Winning the Digital Fight
You know, you've got a very good point about message board arguments. I'm ashamed to say that I've been in a handful in my lifetime, and I think the best I ever did was get someone to begrudgingly stop replying.

It's possible that merely communicating in typed words just doesn't have the weight of a physical presence. It's also very hard to get across emotional weight without seeming like one is out of control.

In other words, it's just very possible that it is just very impossible to ever win a fight of words on a message board. Honestly, that sounds like a great psychological research/paper topic...

...for someone else.

Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2007-07-03 22:22:07
Of course someone can be convinced by an online argument. If the people arguing have some sort of familiarity with one another from previous postings and discussions, I think they can change one anothers minds.

However when its arguing amongst TOTAL strangers, then I think its impossible. The person that you are 'talking' to has to have at least SOME credibility if any persuasive argument is going to be made.

Posted by IanZL on 2007-07-04 04:01:05
It happens, Tom. People are just too proud to admit it.

Posted by Fetsur on 2007-07-04 06:16:57
I've been convinced in arguments online. I tend to not care about winning an argument. I don't argue because I want to win, but because I think I'm right. So if someone proves me wrong, I'll conceed. No big deal. Most people hate losing (it makes them look weak) so they won't admit they're wrong until after the argument is over.

And I thought The Return was poorly written, but I've like Jenkins' writing before. Nothing against him. I didn't care about Mar-Vell, as I'm not old enough to have grown up with him, and there was character in the story for me to identify with. It should've been heavier, considering what happened. Time travel tends to take me out of a story, but it can be done well. I know you have experience with story telling, so your opinion is just as valid. Just sharing thoughts.

Posted by Undergirl on 2007-07-04 09:48:32
is it time yet?
Tom,
I would love to see you take us behind the scenes on Civil War like you did on House of M. Is it time yet???

Posted by bigdaddyhub2 on 2007-07-04 11:56:06
A question about letter pages!
HI tom, i am happy you are answering some fan's question through your blog, i have a question, well a commentary to be precise, and i want to know your opinion.

It's about letters pages in comic books. I got a letter published in Marvel Heroes Hotspot some months ago where i kind of made a dialectic-analysis of the situation of that ''tradition in ways of extintion'', comparing it to the forums on the internet.

Some DC editor said (answering a fan who was asking for the return of letter columns in DC comics) in a recent convention that they will not have letter columns anymore, because of the proliferance of comics forums and message boards in the internet ( including their official sites), where fans can express themselves, make comentaries, make questions and get some answers in ''real time'' etc.

And i am realizing that Marvel Comics somehow is following that trend, some comics like Avengers, Black Panther etc. do not have letter pages anymore. ( of course another titles still have their respective ones).

Well my point is that letters pages should not dissapear, because it's a place for fans to make their commentaries, critics, questions etc. and to be a part-of the-comic itself, besides letters in comics are offen more intimate, you know more passional, i don't know. besides i suppose the editors can choose the most interesant letters, positive or negative you know, but there's a selection of quality.

the internet is 90% this: oh i hate bendis, kill bendis, bendis is an a$$h=)(), or bendis rules , etc., there's a lot of insults, you know and evryone writes what they want, without a selection of the most interesting comments i don't know.

all i can say is, please do not make LETTER PAGES disappear, NEVER!!!

Posted by Los Shapis on 2007-07-04 23:38:08
Editorial Responsibilities
Replying to Tom Brevoort’s assertions, from the first to the last:

It’s generally known to Marvel fans that the Sentry is extremely powerful, has the power of “a thousand exploding suns,” etc. Jenkins’s story in THE RETURN, that had the Absorbing Man unable to contain the Sentry’s powers, took that characterization of the Sentry’s powers to an extreme. Arguing that readers should accept that the Sentry could legitimately have trouble with the Helicarrier, because his strength level hadn’t been specified at the time and the aircraft is large in proportion to him, is disingenuous.

You’re wrong about the scene with Ms. Marvel in MIGHTY AVENGERS #3, unless Marvel’s editorial standards now allow a one-panel retcon of the previous issue. Suppose that Ms. Marvel had been depicted with an injury, however slight, in that panel. A reader would be going through MA #2 and #3 wondering, “Huh? When was she injured? I didn’t see. . .” If the absorption of the energy emission was a significant plot development, Ms. Marvel needed to be shown doing it--and lack of space was hardly an excuse, given the space in MA #2 devoted to Ares’s bull rushes and other filler.

As for THE RETURN: My reaction to most fiction is intellectual, much to the frustration of fans online who react negatively to my dissection of a story’s plot, dry descriptions of continuity mistakes, etc. They can’t understand why I don’t just “like” or “dislike” stories like they do.

