Cagnazzo

September 27, 2016 6:44 pm If I could describe Marvel and DC at this point, I would say DC is engaging in serious fan-service, whereas Marvel is taking the opposite route of fan disservice... Or rather taking the opposite route of concluding, well 'the old fans are well, just old... make way for new fans. Screw overlap...' Just speaking entirely for myself, if I were a teen today, I'd more than likely get more into DC than Marvel. And that's kind of unfortunate considering Marvel heroes are the reason why I started reading comics to begin with. They say sales are better than ever however, so maybe I'm just out of touch. That said, Superman last week left me with a goofy grin, Trinity left me wanting more... and Civil War left me wondering 'wtf am I reading' (in a facial expression sort of way :). Superman was absolutely amazing though, and I hope they keep it up! Personally I feel like DC is exploring and re-imagining what made their characters 'epic' (if there is such a thing) whereas Marvel is engaging in story-arcs that leave their characters feeling... hollow. Anyway, just my 2cents. If there's a silver lining, I will admit that I am actually wondering how Civil War will conclude. But it's less like looking at a fireworks show in awe... and more like staring at a fender-bender on the side of the road while driving by :S

September 27, 2016 6:32 pm They may just as well conclude she's being mind-controlled (or rather they're all mostly being mind-controlled) by Ulysses, and he's ultimately a major villain that none of them saw coming. But yeah, I wouldn't put it past them to try to combine aspects of Civil war with Secret Invasion. Definitely would not surprise me. Works as such a convenient retcon addressing Carol's on-going character assassination. If there were a twist though, I'm still leaning on Ulysses being a villain. His appearance and immediate prominence out of nowhere kind of reminds me of Sentry to some extent. Of course... there may not be a twist at all and this may just be a sub-par story-arc. I suppose time will tell.

September 27, 2016 6:28 pm Agree very much on point #2.

July 18, 2016 9:03 pm Great podcast as always. Just wanted to add one note with regards to Civil War #3. In the past Hawkeye was written as so moral (especially when it comes to taking an enemy's life) that it even famously (or perhaps infamously) lead to his divorce from Mockingbird. This involved killing someone who'd assaulted her (so basically that can be construed as self-defense/revenge on her part). Fast-forward to Civil War #3 and here we have Hawkeye not only breaking his own moral code against taking someone's life.. but he does it haphazardly against one of his oldest friends. And Bendis wrote with an established presumption thatHawkeye would be 'the only one' capable of taking Banner's life and living with it... when in fact according to canon he'd be the least likely to ever take Banner's life... let alone on such a whim (like say the maybe accurate/maybe not so accurate vision of some unknown Inhuman who appeared out of nowhere). I understand the point of the book is to turn the heroes into villains, or at least force you to take sides. But for me I feel the biggest sin with the book is writing all the characters completely out of character in order to advance the plot. Anyway /end nerd rant. I will say the silver lining, as you guys pointed out, is of course Marquez and Ponsor's art. Pretty phenomenal stuff. That said, without some major twist in the end, I fear this story arc might go down as one of Bendis/Marvel's more infamous events. Personally, as a 30 year-old reading comics, what I miss the most from my 'younger days' was when heroes were defined by the interesting villains they faced off against. Batman, for instance, was always much more interesting going up against his amazing rogue's gallery (Joker, Two-face, Freeze, maybe Court of Owls to make it a little more modern) compared to say when he's fighting Superman or Wonder Woman etc... Marvel is hellbent on turning the heroes into villains (and removing villains from the equation... or perhaps turning them into heroes as we've seen with some of the solicitations). Maybe that's the issue I have with the direction Marvel's currently headed. Without a compelling antagonist you just have heroes acting like nutjobs... like we're seeing in Civil War. And if they really want the Inhumans to top the X-Men (a team with arguably a more legendary rogue's gallery than even the Avengers) the Inhumans are going to have face off a bigger threat than Tony Stark and Carol Danvers fighting over them. Ok, anyway, I'm really ending my rant now. :) All being said, I really enjoyed this podcast. You guys always bring out great analysis on all these new books being released.

July 12, 2016 10:03 pm @ed209AF: What 'might' make it an interesting story. I suppose it remains to be seen. Anyway, my personal opinion, most of these tweaks and changes would've been unnecessary if they'd just kept the Ultimate Universe around. I'm still not sold on building a storyline around constantly reinventing an existing wheel. But yeah, we'll see where Bendis takes this. As much as I find it unfortunate Marvel doesn't seem to value its rich history as much as its readers still seem to, I'm still willing to give some of these new characters/story arcs a shot. Again, we'll see where all of this goes eventually.

