff, wanders away" thing bores me, and makes me think typical Hulk works better as a guest star than lead feature. But when someone does something truly different with him - smart Hulk leading the Pantheon, Planet / World War Hulk, that recent "Banner-as-mad-scientist" thing - they get my attention. Very, very curious to see where this goes, but I HATE that $3.99 price tag. It's the only thing that makes me hesitate to call this a Buy. I'm likely to pick up the trade, though.
M
Pants made a reference to how this didn't work in Batman in the early 60s. Fair enough. But it sure worked in a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, or in Killraven or John Carter, Warlord or Mars. It worked for Ray Palmer in Sword of the Atom. The best Hulk storyline since Peter David left the book was Greg Pak's Planet Hulk -- which was exactly the same idea. Send the character to a foreign land and see what happens. It's worked in countless other examples, too.
I've read Captain America non-stop for 25+ years and you can only take so many Cap vs. Nationalist Villain and his secret army before feeling played out. I think this has the hallmarks of an epic arc. And remember, it's an ARC.
Remender ruffled a lot of feathers when he turned Frank Castle into a Frankenstein's monster and had him hanging with the League of Monsters. But before and after that arc, Remender told great, "traditional" Punisher tales. He will return Cap to the present soon enough I'm sure.
I wouldn't want a Spider-man run where he's away on a foreign planet or having space adventures any more than I want to see a GL run where he's fights street thugs & taking down an organized crime syndicate.
Maybe if I began reading Batman during those kooky issues or during Morrison's run I'd be more open to this mismatched idea. Cap is another one of those characters who I cannot get into a (solo) run where he's put into another setting.
This is probably the first issue of MarvelNOW! where I think the new direction (and at $3.99) is a big risk to get a lot of readers. We'll see (note: I was wrong about the length of time Morrison would be getting readers on his Batman run*, so my assessments have been wrong before.)
M
With that cavaet that they are all different creators, if I had to organize them into groups, I feel like Morrison fits with Ellis, Fraction, and Hickman as writers that are more into finding the tripiness and mind-bending possibilities of things like time travel and other "hard" sci-fi, technolgical big ideas. The kind of people who you feel are working off of the sorts of ideas you might find on an episode of RadioLab, or in the pages of Popular Science or Wired. Again, this is a broad generalization, but I would say that their superhero space stories (and technology stories) are more in the genre of sci-fi.
I would put Remender's space stories and use of technology in the same category as Claremont, Starlin, Mignola, and Johns. He feels more influenced by the science fantasy, more pulpy tradition of space adventure and monster stories. 1950s movie sci-fi that was pretty light on science. Remender's Fear Agent (from what I know of it, I still need to read it and plan to) is said to be very pulpy. A story about taking a rocket ship to go punch little green men in the face. The stuff of Flash Gordon, Mars Attacks, and Planet of the Apes. To me, that is what (again, just judging by the first issue) Remender's Captain America is like. It is him getting beamed to a place where he will have to punch a lot of Armin Zola monsters in the face, and finally find a rocket ship home.
I would say the same of his Frankencastle story that he did with Tony Moore. A Frankenstein Punisher hanging out in the sewers with the universal monsters of the MU and fighting with them against monster hunters was just fun, trashy junk science. Punisher gets chopped up by Dark Wolverine and a mad scientist turns him into a Frankenstein, and then I think it was the magic of the bloodstone that turned him back, I forget at this moment. But that was science fantasy. Fun pulp. By contrast, Morrison's Frankenstein miniseries for Seven Soldiers was very much the romantic Milton Frankenstein of Mary Shelly, only on the surface of Mars, and extra steampunky. Morrison's Frankenstein was also light on science, but heavy on philosophy. Definitely a monster story in the Swamp Thing vein more than in the 1950s Universal vein.
Ditto the brain stealing in Uncanny Avengers. To get a mutant's powers by stealing their brain feels more fun pulpy/sci-fantasy than it does informed sci-fi.
Long story short, I can't say whether you'd like the new Cap book or not, but I would say it has more in common with the Gruenwald years of the book than it does with Morrison.
As for whether they have priced it too high-- I guess time will have to tell. Remender has been on two $3.99 books for some time now, Uncanny X-Force and Secret Avengers. The profile of Captain America as a character has certainly got a boost from his movie and Avengers. And the JRJRness alone might help the book at that price. We'll see.
If John Carter had 12 books about him fighting in the Civil War, then book 13 put him on Mars, it would seem way out of left field.
I feel the same about characters like Batman & Cap. When my first exposure & years of enjoyment place them in more realistic type settings, then I get overly defensive when a new creator adds oddball, wacky, & scifi to the characters.
M
And, to be fair, for all his grounded espionage and military stories, the modern Cap did take a decades-long ice nap before being worshipped by Innuits and found by an Atlantean. And even Brubaker had him get shot by a ray gun that sent him time traveling. . . so it is not like he hasn't met some wacky ideas before this story.
http://www.comichron.com/titlespotlights/batman.html
...you'll see that actually Schwartz's tenure had inconsistent, less-than-stellar sales.