If Jenkins were familiar with SF, he’d understand that SF writers generally abandoned time travel stories involving paradoxes because paradoxes are logical impossibilities, and stories that violate causality make no sense. Read one story involving the “grandfather paradox,” and you’ve read them all. There is a logical basis for alternate timeline stories, though.

The existence of old single timeline stories isn’t a justification for new ones. I would be simple, as a matter of editorial policy, to ban single timeline time travel stories, since that approach is functionally obsolete. Such a policy would be coherent, while having new stories based on single timeline and alternate timeline time travel both is incoherent.

You would also be wrong to brush aside criticism of Bendis’s stories. At least one reason why criticism is vitriolic is that Bendis’s plot mechanics are terrible; he is, quite possibly, the worst writer ever to work for Marvel in that respect. Any other writer would have worked to have the HOUSE OF M (HOM) and NEW AVENGERS storylines mesh, but since HOM had already been completed, Bendis apparently decided it didn’t matter if having the Sentry’s Watchtower appear on top of Stark Tower made events in HOM #1 impossible. All fans could do was complain.

Worse, Bendis’s plotting mistakes occur at critical moments. In HOM #8, for example, Bendis has Dr. Strange refuse to erase Parker’s unwanted memories, when he could have easily done so with the Eye of Agamotto, as he had before (Dr. STRANGE #65, Vol. 1, for instance). Bendis then ruined the ending to HOM #8 by having Pym refer to Newton’s Third Law of Motion, when he should have been referring to conservation of energy. Then there were the continuity errors in AVENGERS FINALE, failing to have Cage consult an attorney in NEW AVENGERS #22, etc. In NEW AVENGERS #31, Bendis apparently failed to realize that having Strange stuck with an enchanted blade repeated a situation from Dr. STRANGE #1, Vol. 1.

Bendis has a serious lack of credibility as a writer, compared to other writers in the publishing field generally, and the errors that routinely crop up in his stories as published are the main reason for that, IMO. An adult should be able to read an issue of NEW AVENGERS and not have a mistake involving continuity or word usage take him out of the story. There are other negative issues, such as his Beyonder, Sentry, Wanda, and Ultron all being the same basic “strong but insane” character, but the routine errors constitute the most significant problem.

Those mistakes impact your credibility as well. Your defense of the handling of the Sentry implies that mistakes a reader isn’t aware of won’t hurt him. That would be a terrible attitude for an editor to have, since he’s supposed to evaluate material, based on a set of standards, and reject, accept, or accept with changes, the material. He’s not supposed to be a writer’s publicist and cheerleader, trying to rationalize away mistakes in published material like some ten-year-old reader would.

Bendis’s career in the “Avengers” titles is based on mischaracterization of characters and their situations, and doing so most flagrantly in “Avengers Disassembled.” It doesn’t matter if readers unaware of the mischaracterization thought the story was great, fine, or even tolerable. It doesn’t matter if readers unaware of all the mistakes think that other stories are just fine. Adult readers who know the characters and fiction by accomplished writers should be able to enjoy the stories Marvel publishes, and not have problems because they know the characters better than the writers do. You have a responsibility to justify publishing Bendis’s material in spite of all those mistakes, without insisting that readers approach the material as if they were ten-year-olds.

SRS

Posted by Steven R. Stahl on 2007-07-05 11:12:15
response to S.R.Stahl
hey S.R.Stahl, why don't you just stop reading comics writen by Bendis? It's obvious that you don't like his writing. Why torture yourself reading a writer you find bad?.
Besides, all your criticism to Bendis i must say that is a very personal point of view from yourself, don't take your opinions an commentaries as a fact.
But again, i don't want to discuss with you, all i wanna say is do a favor to yourself and stop buying comics you don't like, instead, buy the comics from the writers or artist you like.
(for example, i readed some Geoff Johns comics like two years ago, an i didn't like 'em not a single bit, since then i just don't buy or read comics writen by that author, IMO he is one of the worst an most overrated writres in the industry you know, but you will not find me writing long posts on the internet about all the ''mistakes'' ''mischaracterizations'' ''lack of credibility'' ''disrespect for readers '' etc. that he commit, IMO.
I simply just stop buying his comics the day i realized that i found his writing very bad. Iknow this is a very personal opinion, and that a lot of people like his writing, allright, there's democracy, there's liberty of taste.)
I recommend you to do the same with Bendis. Don't try to rationalize too much the fact that you just don't like his writing.

Posted by Los Shapis on 2007-07-05 13:54:36
Criticism of Comics
Los Shapis, it’s fine to read comics or any form of fiction just as entertainment. That’s what most Marvel readers do. Such an attitude, however, disqualifies someone from making critical judgments about a work of fiction.

