Marvel Now/ReEvolution Ongoing Discussion (Spoilers)

[Nerys Myk]

If the team on Captain America continues to entertain me, I'll continue to by the comic titled Captain America. On the the other hand a new #1 of Invincible Iron Man will not compel me to start buying Invincible Iron Man. (Or Thor, FF, X-Men or Hulk)

[Admiral_Young]

^Are you a Rick Remender fan? I believe Rich's rumors had "Captain America" relaunched with Rick Remender and John Romita Jr as the new creative team. If this turns out to be the case, I'll be very excited.

[Nerys Myk]

Haven't followed Remender work, but JRjr was born to draw Cap.

[JD]

Nerys Myk wrote:

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Restarting the book because the creative team is changing is silly.

I think it makes a certain amount of sense. If someone new is going to be coming in and changing things around, you might as well start the whole thing fresh. And I wonder if perhaps they think if they let the numbering get to high it'll scare people away.

[shivkala]

Nerys Myk wrote:

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Haven't followed Remender work, but JRjr was born to draw Cap.

Seeing as how John Romita, Sr. drew Captain America just a few years before John Romita, Jr.'s birth, it's quite possible, he was literally born to draw Captain America. Like Deep Thought in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, maybe Senior realized his work on Cap was good, but not great, but he could design a successor who would be great at drawing Captain America.

As to the debate over Marvel NOW!, I have a different take on it. I've been more of a DC fan over the years than a Marvel one. However, lately, with Marvel Cosmic, I've enjoyed some of Marvel's output just as much, if not a slight bit more than DC's. I still love DC, but the enjoyment I got out of reading the Annihilation era Marvel Cosmic is in a class by itself.

It also led me to pick up Avengers: Assemble due to its reintroduction of the Guardians of the Galaxy, specifically Star-Lord and Drax, after the events of The Thanos Imperative.

My love for those stories led me to realize that Hickman was picking up some of those threads, specifically with Black Bolt and the Inhumans, as well as Annihilus and the Annihilation Wave, which lead me to get the first four his his Fantastic Four trades and the five-issue Dark Reign: Fantastic Four mini he did which served as a sort of lead-in to his run. I eagerly await the chance to pick up the FF trades that continue where vol. 4 of Fantastic Four left off.

I've been tempted to pick up Wolverine and the X-Men, since prior to getting into the Marvel Comics stuff about 3 years ago, I collected all of Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men, and I heard that Jason Aaron's run on the title was thematically close to Morrison's run. I'm still interested in getting a trade or two, but a little less so, since I'm not interested in Avengers vs. X-Men and its tie-ins.

Recently, I jumped on-board Daredevil and really enjoyed it. As I said earlier, the Omega-Drive storyline led to me getting Punisher, which surprised me, as I haven't read much with Frank Castle.

Based on all of this, I sat down to look at my comics budget and made room for Hickman's Avengers titles and looked at some DC titles to drop, in order to balance my budget a little.

I've heard mixed things about Fraction and, aside from a forgettable two-parter on Booster Gold, I'm unfamiliar with Remender. I'm not sure I'll get titles by them, but I'm open to trying a few, as I'm really impressed by the Marvel titles I've been reading recently.

It's not that I need a "#1" to pick up a series (I was quite content with issue #570 being Hickman's first on Fantastic Four, as I was with #114 being Morrison's first issue on X-Men), but, knowing that it's a fresh start that eschews some of the stuff from Marvel I've heard about and haven't been interested in (House of M, Civil War, Dark Reign, Siege, Fear Itself, etc.), so much the better.

(I left off Secret Invasion since due to the fact that it involves Skrulls and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes is doing its own version of the story, I'm kind of interested in it.)

As for the numbering, it's not like Marvel hasn't pulled this stunt before (and DC, to a lesser extent) where they've had new #1's and then reverted to the original numbering. Overall, I'm not a big fan of this stunt, as I do appreciate the higher numbering. I also will say that, as much as I like picking up a story at its beginning and not having to know a ton of back-story, I also recognize that as a comic fan, there's something to be said for digging through back issue bins (or nowadays, scouring websites) for back issues to help enrich your enjoyment of the story you're currently reading. And since they're not doing a continuity re-set, like DC did, they might still reference past stories and, thus, spark my enjoyment of back-issue hunting!

