Pick of the Week
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Story by Geoff Johns
Art by Tony S. Daniel
Inks by Kevin Conrad
Colors by Richard & Tonya Horie
Letters by Travis Lanham
Published by DC Comics | $2.50
Shocked, eh? So was I. This was one of the most momentous weeks in superhero comic book land. It saw the finale of Infinite Crisis and the beginning of Civil War. But the Pick of the Week isn’t about the most important comic book of the week — it’s about the best. And this week the best was Teen Titans #35.
Before I talk about Teen Titans #35, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention those two important books. Infinite Crisis #7 wrapped up the latest company-wide, continuity-altering crossover from DC Comics. It was a good, solid issue with a satisfying ending that sets up a new major villain in the DC Universe. What kept it from being picked was a true “wow” moment, the kind of moment that these big, all-encompassing crossovers needs. Especially in the finale.
That leads us to Civil War, perhaps one of the most anticipated comics of recent memory. Certainly one of the few comics that had everyone in the iFanboy offices equally excited to get their hands on. It was a good issue that was great at points. This comic would have sailed on through to Pick of the Week status if not for two glaring points that really annoyed me, and that I couldn’t get past. One was the casual appearance of Daredevil, who everyone who reads comics knows is currently in jail. (This is where someone will bring up the imposter Daredevil currently running around, to which I say that the imposter would have never shown their face the way Daredevil did in this comic.) The second is that there is a brief shot of Peter Parker being instructed to take photos by J. Jonah Jameson as if he is still an employee of The Daily Bugle. Now, granted, I am a little iffy on this complaint as I dropped all the Spider-Man books around the time of The Others, but as far as I know Peter is now an employee of Tony Stark and no longer works for The Bugle. I don’t think Peter was even working for The Bugle back when I was reading his books when he was a teacher. If I am right then those are two humungous, glaring errors that I am hard-pressed to explain. They took me completely out of the story and left me feeling like the book was out-of-continuity which diminished the sense of urgency and importance of the issues being explored. As a result, one of the books I was most looking forward to turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments.
So let’s talk about what was good. Teen Titans #35 was good. It was very good.
This comic book is practically flying in under the “One Year Later” radar. It’s one of the two or three best “One Year Later” going right now — Geoff Johns is really dialed into this team and these characters. One year after the events of Infinite Crisis the Titans are made up of Robin, Cyborg, Ravager, Kid Devil, and the reluctant Wonder Girl. It’s a team full of teen characters dealing with complex emotional issues while they are not fighting supervillains. Robin and Wonder Girl are still reeling from the death of Superboy. Robin spends virtually all of his free time trying to clone him and Wonder Girl finds that remaining a Titan brings up a lot of painful emotions. Ravager and Kid Devil feel like the new kids at school who get no respect from the older members, and with good reason because Cyborg doesn’t respect them and keeps calling meetings for “the real Titans” that don’t include them.
The relationships and personal lives of the characters are fascinating and at times heart-breaking (like the first time we see Robin desperately trying to bring his best friend back to life). Geoff Johns does a great job of capturing what it is to be a Titan — a family of heroes who battle their emotions and interpersonal relationships as much as they do Brother Blood. If I have one complaint, it is that I don’t care how good a soldier Robin is, no 16/17 year old male is going to react the way he did to a naked 16/17 year old girl in his bed. It was just this side of ridiculous.
The art team of Tony S. Daniel, Kevin Conrad, and Richard & Tonya Horie does a fine job in a style that is pretty well suited for the tone of the book.
So why was Teen Titans #35 the best? It’s a rollicking good superhero time full of interesting characters helmed expertly by Geoff Johns, who perhaps more than anyone else writing superhero books today can straddle that new school/old school line, and straddle it expertly. All-in-all this is a really solid superhero book whose emotional richness has benefited greatly from the “One Year Later” conceit.
Oh, the Wendy and Marvin thing is still pretty lame.
Did you read Teen Titans #35? Add a comment and tell everyone what you think about this week’s comics!
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I totally missed both of those things from Civil War! I must have been too awe-struck by McNivens art to notice. But now that you mention it, it really bothers me. Damn you Conor for shaking me out of my blissful stupor! I read all the spider books so you’d think I would have noticed that proteges of multi billionares don’t have to moonlight as photographers. Although Cap beating the asses of a 15+ elite SHIELD task force agents and riding a F16 to saftey was still enough to make it my pick. Thats not saying much since this week was kind of weak for Marvel (F DC!).