I have a degree in English; I wrote for and edited a newsletter at Sprint Corporation for nine years. I’m accustomed to subconsciously assessing the quality of text as I read it, and I know much more about comics than the average fan does.

Literary criticism isn’t mere puffery, practiced by people seeking only to gratify their egos at the expense of writers they envy. It’s a science, related to cognitive science (see, for example, http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-1/text/simon1.html ). Such criticism isn’t often applied to comics, but it can be, and I choose to do that, because AVENGERS has (had) a history of publishing storylines with literary content. The AVENGERS stories published in the ‘70s were the best ever published in the title; Englehart’s “Celestial Madonna” storyline was an excellent SF story told with superhero characters.

Bendis’s “Avengers” stories are practically plotless,, without themes or character development. Characters merely chase each other, sometimes running in circles. If Bendis knew how to write stories not modeled on crime fiction, or how to plot stories, things might be different--but that’s asking him to be someone else.

I haven’t seen anyone make a case for Bendis’s stories in terms of artistic quality. The most anyone can do is say he “likes” the humor or likes seeing Spider-Man or Wolverine, which isn’t relevant to the quality of Bendis’s writing at all. If a person can’t make a case for Bendis’s writing being good in an artistic sense, he can’t justify Bendis’s presence on the titles. Sales have no inherent link to quality.

SRS


Posted by Steven R. Stahl on 2007-07-05 16:01:18
Entering the Losing Fray
Umm...I also have a degree in English. Yet I don't feel the need to read - or worse, pay for - a bunch of things I don't like in order to simply observe that they are poorly written or artistically nil. Literary critique definitely has its place, but I'm afraid that if you aren't being paid as a critic or intellectual, and you don't write a regular column concerning comic artistry, then reading a load of stuff you don't like and telling everyone you can find that it sucks is still just complaining. Whether you have a degree in English, you're a high school student, or a dropout.

I know, because I spend plenty of time complaining about things I think lack artistic merit. However, I do my darndest not to expose myself to the things I know will be bad, and I certainly don't spend money on them.

I'm not going to be Bendis' knight in shining armor, or anything, but I actually find his New Avengers storyline interesting. I can't, however, stomach Mighty Avengers at all. But I'm not even sure I would bring up terms like "artistic" to describe either, they are simply entertainment. I don't mean that you can't try to look at them through an artistic lens, but that he really doesn't write them as artistic pieces full of theme and purpose. Oh well.

Sometimes entertainment is just entertainment. And some writers/authors are paid simply because they can put out something that people will be drawn to and keep reading in order to find out what happens. That has its place right alongside the Watchmen or Moby Dick. And in fact, that's how companies like Marvel continue to stay in business: loyal fans who want to find out what happens next.

I also think we're all quite clear that Bendis himself is no wordsmith, obsessed with proper grammar and spelling. Right, Tom?

Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2007-07-05 16:39:59
bendis and avengers
I think Bendis has written stories that are artistically valid. Daredevil, Ultimate Spider-man, and Alias. The jury's still out on Mighty Avengers (though so far I find it hugely preferable to New Avengers, which is drek); but Secret War, Avengers Disassembled and the Pulse were awful, and at least one of the problems with all three was how little sense they made.

Compare a narrative like The Sentry in New Avengers (which violated the Sentry's own origin and made a muddle of telepathy) or the Collective (which violated everything we thought we knew about Xorn, and used the Sentry to do things so impossible they might as well be magic) and compare them to actual ongoing stories from the Avengers past: Busiek's Kang War, Galactic Storm, Stern's Morgan Le Fey Story, any number of Avengers stories that made more sense at every moment than those terrible Bendis tales.

He can't really do team books. I'm still mystified as to why stories so bad sell.


Posted by erikacornia on 2007-07-05 17:47:45
NEW AVENGERS Sells?!
An editor who actually enjoys editing and isn’t merely a frustrated novelist or reporter has a different mindset than someone who views writing as a means of being creative and is offended or insulted when someone points out problems with his work. I enjoyed fixing test pieces at work, as well as writing them, and enjoy solving cryptic crossword puzzles, reading mysteries, etc. Text analysis of problematic writing is stimulating. I also had a paraprofessional involvement with AVENGERS, so my relationship with the title is deeper than the general reader’s is.

Bendis has problems writing team books, versus single-protagonist books, from the critical comments I’ve seen. People are mystified as to why his “Avengers” books sell; the best explanation I’ve seen is a combination of readers following Spider-Man and Wolverine, and readers loyal to AVENGERS. The dialogue-only format is easy to read, so a certain percentage of readers might be deluding themselves into thinking NEW AVENGERS has virtues that don’t actually exist.

