|
The Bum’s Rush #97
WARNING! None of the news or rumors you see here in The
Bum’s Rush should be considered FACT until it actually
happens. It might never happen. How do you know I’m not just
making all this crap up? I could, you know. You’ve been
warned!
Drivel War (a.k.a. What An Old Man I’ve
Become)
(SPOILER WARNING REGARDING CIVIL WAR #7 – just in case)
So the Civil War is finally over and my predictions about
the conclusion were dead wrong in every way. Rather than
dying, Captain America instead led a devastating assault
that destroyed much of New York City (so much for the
brilliant tactician) before surrendering to Iron Man and his
cronies and admitting, in tears (what is he, Superman?),
that Iron Man (i.e. the villain of the book) was actually
right all along.
So much for the whole “no side is right or wrong” baloney
that Quesada’s been feeding us for months, which he admits
was his attempt to manipulate fans emotions in some sort of
fully immersive experience. I like to call that “lying”.
Potatoe, potato. Not that I’m surprised mind you. I mean,
why end a one of the biggest comics of the year in a really
cool and possibly emotionally engaging way? Why not just end
it with one of the most out-of-character moments in comic
book history while at the same time rendering your story
(all 150+ issues of it) completely pointless.
My favorite Quesada quote regarding the end of the series
has to be, “You can’t take readers along for a ride like
this and then end up right where you started.” Except
that’s exactly what happened. Allow me to demonstrate with
this handy dandy reenactment:
Civil War #1
Stamford: KA-BOOM!
New Warriors: Haha… whoops!
Iron Man: Let’s make all the super-heroes register with the
government.
Captain American: F**k that noise! (Crashes out a window)
Civil War #2 – 6 (+ almost 150 tie-in comics)
Goliath: Waugh!
Readers: Wha…?
Millar: Forced political allegory for dummies #6? Check!
Joe Quesada: Suckers! (Greenlights Civil War II: Money In
The Bank)
Civil War #7
New York City: KA-BOOM!
Super-Heroes: Haha… whoops!
Iron Man: Register super-heroes?
Captain America: Yeah, okay. (Cries like a woman)
See? Pointless. And don’t be fooled by the tired old cries
of “NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME!” The status quo hasn’t
changed in any way that can’t (or won’t) be changed back
again within a year or two. When has it ever? It’s like
after House of M when 90% of the mutants in the world
lost their powers. How shocking! How amazing! Except, hey,
all of the really important mutants that everyone likes and
wants to read comics about are just fine! Changes in the
status quo are an illusion. They’re just stories that
inevitably lead back to the way things were until the next
big story that messes with things comes along.
Spider-Man’s Identity Revealed – Won’t last
Spider-Man In Black Costume – Lame movie tie-in;
definitely won’t last
Iron Man In Charge Of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Won’t last
Captain America In Prison – Won’t last
Captain America’s Lack Of Proper Characterization –
Will continue until the next guy comes along to eff' with
him some more
New Avengers Go Underground – Won’t last
All New Fantastic Four – Will last until the new
movie comes out
The 50 State Initiative – Will last until it gets
boring and/or unmanageable and will never be talked about
again
Mark Millar’s Name Selling Comics Despite Millar Being A
Hack – Unfortunately I don’t see that ever changing
Maybe you’re like so many other people who read Civil War
and, though you really didn’t like the book that much, are
excited about the possible stories that will spring up out
of the book regardless of the poor quality of Civil War
in general. But remember, Civil War was one of the
highest selling comic series in years and an unparalleled
success for Marvel Comics (of course we live in a world
where American Idol is the number one show in the
country for six years running and a movie like Norbit
is one of the highest grossing films of the year so far;
make of that what you will). Why would they start producing
quality stories now when the biggest crapfest they’ve
published in the past five years is also their best selling
comic of the past five years? Don’t forget that the same
people that thought Civil War was a brilliant and
revolutionary idea are still large and in charge. And it
doesn’t look like they’re going anywhere for a while. Oh,
for the days of Bill Jemas.
You want to know what the new status quo really is? It’s
hype and the big event over substance and sense. It’s
consistently late superstar creators and lame excuses
over dependability and responsibility. Lies,
tricks and so-called realism instead of creativity,
cleverness and fun.
