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Worst of the Worst - Follow-Up
2008-09-03 21:46:00
Received the following letter from uberfan Dan Coyle in response to yesterday's post:
>Well, I think you're being a bit disingenuous in ignoring the fact that Loeb is a favorite of the top artists in the industry, mainly because he, as I'm given to understand, defers to their interests more often than not. I'm not buying Hulk, but I have read friends' copies, and I f ind it terribly written, yes. Issue #5 really sticks in the craw. Why? Not because Rulk beats Thor so easily; rather, it's done in a way that makes Thor look very stupid. It's hard not to read into this Loeb flipping the bird to Joe Straczynski over the latter's complaints that Heroes was stealing his ideas. I find it pretty disheartening that it sells, even with a powerhouse like McGuinness drawing. It's very condescending as well. The reveal that the Abomination was shot is presented as a huge reveal- "Since when does the HULK use a GUN?" I'm sure Loeb would defend this as "Being true" to the character as 'ol Stan and Jack, but, uh, last time we saw the Hulk, he was using starships, axes, swords, lasers, and a ******* army!
And then there's Wolverine: Evolution, which contains an origin and setup for Wolverine so bizarre, so convoluted, so... half-formed, that even Daniel Way seems to be wanting to ignore it aside from the Romulus character, even though he's writing a book called Wolverine Origins.
But it's still at the top of the sales charts. Ultimates isn't as bad, mainly because, well, it's so very much out of control that there's got to be some twist in issue #5 or Ultimatum that explains it. You're also missing the fact that Madureira has been missed by fans for seven years. Or as I said at the Marvel Your Universe panel in Philly, "If Joe took a dump in a bag, and drew it, it would sell; that's how much people want to see his art." < br>
I'd like to think people are buying these just for the art. If not, then... I don't know what to tell you, Tom.
I also wouldn't put Amazing #545 on any worst list. I don't LOVE it, but I don't totally dislike it, either. It's not even the worst Spider-Man book in the past few years; that's kind of a three way tie between "Back in BLack", "The Other", and "Sins Past". In fact, I feel that if OMD "destroys" any character like fans have been claiming, it's IRON MAN, for reasons I don't think need going into.
I think Bendis' run on New Avengers, since the second arc ("Breakout" remains pretty awesome), has been largely horrible, filled with cliffhangers to nowhere that either set up secret invasion or other series. In fact, I'm rather annoyed with the fact that now with SI I'm supposed to forgive all those stories since it was all a payoff for SI, which has become a magical plot hole plugger. That said, the Mighty Avengers issues since Koi Pham took over have been very sharp and amusing.
If I had to pick a "Worst Marvel Comic Tom Brevoort Ever Edited" it would probably be "The Collective", though. An entire issue of this storyline is Maria Hill being incompetent and the President chewing her out, interespersed with shots of her ass (seriously, it's getting impossible not to read Bendis' gender issues into his work, and his obsession with showing strong women in positions of power as being secretly incompetent, unbearably bitchy, or needing to=2 0be saved by men, or all three). The final chapter of the storyline was so incomprehensible Joe Quesada had to spend time explaining it in New Joe Fridays. And if he needed to do that, then you and Bendis weren't doing your job.
Sometimes I feel Bendis intentionally half-asses it, because of the abuse he's taken from fans in the wake of disassembled. Which he doesn't deserve. But does it inform his work? Could his stories have been better if he wasn't thinking "This will REALLY piss them off!" You tell me.
But Bendis sells. As bad as his stories get, the books sell. And it's not like I think he's a bad writer (as opposed to Loeb), since USM is still consistently good after eight years (!) I just wish he would try a little harder to make his stories consistent and interesting.
But why do that when you can have Stan the Man sneer "Change is GOOD" and be done with it?
As for Geoff Johns, the hatred he's getting lately I think has less to do with the quality of his books, as awful as GL: Secret Origins is (Seriously, who CARES if Hal and Carol ran past each other when they were kids?), Action Comics is still pretty decent, but the fact that the entirety of DC seems to be imitating him, and thus the readership is turning on him. I, personally, think Geoff should spend a year in therapy before being allowed to write another superhero comic, but there is a good writer in him.