SRS


Posted by Steven R. Stahl on 2007-07-06 11:18:43
Potential Stories
There’s no less potential for good stories to be told about Marvel’s characters than there was decades ago. Writing storylines in arcs isn’t a severe constraint. The biggest problem I see at Marvel is that people are coming up with situations that they think will be exciting, in a general sense, and then trying to force the characters to fit into the situations, rather than designing situations to fit the characters and their themes, and thinking of ways to make the plots exciting. The current emphasis on heroes fighting heroes, instead of heroes fighting villains, illustrates the problem. Trying to think of situations that will result in heroes fighting heroes is anti-creative. The biggest practical problem with the “Illuminati” concept is the fatal conflict with the “Avengers/Defenders War,” which invalidates the concept; the artistic problem is that the concept treats the Illuminati’s heroes as if they were mob chiefs participating in a secret council—which would be fine in a crime fiction novel, but violates the characterization of every hero involved. “Avengers Disassembled,” I’d guess, arose from people thinking, what if Wanda went insane and killed Avengers, and then trying to justify the situation, instead of basing the situation on the characters and their themes.

There are entire types of stories which could be told, but haven’t been, about Marvel’s heroes. Whether that’s because Marvel’s writers lack imagination, or because writers who would tell those stories aren’t interested in the heroes. . . Writers who lack knowledge of science, fantasy fiction, and SF won’t be able to generate story ideas based on the paranormal characters, regardless of the talents they might have. People who are unfamiliar with cosmology won’t be able to think of universe-altering stories; people unfamiliar with metaphysics wouldn’t think of stories in which people transform themselves into gods. Writing original fiction requires a knowledge base.

SRS


Posted by Steven R. Stahl on 2007-07-06 13:52:09
Sorta Agree
I'm not going to respond to the suggestions about me.

As for Marvel, I agree that stories should grow from the characters, out, rather than the other way around. Stories that are created because "it would be cool if so and so attacked/killed/went insane through overuse of super glue" end up a lot more gimmicky and hollow than the great idea they seem to start out as. It's much better to look at the characters and say "how would they end up going out of control/break down/be tested by life, heroes, or villains..." In Wanda's case, that you brought up, it would be good to analyze her powers and how they affect her mind set, and then play with it to send her out of control. Then what she does later will make sense in light of her own personality and past tendencies.

And just to be honest, I never read Avengers Disassembled, so I can't say whether or not the Wanda plot line made sense.

Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2007-07-06 14:47:47
second response to the friend Stahl
Hi, i have allready graduated from University, i am a Sociologyst.
I think that the comics are just a MEDIA like any other media out there, i mean, literature, painting, movies, sculpture, etc. etc.
Those medias aren't ART per se, it depends on the quality of some specific work to determine if they can be considered as art or just entertaining.
Watchmen is ART, Sin city is ART, LOEG is art,and so on..., yeah i think that some issues of Bendis' run on DAREDEVIL can be considered as art too.
I like different styles of comics, some more profound (some Miller, some Morrison, almost everything Moore) and some comics which are just entertaining.
i love diversity in comics, i can enjoy watchmen, or sin city,and i can enjoy comics like Young Avengers or i don't know asterix, ETC. ETC.
some comics are masterpieces, very serious ones,others are more ''light'', more to entertain, like New Avengers or Mighty Avengers, but i repeat, bendis has done some excellent work in DAREDEVIL,and he is doing a great work now, maybe he is not doing ''high art'' but he is doing great quality comics.
If ilike bendis, or Young avengers or manga or whatever means that i only search ''entertainment''in comics??NO,A BIG NO, i can enjoy comics like WATCHMEN too, but i love diversity.
i am a big fan of SALVADOR DALI too and i read HEMINGWAY and RAYMOND CARVER,just to put a few examples.

your problem in my opinion is that your argument against my first response is: ''if you enjoy bendis comics,then you can't appreciate ART, you just looking for plain entertainment''.
Things are not as simpleas that,things are not black and white,i enjoy a looooooooooot of different comics, different styles etc.

Life is tooshort to spend it criticizing a guy like BENDIS,there are other people who deserve more criticism IMO.
hey if you want ideas here i come: geoff Johns,brad meltzer etc.


Posted by Los Shapis on 2007-07-06 16:35:58
Thank You Marvel for bringing back Captain Ma
I can't tell you what this has done for my health.

Make mine Mar-Vell forever...please consider having him stay.

Posted by MAR-VELL Rebirth on 2007-09-05 08:14:51