This is a great pick of the week. Teen Titans was an awesome book this week. I was still leaning towards Infinite Crisis #7 personally because while I agree that it lacked a “WOW” moment, it had enough smaller “wow” moments to keep me flying through it. As for Civil War, I was somewhat cooler on it, and would have been shocked if it had mad POW. It was not bad, but I thought it was a little slow at places and really only told me what I already knew was coming from Illuminati and others, it really only had one “wow” moment for me with Captain America. This is not to say that I think the series will be bad at all, but it was just the first part of the first act.
the characters in Teen Titans are really interesting and the interactions are awesome. You are right, it is really doing a good job with the OYL premise.
I agree that Infinite Crisis did not have a wow moment in the end, but that was one thing that I liked about it. The ending was a great lead in to 52 and kept the story going. The wow moments were sprinkled throughout the books. Overall, I thought that the ending was good because it was not a real easy tie-up the loose ends with a bad finish ending; it left a lot loose ends alone. Teen Titans was a solid book and the review was right on the money.
I was left a little cold by the ending of Infinite Crisis, though maybe I’m a victim of my own expectations: I had been anticipating a plot-mechanism kind of reason for why there would be a year w/o Batman, Superman & Wonder Woman. For example, that somehow their efforts to save the universe ended up with them disappearing physically or jumping ahead in time–or I dunno, something comic-book-y like that. But in the end it just seemed that Batman wanted to take a vacation with his pals, Supes wanted to spend more time with his family (a la retired coaches and athletes) and that Wonder Woman just wanted to “find herself”. This made the whole OYL concept seem more contrived than I thought it was.
Maybe someone can help-is it me? did I miss something? I understand all they went through, but they seemed to collectively decide it was time for a break without really articulating it.
As for Civil War, I was impressed with how tight and polished it was, and since I’m a big Cap fan and he had the best moments, I enjoyed it a lot. Cap’s line about the gov’t deciding who the villains would be really crystalized the story for me. Daredevil was indeed a little distracting, though in Tom B’s Newsarama interview it was covered and he said (typically) that “all would be explained.” We’ll see.
I can tell I’m a Marvel zombie, because from the moment I noticed those Civil War flubs I started mentally working on my No-Prize-worthy explanations for why they actually make perfect sense. Here, Mr. Millar; I’ll finish up the story myself.
I can’t say it positively but I think that the understanding with Peter Parker is that recently summer vacation started (Might have been that terrible Hudlin run on Marvel Knights) and Peter didn’t make the cut to be a summer school teacher so he was back at the Daily Bugle doing some pictures while living at Stark Tower. I think the bigger glaring error here is that Peter would still be taking pictures for the Bugle after Jameson’s incredible betrayal of the team. If he wanted into the memorial service that bad, he could have just gone as Stark’s assistant, he didn’t have to be a photographer.
I didn’t read the PotW or IC so all my comments are on Civil War. A great read except for one thing: I knew exactly what was going to happen, and I wasn’t even trying hard to figure it out! This issue was just a retread of everything that Quesada, Millar, Jenkins, and everyone else has been saying about CW for the last few months, with 0 deviation. Don’t get me wrong, it was good and they’ve kicked off a very compelling story, but at least one thing that wasn’t mentioned in all the marketing would have been nice.
A great read except for one thing: I knew exactly what was going to happen, and I wasn’t even trying hard to figure it out! This issue was just a retread of everything that Quesada, Millar, Jenkins, and everyone else has been saying about CW for the last few months, with 0 deviation. Don’t get me wrong, it was good and they’ve kicked off a very compelling story, but at least one thing that wasn’t mentioned in all the marketing would have been nice.
This was also a reason why I didn’t pick Civil War. We knew this was all going to happen. I expect that subsequent issues will hold more surprises.
OK, what was the thing DD was holding during Civil War? He looked like he was holding a ring or a quarter or something which made me think it was going to be used as a later plot device to explain his presence–like something that would tip us off to who he is (fake DD). But yeah, it was weird having him there.
I loved the line where Parker told off Sue Richards when she was like, “We’ve been public forever and it has nevver been a problem.” His line about MJ killed and Aunt May begging for her life was priceless. And, it kind of annoyed me because the public status of the FF has caused numerous problems over the years, so that line seemed bogus.
