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The
State of Marvel: An Update
02.28.01
by: Troy Brownfield
About
a year ago, I wrote an essay called The Sad, Sorry State of
Marvel. At time, I perceived that Marvel was making many catastrophic
mistakes in the handling of their books and talent. During
the last several months, many bold changes have been made.
Joe Quesada replaced Bob Harras as Editor-in-Chief, and a
lot of new talent has flocked to the Big M. I thought that
perhaps a quick assessment was in order regarding where the
company stands.
The
X-Titles: As of May, the flagship gets relaunched. Frankly,
I'm really interested to see where a lot of this goes. Marvel
cancelled a bunch of books, including Generation X, Bishop,
and Gambit. The Hidden Years is about to wrap up. I'm not
sure about Cable; it's more on-again/off-again than a high
school romance. Wolverine is still what it always has been
to me: just there. What really has me interested in the infusion
of new creative teams and a couple of new titles. Quick note:
Much props to Scott Lobdell, who in the interim between Claremont
and the new teams has scripted some very readable stories.
Uncanny
X-Men: The old stand-by of the line gets a big lift with
the arrival of writer Joe Casey and artist Ian Churchill.
Churchill was born to draw super-heroes. I'm not sure of the
team line-up yet, but the preview art in Previews displayed
Angel, Iceman, and Chamber. I'm very glad Chamber has been
retained; I think that character has enormous potential. Of
course, the preview art also had a superb Jean and Logan scene.
The
New X-Men: A slight title change clears the way for the
most eagerly anticipated creative team, Grant Morrison and
Frank Quitely. It appears that Morrison's gang will be Cyclops,
Jean, Wolverine, and Emma Frost for certain. There's a character
there that may be The Beast, but I am unsure, especially when
he's on another team. This book could be great fun as well.
The addition of Emma is a great idea.
X-Treme
X-Men: A new title, handled by the team of Chris Claremont
and Salvador Larocca. I'm rooting for Claremont here, and
I really like Larocca's art. However, I hate HATE HATE the
name of the book. It sucks. What a trendy, pandering, stupid
label. It's a Mountain Dew commercial of a name. Anyway, the
team, consisting of Storm, Rogue, Psylocke, Beast, Bishop,
and a new character named Sage looks interesting.
The
Brotherhood: This is the other new title, and I'm intrigued.
I really like the idea of a book starring terrorists and written
by an unknown writer. I'll definitely check this out.
X-Force:
Now here is a HUGE change of pace. The former Shade the
Changing Man writer Peter Milligan and Madman creator Mike
Allred attack the notion of a mutant team as pop icons. This
could make for truly inspired weirdness. We'll see.
The
Ultimates: I've been a big fan of the two Ultimate books
thus far. I only hope that spin-offs and specials don't dilute
what makes Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-Man so enjoyable.
Marvel
Knights: I've often joked that in the future, all Marvel
books will be Marvel Knights. However, Marvel only has two
regular MK books solicited for May.
Daredevil:
When it comes out, this book has been scorching.
Marvel
Knights: Written by Chuck Dixon, and starring rotating
characters like Daredevil, Luke Cage, Shang Chi, Moon Knight,
Black Widow, Dagger and Nick Fury, it's just plain fun.
It's
worthy of noting that May sees the release of trade paperbacks
for The Punisher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, the six
Marvel Boy issues by Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones, and the
tremendous first five issues of The Black Panther by Christopher
Priest and Mark Texeira. One of my long-standing complaints
about Marvel was the lack of an aggressive trade paperback
program; maybe this is indicative of Quesada's stated goal
to fix that.
Spider-Man:
The big news here is the addition of J. Michael Straczynski
as the writer of Amazing Spider-Man. People sleeping under
rocks might not know that JMS is the creator of Babylon 5
and the writer on comics Rising Stars and Midnight Nation.
Amazing
Spider-Man: With JMS and John Romita Jr. on board, this
could be swell.
Peter
Parker: Spider-Man: I'll admit it; the Spider books burned
me so badly that I haven't even looked at this one in a couple
of years.
Spider-Girl:
However, I have looked at this. Honestly, I hate it.
Tangled
Web: Rotating creative teams with different Spidey stories
isn't a bad idea. Having Garth Ennis and John McCrea do one
is a GREAT idea.
Core
Marvel: The longest-running Marvel characters are in this
group.
The
Fantastic Four: I quit reading this during Claremont's
run. I should say early in Claremont's run. I found it plodding,
needlessly confusing, and unnecessary in its borrowing of
old Excalibur characters. (Ooooh, I hope I don't lose my job
at Wizard now.) However, Carlos Pacheo is an excellent artist,
and you can't do much better for a scripter than Jeph Loeb.
If you're an old school fan, give it a look.
Thor:
Thor runs hot and cold for me. I loved Jurgens and Romita's
early run on this book, but lost interest for a while. Fellow
Shotgunner Ryan raved about a recent Beta Ray Bill story,
so Thor fans might be gratified by what they see over there.
Black
Panther: Back under the regular Marvel aegis, this book
is still written by the very talented Priest. The Defenders:
I know I'm in the minority here, but I would probably enjoy
this book if anybody but Erik Larsen were drawing it. It's
purely an issue of taste, but I haven't liked his art since
his Spider-Man stuff in the late '80s.
Iron
Man and Captain America: I haven't been able to read either
one of these since, respectively, Busiek and Waid left. I've
tried. Just can't do it. Waid was doing great things with
Cap, but the former powers-that-be really blew it.
Captain
Marvel: I love Peter David's writing, but I just can't
get into this character.
The
Incredible Hulk: Honesty first: I haven't read this book
in years.
Thunderbolts:
This easily remains one of my favorite Marvel titles.
It's always well drawn, and Fabian Nicieza has totally kept
the early tradition of intricate, surprising stories.
Deadpool:
It's funny.
Avengers:
The addition of Alan Davis and Busiek's global take on the
team has really kicked this book in the ass. I found their
first issue totally involving and I think this creative team
will do some incredible work. Now would someone just address
the frickin' Crossing, please?
Wow.
Look at that. Marvel's been doing a lot of things right. While
we still have a while to wait to see if these things start
to pay off, I can say with some confidence that they've been
making bold moves in the right directions. They are allowing
more creative freedom for the creators, and pulling in high-profile
talent. Marvel's next task should be to incorporate some diversity
into their line, either with a line of adult books or a line
of creator-owned books that they'll actually support. We'll
see how they handle this in the months to come.
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