[Admiral_Young]

Wolverine and the X-Men feels like Grant Morrison's New X-Men run...which is probably why I love it so much. I'm personally excited by the Marvel Now/ReEvolution news so far and am anxiously awaiting confirmation/news about the rest of it. I really want to know who is succeeding Hickman on Fantastic Four, that's really what I'm most interested in finding out about and what direction the FF will be heading in.

[Nerys Myk]

JD wrote:

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I think it makes a certain amount of sense. If someone new is going to be coming in and changing things around, you might as well start the whole thing fresh. And I wonder if perhaps they think if they let the numbering get to high it'll scare people away.

I've been reading comics for over 40 years, so I've seen a lot of creative teams come and go. Trust me when I say its silly. They aren't going to come in and change all that much.

They're constantly waffling over high numbers vs low. After 40 years I obviously don't care. If like the character or the creators I'll pick up the book no matter what the issue number is. Comic should be designed in a way that any issue is a good jumping on point.

[shivkala]

I think there's a difference between coming in and changing everything, which is what Straczynski did for Superman (suddenly it wasn't about a hero fighting villains, it was about a hero walking across America) and moreso Wonder Woman (in which he basically re-did everything about Diana) and having a new writer come in.

Sometimes a writer comes in and doesn't change that much, but really improves the quality of the storytelling. Rarely, it seems, they get someone excellent to follow another excellent writer's tenure on a book. More often we seem to get "really awesome writer" then a string of "really lame writers."

Going back to Hickman, I don't think he necessarily came in and changed a lot, rather he seemed to come in and write really good stories without changing much of the status quo of the book (well, up until the "3" storyline). And to write an awesome, seminal run, he didn't try to re-invent the wheel. He didn't try to go back and mess with the origins of the characters. He just wrote the best versions of the characters he could.

The problem with those who do come in and change things is that, for one reason or another, it never lasts. The common urge is to blame either the fans ("Comic fans hate change!") or the company ("The Company needs to keep the version of the character that the public is familiar!"), but the end result is the same. A company, like Marvel brings in Grant Morrison who makes several major changes, most of which are wiped out, retconned, or forgotten about after he leaves.

I wish the comic companies would just focus on finding the best writing and art team for the book and didn't try to reinvent the wheel everytime a creative team left.

[Mike Farley]

At this point Marvel might as well re-start all of their books at #1 every January.

Gillen leaving JiM sucks. I'll follow him to Iron Man though. Even if it mean sitting through Greg Land porn tracing--I mean art.

[Admiral_Young]

Not all of their books are affected by the creative team changes though, although it must seem like that given the amount that is. Remember that this rebranding has been instigated by what's going on in Avengers Vs X-Men and the aftermath of that. We still don't know how the event ends yet. Most of the rebranding involves Avengers and X-Men books. Fantastic Four is tossed in there because Jonathan Hickman is concluding his epic run in October. They're marketing Marvel Now/ReEvolution as the Future of the Marvel Universe starting now. So obviously something happens at the end of Avengers Vs X-Men that would constitute these changes. The Spider-Man group books are still remaining intact, Dan Slott is staying where he is. Greg Ruka is staying on Punisher as far as I know.

[Mr Light]

I'd say Fantastic Four had two fantastic creator runs back to back... Mark Millar and Hickman. (though the final issues of Millar's run were immensely disappointing)

[Derishton]

Marvel should really just own the whole "creative team/new title" thing, and change their business mode to reflect it: if all significant runs are going to essentially be new titles, then they should cancel most of their on-goings and publish a certain number of mini- or maxi-series at any given time. That's more or less what they're doing now, I guess.

Remender did the wonderfully weird Franken-castle run on Punisher.

[Icemizer]

I predict that within 3 years all the Marvel books will be reset to their original numbering yet again. How many times is Marvel going to try the reset to #1 issue thing? Its getting a little ridiculous. I am getting a serious Heroes Reborn vibe from this New Marvel.

[Guy Gardener]

But Daredevil and Hulk were awesome during that year.

Spider-Man and Dardevil tying to take out the Silver Surfer by themselves?

Hilllllllllllllarious.

Oh, and the first issue of the Thunderbolts?

Thinking about that reveal on the last page still gives me a semi.

[Captain Craig]

Derishton wrote:

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Remender did the wonderfully weird Franken-castle run on Punisher.

My Remender Punisher Omnibus arrived yesterday.
Looking forward to reading through that.

I hope Rucka's run lasts long enough to merit one as well.