Even though it's All-New; you've already read it before - All-New X-Men #1

And now it's time to strut.

Inflammatory titling aside, the reason that you've read this all before is that frankly the majority of the content has been repeatedly plastered on far more legitimate comic book blogs.  That's really the main hindrance of enjoyment.  I mean the comic book itself is engaging, but you've seen most of it, save five pages, before, so that's the main detriment to enjoyment.    Aside from this book being light on unrevealed content, it's a pretty decent read and a novel concept.  That's really it without getting into too many specifics.  The art is crisp, and the characters don't, in my estimation, come across as too Bendis-y, (i.e. middle aged New York Seinfeld character).  I mean it's worth your four bucks if you're looking for another X book to get into, and if you read comic books like me and are a compulsive, borderline, hoarder.  So there you really have it.  Not too much to grouse about, and unfortunately, nothing that surprising, kinda like AVX #1. That's really it.  No need to endlessly pontificate. 

Party like it's 2005...kinda - AVX Retrospective.

As the leaves change, so to does the landscape of comic bookery.  It is inevitable.  Every year, every thing changes.  It is the mutability of the beast.  Before us, it transmutes into a chimera.  This sloughing beast has many names: New 52, Dark Reign, and now...um Marvel Now.  But6 how did we get here?  What was the impetus for this monumental return to a prior status quo?  Punching space gods in both the face and genitals; that's how.  But how does all of this interstellar nard punching make us feel?  Well, to answer that you can start your own blog I guess, and I'll read it fair, illusory reader.  Now though we will deal with how I feel.

It was okay I guess

I mean it didn't leave the typical flavor of carrion, from pummeled equine, that a lot of events give me.  Part of this was just due to the fact that it didn't really up my pull, as I was reading most of the books anyway.  The other part was that there was less truly ancillary filler. Granted, there was a lot of expounding on the meteoric crackle of fists between say The Thing and Namor, but there was less of say, Jackpot, fighting a Skrull that was a hodgepodge of B-list Spider Villains.  So, yes, that's a plus I guess.  Pretty much, these comic super events are typically a bloated mass of vestigial tales, bloat, and laconic droning.  This event at least stayed on topic for the most part with the tie-ins.  Sure, some of it was kind of filler, but it was competent filler usually, and it all dealt with the main conflict, more or less.  As for the plot, they probably could have tightened the thing up a scooch, as the most interesting concept, beloved X-men making the slow burn from magnanimous cyphers of an ill defined space god to fascistic, man thonged, tyrants was left on the side for more punching.  THe reason for this is that well after the X-Men made that full, inevitable, heel turn you knew where this was going.

 

  Sisqo saw all of this coming

 As for the events within, there have been some decent moments and interactions sure.  I do look forward to some of the new books coming out of this, but yeah pretty much this:  Charles Xavier died way more convincingly, given ephemerally, in Messiah Complex; the Phoenix lost way more meaningfully in um The Dark Phoenix Saga; The Thing punched Namor way harder in the 60's when men were men, and women knew their place.  I mean, yes, characters come from literally out of left field in the last issue, and I mean I almost called the resolution to it Spoiler it's just that they didn't say "Fine, More Mutants" but "More Mutants" and "No More Phoenix" as it's good to be the Deus Ex Machina.

We all would have preferred it ending with "Fine, More Maggot"...No?

You Should buy AVX Versus #6

It's got Squirrel Girl and Pixie, and Domino beats up Rulk.



So...

In summation, AVX was who we thought it was.  It was Avengers and X-men punching each other and eventually coming together to fight a common enemy, some of the X-men.  Wakanda got leveled; Hope knows Kung-Fu; Spider-Man can take a punch to the face; fine, More Mutants; Cyclops' arc has made him both more interesting over the years/ kind of a dick;  I guess as the heavy handed allegories for civil rights go, that makes Wolverine MLK Jr?   I don't even know any more.  So, in closing, it was better than last year's events, as Fear Itself was instantly retconned after publication/ inconsistent and Flahpoint, seriously what the fuck just happened?  Wait?  What?  Sot that's what you missed in AVX.   

No, Seriously, what the fuck?  I still don't, what?