Look, I could go on for pages and pages about my disdain for
Civil War and the current state of Marvel Comics. I
could drone on about Millar’s oh-so-subtle
political-commentary-for-five-year-olds. And I could
probably do an entire series of articles on how
out-of-character every single hero acted in Civil War
and how the entire series was barely a story wrapped way too
tightly around a bunch of hyped up and terribly
underdeveloped “event” moments that were designed, not to
actually go anywhere, but simply to lure you in. Instead I
will leave you with a final thought, borrowed from the pages
of another worthless Mark Millar comic book.
This is Joe Quesada’s face while he’s f***ing you in the
a**:
This Bitter Paul
Okay, you know what? I’ve had enough of this bitterness.
Enough hating on comics, I’m sick of it and I’m sure you are
too. Next week – MY FAVORITE COMICS!
Return of Quick Bits!
Since I’m trying to keep this column short I’ve decided to
bring back a feature I used to use back when I first started
this column – Quick Bits! It’s more like a news brief,
hitting the major headlines and such, without any long
winded “opinions” by some tool (a.k.a. Me).
- Hey look – a new review for Stumblebum’s Round
Two right
HERE!
- For a while now I’ve wanted to do a big, bitter,
hate-filled rant (can I do any other kind?) about late
comics, the “professionals” responsible and what
companies like DC and Marvel should do about it… but it
looks like A.C. Hall beat me to it and did it better
than I could have hoped to in his latest
Entertainment Roundup!
- Spinning out of Civil War will be a brand new
Champions ongoing series written by Matt Fraction
and drawn by new Marvel exclusive artist, Barry Kitson.
- Speaking on his exclusive, Kitson says that it was
just good timing on Marvel’s part as he and Mark Waid
will be leaving Supergirl & The Legion of Superheroes
sometime around issue #30.
- Marvel’s next big event, World War Hulk kicks
off in May with the World War Hulk Prologue,
followed in June by the debut of the five-issue World
War Hulk mini-series by Grag Pak & John Romita Jr
and Incredible Hulk #106 through 110 by Pak &
Gary Frank. Not surprisingly the series will have dozens
of tie-in books including titles like Iron Man,
Heroes for Hire, Ghost Rider and a number of mini’s
and specials such as World War Hulk: Frontline, World
War Hulk: X-Men, World War Hulk: Gamma Corps and
World War Hulk: Young Avengers. More like World
Whore Hulk if you ask me. Ha-HA!
- Following in the footsteps of Annihilation
(which revamped Marvel’s cosmic line of heroes) Marvel
will release a four-issue mini-series, Mystic Arcana,
focusing on the magical aspect of the Marvel Universe.
The project is being overseen by tarot card artist David
Sexton and will feature characters such as Magik, The
Black Knight, Scarlet Witch and Nico from Runaways. A
number of creators will be working on the book including
Louise Simonson, Steve Scott, Roy Thomas, Jeff Parker,
Juan Santacruz and C.B. Cebulski. Mystic Arcana may then
lead into a larger magic-based series.
- According to Dan Slott the GLA will be
returning soon with an all-new one-shot, co-written by
Slott and Fabian Nicieza, though now they will be
calling themselves the GLI (Great Lakes Initiative)
inspired by the 50 State Initiative. Deadpool will also
appear in the one-shot.
- Paco Medina was announced as the artist for the
upcoming New Warriors series written by Kevin
Grevioux. Which pretty much guarantees that I’ll be
picking up the series, even though it’s not the “real”
New Warriors. Ah, what the hell, the New Warriors I knew
and loved aren’t ever coming back… I know that. It’s
cool… I guess. I miss Night Trasher and his skateboard.
The new series will depict a group of brand new heroes
fighting back against the superhero registration passed
in Civil War.
- A sequel to Annihilation is coming –
Annihilation: Conquest. Similar to the buildup to
the original Annihilation mini-series,
Conquest will begin with a prologue (with art Brian
Denham), followed by three mini-series:
Annihilation: Conquest – Quasar by Christos Gage
and Eric Basulda
Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord (which brings
back Rocket Raccoon?!) by Keith Giffen and Timothy Green
Annihilation: Conquest – Wraith by Javier
Grillo-Marxuach and Kyle Hotz
The story then picks up in Nova #4 –7 before
jumping into the main six-issue Annihilation:
Conquest by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Tom Raney.
