Drunken Comics Rage

So I openly declare in the blog my suspicions about the people in my life being Skrulls and nono more than 24 hours later my PC goes in the tank.

Coincidence? I think not.

Clearly the Universal Skrull Conspiracy has already found me out and is trying to silence the resistance before we can unite against them. I now strongly suspect my child to be their agent in my household as he became overly lovely in the hours immediately following the PC crash. Then again, perhaps it could be the dog. He's been shaking his ears in an odd way for several days. Any alien race that would turn a man's child and/or his dog against him is an evil race indeed.

Fear not faithful readers, we will continue to fight until all their agents have been uncovered an vanquished. Viva La Resistance!

I wasn't at the con in Philly this past weekend, but there were a couple of comic related announcements made there. Actually more than a couple from both DC and Marvel, but really only two that I care to comment on from the Marvel side.

First off was the announcement of the official title for this fall's X-men crossover event, Messiah Complex. Details on the story itself were obviously quite scarce. I believe the blurb started with “In the first issue something happens that changes everything.”.Well thanks for that newsflash. That pretty well covers the premise for every comic book every created doesn't it? I don't get providing a complete lack of information to sell a book. I understand not wanting to reveal the ending to a story or a critical event somewhere in the middle. But if you feel like you can't reveal the beginning to your story? Perhaps your editors and your marketing group should talk a little more.

Anyhow, along with the title, it was revealed that the event will be an “old school” crossover. “Old school” meaning that the story will span four X-books with each proceeding episode of the story appearing in another book. Something along the lines of Uncanny, X-men, New X-men, X-Factor (rinse, repeat).

The announcement more or less proves again that despite all the things I think Marvel does right, they find new and inventive ways to keep me from buy X-titles. Which let me tell you folks, should be pretty fucking hard to do. I started buying comics religiously during (and large part because of ) the Claremont/Byrne X-men. I invested large ass chunks of my childhood reading about mutants. And yet somehow Marvel continues to find ways to make me leave X-titles on the shelf.

I hate “old school” crossovers.

HATE them.

It was pretty much the “old school”style crossovers that drove me right of buying X-men and ultimately away from buying comics completely for more than a decade. “Old school” crossovers are to my mind just marketing folks fucking with the reader base. They require you to buy multiple titles that you may or may have been buying previously (in my case, not) to get the complete story. It's an idea that only the inbred comics fan base would accept willingly. Can you imagine trying to turn on one of your non-comic reading friends to a story formatted like this?

“Hey man, I just read this awesome story! I know you're not into comics, but you gotta check this out!”

“Alright. Cool I guess. I'll check it out.”

“Okay well first you have to read Uncanny X-men #492, then X-Factor #25, then New X-men #44, then . . .”

What new reader to comics would put themselves through this bullshit? Does anyone else do this kind of nonsense? Does Law and Order or CSI run big ass story arcs where you have to watch all their shows for four straight months to find out what the fuck is going on? Keep in mind that back when this “old school” style was “new school” trades were almost unheard of so that is exactly how you would have to present it to someone.

I'm suppose in today's industry this will more than likely be collected in a trade somewhere down the road, so I could buy it then if comes to be the greatest X-story ever told. But then I have to consider that each issue continuing issue is being written and drawn by the guy I saw four issues ago, even that's an absolute headache. It was exactly that kind bullshit that kept me the hell away from Spiderman: The Other in both single issue and trade format.

Which I guess brings us to the second topic of the day.

The other story announced was Amazing Spiderman being published three times monthly. With that announcement, both “Friendly Neighborhood” and “Spectacular” are being canceled. Instead there will be thee teams of writer and artist that will contribute to the “Amazing” title. I've read the interview Steve Wacker at Newsarama a couple of times and I'm still not certain how the format on this is going to work. Are we getting three issue in one month by the same artist and writer as one story arc and then another writer/artist the following month? Or are we getting one issue each of writer and artist to be followed in the next issue by another writer and artist?

I'm totally unsure what to make from the announcement to be truthful. It both puzzles and intrigues me. I get what they are saying about folks always looking to Amazing as being the flagship book. I am interested in how closely you can tie the various writers and artists together from a creative standpoint to pull this off. I also chuckle to myself thinking about Joe Q flipping fanboys the bird the when they can't bitch about Spidey books being out of continuity with each other.

But on the other hand, can it work? How will it work? How long can you truly expect to keep several creative teams in lock-step with each other to produce a complete product? I'm sure if you asked some writers at DC, they'd probably tell you 52 (56) is about the breaking point. If I really was only buying one Spidey titles a month and am not looking to triple me cost for web-slinging goodness, are you sucking me in or losing me?

I find myself wishing I had a die hard Spidey fan nearby to give me their thoughts. I don't hate or love Spidey enough to truly form a solid opinion. I suppose if I were a “webhead” I might be giddy as a school girl knowing I would be able to get my Spiderman on three times a month, but I just don't know.

I do believe I will likely pass on buying in. I tend to buy comics based on the writers and artists involved as much as the characters. I did buy Amazing Spiderman for several years, but I started buying it because J. Michael Strazcynski was writing it. Mind you it was ultimately JMS that drove me off the book, but that's beside the point. The point is actually that I'm more likely to pick a title up because of the creative team on it than I am the characters within. For certain there are characters that are near and dear to my heart that will normally draw a “flip test” for a book. But as my X-men rant above shows, I am not so devoted to any character as to purchase their stories regardless of the product quality.

So the final analysis (for now) is that you can count me as curious bystander to the coming Spiderman story, but a bystander and nothing more.

Filed under: DVO Reading Rage, Marvel Comics