The Mighty Reviews 1/7/10

[Rocket]

Originally Posted by bat_collector

Rocket Rocks!!!

No DC reviews?

Thanks Mikey

Maybe I'll do that next time

[bat_collector]

that woudl be awesome mate

[wktf]

Originally Posted by bat_collector

Rocket Rocks!!!

No DC reviews?

Not this week, looks like. If I'd remembered to pick up Blackest Night Wonder Woman #2 I'd have reviewed that. Normally we try to mix it up with different publishers but it just didn't work out that way this week.

[abarron]

Originally Posted by Rocket

Thanks Ash! Hopefully you'll see some more from me

Already seen enough mate and it keeps me awake at night

[protector2814]

Thanks Reviewers and Guest...as usual, the Mighty Reviews have kicked off my weekend w/ a bang!

WKTF, I'll start with the meat and potatoes, your Tomb of Dracula Omnibus reviews. I loved your cinematic analogy and your words really made sense to me. The Wolfman/Colan/Palmer run on Tomb back in the 70's was extremely cinematic ..but to the 70's thrill films of the day. You've mentioned this before and I've agreed that Hammer Films were very much reflected in Marv's work and I suppose ('cause I don't have them yet), these omnibus must really reflect that, especially if you read the entire run almost as a movie. The same way I feel many of today's comics reflect today's movie styles - quick edits, action piled on explosive action, frantically paced, sexual bravado, etc....Tomb of Dracula reflected the slower paced, more atmospheric, sex only suggested, brooding cinematic styles of the 70's.
I loved that many of Marvel's 70's long-run books had conclusions. As a reader, it was satisfying to know that you'd been w/ a book from beginning to end. Your review has done so much to again convince me to get these books. I'm just gonna have to skip a statue to do it. This book was as good as you say, one of the best things the House of Ideas put out. I miss storytelling like this.

Siege? - Hasn't every epic that Quesada mentioned in his "cup of joe" ramble at the end of siege, promised to be an event to end all events? They all start off w/ a bang... where heroes die and a new agenda is set? Volstagg's set up in the beginning was pure evil, sad in a way. Sure, I loved this 1st issue, thought it was great and a proper kick-off too....but I also feel kinda like the guy that keeps goin' back to the same Chinese restaurant...sure, you feel great at first, so much food, so many choices, but a little before you finish your meal, your plate is a mess, everything's mixed up, and you know you'll be hungry again in an hour.
Here we go again.....*

[wktf]

Protector, thanks for your thoughts on Tomb of Dracula and my review. That series will always remain as the highlight of my comic book reading life, for many of the reasons you mentioned.

As to your thoughts about Siege, I think we may be in for something different here. Yes, Marvel has promised to change the status quo before and, frankly, I think with episodes like Civil War and Secret Invasion they've actually succeeded though in different ways each time. Now we're looking at a take down of the forces that have moved the Marvel Universe for the last seven years (or since Disassembled) and a new, potentially brighter status quo with Age of Heroes. I for one am happy to see this, having been along for the ride the whole time. I do think things will be different going forward and, to me, that's exciting.

[Monty Props]

Originally Posted by protector2814

Siege? - Hasn't every epic that Quesada mentioned in his "cup of joe" ramble at the end of siege, promised to be an event to end all events? They all start off w/ a bang... where heroes die and a new agenda is set? Volstagg's set up in the beginning was pure evil, sad in a way. Sure, I loved this 1st issue, thought it was great and a proper kick-off too....but I also feel kinda like the guy that keeps goin' back to the same Chinese restaurant...sure, you feel great at first, so much food, so many choices, but a little before you finish your meal, your plate is a mess, everything's mixed up, and you know you'll be hungry again in an hour. Here we go again.....*

Well said protector. Couldn't agree with you more.

[protector2814]

Thanks wktf for commenting on my Siege issues and thanks Monty Props for commenting too. To go on for just a sec more - I don't believe Quesada when he says that Disassembled, M, Civil, Cap Death, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, Planet Hulk and now Siege were planned to all be interconnected. I believe that Marvel got caught up in the money that could be made with these epic crossovers for the past decade and are just now, finally succumbing to fan pressure to "KNOCK IT OFF" and are agreeing to finally stop it...by going to the well one more time with Siege. Sure, this epic will be connected, but only because it has to so we'll all be able to rest assured that the hundreds and hundreds of dollars spent over the past years actually meant something. I'm almost positive that, if indeed this is the last crossover event for a while and Marvel intends to take it back to neutral and let the Marvel U just spin normally for a while, all of these epics will just be dust under the rug; 10 or so blips in their history.
I'm not saying I won't enjoy it and buy it, but I still feel manipulated and can't wait for a time when Hulk can guest spot in an Avengers book and not have the entire MU grind to a weird, all encompassing event-halt because of it.

[wktf]

Originally Posted by protector2814

...To go on for just a sec more - I don't believe Quesada when he says that Disassembled, M, Civil, Cap Death, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, Planet Hulk and now Siege were planned to all be interconnected...

But if you look at one tell-tale panel in Disassembled, you'll actually see a Skrull. Amidst all the action he's easy to miss but he's there. Bendis did, in fact, have Secret Invasion planned for a while, back when he was developing Disassembled. There can be little doubt that Civil War and Death of Cap were coordinated and same must be true of Secret Invasion, Dark Reign and Siege given, in both cases, one led directly to the other.

I do actually think there's some long range planning going into this, especially witih the Skrull showing up in Disassembled and in how the events led to each other, while still leaving creative license to manage them as they were being developed. They may not have been perfectly coordinated and integrated all the way through, but there's no doubt in my mind that quite a bit of long range planning went into them.

[protector2814]

Sure...I'll agree. But do you really think that we've gone from Disassembled to Siege because of a plotted-out grand plan? Bendis, whom I really love as a writer of these epics, may have been able to connect part 1 to part 2 to part 3 but I feel add on epics were plotted-in and fleshed out later and based on the mega sales these 1st crossovers provided. Room for ongoing crossovers automatically built in (to be fleshed out later), but any one of these machines could have ended with a universe correction and a finale. They just keep coming and coming and coming because the $ keep rolling in. I think Marvel finally feels that they just can't keep doing this. They've run out of room. Time to end it and convince us that this was all a 7+ year idea.

It's been years but weren't Skrulls, at least Wanda created Skrulls part of the Disassembled Avenger massacre chaos in the mansion's front yard?




*odd - my post count has just dropped from over 6000 back down to 5952.