Summer Loathing - Sitting out a Summer Event

This summer is looking up for the nerds as we've got Avengers and Dark Knight Rises, so there are at least two summer blockbusters that won't disappoint (because dammit Nolan could probably make Bat-Mite work honestly even if Bat-Mite was all CG and voiced by Eddie Murphy. Actually, I take that back; that would be fucking amazing...you know. Also, the new GI Joe can't be worse than the first one...right?). So as we've got the tent pole movies of every summer, we've also got 2 summer comic book events of every summer (down from 3 as the X-men and Marvel U general summer events are the same one for once) with AVX...obviously, and we've got the non company wide Before Watchmen. I'm thinking of sitting one out. As a borderline Marvel zombie, I will be following AVX as I really like the new energy that Aaron and Gillen have brought to the books. I read most of the Avengers proper because well they're generally engaging and like most comic book fans (I'm assuming from years as a fan and former comic shop employee that well people go apeshit for tie in books.) I'm a habitual completest. So pretty much, I'm not picking up anything I don't read for the tie ins, and I don't have to deal with the self contained tie in series that vacillate wildly in quality and relevance. So obviously, I'm going to be sitting out Before Watchmen (for the most part) and here's why.

#1 It's not a sacred cow thing.

Shouldn't Pig Pen be Rorschach?

Look, everyone loves Watchmen. I'm also going to put out there that the Watchmen movie was the best adaptation of a movie that never should have been made under any circumstances. What, it was engaging and the performances were pretty spot on. Sure, the ending of the movie was not the best, but I don't want to sit through another hour of movie because you have to add in the Black Freighter to add in the author of it and the island making that Cthulu thing (blah blah Architects of Fear- we all know; we're all clever; it's referenced in the book itself). So tangents aside, (what...dammit Bry) it's pretty much this - I revere the original work as everyone does; it truly is a nearly flawless work of sequential artistry. It deserves the accolades it has gotten. Yet as a nearly flawless, work there is one implicit caveat that must be accepted: it tells a complete story. Even if not labored about, we can see both explicitly and tacitly the character arcs that moved Rorschach from slightly disturbed costumed crime fighter (what you're putting on a costume to fight crime) to um Rorschach. The same can be said of possible homosexual Adrian Viedt and the rest. So off the bat, it's not because you simply shouldn't mess with a classic (even though it usually doesn't work); it's that I personally don't know if there is anything you could really add to the character arcs that would really clarify things or themes that could be expanded on that would provide new insight.

#2 Because prequels are so great?

In fairness, this was the same magazine that proclaimed that The Knack were the "New Beatles"/It's sad that only one of the three tragedies on this cover is still talked about today. (burn...me?)

I don't know if you guys remember Episodes I-III of a little indie franchise called Star Wars (Although Before Star Wars may be a better title). In the case of Star Wars while there may have been a genuine intent to add to the mythos of Star Wars - it kind of ended up a poorly thought out ancillary cash grab that did precious little (for me) than muddy my love of the franchise and waste 20-30 dollars over the span of a few years. Granted, X-Men First Class was awesome, but I'm not even sure that is a prequel to the earlier X-men movies (Although confusing and contradictory continuity in the films is kind of a wink to the comic book franchise). And the Watchmen prequel video game was a failure on literally every level (at least the demo I played). It was an uninspired beat em up that loosely followed a story line that was mentioned in the comics and not flushed out for the valid reason of irrelevance.

# 3 The creative teams will probably make me a liar and hypocrite though

Okay, so I'm probably going to at least flip through the Comedian and Minutemen books. What? Darwyn Cooke on Minutemen is a no brainer for doing the book itself. Azzarello and Jones on the Comedian... I love Jones but if you put Bermejo on it you can bank on people's fond memories of the Luthor and Joker books. At the same time though, I'm dubious of whether I'll actually purchase them or read them in the store (which as an employee for life of a local comic books store I am within my rights to do). So that's really it for that part of it; the creative teams are solid all around and under normal circumstances I would be inclined to read a book by them but unfortunately....

#4 It speaks to an unfortunate trend facing the modern funny book.

The kids don't like words in their comics that much. As is to say, I don't know why you need however many issues to tell the ancillary tales of characters that were well rounded with full well rendered arcs and rich backstories in 12 issues. Look, I do enjoy the decompressed wide screen comic book when done well. While I'm sure the talent assembled will put out top caliber work, it'll be divorced from the source material on the fundamental level that comic book writing has changed drastically since 1985-86. That's really it; the beast has changed in such a way that there has to be a fundamental story telling disconnect between the two. I feel that even though (sight totally unseen) these collected works will be so structurally different that even though they feature the same characters they may feel alien...or not.

