NX7, you heard wrong. The X-Books are, to me anyway, the most interesting they've been in a while. "It's very likely that the Black Bolt the Hulk crushed on the Moon was in fact his Skrull impersonator" This is the case, as was shown in the Inhumans Secret Invasion tie in. I do have to say I'm suprised the Skrull imposter didn't revert back to form after being beaten by the Hulk, but I guess Super-Skrulls are made of sterner stuff. lol. And Bendis also said in that same interview he would be respecting the work Whedon had done with Emma in Astonishing, which by extension means what Morrison did as Whedon built upon what he did in New X-Men. I will be interested in seeing the one shot for Dark Reign...as it's going ot be told from Emma's POV.
Emma's "status" is only relevant if you're one of those people JoeyQ calls "40 year-old, basement dwelling virgins". After all, in this day and age "cONtunity is tEH Evulll..."
X-Force has, surprisingly, been pretty good. It stars Cyclops, Wolverine, X-23, Warpath, Wolfsbane, Spoiler: the rest of the team Archangel, Domino, Elixer, and the Stepford Cuckoos and has featured excellent art by Clayton Crain and the team of Mike Choi and Sonia Oback.
The Magneto situation is a mess. He has his powers back but they are artificial, given to him by a suit created by the High Evolutionary. I have pretty much dropped all X-Men titles since Messiah Complex. The only thing that interests me is the Shi'ar situation.
The best one so far is the new Thor book. I really and thoroughly enjoyed it. BTW about the group --> Seems like a new Illuminati more than anything.
^That's the intent, they're the anti-Illuminati. The most direct parallels are Osborn being the equivalent of Stark, Frost is Xavier, Dr. Doom is Reed Richards and The Hood is Dr. Strange. They haven't been too obvious with their choices here. They could easily have used the Illuminati's direct nemeses like Maximus or Attuma. Instead they did what they did with the Illuminati, found people who bring something unique to the table. It occurs to me now that Namor was already in league with Dr. Doom. After Atlantis' destruction, a number of Atlanteans took up residence in Latveria with Doom's blessing. Doom and Loki have been working together in Thor's title as well.
Well, it didn't and there are a lot of us who enjoy the comics they produce. At least they didn't kill off Spider-Man for a stunt or blow up the entire universe in a massive retcon for the umpteenth time.
A lot of people like Nickelback too. Fixed it. I'd welcome it at this point, but I know Quesada and his creative goon squad lack the emotional and creative maturity to craft a whole new canon in the spirit of the Universe. They'd turn Reed Richards into a child molester if they could get away with it, and a whole new canon would give them incentive to do stuff like that. Bin Laden picked the wrong building to attack.
The Death of Captain America is one of the greatest comic book storylines of all time. It's the main reason Ed Brubaker won the Eisner award for best writer two years running. Batman RIP, on the other hand, has all the hallmarks of a stunt that you know will quickly be reversed and never mentioned again. It'll go alongside other stunts like bringing back Batwoman and making her a lesbian or killing off Martian Manhunter and barely acknowledging it.
There was a story there? I must have missed it because all I could see was the typical post-modern deconstructionist pornography that Marvel tries to substitute for modern mythology. But I liked it better the first time though. You know, when it was called The Death of Superman. Didn't they give the award this year to some lead singer of a terrible, terrible emo band? Like I said, a lot of people like Nickelback. Like just about every run Morrison has ever had on a major title. I don't see what the big shock is. I expected this kind of thing to happen. This run is pretty much how he operates. If he's not leaving his name on a book and screwing up decades worth of mythology, then life isn't worth living to him. He's not the only writer around who does this, but he's the worst offender. Doubt it. Nothing he changes gets retconed. His stuff sells(or rather his stunts and hype do), Didio has a huge man-crush on him, and that bloodcrazed death cult he calls a fan base would go apeshit. My guess is that he's probably sold them on this for a while. Or at least until the sales start slipping. Of course he'll be gone by then, leaving the next poor shmoe to pick up the pieces. Because if his history is any indication, he'll never have the humility to do a mea culpa and clean up his own mess. Bad ideas to be sure. But they didn't have the hype going for it that this tragedy of a run does.
Agree with pretty much all but the last line (which I edited out). JoeyQ loves the Ultimate-verse...he thinks THAT is what the 616 universe SHOULD be. They should put him in charge of the Ultimate-verse, and split it off and put someone like Tom DeFalco in charge of the 616 books and fix the mess Jemas started and Joey finished...
While I'm not going to call for the predictable, one wonders who will betray who and how it will happen with the DI. Their greater goals may be tempting, but these are by and large not trustworthy folk. Loki and Doom are the most obvious, but they're almost too much so. Emma may have the idea of betraying the others to increase the public standing of mutants. The Hood may want nothing more than to keep things even for the street-level criminals and to keep anyone other than Dormammu from conquering things. I'd put my money on Namor having the best exit plan, and if Poseidon is behind him, he'd have less to fear from Loki and Dormammu. I'm going to guess that the DI will run more smoothly than the LI on the surface, but watch out below.
A minor, forgotten character nobody cares about. Last time I checked Doom Patrol, Animal Man, and Justice League(although that one was for the better) still had his imprint on it. And Cyclops is still an adulterer running around with the human silicone factory, despite all the hate mail and fan outrage they received from it. But I know why they won't. Quesada hates marriage, married couples, and true love as a concept. It's the reason he spent so long trying to get Peter and Mary Jane broken up. If he could get Reed and Sue broken up without destroying the Fantastic Four, he'd do it in a heartbeat.
I have a Skrully related question. I just read Mighty Avengers Vol 2 Venom Bomb for the first time (very entertaining!). Doc Doom had a Venom Symbiote bomb satellite that went off without his knowledge. He suspected it happened from a malfunction because of the previous Lady Ultron arc. A) Where did Doom get all those symbiotes? B) Was it really just an accidental release? Were the Skrulls behind it? This was "Spider-Woman"'s first mission with the Mighty As. Or given what we now know, was it connected to the Dark Illuminati?
Who knows with Doom ? He's an extremely resourceful man. All he needed to do with get a small sample from Venom, Toxin, Carnage or whoever. My best guess is that he retrieved what was left of Carnage after the Sentry was done with him and then bred them from there. I believe it was just an accident, though it would be very interesting to see what Doom was up to after the Skrull virus allowed all him to escape. Skrull dominion over Earth does not fit with the will of DOOM!
Actually the Death of Captain America and the outcome of it, is one of the best stories I've read in a long, long time. Spider-Man has it's redeeming qualities. Problem with DCU is that it is so continuity intensive, it gets very, very annoying quickly because it references crap from God knows when.