Schiff was editor for years, and the title was "entering the 1960s as one of the higher-selling titles". So I don't really see how the sci-fi tales of the late '50s and early '60s were part of a last-ditch effort for a title that was on life-support.
The Batman-editorial transition from Schiff to Schwartz came in 1964. It was selling roughly 400,000 copies before then and there was not much of a dip from 1960, when it was "one of the higher-selling titles". Schwartz DID increase sales after that, for a handful of years, but MOST of those years came during 1966-1968, which was when the Batman TV show was running. Once the TV show was done, sales on the comic crashed, and quite soon they plummeted to levels far below 400,000.
By the time Schwartz left in 1979, sales on Batman were less than half what they were when he took over. And they had BEEN at a couple hundred thousand (or usually LESS) since 1972. His tenure on the book was definitely NOT a sales bonanza, aside from those handful of years when the TV show was rocking American culture. I like where Schwartz's editorship took Batman creatively, though.
That said, I think the character of Batman is a LOT more adaptable than Captain America. Yeah, Cap has been in a lot of unrealistic situations, but nowhere near the extent that Batman has. More importantly, there have been a lot of critically acclaimed alternate takes on Batman. I'm not a HUGE fan of the '60s TV show, but I recognize that it is a very well liked and successful take on the character. Ditto with The Brave & The Bold cartoon. And even though I don't personally like many of the sci-fi Batman adventures from the '50s and early '60s, "Robin Dies At Dawn!" and a handful of others are absolutely amazing and do rightly take their place among the "Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told".
The thing with Morrison's run is that you can't really pigeonhole it as "all sci-fi" or "all weird" or "all semi-lighthearted swashbuckling adventure". Morrison has done so many different stories showing so many different sides of the character--ALL of them pre-established--that the statement "I don't like Morrison's Batman" is basically synonymous with "I don't like Batman". If you really understand what Batman is and like ANY aspect of it, then there is something in Morrison's run that will appeal to you and will likely cause you to think "That's possibly the best way that aspect of the character has ever been represented." For those who only like relentlessly dark and gritty storytelling--well, Morrison HAS done dark takes on the character. He's done solo stories. And he's done stories in which Batman is very much part of a team. He's done stories in which Bruce Wayne seems like the main character. He's done stories in which Bruce seems like a mask. He's done very complex detective stories. He's done fairly straightforward stories. He's basically done everything there can be done with the character. I do think the Morrison run has been uneven at times--mainly due to artwork--but anyone who hasn't read much/any of the run and yet is prejudiced against it on principle really owes it to themselves to try some of it. It's basically got something for everyone. Even the "Incorporated" title has won over fans who didn't like the run up to that point.
I guess people have the right to not read it based on disliking Wikipedia summaries of what happens in it. But they're only spiting themselves.
Personally I dislike what I've seen and read of this sci-fi Cap story. But if a year or two later Remender is still on the title and I keep hearing great things about it, I'd definitely give it a chance and check it out.
Wouldn't saying "(you don't) really understand what Batman is" be VERY subjective? What Batman means to Shane isn't the same as what he means to me. Who's to say which of us is right & wrong.
I think saying that if someone (such as myself) who doesn't like Morrison's Batman is like saying that person (such as myself) doesn't like Batman is as a ridiculous blanketing statement as when Bryan stated if you don't like Manga (which means comics) than you don't like comics.
I understand your point, but I think you're making a few conclusions with short leaps. It comes off like if you don't like Morrison, then you don't like any character because he defines what the character really is.
M
Hard Time on Planet Earth!
Martin Kove was the man! (John "sweep the leg" Kreese in Karate Kid, Cagney & Lacey etc)
Pretty sure the ripped off some of Flight Of the Navigator's effects!
That aside, I also thought the writing/storytelling here was wonky. The guys mentioned the odd "proposal" by Sharon - where you're left wondering WTF happened here? where was the proposal? All you see is Steve holding the box that presumably holds a ring? Was the proposal done through telepathy? And then he gets on a train without her to investigate the mystery? It was just choppy/not making sense writing.
I'm admittedly not a big Remender fan - I've really NOT been liking his Secret avengers run. So this is not pumping me up for more! Still, I've been reading Cap for decades, so not going to stop now - hopefully he'll surprise me.
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Captain America #1: I just like the character no matter where he is. And I've never been one to say "That's not my (character name)!" I thought the art was great and who cares if he goes out into space or not? Geez, so picky. Anyway, it still a low buy for me. I hope it gets more interesting...
Indestructible Hulk #1: You know what I liked about this one? You got a complete story instead of part 1 of a 5 or 6 part arc! The art is cool and I liked Banner's personality. I don't think it was out-of-sync at all. BUY!
I'm in agreement with Iron Man #2 and Deadpool #2. Kind of same ol'-same ol'...