What, however, is the one comic I think is t he worst Marvel ever published?
Amazing Spider-Man #430. "Oh," you're thinking, "A Howard Mackie comic. How typical" Yes. BUT. this person says it better than I ever could:
http://www.spiderfan.org/rave/2001/0404.html
Bad comics are one thing; THOSE kind of bad comics are unforgivable.
--Dan Coyle>
Dan, there are a couple of points here I'd take issue with, and a couple of biases that I think you're showing--but unfortunately, I don't have time tonight to compose a response, so it's going to have to wait until tomorrow.
More later.
Tom B
Worst of the Worst - Winners
2008-09-02 17:47:47
…if you can call them that.
It was an interesting weekend, watching people debate back and forth which choices counted and which ones didn’t. And I noticed something interesting, which I’ll share with you after the play-by-play.
The winning, unvetoed book was ULTIMATES 3 #4, with 18 votes.
As people pointed out, both HULK #5 and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #545 were vetoed, putting them out of the running. But just for the sake of completeness:
HULK #5 received 21 votes
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #545 received 25 votes
Now, what’s interesting to me about all of this is that all three of these books are less than a year old. Of the older books, the next-best vote-getter was TROUBLE with 6 measly votes.
What this suggests to me is that today’s comic book readers—at least the ones who are online and vote in polls like this one—are very focused on the “now.” There was a time not all that long ago when CIVIL WAR #7 or CIVIL WAR: FRONT LINE #11 would have been the runaway winner. And going back further, books like AVENGERS: DISASSEBLMED, SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE or X-FACTOR #1 that overturned or revised some key story-point always stirred up their share of ire. But it seems as though these key moments of the past very quickly get left in the past, get folded into everybody’s experiences and accepted, if not embraced. And that also seems to indicate that a year or two from now, were we to do the exact same contest, it would be three newer issues sharing the victory lap. I don’t know if this indicates a short attention span on the part of the overall audience, or simply that it wants what it wants when it wants it.
The other uniting factor between these three winning titles is that they all sold incredibly well. Putting aside AMAZING #545 for the moment, with all of the anger directed at Jeph Loeb in this contest, it’s difficult to believe that he’s a best-selling writer. But there’s no denying that he is—his numbers prove it time and time again, month in and month out. So what does this tell us? Is this another case, like the much-quoted example of Priest’s BLACK PANTHER, where the sentiment expressed by the hardcore audience online doesn’t synch up with the behavior of the readership as a whole? Or is there more to it—are people actively buying these titles even though they don’t like them? I see the same sort of hatred expressed at Geoff Johns over his DC work, and certainly Bendis and Millar have experienced their share as well. Is this simply the price of success—that with more people reading the work, there’s a greater likelihood that more people are going to have an extremely negative reaction to it (even if those people are a relatively tiny subset of the majority?)
I don’t know. But I’d be curious to hear some opinions.
More later.
Tom B
Worst of the Worst
2008-08-29 12:48:54
All right, after a couple of days of frantic activity, we’ve narrowed the field down to nine contenders for the title of Worst Marvel Comic Ever produced, along with the original nominee, X-MEN: BLACK SUN. So it’s time to move into the finalist phase.
Our ten final, unvetoed entries are:
X-MEN: BLACK SUN
US-1
ONSLAUGHT REBORN
MARVILLE #7
RAWHIDE KID #1
TROUBLE
ULTIMATES 3 #4
SPIDER-MAN: MAXIMUM CLONAGE
SOLDIER X #6
VENOM: NIGHTS OF VENGEANCE
So from here, and over the weekend, I need you all to make your final choice.
Each individual gets only one vote. There are no vetos from this point forward.
Alternately, rather than voting for one of these ten books, you can choose to use your one vote to nominate another book (but only one that hasn’t already been vetoed previously).
On Monday, we’ll tally up the results, and crown a winner.
More later.