As for AVX

The first issue was kind of meh because I had read at least half of it in the form of previews on the internet and other comic books. I mean I think like 4 pages of it were really new content to me. Also, a former comic shop employee pointed out that there was a conflict between #0 and #1 relating to the characters' reactions to the general destruction in NY. It also seemed that Ms. Marvel forgave Wanda really quickly (I will not speak to Children's Crusade...the internet has done that for me...I do enjoy that Jim Cheung though.)

As I've always been good at predicting the ends of summer events (I won a $50 bet on the end of Secret Invasion), I will now give a prediction based on a single issue and a tie in book.

1. Cyclops dies at some point

Like on Fringe! I hear. I liked the show, but my TV dance card is so full.

He's been kind of a dick of late. What? He has. Pretty much in these events someone has to die and logically speaking he's the most likely. Granted, I've been wrong before though. Part of me wanted to say Cable but he's died and gotten better during so many of these summer events. If it was Magneto, who would care really he's tied with Jean Grey on the dying and coming back thing (fact check?). Hope is on there but Phoenix and death and rebirth you know. While Wolverine would be...never happen ever. Oh, unless this new Capt. Marvel thing is an oakey doke and Carol Danvers eats it but why? So process of elimination leaves us with Cyclops.

2. The Phoenix brings with it Death Rebirth and... a soft reboot.

I'm hoping that there isn't a full on line wide New 52 reboot. Granted they did leave the Bat and GL books largely untouched which...just keep some consistency on some of the books I read and we'll see. I mean if anything the New 52 did get me to buy some new titles for 3-6 issues. So good job I guess. I don't know. It'll probably happen. If anything, your average comic book fan is your typical abused partner. We take our lumps. We vent about it (taking up lets say 5% of the internet), but we always come back. Although the numbers are nowhere near where they were 20 years ago, well, people have their limits on things - spider clone/ general shitiness/ 90's comics are great for beating up on- even if I did love many of them at the time and to a point. Anyway, it's probably going to happen, and I don't know if we'll have a Jean Grey School for Higher Learning or Jean Grey at a school for higher learning - although I'd doubt it.

#3 - Deus ex Grey

Commence Slashfic/ ready Boner Jams 12 countdown!

White hot rooms have to have doors right? And it wouldn't be totally surprising for someone to die at the end of an event and then get better (Prof. X - Messiah Complex). I mean he died (again) and came back 3 weeks later to little fanfare with walking legs and psychic powers in tow. Also, it seems to be a recurring trend of late to totally undo the changes made in an event after said event (Fear Itself .1 issues). So, pretty much the end game I predict is this: Cyclops dies stopping, something, that is keeping Hope and the Phoenix from merging. Hope does whatever, whispers "um, more mutants?" Phoenix obliges. Leaves/ is Jean Grey/ is all like, "sorry, bro." I would actually pay extra to see that be the exact dialogue.

# 4 - More Mutants

Because nobody demanded it! Actually, I've put Maggot through enough over the years. He could team up with Whiz Kid?

Why not? They're still pretty popular. And if anything there is a certain cyclical nature to the beast. It's also the only way to have one of these senses shattering everything changes events where, um, anything changes, aside from shit going all Days of Future Past. It makes sense on a storytelling level and just a logical level. Pretty much an Avengers win a battle/lose a war. Wolverine probably has a last second or mid event change of heart. Cyclops' heroic actions make Cap think twice about what have you. Everyone saves face/ characters are redeemed. Although, ideally the book ends with Storm, T'Challa, Luke Cage, Moses Magnum, and Misty Knight forming a secret black cabal called the Cluminati secretly ruling the Marvel U. And they call the period afterwards Darker reign or Candy Reign, I fucking love that song. Yes, that was my prediction for after Siege. Yes, I made that joke years ago on I want to say Myspace. Still waiting.

The Trouble with Girls...and Boys...and Children in General...(Look nobody is going to get this reference but dammit that's the story of my life.)