On the whole, it seemed a good start to a longer arc, but Matt is right, there were absolutely no surprises.
What is up with Pym being the government toady all of the sudden? He is gonna end up Cap’s bitch.
Ok here are my thoughts, because I know you all were waiting for them.
Civil War
– You’re right, nothing happened that we didn’t already know was going to happen. It’s the first issue. I don’t expect a bang out of this first issue, but rather in subsequent issues.
– Peter Parker taking pics – My only guess on this is that they think that casual readers are going to pick this up, and they all watch the movies or remember back years ago that he was a photographer. It’s kinda like changing the X-Men’s costumes to match the movie or giving Bullseye that stupid scar to match the movie. It WOULD have been nice thought for us fans, to at leats have ONE reference of him taking photos again. But I can understand why they did it.
– Daredevil – That has to be the new Daredevil, I agree with Conor that its weird that he’s there. I think we’re going to find out who it is fairly soon thought, so it may have been a scheduling thing. He has to have been there for a reason. I think it was a quarter he was playing with, for a minute I thought “Two-Face?” but then I realized this was Marvel. Heh – But it was definitely NOT Matt.
– I thought the Cap/SHIELD fall out was a bit contrived and I wasn’t too impressed by his surfing on the plane. Whatever.
– I did think the ending was great. Powerful words and image.
– The first issue didn’t blow me away, but I’m still hungry for the rest.
Infinite Crisis
– Kinda left with a a “meh”
– The end reminded me of the epilogue to Kingdom Come, only cheesier.
I’m glad it wasn’t my POW because I only got like 6 books and none really stood out for me.
This is the second time I have heard complaints about Millar’s continuity. One of my friends told me that he does almost no research into any of his stories in terms of continutity, so it doesn’t particularly suprise me.
I don’t read any DC titles (in the DCU, I mean. I read Vertigo, wildstorm, etc). I know absolutely nothing about the universe, but would be interested in checking out some of it. Mostly Flash, I think. Any recommendations?
The new Flash book comes out in June. That might be worth taking a look, especially since as a One Year Later book it should be (relatively) baggage free.
Yeah… I’m thinking about taking a look at that new flash book myself. Since I just got into comics, these story points like 52 and civil war are proving to be good and easy jumping on points. This flood of new series’s is nice and what i’ve found is that you don’t really need any previous knowlegde to enjoy them, you would only benifit from it by picking up on a few things that i probably wouldn’t. i just get most on my background comic knowledge from the podcast and such.
Well, I’m pumped to see TT get the nod for POW this time around. I’ve thought for a long time that this has really been a flagship title for DC, even thought it’s never been billed as such.
The Robin/Ravager moment you were complaining about, Conor, I think has a pretty good explaination. Remember Stephanine Brown? Spoiler/Robin/Tim Drake’s girlfriend? That didn’t really work out so well. In fact, I don’t think Tim has EVER had a sucessful relationship with a girl. And, this IS Ravager. She’s drunk, he just got out of the Robin-cave, reeling from another failed attempt at recloning Conor, and here an ex-enemy is, in his bed. Naked. Granted, it is a nice dream, but I can see Robin walking that emotionless road the pre-IC Batman did, after the loss of Jason Todd.
I thought Civil War was “meh” except for a few scenes, but the two above mentioned scenes that were a little off kilter bothered me as well. It also bothered me that Sue Richards said the whole public identity thing hadn’t really affected them all that much — right after Johnny gets the hell beaten out of him.
I was really impressed with IC#7, because it wasn’t just a lot of WOW moments with no narrative. I enjoyed that it was a little subdued, that it left room for a superb villan to reappear in the DCU sometime soon. Tangent comics, anyone?
Outsiders suprised me, if anything else. Action and Detective kept the ball rolling. Picked up the Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine Director’s Cut, and really enjoyed it. Can’t wait for #3 now.
Re: The Daredevil moment in Civil War – Joe Quesada addressed this in his weekly Q&A on Newsarama today. His glib answer definitely points towards it NOT being Matt Murdock. And it is definitely a quarter he is rolling, which he implies is important somehow…
Here is the snippet relating to Daredevil:
“NRAMA: Fair point. So how is Daredevil at the hero meeting?
JQ: He took a cab.
NRAMA: Is it significant that he’s rolling a quarter? Doesn’t seem very Murdock-esque?