Tom B
Blogged Out
2008-08-26 19:42:51
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Feeling a bit Blogged Out these days. Coming up with worthwhile stuff to write about that I haven’t already covered a million times is getting more challenging, and the few topics that spring to mind just don’t seem much worth the energy. So let’s do two things.
First off, I want to start up what will hopefully be an interesting exercise. I want to locate, by common consensus, the Worst Marvel Comics Ever Printed. How will we do this? Simple. I’m going to start the ball rolling with a selection, the first book Jeanine Schaefer came up with when I asked her this question: X-MEN BLACK SUN. Now, this is a bad comic, to be sure, but is it really the worst ever? I don’t think so. That’s where you all come in. Your job is to suggest a comic book worse than X-MEN: BLACK SUN. (I’d prefer to select individual issues rather than whole runs, but not much about BLACK SUN really stuck to my ribs, so I can’t tell you that one issue was worse than the rest.) And every day for the next week or so, we’ll select the worst suggestion, until we can’t dig any lower.
As with our previous events, anybody can veto any selection for any reason—as I’m sure that somebody will do for BLACK SUN. And once we’re done, we’ll have hopefully distilled down to the worst awfulness ever put to paper.
Secondly, I’m going to open the floor up to reader questions again, so if there’s something you’ve been dying to ask, now’s your chance. And again, anybody can veto any question for any reason.
Okay, folks, don’t let me down—bring me some stinky comics!
More later.
Tom B
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Secret Invasion: Victory!
2008-08-25 15:51:56
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I’m prepared to declare victory in our much-contested struggle to get the Marvel North colors to fly in the DC office where once Jeanine Schaefer worked.
Here’s the story.
Earlier this week, we were visited by Jason Blanchard, the owner of A Comic Shop in Winter Park, Florida. Jason’s one of the most promotion- and outreach-minded retailers I’ve ever seen, and from what he was telling us, his store has really seen a benefit from it. He and his crew have done everything from organizing competing Pro-and Anti-Superhuman Registration protests on the street outside his shop to pulling together his own Skrull Kill Krew to seek out and uncover alien infiltrators in his area—all with an eye to drawing attention and potential customers to his store. He also gives away tons of comics in his area, leaving them pretty much anywhere that people traffic, with directions to his store attached on the inside. As a result of his imaginative approach to retailing, he’s seen his sales continue to grow steadily even in this decaying economy.
But that’s beside the point.
Jason was in town to visit both major companies, to get the nickel tour, meet some people, and speak with the sales reps about some of the strategies that have been working for him. He went to the DC offices first. While he was there, waiting in Dan Didio’s office for the guy to return from some meeting or other, he glanced out the window—and beheld an awesome sight!
There, in one of the windows of the Bank of America building across the way, was a colossal Marvel banner! Jason was quick-thinking enough to snap a pair of photos, which he was gracious enough to allow me to share with you here.
Now, granted, this isn’t quite the same thing as having the Marvel North flag displayed within our new territories. But I’m so tickled by the notion that every time Dan or one of his DC minions gazes out of the windows of their seemingly-impregnable fortress they’re greeted by the sight of a huge Marvel logo, I’m calling an end to the hostilities. From now on, Bank of America will be the new Marvel North! So let it be done!
(And if the person or persons who hung that banner in the window are reading this, drop me a line—I’d love to hear more about it!)
More later.
Tom B
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Taking it On the Road
2008-08-21 17:54:57
Made a pair of Road Trips this week, and I’ve brought you back some video.
This past Tuesday, after rescheduling it time and time again, I appeared as a guest on the Comic Book Club, the weekly comics-themed improve talk show hosted by the guys who do the Stack review videos over at Newsarama. Fortunately for me, the other guest this week was Wyatt Cenac of The Daily Show—who, in addition to being a comic book fan and very funny, was also a childhood friend of Brian K. Vaughan. This was sixty minutes of chat and reviews and audience questions and general tomfoolery, and a swell time was had by all. I brought you back a few seconds of footage so that you can share in the experience of being on this side of the experience.