About an hour ago I read this quote from Robert Langridge

I really don’t think Marvel and DC are helping things by having gritty, R-rated versions of their superheroes in their main comics – what they sell as the “real” versions – while simultaneously selling those exact same characters in kids’ comics and plastering them all over lunchboxes and animated cartoons… Casual readership by kids, or by parents for their kids, is effectively impossible the way things are currently structured. And I think the waters are muddied too far now to claw that ground back. I think it’s insane that DC have spent 70 years making Superman as big as Mickey Mouse, and branding him to be understood by parents as being pretty much as kid-friendly as Mickey Mouse, only to piss that brand away in a decade. Nothing wrong with doing mature content in comics – in fact, it should be encouraged as often as possible – but doing it with characters who are on your kids’ lunchboxes is kind of moronic. Take a lesson from Watchmen and come up with new characters for that stuff. And then go back to Superman and Batman and put the same kind of love and effort and craft and intelligence you’ve been putting into all those rape scenes and body mutilations into something kids can read, and adults can also be proud to read because of all the love and effort and craft and intelligence you’ve put into it, and make those the “real” versions.

—Roger Langridge, writer of the kid-friendly Thor: Mighty Avenger, which recently fell victim to just the attitude he is decrying. While he is perhaps best known for his work on BOOM! Studios’ Muppet Show comics, Langridge does plenty of more mature comics, too, but he always keeps his brands separate. The whole interview is well worth a read, as it covers Langridge’s career from his early days in New Zealand through his current work, from Knuckles, the Malevolent Nun to a new kid-friendly title for BOOM!

And it got me to thinking. Here are those thoughts...obviously:


I agree that something should be done to propagate a new generation of comic fans. Although frankly I want to say that the bigger issue is really that the direct market spinner racks have gone away. I mean when I started really reading comics as a kid in the late 80's/early 90's I could go get a copy of Punisher or X-Men at 7-11 on the way home from school. (I'm not counting my Star Comics and the old DC books that I'd read/draw on when I was 5. On a side note even as a young child I knew Vibe was terrible somehow.) Both of which actually featured a fair amount of on and off panel rape and mutilation if I'm not mistaken (mutilation typically on and rape typically off). And then when I was in 6th grade Image Comics started up and kids are getting their fingers cut off and glued to pieces of wood and literally every kid that read comics was picking them up and they had the action figures and the Venom figure wanted to eat my brains and nobody really seemed to care (except for the Venom figure. People did make a stink about that one.)

This was fine though. Because for the record the guilty couldn't escape the air kisses his machine gun fired.

But even before that there was one other questionable ass book that I read and that I had stuffed animals of yet still had a fair amount of mutilation and ogling and Cerebus: old school Eastman & Laird Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I mean the Shredder straight up murdered and raped people on panel and got crushed in a fucking trash compactor to wrap things up (like in the movie but gorier). And nobody at the store (the long since gone Geppi's Security or Catonsville maybe location) bated an eye or gave a shit. When I was 8 or 9 I remember going to the store with Grandmother in my Batman T-shirt and my Batman Chuck Taylor's and getting me a Batman comic...where the Joker ruthlessly and repeatedly beats Robin with a crowbar and then proceeds to blow up Robin and his mother. And do you know what happened in the next issue? Death by explosion that's what. And nobody cared.

Tappa-Tappa-Tappa

And do you want to know why? Because nobody wants to take any responsibility for their lax fucking parenting in this country any more. I mean seriously my parents let me watch HBO since I could turn a dial. My mother took me to go see Robocop 2 in theaters. I was 10 and it was awesome. They let me get all of the Mortal Kombat games when I was in middle school. And I had the best sleepover parties as a kid partly because they'd let us rent R-Rated movies. Or we could just watch the HBO. And here's the shocking part of it: I'm not a murderous sociopath. Do you know why? They took the time to instill the simplest of life lessons: you probably shouldn't rape and kill people or cut them up.

Christ I remember going over to a friend's house and listening to Appetite for Destruction on a Fisher Price tape player (we were literally 8) and we all turned out relatively fine all things considered.

And this was on the inside of the tape sleeve. Although in the 80's you couldn't turn around without seeing a woman who had been street raped by tagger robots.

It just seems that everyone wants to blame pop culture run amok for this unruly generation of micro bastards and baby prostitutes. And yes it certainly glamorizes it but at some point you've got to just say "No at my age we french kissed a boy that we liked. I mean we knew what rim jobs were in theory but nobody was brazen enough to be doling out the butt tongue. Certainly not at a 7th grade mixer if they were. I know that much Becky." So that's pretty much point A: comic books have been messed up for a while as far as content that is easily accessible to children. It's just that nobody cared because people took the five minutes to be like "Now Billy you know that you can't actually murder your way out of your problems right? "
"Yeah Dad. Good night."