July 11, 2016 3:09 pm Another point is that Iron Man is basically a weapon of war (or, a war machine, for lack of a better term... no pun intended)... The fact that Iron Man wields such dangerous tech tends to lend to the storyline as to why the government constantly tries to keep tabs on him... and really why he rationalizes working with the government as well. It really is not believable that a 15 year-old who appears out of nowhere could be not only the level of Tony Stark (who happens to be an engineer/craftsman on par with Reed Richards, and builds tech that rivals Dr. Doom, Doc Oc, T'Challa, and pretty much every other genius engineer in Marvel). And that she would be allowed to wield such dangerous weapons freely as a vigilante without any oversight. If she's better than Tony Stark, perhaps she's the second coming of Forge? Then again, this is comics (specifically superhero comics). So there's some leeway for disbelief. But yeah, while I'm thinking about it, another issue that I personally have with some of these changes is the pacing... it's all happening so fast. And it's happening concurrently while these characters are more popular than ever in mainstream culture. I understand that there's months of planning behind these announcements, but from a layman reader's perspective it kind of feels like with the rate/propensity of these replacements, it's like they want to fast-track a new generation of heroes to popularity by giving them the names of existing popular heroes rather than taking the time to build up their individual identities. What would have been C-list heroes are being fast-tracked to A-list prominence not by feats or epic storylines, but by removing/replacing A-list heroes (or even A-list teams altogether in the case Inhumans vs X-Men)... And, understandably, it's a bit hard for longtime readers to entirely embrace the manner in which much of that is happening.

July 11, 2016 2:42 pm Josh holding down the fort all on his own... and what do you know, yet another great show. Love the iFanboy crew, but I also thoroughly enjoy these solos. Also, I really enjoyed Superman #2 this week. Such, such a joyous book. Plus, on my end, I was a fan of Eradicator in the 90s so I did enjoy the blast from the past reveal (?) this week's issue. Last I recall Eradicator used to be a hero... one of the versions of Superman post the 'Death of Superman' story arc. I think it was him, Steel, and a few others. But now he's a villain? Anyway, great to see him back. And, like I said, Josh is an awesome podcaster. Fun show :)

July 3, 2016 9:17 pm Although I've already voiced my opinion on Marvel and I've finally exhaled and I'm now just in a slightly perturbed state of peace with the direction (or arguably lack thereof) their comics are heading... I'll just hop in here to say I agree with all your points. Also the Miles Morales books in the Ultimate Universe was basically Bendis at his best (or when he's actually trying). Such a fun read that was... /nostalgia I feel like that, and a couple other books were telling such fantastic stories and it all ended, thanks to an event to 'reset' the Marvel Universe (for better or perhaps for the worst)... Anyway, on a side note, the new Han Solo releasing later this week seems like it's going to be a lot of fun (at least judging from preview pics I've seen). Lol, if not for Star Wars I would be exclusively DC at the moment.

June 21, 2016 5:38 pm Honestly, just thinking about it for a second, I feel as though Carol Danvers should probably be displayed as making rational decisions before so many heroes decide to jump into the fray with whatever decisions she decides to make. This whole business of a new clairvoyant 'Inhuman' appearing out of nowhere and somehow his predictions are causing veteran superheroes to recklessly go on the offensive (and get other heroes killed or seriously injured in the process) just seems way out of left-field. If the Avengers were under proper leadership I don't think they would be making such haphazard off-the-cuff decisions. Personally I'm not a fan of the premise behind Civil War II remotely, but I can put that aside. To me the way the characters are behaving (both Carol and Tony... and to some extent Medusa) is just a bit beyond the line of irrational for me. And the fact that this is a full-on Marvel-wide event... (*sigh*)... I'm just glad the Star Wars books are immune to getting involved in this nonsense. I wish more Marvel books read like Star Wars #20 cause that was a fun read with fantastic art. More Obi-Wan on Tatooine, please! :)

June 20, 2016 8:24 pm Invincible delved a bit into a 'shared universe'... But then again that comic is in a league of its own as far as I'm concerned. One of my favorites for years on-going. I'm glad that Invincible has its own niche going over at Image, rather than being a part of the big two and being forced (read: shoe-horned) into one 'event' or another.