Then, yesterday, to commemorate the release of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #568 and the start of “New Ways To Die”, Jim Hanley’s Universe on 33rd Street (my comic shop of choice) hosted a signing with Dan Slott. I stuck my head in to pick up my book, and was astounded by an archaeological discovery as startling as the fact that the brontosaurus never existed, and that Pluto isn’t a planet: There, standing before me, lined up neatly as far as the eye could see, were actual comic book fans who liked AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and “Brand New Day!” Quickly I whipped out my pocket recorder, determined to capture this evidence on film before it evaporated into dreamlike tales of destroyed childhoods and broken hearts. And today, I share that footage with you. Like the Snufflalupagus, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN fans are real, and they actually exist!
More later.
Tom B
Secret Invasion: The Infiltration
2008-08-20 17:27:48
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Continuing the saga of our struggle over the DC office once occupied by Jeanine Schaefer, today we ferreted out an enemy agent who was attempting to penetrate the security of our offices in the guise of Stephen Wacker.
While the impostor was able to duplicate Wacker’s glassy stare and vacant look, his impersonation was undone when he casually mentioned that he had enjoyed “One More Day.” As no thinking individual would ever make that stupid statement—hey, childhoods were destroyed and history torn asunder!-- we immediately realized that he was a fraud. At first, we thought he must be a pod-person, but in the end unmasked him as a DC employee.
As you can see, we sent him back to his DC masters in disgrace. Duke Marts, on the left, appears pleased, but don’t be fooled—inside, he’s quaking in fear!
Clearly, the enemy has been intimidated; they realize that the contested lands will soon be a part of our ever-growing domain. They'll need to work much harder to shake our resolve!
More later.
Tom B
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Art Avalanche
2008-08-16 12:35:08
It's late in the day after a long week, and I haven't done one of these in a while, so here's a bunch of artwork to hold you over the weekend.
More later.
Tom B
Secret Invasion Two - Update!
2008-08-14 14:04:18
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Our plans have gone afoul due to incomplete intelligence.
Turns out there really IS an actual Janelle Siegel, who has taken advantage of our operation to gain employment at DC. She appeared in time to throw a monkeywrench into our carefully-calculated timetable. Who knew?
Since her identity was compromised, we had to perform an emergency extraction to remove Agent J9 from the combat arena. Fortunately, this went off without a hitch. Posing as delivery men from the Manhattan Chili Company, we smuggled her back out while the enemy was occupied with the taste of sweet, sweet Hot Honey Bites.
The foe is more clever than I gave them credit for. But the war goes on.
More later.
Tom B
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Secret Invasion Two!
2008-08-14 14:03:47
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Over at the Newsarama blog, it was recently announced that Janelle Siegel has been hired as the new assistant editor in DC’s Batman office, working with Mike Marts.
What nobody realizes, though, is that Janelle Siegel doesn’t exist. In reality, “Janelle Siegel” is Jeanine Schaefer, Mike’s former and my current Associate Editor, in clever disguise. We’ve spared no expense setting up this clever cover identity for Agent J9.
As my operative, she’s gone back undercover into the DC offices, using her extensive working knowledge of the building and its operations to locate and claim the empty editorial office I claimed as “Marvel North” a week or two ago.
Once she’s in position, Agent J9 will give the signal, and our troops will move in to occupy the office. I believe some of our freelance creators have already set up a beachhead there, where they’re smoking, talking shop, and knocking back beers. This will be the vanguard of our occupying force.
Ha! Ha! Those fools don’t suspect a thing! Soon, our proud Marvel North banner will fly high over the territories, a ray of hope in an otherwise cruel world!
I know I can trust you to keep this all under your hats. More reports from the front lines as they become available.
Sic Simper Tyrannus!
Tom B
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About this blog:
Ramblings and musings from the mind of Tom Brevoort. "It won’t be clean. It won’t be fun. It mostly won’t be coherent."
 | About the author:
Tom Brevoort is Executive Editor for Marvel Comics, and oversees such titles as New Avengers, Civil War, and Fantastic Four. |
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