Hell go read an old time fairy tale (now that I think of it) children have been exposed to murder and rape in fiction for centuries if not millenia with little to no incident.

Now back to specifically why children don't read comics that much these days. As I've already mentioned the spinner rack is now dead and gone which deprives our youth of easy access to funny books which leaves them one alternative: the comic books store.

While you can find them in finer strip malls the comic book store is kind of a mixed proposition for some I'd imagine. How do I put this delicately...a lot of weird mother fuckers hang out at comic book stores in addition to the 99% of the clientele that is perfectly affable. Here are a few of my favorites.

1) The crazy guy who always has rocks in his pockets and writes runes that are either in praise of or in the hopes of warding off Satan. We could never figure that out. He smells kind of funny and I wonder if the sores on his face are from syphilis or the wind. Also he is a real person that exists and not a caricature. Sometimes when he was the only customer and I was working in the old tiny isolated comic book store location (when it was next to the Chinese place) I would keep the axe handle that we used to prop the door open next to me. Simply put I was afraid that this dude was going to murder me; possibly for Satan.

2) The guy who mainly buys larger action figures of women with removable clothes. I have no idea where his many came from. I just knew that he liked to fuck dolls. Somehow. I'm never really figured out the physics of it. Dude liked naked dolls though. And would call about them constantly.

3) Junkies. They've got a bag of late 80's books. The books are loose. The bag has a faint undernote of urine. There is one randomly bagged and boarded book. It's like New Warriors #25. And they're incredulous when you don't hand them all of the cash in the register. Then off they go to go attempt to peddle their wares elsewhere via bus.

4) Casual perverts. Actually the main hentai guy at the shop I used to work at was pretty cool and we talked about the non-rape centered manga that he'd purchase and I think we both read Ultimate Spider-Man or something like that (Although Berserk still features a fair amount of it). The people who get the American porn comics tended to seem ashamed. The people who read Tarot just had bad taste. Haunted vaginas.

This is actually on the tame side for an A.G. cover. Also if you work in a comic book store don't casually flip through everything you find in people's boxes there are things you can't unsee.

I don't mention these individuals to vilify them. It's more so to state that yes they may be scaring off the normals. Although there's one more reason that the kids don't read the comics: They're terrifyingly insular.

Here's a fantastic example: when the first X-Men movie came out one of my friends asked me if I liked it. I said that I did. He then asked me what was technically inaccurate about the movie. This conversation lasted for half an hour. Actually it was a monologue of the most nit picky and inconsequential fun facts about X-men lore. But the thing is that this response is the default response when someone casually asks to have something about comic books explained.

In the comics Jean Grey never seems like Cyclops' sexy aunt

More recently a friend of mine asked me to explain what the deal was with Green Lantern rings. The other person in the room openly chided me for saying ridiculous sounding things for five minutes; he had every right to. Pretty much there typically aren't jumping on points for new readers in a lot of the flagship titles unless the status quo is being revamped. THe only issue with that is that half of the time the new status quo is kinda ass and has a 50/50 chance of getting retconned out of existence.

Let's try a modern example: Hold on the Hulk is red and Wonder Woman wears pants and 2 Hulks...3 Hulks? Wait one of them is his bastard son from his dead space girlfriend/ alien queen and Hulk's space bastard aged super quick because of a combo of gamma jizz/space rays. And the Red Hulk is Hulk's dead ex wife's father in law who faked his own death to avoid suspicion even though he was clearly seen being murdered by the Red Hulk which he is who was in turn murdering a robot duplicate. The technology to make this exact robo duplicate of course being discovered on top of the comatose body of I think history's greatest science bastard Sir Isaac Newton...I think. And no I didn't make any of that up. Also don't get me started on the 4th Hulk or the 3 She Hulks. Oh and apparently those shorts made Wonder Woman chafe or something. Look Wonder Woman will always be kinda lame.

(unless she's fighting an egg/Asian stereotype or in bondage)

So pretty much all I'm saying is this: observing sickening amounts of violence at any age is only going to be detrimental if someone doesn't explain the negative consequences to you or you're slow. Comic book stores are kind of terrifying to non-fans (start selling books and apparently baby clothes. People go ape shit for baby clothes even at a comic book store). The real issue facing the casual comic book reader may be the daunting and voluminous and oft contradictory and frequently silly exposition that leads into issue #578 of whatever a new reader is trying to pick up. And they should bring back spinner racks at finer convenience and food stores. That is all.