JQ: Yeah How about that?”
and here is the whole article:
http://www.newsarama.com/JoeFridays/JoeFridays49.html
” I think it was a quarter he was playing with, for a minute I thought “Two-Face?” but then I realized this was Marvel. Heh – But it was definitely NOT Matt. ” -ron
In the Elseworlds Daredevil/Batman crossover books, Matt Murdock is shown to have once been friends with Harvey Dent in law school. Dent would, of course, become the criminal Two-Face, a fact Daredevil would use to his advange in talking Two-Face out of his criminal plans in that issue.
Spooky huh?
I bought Civil War to see what the hype was all about and to try and get back into Marvel. I thought it was alright. Nothing new. It felt like Legends, The black suit Captain saga, the Armour Wars, and the Mutant Registration Act rolled together. Maybe that’s good, maybe bad. I don’t feel like I need to read anymore of it in issue form.
I think Marvel’s approach to CW was just very different than the DC approach to IC. DC had like 5 months of lead up that directly told you the up front story, they had OMAC, Rann-Thanagar, Villains United and even Countdown to Infinite Crisis. Marvel has hyped Civil War a lot and had a few things lead up to it, but basically the first issue served the same purpose as all the DC IC lead in’s did, they set up the story. The first issue of CW was a set up and the meat of the story appears to happen from #2 on. It’s not bad, but a different style.
I will say that the DC approach did allow IC#1 to go right in swinging while CW#1 did not.
Well, see, here’s the thing. CW #1 HAS to be a set up issue. Yes, we all know whats going on, but Marvel opted to give us one issue of background (disregarding the four ‘Road to Civil War’ books and The illuminati special), rather than DC’s approach to give us a million books with one little snippet of IC info for one particular reason: Marvel has pimped this thing out at LARGE to the general public. Giving us a book where the heroes would already be waist deep in conflict would seriously turn people off, and that would be a bad move for Marvel. Just wait, and Civil War should smack us in the face with awesome.
…I hope.
As for IC #7, here’s the thing with it. I really liked it actually, and at one part actually said out loud “Oh, DAMN” (When a certain red streak gave a revelation). #6 was the issue where everything came together and we had resolution to our Crisis. IC #7 had to wrap everything up, and give us closure to one chapter and open it up for 52, and transitively One Year Later.
NOW, AS FOR TEEN TITANS, is anyone kinda mad at the way a certain Titan ‘ate it’? I was actually starting to like his design, and he could have been a total Daredevil-esque character (popping out of the shadows and scaring the living shit out of his opponents) but now he’s…possibly gone? And I agree, Robin totally would not have acted that way as a teenager…TRUST me.
Now were talking fellas. Teen Titans was excellent this week. I think Johns has captured the essesnce of what made the Wolfman/Perez era so popular and classic. I really enjoyed IC #7 aswell and ready to see what happened to the big three for the year they were away. Civil War #1 did something that the last mega event House of M didnt do and thats deliver a story that makes you feel like its important to the entire MU. The scene at Avengers mansion was a nice setup to the split between heroes. The art was beautiful and the only problem I have with the story is the way that the New warriors previous history has been negated so that Millar could use a scapegoat to spark the war.
How did he negate their history? It seemed pretty true to the last run on New Warriors, wherein they were a reality show…
Anyway, as for the Avengers Mansion scene…was anybody else surprised to see Nighthawk there? He’s been out of commission forever….why would he don the suit to have a meeting?
Marvel has pimped this thing out at LARGE to the general public
You are right, and I daresay that the Marvel approach also will make the CW series more trade friendly too and that probably played a role as well.
Ive collected the New Warriors since issue 1 of the first series and they have worked with Thor,Cap,Iron Man,and various members of the Xmen throughout the years. Night Thrasher was never this weak minded and Speedball/Namorita were never that careless. I could see the Runaways or the Young Avengers making this mistake but not a team that has been fighting crime for atleat 3 years marvel time. The horrible mini that Wells/Young did was nothing more than a way to negate the history of New Warriors to make them seem more updated but they forgot to actually put a team on the book that could have made the book good and sucessful. Because the book did so poorly it showed marvel that they were expendable so out they went. I still enjoyed the book but not that part. Millar likes to do like Bendis and thats write older characters to fit their stories whether it fits or not in the previous continuity.
“This is the second time I have heard complaints about Millar’s continuity. One of my friends told me that he does almost no research into any of his stories in terms of continutity, so it doesn’t particularly suprise me.”
