BECAUSE ONE PERSON DEMANDED IT

OK, the Scans_Daily vs. Peter David thing

In general, my opinions are pretty close to that of MightyGodKing (Here, and Here). There are a few points of departure, however, and I'll elaborate on those below.

I've made my thoughts on Peter David pretty clear before, so I won't spend a lot of time rehashing them. I remember an interview with PAD in the early 90s (although I don't remember where - I'm not sure if it was Wizard or some Marvel house organ that was around at that time) where he stated that he doubted he would be writing in 20 years because at that point he figured he wouldn't have anything left to say. And maybe he was right. His current writing doesn't effect me in any kind of positive way, and well, go here. I lack any kind of coherent response to what happens there, except to say that I really hope that the man's moral compass has not actually degraded to this degree. But hey, Dennis Miller was funny for a while too.

That said: David was right legally, even if he did it for the wrong reasons. As far as the personal aspect, and his own revulsion at the harsh language used on some Internet communities and forums, I'm sorry to say that expecting those standards is akin to waiting for Godot. It's also very strange coming from David, whom you would think would have had a long history of getting angry fan responses (or at the very least, would have heard some stories from Harlan Ellison).

As for the Scans_Daily community - look, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I won't even spend time discussing that at all. Sooner or later, someone who wasn't happy with you or what you were doing was going to bring the hammer down. It did. Now, I'm a little sad because Scans_Daily was one of the few online comic communities I even bothered to check the comments for because there was occasionally an insight or comment or snark that amused and/or enlightened me. It also helped me find new comics to purchase.

Now, to Marvel/DC and the Direct Market of comic stores:

Thank you for proving once again for proving yourselves less and less relevant. I've spoken about this before, and it saddens me to see it happening. Well, sorta. I don't mind, I just think that a lot of people are going to be hurt by this. But for me, it changes very little.

Oh, I know you want me to buy my weekly floppies from your special direct market friends and vendors. That's nice of you to want that. The nearest one to my hometown is a four hour drive. Now, I know you think that I should go and spend spontaneously on these things, but let me tell you, if I'm going to make a 4 hour drive for ANYTHING, and forget that I'm not making a 4 hour drive exclusively for comic books because that's fucking crazy, I'm going to know exactly what I want ahead of time. Now, the fact is that I don't make 4 hour drives to get my comics because I'm not crazy; I wait for trades and then order them through Chapters because I don't feel like paying $4 plus deranged shipping costs for a single issue; and if I'm going to plunk $20-40 on a TPB, I want some idea if I'm going to like it. So, libraries help, blogger reviewers help, and so do things like Scans_Daily. The only other alternative is outright piracy by torrents, and if you want to keep pushing people that way, go right ahead, but don't cry about Internet losses because you can't push your superhero stories outside of the rapidly shrinking direct market. It's disingenuous at best and suicidal at worst.

Ok, I'm done. See you later.

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What If We Lived in a comicbook Universe? Part 41

Happy Valentine's Day

Obey your master!

Look, it's as simple as this:

If you supported the Superhuman Registration Act and the Initiative when Tony Stark was running things, you should be supporting Norman Osborn without hesitation. In point of fact, you should be CHEERING HIM ON.

Why, you may ask?

Well, has the Registration Act itself changed? No.

Has the need for superhumans to be registered and overseen by the law changed? No.

So, for those of you who supported the Registration, well, nothing's changed. Except the guy on top.

Well, let's compare, shall we?

"Norman Osborn is brining unrepentant criminals into the Initiative! He's going to be in charge of an army of supervillains!"

As opposed to Tony Stark, who was the one who actually brought unrepentant criminals such as Bullseye, Taskmaster, Venom, and Norman Osborn into the mix to begin with. Please try again.

Norman Osborn made a secret pact with a group of powerful criminals!

Right. And Tony and his group of super-secret friends who killed a bunch of Skrulls and kidnapped and shot the Hulk into space are not at all the same kind of thing. Except it is.

Norman Osborn has an agenda and bends and distorts the rules for his own ends!

And so did Tony every time he didn't go after the New Avengers. Or Spider-Man. Or Daredevil. If Tony can make exceptions, so can Norman.

The Initiative is corrupt and will fail because of Norman Osborn!

It'd be pretty damn hard for the Initiative to fail any more than it already has.

OK, well, fine, you say. But it doesn't change the fact that Tony is a decent man, and Norman a corrupt one. Well, as far as that is concerned, I'll let Nighthawk speak for me.

