Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities The All Avengers Thread

I've started a new blog at an Avengers-related website. Here's my first entry:

http://avengersinternational.weebly.com/red-sersis-blog

Question 1: Is anyone on here reading Civil War II?

Question 2: Does anyone actually care about it?

1 yes 2 no

Answer 1: I hated the first one, why would I read the second?

Answer 2: In a word, no.

I haven't been reading it per say, but I'm liking Carol Danvers less and less with the way she's acting. I know it's bad writing, but I'm starting to get a bad taste in my mouth just thinking about her.

I wonder if this is how people felt about Tony Stark during the first one.

Quite likely.

I've never warmed to Carol, TBH. Unfortunately, I think she'll be forever tainted by Shooter, Michelinie, et al, deliberately undermining everything she was supposed to represent (though it's arguable she was a poorly developed character even before she joined the Avengers.) When Kurt Busiek tried to "fix" everything that had gone wrong with Carol during The Never-Ending Kang Story, he just made everything worse IMHO. Given how much I like certain arcs and done-in-ones of Astro City, I'd like to give Busiek the benefit of the doubt that perhaps the artists misunderstood his scripts (that storyline seemed to change artists every other issue), and editorial might have interfered as well. But either way, I still think Carol came off even worse than she had before. And her default characterization from 2004 to the present, with that uptight, duty-over-all attitude, has pretty much been the final nail in the coffin. A pity.

I've been burned enough times by these events. I'll wait for the dust to settle and see what Avengers titles come out of it.

As we've been talking about the Vision in LW, I did check out Marvel's current books. They all seemed to have changed titles again, and relaunched with number #1 since I last looked. I get the feeling it's not the first time. With scorecards of characters and regular relaunches, it would take something special for me to pick the book up.

I was temped when Hickman was writing it. But that's going in knowing that it's more for the concepts than any chance of strong characterisation/ empathy.

Did somebody say Hickman?

Was he really as bad as Avengers Disassembled?

Yep, I firmly believe that he was as bad, if not even worse than, Disassembled.

Crazy Jen is now my official stand-in for the rage I feel whenever I see the name Hickm...GRRRRRR....whoa! Calmed myself down. Whew.

And, FTR, even though I didn't like Disassembled, that image quite simply was the perfect fit my emotional state at that moment. Just like when DC flaunted that red herring about Hick...RRRRR...uh...that is...what's-his-name writing the Legion, I could only respond by posting a video of Cracker's "I Hate My Generation" in the Anywhere Machine (Hic...you know who...and I were born the same year.) I don't like that song, either (it parodies grunge a little too accurately), but it expressed how I felt right then and there.

Actually, I'd originally wanted an extreme close-up of Crazy Jen, but my computer couldn't handle its source page.

Hey guys so with everyone up in arms about how Chelsea Cain was harassed and sent death threats because of Mockingbird's shirt on the cover of her final issue, no one noticed how she retconned Mockingbird from being a rape victim to someone who cheated on her husband and tried to kill the guy she slept with.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/10/19/removing-the-rape-out-of-mockingbirds-past/

Before sunset this evening, I re-read -- for the first time in at least 2 years -- Avengers v.1 #105, Steve Englehart's first issue, with the guest artist team of John Buscema & Jim Mooney. It's just such a tonic to me, the way that, right from the start, Englehart was already laying the groundwork for Wanda's awesome coming-alive scenes in "The Avengers-Defenders War" and "The Celestial Madonna Saga." And even though Big John always seemed to give more care & effort to drawing Janet than Wanda, she looks really good this particular issue, and I suspect it may have a lot to do with Mooney doing, at the very least, inks, and possibly even full finishes. The two artists had already worked together on Amazing Spider-Man for a short while, and they'd be reunited on a few Bronze Age issues of Thor, but while all that work is never less than decent, Avengers #105 always takes first place in my estimation.

What can you guys tell me about Magdalene from the 90s Avengers?

Here you go.

It doesn't get any better than this. I love Buscema inked by Mooney and there's just something about Steve's writing that makes it all feel so fantastic.

On the opposite side of things, I breezed through the latest issue of Avengers and it was akin to being motion sick on a smelly airplane.

Ah, Mark Waid...

So... apparently, Marvel is now implying that Nazi Captain America has always been the REAL Steve Rogers and that, in their comics, Hitler was supposed to win World War II before the Allies used the Cosmic Cube to rewrite reality.

I, I have no idea what I just typed, but you can read it in Secret Empire.

Sounds like the Legion plot where Mordru wouldd have won had it not been for the Time Trapper creating the Legion. Just much more likely to offend.

I'm reading the current Marvel big event, Avengers No Surrender.

I like big team books, and the art is fantastic, very emotional and gestural and dramatic, yet the coloring is a bit dim.

The storie's about the Earth being stolen and most heroes are in a paralytic state. A new "original" Avenger returns by the name of Voyager who has some time field powers. I think of it more as a time travel story than a retcon.

Voyager's identity is speculated to be but Voyager could also be the historic character Sun Girl whose costume it looks like she borrowed. But likely not after issue two.

So its an ok time travel shenanigans story with lots of action ... the Black Order appears in issue 2. I think they spend too much time trying to explain how Voyager was an original member and pivotal to all these key moments in Avengers life

Also I find Voyagers look pretty bland. Very similar to Sun Girl's costume but less cool decades later. If this is going to be a lasting retcon there are tons of characters I would like to see in her stead. so far at least.



So I'm going to finish it as long as the art stays good. There is a huge cast that looks great and the return of one of my favourites LIVING LIGHTNING! (now just Lightning which I'm not sure is better or worse)

I did not catch that.

so ... this

So far, I think "No Surrender" has been...a decent read. My expectations were less than modest, and they've been slightly exceeded by the opening installments.

I should be bothered that Waid's re-hashing one of his lesser DC stories from the 90s, but, most of the time, I can't be arsed to care about that stuff anymore.

To reiterate, I think it's palatable. I haven't felt that way about any Avengers storyline since...um...I want to say Coipel/Bendis "Siege," although the "AvX" tie-ins drawn by Walt Simonson were, at the very least, fun to look at.

I really do think that move was kind of ingenious.

I respect your opinion, Sarky.

Certainly, I think it's something that no readers could have seen coming, especially not the Marvel fans who know little or nothing about the DCU.

I suppose I'm just a bit tired of all the self-referential stuff that got out of hand right around the time that Morrison's JLA was topping the charts every month.

That was much too long ago.