See, I heard that Millar actually contacted the folks at spiderfan.org when he was writing his stint on Marvel Knights Spider-Man so it surprises me that someone would say that. At least there he was trying to get it right. What is surprising is that he would even think he needs to go to spiderfan.org. Doesn’t Marvel have an editorial department that is supposed to be knowledgeable about all things Marvel? It bugs me when I see tiny, easily correctable mistakes like this because it tells me that the editors, while they have a huge job, really need to be on top of their game because there are hundreds of people who are going to be catching what they miss. Especially on these big name titles.
It sounds strange to say, but they really need some hardcore fanboys as editors to catch these things I think.
I agree that hardcore fanboys would be great in an error checking role. It would add so much and be so damn much fun!
However, I think that these publishers walk a very fine line because they want to get top talent, and top talent doesn’t like to be told that we found out that Aqualad is left handed in Teen Titans #3 in 1965 and they screwed up in in New Teen Titans #114 in 1990 when we see him writing with his right hand. So they give them this creative license. It’s all over the place in comics and other media we obsess over. I wished so much that Lucas would have asked any of the million people who saw Star Wars hundreds of times if they would buy Young Anakin and if it fit the line where Obi Wan says ‘your father was already a great pilot when I met him’. Do those stupid racers count as piloting? IMHO, no. Also, dont even get me started on medichlorians (sp?).
We fanboys just have to realize that many times we know (and hold sacrisanct) this material more thasn the creators or current cartakers do…
I was pretty dissapointed with Infinite crisis #7.
I think D.C was victim of a “hare and Tortoise” kind of thing. They struggled to get ahead from Marvel by building up two years ahead of the event. But then D.C decided to stop and rest, so they forgot the main thing…Actually doing the crisis books. The series started at the top but went downhill from there.
First. I really hated the way they handled the art on these books… D.C said that Jimenez would work with Perez to appeal to the nostalgic side of the story ,nice concept. But by the time crisis #7 was out there were like 5 artists (not including inkers), That’s doesn’t show conceptual planning, that screams “We got caught with out pants down”. The were panels with just SFX’s and The two page spread with the red Background, And the last one with the new heroes, Unfinished and underworked.
Story wise I’d think they got the same problems. So Many things were built up a lot, but resolved in just one panel, like kid flash explaining how he became an adult and arrived with his grandfather’s clothes (he should be renamed KID TWIST in-the-plot). The Seven soldiers, included out of nowhere just for the sake of sales; and many aspects of Luthor and superboy prime left unresolved or unexplored.
On other notes, A friend made me realize that on the last spread there’s a caption that says EARTH IS IN GOOD HANDS, but there’s a picture of LOBO in there. I’m still confused about the panel of Clark Telling Diana he has a suggestion for her. I’m comparing it with the decision of Black Bolt in Illuminati. Maybe i’m naive but I don’t have a clue about what he’s talking about. I think the best moment of All was the ending of Alexander Luthor.
I enjoyed the road to Infinite Crisis a Lot, including the crisis itself, but I really hated the resolution they gave to it. I don’t know, I’m kind of bitter because I though this was going to equal Crisis on infinite earths. But it made me confirm that Story and art wise, Wolfman and Perez are still untouchable.
Darrell is right. The New Warriors were never these dumbass throwaway characters. I hated what they did to them in that stupid miniseries. The Night Thrasher character in the opening sequence is ridiculous. He used to be like, the most serious character in the entirel marvel universe next to Scott Summers. Same with Namorita.
Well you see, Infinite Crisis was composed of like, five parts:
1) The Fuse: Identity Crisis. Once Identity Crisis hit, we were well on our way to Crisis, and we started seeing more Crisis-related problems.
2) The Road: Countdown to Infinite Crisis: All these books that preluded Crisis were ways to simply build more plot points into the main event itself. Seeing characters change or make decisions based on the coming crisis was probably alot of fun.
3) The Destination/Explosion: Infinite Crisis: Here we got everything culimnated into one huge event. All the past points from all those books prior to this started having ramnifications on the big picture. The art had to be handled by multiple people just so they could make it out on time. If one person and one inker did this entire book, we’d still be at issue 3. The Seven Soldiers showed up because it touched down on the ENTIRE DC universe. Not just one aspect, such as the JLA, but EVERYONE was hit by it. As for the one panel resolutions, that brings me to my next point:
4) The Finale/Rebuilding: 52 and One Year Later: You see, these books were made for the purpose of EXPLAINING ALL THE THINGS WE MAY HAVE MISSED. Bart, being older now, will probably be explained within the pages of Flash: The Fastest Man Alive in June. Wonder Woman’s book will deal with Clark’s suggestion. All in all, we haven’t concluded this event at ALL. If you’re waiting for the REAL conclusion, wait until issue 52 of 52.