Do you understand now? If all it took was one man to turn the Initiative from a "good idea" to a "bad idea", then IT WAS ALWAYS A BAD IDEA. This was the reason commonly brought against Doom and Magneto: sure they could make Earth a paradise; as long as they were alive. After them, it would all fall apart. So making the Initiative and the SHRA dependent on any one man, no matter how noble, meant that it was fatally flawed from its very inception.

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Quick note on Requests from Commenters

JLbarnett Asks:"the third choice is ALWAYS fake right? I'm curious what Iron Man and Wolverine's Best are."

Behold!

Phil Watts Jr, a regular here, asks if I'll do a month-by-month, blow-by-blow analysis of the post "Brand New Day" Spider-man books.

No.

I might try to gloss over the main points (The big failures, the clear misteps, the occassional spot of something interesting, and the undeniable fact that there's not one of these stories that couldn't have been told with Mary Jane that would have been just as good if not better) in a post or two when I have more time, but I'm not going to go into details because I'm not sure what it would accomplish, and at the end of the day, I don't want to have to look at stuff from those books because they are completely forgettable at best, or brain-bleedingly awful at worst.

But, if you want some ideas of my other plans for the future:

-I'm going to explain, quite clearly, that if you were pro-Initiative during Tony Stark's tenure, you have no business quiting now that Norman Osborn is in charge, and that by doing so, you are finally admitting that the entire SHRA and the Initiative were completely, totally, WRONG.

-I'm going to talk about comics outside Marvel/DC that deserve your money, your praise, and word of mouth. Comics that deserve to exist after Marvel and DC have fallen by the wayside into the dumpster.

-Two Words (Sorta): PS238 month. Oh yes.

What If We Lived in a comicbook Universe? Part 40

Rapid Fire Random Thoughts

Completely random posters and thoughts here:

-Does anyone else find it weird that the Hulk has 2-3 biological children (Skaar, the Thundra "Savage She-Hulk", and maybe the new female Scorpion) and he knows about none of them? I mean, ok, Mar-Vell has about the same luck, but at least in his case, two of his three kids were conceived after his death.

-Marvel fans prefer Bucky Barnes to Steve Rogers as Captain America? Are you fucking kidding me?

-Back in 2004, I predicted that the last issue of Planetary wouldn't see print until 2009. It appears that may have been too optimistic.

-By the way, anyone think any of the Wildstorm Super-books are going to make past this year? Anyone want to put money on that?

-If the Objective of Dark Reign is to make me feel sympathy for Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, Maria Hill or any of the Pro-Registration people, then sorry, but I don't. And any of you "Tony Was Right" people? You should suck it up and get behind Norman Osborn.

1993 sure had our number, didn't they?

Saw some scans of an old "Marvel: The Year In Review" article from 1993. My reactions :

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What If we lived in a comicbook universe? Part 39

Will be trying to get up a couple posts a week from here on out, even if they are just posters and no content.

Because I care and want you to be happy, that's why.

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WE ARE LEGION

OK, so posting unfortunately is going to be very irregular for the next few months, but I'll hope you can bear with me.

So, in honour of their upcoming appearance of Smallville, I'm just going to talk a little bit about the Legion of Superheroes.

Truth to tell, the only reason I care about the Legion at all? Because Chris Bird taught me to care. DC, if you would like cash money from me, pay Chris Bird to write the Legion of Superheroes.

Now that said, I don't know, understand, or pretend to care about Legion continuity, or what kind of a mess it is. I simply see flying superheroes in the future and punching spaceships and I'm happy. I'm simple like that.

Now, that said, there's something about the Legion I just find baffling, and maybe one of you wise people would like to explain it to me.

Alright, let's say you're walking around downtown, and you happen to see a bank robbery become a hostage situation. The cop cars roll in, as does the SWAT van. And when the SWAT van opens up, you see a bunch of US Civil War re-enacters pour it out in period uniforms, armed to the teeth with automatic weapons, rockets, grenade launchers, and shotguns. They have badges. And not one of them is over 20 years old.

What would scare you more:

A) That they exist?

B) That they are more effective than the 'regular' SWAT team?

Because, really, that's how I see the Legion. They are a group of really, really enthusiastic young people whom have patterned themselves off a bygone era, and practice the methods of that era in the modern day. And they have the authority to go pretty much wherever they want and do as they please for the most part. And they're teenagers. Oh, and occasionally they travel through time, doing whatever they please, and they regularly bring back major historic figures to show them their clubhouse and collection of memorabilia.

That is both fundamentally awesome and crazy.

That's why I like the Legion.