Itty Bitty Rants

Infrequent posts about stuff.

Alias #8 – Max – Okay, let’s get this down now:

  • Alias #8 - Max - Okay, let’s get this down now: Rick Jones is a complete headcase. Do NOT start with this issue! That is all.
  • Deadline #1 (of 4) - Marvel - A very good “regular people who have to deal with superheros” story so far. I’m really looking forward to the next couple of issues. The art inside may look really familiar to some of you old Sandman fans. It’s moving fast enough to keep my attention, and the dialog, what there is of it, is very well done. Good stuff.
  • Marvel Knights #1 - Marvel - Daredevil, Black Widow, and The Punisher team up to fight a new menace to NYC. Pretty good. Fairly moody, though maybe a notch or two over the top. I’m interested in seeing if Captain America becomes involved down the road with the relaunch of his own title under the Marvel Knights title later this month.
  • Icons: Tigra #1 (of 4) - Marvel - Solo character update of the orange furred Avenger. Not sure about it so far. The art is only okay IMHO, but the story is fairly good so far.

So, pretty decent stuff really. However, I do have a couple of issues with the way that Marvel is doing things right now. I’ve been a Marvel reader for a really long time and one of the things that I have really always liked about it is that there was a relatively cohesive continuity that flowed through all of the books. If something big was happening in the world and was likely to effect other characters in their own stories, it generally would. I’m not really sure when they abandoned that practice, but I really wish they’d shape the hell up and fix it. Currently, in the Avengers story line that has been going on for the last 9 months the world is entirely enslaved by Kang. Not parts of it, not isolated bits, not even just a few countries. Everyone, everywhere, and everything has been conquered.

Um, is this showing up ANYWHERE else in the Marvel Universe, including the other Avenger solo books? No.

Is this something that could be squeezed into a small time frame so there is some sort of excuse for it happening right now in the Avengers story line but NOWHERE else? No. (Case in point. There is the distinct impression that the events between the previous issue and the one before that were MONTHS. Not days, certainly not hours, and most likely not weeks, but MONTHS.)

There is certainly a point where you have to bend continuity around a little bit so you can work everyone’s pet story project into the world, but abandoning the concept wholesale is not only getting old, but it really degrades the quality and attention to detail that is one of the cornerstones of what I love about the Marvel Universe.

Grow a brain Mr. Quesada. It’s sorely needed right now.