Love the podcast, very entertaining and informative.
Few comments – The O.M.A.C. at the end of IC? That’s probably about the book I heard where a person who was an O.M.A.C. gains control of it or something.. can’t remember the details. But it sounded good, and will either be a mini or a series, can’t remember.
Another thing … anyone else notice how Alexander Luthor could TOTALLY be the new twoface? One half of his face.. burned by acid. Hmmm familiar. Also, he has that great conflict between good and evil. I think thats going to be the big twist in the Face the face arc, new twoface, and Harvey is a good guy.
Listening to the podcast.
Dudes, I’m impressed as hell that you’ve had a podcast out every week so far. Really. Round of applause for the three of you. You all are deserving of a good beer.
This is a Top Of the Stack that I totally agree with. I love Teen Titans OYL and I also think the Batman & Superman OYL deserves so shout outs as well.
Any comments on anything that got put out for Free Comic Book Day? I always wonder if there is truly anything really good given away? I read the X-men/Runaways crossover and was thinking, man I would never start reading Runaways based on this.
I completely spaced on Free Comic Book Day – I’m hoping there are leftovers of the X-Men/Runaways book at my store…
Speaking of the Teen Titans…
How many of us read the ‘Titans Tommorow’ Arc? Okay, remember that arc?
Remember when Tim Drake (Robin) asked Superman (Conner Kent) what happened, why he went dark, and Supe’s said: “It was something YOU did to me Tim”.
Anyone think this points to a potential success of Tim’s cloning? I mean, that arc had Ravager as a good Titan (On the Titans East team) as well as a Batwoman, who I believe is rumoured to be returning within the pages of OYL or 52 (not positive, i’m sure it’s 52).
Who knows what the future holds for our Titans??
Ron… do yourself a favour and don’t read it. It was terrible.
I believe that the New Warriors mini series from last year was set up for the benefit of Civil War. Those were none of the characterizations of any of the New Warriors. In fact I would say that the way that Speedball, Night Thrasher, Namorita, and Nova acted in that series was the complete opposite of how those characters have always been portrayed (further convincing me that that those were the doppelgangers from the Infinity War, but not really).
What about the fact that only three of those New Warriors were original members? Also that one of those is going to survive (my money is on Speedball). And that other surviving New Warriors are going to appear in May’s issue of She-Hulk.
The point that I am meandering to is that there are plenty of surviving “real” New Warriors that are still out there. I suspect a “New” New Warriors will be coming in the future (maybe the far future), one that will have to struggle to prove themselves as responsible heroes in light of Civil War. Very similar to what the New Warriors were about originally, a group of teen heroes proving that they can do the same job as any adult hero does, just as well as any adult hero could.
I suspect a “New” New Warriors will be coming in the future (maybe the far future), one that will have to struggle to prove themselves as responsible heroes in light of Civil War.
That’s a really good premise for a book.
But they killed my favorite New Warriors Night Thrasher and Namorita(not the blue version).
COme on Darrell, you know better – did you see a body? Unless you saw a dead body, they can come back. 🙂
But they killed my favorite New Warriors Night Thrasher and Namorita(not the blue version).
Not to sound too harsh, but… so what? These are fictional characters who sometimes die in order to tell a good story. And more often than not they come back to life in a few years anyway.
Ouch! Conor, so harsh!
Come on…you can’t say you don’t have an emotional attachment to someone…we all have a hero/villian we always go ‘aww’ or ‘yay!’ for…
For example, I like the Flash and Spider-Man…hell, i went nuts when Bart re-appeared from the Speed Force recently.
Come on…you can’t say you don’t have an emotional attachment to someone…we all have a hero/villian we always go ‘aww’ or ‘yay!’ for…
Sure I do, but I have a bigger attachment to good stories. As a kid I was torn up when they killed Jason Todd (even though he was a prick), but I didn’t “hate” the book or the storyline because of it. Anytime a piece of fiction can generate a genuine emotional reaction it’s doing its job.