Fanboy loathing: The ten (maybe) most irksome things (and comic store horror stories)

#1) Look junkies: nobody wants to buy your fucking comic books. It's really that simple. If I have to look at one more piss scented copy of Midnight Sons #1 I'm going to choke somebody. Seriously, people, unless it's from 1975 or earlier or it's a big deal issue i.e. somebody dies, first appearance, is a 1:100 variant nobody is going to want it. Or go sell it on ebay. Put the buy it now price as heroin. (The store is in Baltimore and...it's Baltimore...Heron capitol of the east coast.) Also, to that same end...

#2) Just because you are calling a comic book store I, personally, do not know how much your comic book is worth. If I had a dollar for every person who called in to ask how much X book (sometimes it is an X-book) or books is worth , well, I'd probably be able to go to Morton's or buy a DSi. Go buy a copy of Overstreet. Or pay us money for appraisal. As in I will read Overstreet for you and you will pay me for the service. As well as give an accurate appraisal of the book's condition.

#3) Should have been number one to me...STOP PUTTING BARACK OBAMA ON COVERS. Mainly Wizard. Yes, people will buy anything with Obama on it. Yes, Obama is featured on two pages (he likes Spider-Man and owns a Wii). But goddamn is that a shallow ploy to increase sales on, frankly, a dying publication that is slowly being needled into obselessence. The man's the first black president...not chromium. Stop using the man like chromium. Look, if it's a comic, and it's not a blatant sales ploy (Like that Savage Dragon endorsement issue that eventually turned into a speculation juggernaut) that's fine. If the story isn't hastily thrown together shit that's fine too. If it's a calcualted sales ploy or hastily thrown together shit, well, stop. But you won't. And I'm hard pressed to think of a comic that would really benefit from an Obama crossover. Unless Obama, Rocket Racer and Night Thrasher are doling out skateboard justice. That's a freebie.

#4) How come the shit books are the ones that always come out on time, more or less? Ultimates 2: a full year in between issues. Supergirl: oh, it'll be there like fucking clockwork. Old Man Logan: slight delays. Young X-Men: I swear Mussilini was editing it because it always ran on time. Food for thought. Although plenty of shitty books take their sweet time with it too, and yes, it's all objective. And yes, one man's shitty is another man's less shitty.

#5) Do I need this many spin offs? Yes, some of them are actually pretty decent. And yes, I should have some restraint, but damn there are a lot of spin off minis these days. Remember the 90's.

#6) Stop putting Halo: Uprising #4 in the solicits. I have been doing the numbers for this issue sporadically for about a year now. It just shows up every week for a month or two and then goes back into the ether with the rest of the JMS run on Squadron Supreme (why must I suffer like this? I meant the JMS never coming out. I could really care less about the Halo) I will say though on it's behalf that they did the best they could with the "rich and original" Halo mythos. What? The games were about as generic sci-fi as they get. The fact that the book is even engaging is a triumph. Although, I think they may have missed their window...the game came out almost two years ago.

#7) Way to ruin zombies. It was cool at first. Zombie Hulk eats somebody turns back into Zombie Banner and a guy bursts out because of the size differential. Walking Dead is a solid read. Crossed is a novel approach, and they're not really zombies. But goddamn the glut of zombie books over the last couple of years is just ridiculous. Really the point I'm making is that I don't want zombies to meet the same fate as ninjas, or Chuck Norris. Just because the horse doesn't stay dead dosn't mean you should keep beating it.

#8) Stop making me describe things in Previews to you over the phone. No more need be written.

#9) You shouldn't drastically alter the status quo more then once every two years. Marvel is doing it right. Initiative ran its course and Dark Reign is going fine so far. It's actually kind of more entertaining across the board. Granted, more engaging books were created in it's wake: Dark Avengers > New Warriors. And seeing as most newly minted titles have a 5-10 month (not issue) window before the casual fan drops it (I see it happen literally every wednesday): it's a good idea to go for a bi-annual shake up seeing as the survivors may need to draw fickle fans back in.

#10) Yeah, um, how do I put this delicately...can I get some more words in my books? If I'm paying three to four bucks it should take me more then three to four minutes to read it. Sometimes a quick read is satisfying. If the book has great art or no word is wasted. Sometimes it works with the pacing. Most times it feels like you're actually reading a sixth of a story (because you are). That's all I'm saying. It's definitely not across the board, but damn. You know who you are. Peace.