More Pointless Nonsense

So, like I've mentioned earlier, no new Monster King this week. Take this opportunity to read the issue for free now, and, y'know, when it's available in print you could always pick that up anyway, too, right? Right? In the meantime, let's Rant about Marvel and DC for no good reason.

Marvel annoys me. Marvel has annoyed me for some time. All I want out of Marvel is a good "Silver Surfer" series. Or a decent guest appearance by the Silver Surfer. Instead, if the Surfer is guest starring in anything, he gets punked out somehow (or enslaved, or duped, or whatever). The Silver Surfer gets a new mini-series, and guess what? He loses his powers and spends the ENTIRE SERIES running around like a normal guy, whining. I'm just glad I didn't spend any money on this crap. I did spend money on "The Annihilators". I regret that. The Surfer had ears. Seriously. I'm still pissed.

I kinda feel like Marvel is out of ideas, as well. I mean, think about it. When they started kicking out these big "Event" Comics, the books were really easy to explain. They had a Strong, Easy to Understand, Hook, right? "Civil War" was Superheroes vs. Superheroes. Easy, right? Cap punching Iron Man. Iron Man punching Cap. Fight, fight, fight. Easy. (Yes, the series sucked and kinda killed Marvel for me, but you gotta admit, great premise) "World War Hulk" was the Hulk vs. Everybody. So obvious it shoulda been done years ago. "Secret Invasion" was Superheroes vs. Aliens pretending to be Superheroes. Sorta the same thing, but with more paranoia. "Dark Reign" for all of its disgustingness, was easily the most brilliant. Bad Guys Pretending to be Good Guys. Simple, easy to explain, great hook.

And that's when the momentum ran out. What the hell was "Siege" about? Bad Guys Pretending to be Good Guys Fighting Good Guys and Gods. I think. Maybe. What the hell happened in that thing? Norman Osborne finally got his comeuppance, I think? Bah. "Shadowland"? Daredevil becomes a Bad Guy (why? how? what?) and only the street level heroes can stop him because Thor apparently has better things to do and Black Panther takes over for Daredevil for no good reason and in the end Daredevil goes back to being Daredevil in less than a year. Yeah. Compare that premise to some of the others. Bit of a mouthful, right?

And now we've got "Fear Itself" and "Spider Island". What the hell are these comics about? Seriously. Someone tell me. It's like Marvel's been doing so well that they don't even have to come up with a decent premise anymore. It reminds me of that episode of "South Park" this week where the movie previews talk about how people will go watch the films no matter what kinda crap the movie studios crap out.

Oh, and while we're on the subject, apparently, Bucky's Dead Again. So, I guess we can start using the term "Bucky Dead" again, right? Does anything matter in Mainstream Comics anymore?

Speaking of nothing mattering in Mainstream Comics anymore, you've got the DC Line Wide Reboot. Good idea? Bad idea? Eh, little bit of both, really. It's a move that will alienate some of their established readers, that's for sure. But at the same time, let's face facts, cats and kittens, the DCU been a big old fat bag of stagnation for awhile. The only exciting things that have come out of the DCU in the last few years have been Grant Morrison's "Batman" comics and the whole Rainbow Lanterns thingie. Rebooting the whole line, and mixing and matching bits and pieces of the Milestone Universe and the Wildstorm Universe and the Vertigo Characters that used to be DC characters and now they're DC characters again, is actually not that bad of an idea. At the very least it's got people talking about DC again without mentioning the word "Lantern". Plus, historically, the DCU has rebooted a few times already, with stuff like "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and the lesser known "Zero Hour". So, at least there's a precedent.

I just read through the list of the 52 Comics in the reboot, and I think I'm gonna try some of the new books. Here's my Listo: Action Comics (ahem, Grant Morrison's writing Superman again. This one is a super given), OMAC (it will probably suck, but Keith Giffen is co-writing. I like Giffen's work from time to time), Frankenstien (it's not written by Morrison, sadly, but I really enjoyed the character, so I'll give it a shot.), Justice League Dark (SHADE the CHANGING MAN! Woo-Hoo! Written by Peter Milligan! I'm in like Flynn), Animal Man (Might skip), Swamp Thing (I liked what little I read of Scott Snyder's "American Vampire", and Yannick Paquette is awesome, so this is definitely worth a shot), and Red Lanterns (more Peter Milligan, also, let's face facts, if I was a Rainbow Lantern, I'd be a Red one).

The fact that I'm thinking about picking up SIX books from DC (five of which aren't written by Grant Morrison) is a pretty good indication that there's some merit to DC's battle plan. Will it work with other folks? Who knows? Maybe they'll scrap the whole plan in six months. Maybe it'll be a huge success. Hard telling. But in a world where Marvel doesn't even have to bother explaining their series anymore to sell them, DC had better do something. Hell, everyone should do something better.

Actually, I've been thinking about that. And that's my cryptic blog ending for today.