And what happened? He was resurrected 20 years later. And he was supposed to be an “untouchable” dead character.
New Warriors was one of my favorite comics growing up. And while I didn’t particularly like the mini, I didn’t think it was horrible because it was very fixable. It was a mini and they were using the characters, but there was a chance that the team could go back to being legit.
Now, not only are the characters the laughingstock of the Marvel U, but they’re the scapegoat for what is seen as one of the biggest calamities caused by super heroes.
I actually liked Microbe at the end of the mini. Namorita and Speedy better not be dead. I know that they’re going to keep Speedy around so he can be on trial.
There’s also a rumor floating around that Speedball might become the new Thor.
Taken from Joe Friday:
NRAMA: Speedball
I too, was a big fan of the New Warriors back in the day and was so mortified by the last mini-series, I dropped it after 1 issue. But I don’t think it was done to support Civil War, I think that it was just a happy coincedence of timing…
But I also agree with Conor, that if it supports a good story, then no one is really safe.
Although with Nova, Marvel Boy/Justice and Firestar still out there, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a resurgance of the New Warriors – and I doubt that Speedball will end up/stay dead – he’s one of those characters who always seems to stick around for some reason.
I love Nova, but Justice and Firestar are just boring characters. During the first run, the personalities came from Night Thrasher, Speedy, Namorita and Nova.
Justice and Firestar were always the resident do-gooders to me. In a recent Joe Fridays, he said that there was a 70% chance of seeing the New Warriors in some form in the next two years, so it wouldn’t suprise me at all to see them try to put them out with a redemption hook…
Marvel Boy/Justice accidently killed his father by using his mutant powers in self-defense to stop from getting a beating. A story like that isn’t boring. A story like that is what made the New Warriors a quality book, back in the day. The New Warriors attacking the Vault to spring Marvel Boy was great too.
Justice and Firestar were pretty luke-warm Avengers, but on the New Warriors they had a place. They were the more traiditonal do-gooder type, which was their role in that team.
There are no boring characters, but there are boring stories.
Yea, that was a good story, but I’m talking about the characters themselves. I just don’t feel like they had as much depth as the rest of the group.
But you’re right about their role on the team. Cyclops does it on X-men. But I guess that’s why I’m not a Cyclops fan either. That being said I understand the importance in the dynamic.
“Although with Nova, Marvel Boy/Justice and Firestar still out there, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a resurgance of the New Warriors – and I doubt that Speedball will end up/stay dead – he’s one of those characters who always seems to stick around for some reason.”
Speedball doesn’t “stick around” he “bounces back.”
Sorry, I could not resist.
Connor is just mean.:(
As for Justice and Firestar they are very bland characters that fit the Cyclops Jean Grey Mold that alot of Marvel books back in the day. Night thrasher and Namorita were the more interesting characters. Night Thrasher was not a Batman rip off but more than that. His parents were not only murdered but murdered by the best friend of the family. Unlike Batman who had Alfred and Thompkins who nurtered him through his teen years. We had Night thrasher who was raised by the man who he found out was his parents killer and I forget the name for the other mentor but she also was a psychpath killer. He was truly alone except for his teammates. Namorita has gone through so many different changes in her short life but she became more than just a female Namor. She was a strong co leader with Thrasher until Nicieza decided to push the copycat Cyclops into the leader role. But none of the team were amatuers after the book ended. They all went through a trial by fire and became more confident by the end even Speedball. Zeb Wells/Skottie Young just negated all that and reversed all that experience to make a Marvel cartoon version of the silly Teen Titans show on the cartoon network. And because how bad it was done It didnt sell. Millar whom I really like as a writer could have used any teenage team to die and it would not have changed the story. I say this because the Avengers and other MU heroes act like they never worked with the New warriors before. The New Warriors have fought beside the Xmen,avengers,and even had one of the Spidermen join the team before It disbanded.
Millar whom I really like as a writer could have used any teenage team to die and it would not have changed the story.
But would anyone have cared? Look at all the talk The New Warriors angle has generated…
Emotional reactions – that’s the point of any good story. How much fun would it have been if some people you either never heard of or didn’t care anything about, died?
they should have offed Power Pack
How much fun would it have been if some people you either never heard of or didn’t care anything about, died?
It’s true. If there are no stakes, then what’s the point of a story?
Power Pack would have created a larger fan reaction – marvel fans just *LOVE* those kids for some reason.