- Speaking of Annihilation: Conquest, feast
your eyes on the designs for Wraith, a brand new
character debuting in the series, done by one of my
favorite new artists, Marko Djurdjevic:
Click on image to view full size
in a new window
- Aaron Eckhart has been cast to play Harvey Dent in
the upcoming Batman Begins sequel,
The Dark Knight. Eckhart revealed that he’ll play
Dent for most of the movie but will “go into Harvey
Two-Face” by the film’s end.
- It was revealed that DC’s new weekly series
Countdown will not be in real-time like the previous
weekly series, 52. Instead Countdown will
run concurrent with and reflect the happenings of the
DCU from month to month with individual issues spanning
anywhere from several minutes to weeks at a time. Also
unlike 52, the new weekly series will have a new
star cover artist each month, starting with Andy Kubert.
Characters that will be prominent in Countdown include
Jimmy Olsen, Mary Marvel, Ray Palmer (who has been
missing since the end of Identity Crisis) and
Darkseid! Jack Kirby’s Fourth World will also
play a large role in the book.
- Warner Bros. has announced that they are working on
a Justice League feature film! Wow… I mean, holy
crap, this could be awesome! This could be the best…
they hired who? The guys that wrote Mr. & Mrs. Smith?
Oh, well… never mind. Like it woulda happened anyway.
- Captain Carrot returns in a three-issue mini-series,
Captain Carrot & The Final Arc, by Bill Morrison
and Scott Shaw! That exclamation point isn’t because I’m
excited about freakin’ Captain Carrot. It’s there
because that’s how Scott Shaw! spells his name. With an
exclamation point.
- Paul Milligan!
- Doesn’t really work does it?
- Martian Manhunter artist Al Barrinuevo will
be the new artist for Teen Titans when Adam
Beechen takes over as series writer.
- DC’s other Manhunter has been saved from
cancellation yet again. DC revealed that this would not
be another 5-issue reprieve and that the series was back
for good.
- Andy Smith will be taking over as the regular artist
of Stormwatch: PHD starting with issue #8. Sniff…
so long Doug Mahnke…
- After seven years, Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber’s
Whiteout will return with a third mini-series, this
one entitled Whiteout: Thaw.
- Check it out, it’s the cover for Andi Watson and
Josh Howard’s new Minx graphic novel, Clubbing.
Click on image to view full size
in a new window
- And the cover for Warren Ellis’ upcoming debut
novel, Crooked Little Vein, why not.
Click on image to view full size
in a new window
In Case You Didn’t Know…
World War Hulk isn’t going to be any good. It’s
going to suck. Remember when you thought to yourself,
“You know, Civil War looks pretty good. Much
better than dumb old House of M.” Remember that?
Cause it’s happening again. I’m just trying to help you
out here.
The Only Comics That Matter
Last Week –
The Spirit #3 by Darwyn Cooke & J. Bone
Invincible #39 by Robert Kirkman & Ryan Ottley
New Avengers: Illuminati #2 by Brian Michael
Bendis, Brian Reed & Jim Cheung
This Week –
Connor Hawke: Dragon’s Blood by Chuck Dixon &
Derec Donovan
Doctor Strange: The Oath #5 by Brian K. Vaughan &
Marcos Martin
Runaways #24 by Brian K. Vaughan & Adrian Alphona
X-Factor #16 by Peter David & Pablo Raimondi
Next Week –
Buffy The Vampire Slayer #1 by Joss Whedon &
Georges Jeanty
Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil #2 by Jeff
Smith
Criminal #5 by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips
Iron Man: Hypervelocity #3 by Adam Warren & Brian
Denham
-
If you have any interesting news, rumors, lies, etc. about
comics and think I should know about it too just email me at
thesuperleezard@yahoo.com.
Read more dumb crap written by me at
www.livejournal.com/users/superleezard.
End of Line
|
Stumblebum Studios Archives