There still isnt any real stakes because they changed the characters so much that It didnt really matter to anyone except us oldschool fans from the 90s
There are obviously stakes. Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If it was just a bunch of no name heroes no one would care. The New Warriors have just enough name recognition to make the disaster meaningful.
I never thought I’d see people giving up the love for the New Warriors, but the adage proves true: every character is someone’s favorite. There is someone going, “Not Namorita! Noooo!” for every person like me who’s saying, “Wait… there’s a Namorita now? Oh my God, Speedball!… That takes me back. I’ll never see that $.75 again.”
I don’t think anybody acted like they’d never worked with the New Warriors before; Cap and Iron Man talked briefly about Speedball like they knew who he was as they were picking through the ruins. Granted, they didn’t act like knowing Speedball had changed their lives or anything, but then, it probably didn’t. He was, after all, Speedball.
Hmm. If not the New Warriors, then who?… Wasn’t Rick Jones mixed up in the New Warriors at some point? It would have been interesting if he’d been involved in the Stamford thing, I guess. Young Avengers, maybe. Actually, Brian K. Vaughan’s “Excelsior” from Runaways would be a welcome addition to the Civil War storyline, now that I think about it. The Excelsior mission statement fits right in with the Iron Man side.
I didn’t follow Mouse of M so I’m not entirely sure about this, but didn’t ICEMAN lose his powers? He’s totally helping at the school in the beginning of Civil War.
PS: My girlfriend read it and Avengers Illuminati. I feel totally triumphant. She wanted to know who Black Bolt is, and I had no idea. I was like “He’s Inhuman, BABE.”
Iceman lost his powers but it turned out to be in his head – he thought that since people were losing thier pwoers, he must have lst his too, but turns out he was repressing them – Emma helped him unblock his powers in either Uncanny or Adjectiveless – it was an example I guess of the complexity/confusion of the situation…
long story, short – he has his powers
That’s a totally awesome explanation. It seems like Emma’s going around unblocking everybody’s chi flow.
So other than Magneto, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, did any A-list mutants lose their powers? They hyped up House of M and “no more mutants” so much, but it seems like all of the same big-name mutants are still around and have their powers. All of the mutants that were “decimated” were either C-Listers or ones that we have never seen before. I guess what I am saying is that it doesn’t seem like House of M made that much of an impact overall, even after all the hype and buildup.
I did like House of M by the way.
I’m thinking of ordering the House of M trade from Amazon.
kill off power pack? WTF
i love power pack
kill off that NOVA bum i say….
quicksilver is using the inhumans mist to return mutants powers
that helps to explain why some are getting powers back
the iceman thing was lame…they never should have said he lost his powers….but i guess they wanted to hit a founding member to make the whole house of M thing look more hardcore…
then they relized people like iceman and it was a dumb idea
The list of de-powered and powered mutants can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(comics)
depends on your definition of A-List Mutants
Blob, Callisto, Jubilee, Mirage, Chamber, Mesmero, Polaris, Prof X, Rictor, Unus, and Artie seem to be the biggest names, to me at least, in addition to Magneto and Quicksilver
I forgot about Prof. X. I would definitely say he is A-List, although didn’t he just return in Deadly Genesis? Are his powers gone?
In my opinion, none of the others you mentioned are A-List. They are recognizable, but certainly not on the same level as Wolverine, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, etc. I guess I just find it funny that when 90% of all mutants have lost their powers, almost all of the big names just happened to escape that fate. I would think approximately 90% of the big names would have been depowered along with the rest of the mutant population.
Obviously, I understand that they need to keep the big names powered up because they sell comics. I just think it is an interesting quirk that they haven’t explained. Why did all the most recognizable mutants retain their powers and most of the lesser-known mutants lose theirs?
Prof. X is still depowered.
I hear you on the fact that the A list/main characters go through scot-free – that’s what happens when you ret-con I suppose…
you don’t want to stifle the good stories, just undo what another writer did.
Although, I was pretty bummed about Jubilee, Callisto (although she was a shadow of her former self) and Polaris.
See, although a FEW huge A-list mutants (Quicksilver Magento Jubilee Blob and Prof X), I think a crazy impact would have been if a REAL starlight mutant was depowered. Not Wolverine (although that would have been interesting….) but what if we saw Apocalypse de-powered?
I think that this whole thing should be re-explored in a GOOD WHAT IF.
“What If House of M depowered THE X-MEN!!”