What do you love/hate about Marvel?

[bw38]

What would you guys say are the good things about Marvel which you would like them to embrace more? What things do you hate about Marvel which you would like them to stop?

This thread got pretty good responses in the DC forum I figured I'd post it over here too.

[Chiasm]

1. Dead means dead. If its a fake out death as is often done in fiction to tantalize the reader / viewer thats completely fine. I'm talking about the scene where someone seems to die at the cliffhanger in the end of the issue and then an issue or two later you find out how they survived. What I'm talking about when I say Dead means dead is Jean Grey staying dead after she commits suicide on the moon. Aunt May staying dead and not finding out it was some actress (worst retcon ever BTW). Colossus staying dead after committing suicide to stop the legacy virus. Bucky staying dead after dying on the rocket. Etc, etc. All these reserrections came years after the death and trivializes the story where the death occurred.

2. No more multi part crossovers. For the most part Marvel has been much better about this over the last seven or eight years so I guess this is a keep doing it the way your doing it Marvel. A Spidey crossover (The Other) and an awful X-men / Black Panther crossover are the only ones I can think of whereas back in the bad old 90's it wasn't uncommon to see crossovers of 15 issues across six different books. I'm not talking things like Civil War, House of M as those are self contained and everything else is just a tie in.

[gravling]

No more multi part crossovers. For the most part Marvel has been much better about this over the last seven or eight years so I guess this is a keep doing it the way your doing it Marvel. A Spidey crossover (The Other) and an awful X-men / Black Panther crossover are the only ones I can think of whereas back in the bad old 90's it wasn't uncommon to see crossovers of 15 issues across six different books. I'm not talking things like Civil War, House of M as those are self contained and everything else is just a tie in.

I agree completely - these crossovers every year are so overblown and by the time one finishes, another one is ready to start up. it's like marvel can't think of ongoing stories for individual comics so they make these big tie-ins that just convolute the hell out of everything, and for the most part, the tie-in stories are pretty poor quality.

Crossovers are one thing every few years, but EVERY year? that i'd like to see an end to.

[Brian "Vash" Ashby]

The only marvel crossover i want to see is Spider-man meets the Harlem Globetrotters.

Classic scooby doo globetrotter though. I dont know who the new ones are.

[BeastieRunner]

LOVE

Cosmic Heroes
Flawed Heroes
Tragic Villains
Silver Surfer
Pre-2002 Spider-man
Teams that don't get along
Horror Characters
The Ultimate Line
Agents of Atlas
Romance as a central theme to a lot of characters
Fleshed-out supporting casts
Spidey/MJ marriage
Hulk . . . in . . . SPACE!!!
Dr. Strange: The Oath
Annihilation
Iron Man a villain
Captain America dead
Spidey's Rouges
Bagely
JRJRHate

Post-2002 Spider-man
Cosmic Ultimates (nothing good yet)
Constant resurrections
Too many shock "events"
Soap Opera X-men
Changing things for the movies (i.e. Spidey's organic web shooters)
Wolverine on every team, every book, and invulnerable
Sentry
Spider-man an Avenger
Sins Past
House of M
The execution of Civil War
Back in Black
Retconning Bruce Jone's Hulk Run
Killing baby May
Carnage
Maximum Carnage
Clone Wars
The Other
Storm/Black Panther on the F4

[overcomebyfumes]

Love: The "smaller" titles. The titles where nothing really important to the overarching "Quasada/Bendis/Millar MU crossover hell" is going on.

These stories shine like gems. Dr. Strange "The Oath". Agents of Atlas. Ghost Rider. Moon Knight. Runaways. She-Hulk. Legion of Monsters. Annihilation (yeah, a crossover, but a smaller, underhyped, and better written one).


Hate: The lack of editor-to-editor and editor-to-writer co-ordination that results in problems like the Black Knight's sword, Xorneto, Armadillo in the Rangers/MODOK's 11, Hudlin's first Black Panther arc, people the Punisher's killed turning up alive, the NUMEROUS continuity errors, out-of-character behavior, and utterly inexplicable bullsh*t in Civil War (JMS, I'm looking at you), ad nauseum.

And the attitude that Quasada seems to be taking, that no-one cares about these errors except for internet geeks, so why bother trying to do anything to prevent them? I think that's the worst part.

pax.

[Brian "Vash" Ashby]

Whenever Punisher kills a supervillain i just remind myself that he probably didnt do it and is just having an Alzheimer's/ 'nam flashback induced delusion.


Yeah like some 60 year old grandpa is actually the scourge of the underworld. The only thing he has killed in the last 20 years is a couple of bums and a slew of alley cats.

[Chiasm]

Love: Punisher being written realistically as a psycho killer who no longer cares about revenge and is just in it for the kill.

Hate: Punisher interacting with the rest of the Marvel Universe because we'll have to start seeing him fail and fail again at taking out anyone of significance.


Love: Retcons that create new story possibilites without totally screwing with the past. Ala X-men: Deadly Genesis. It created a new story without really changing anything except how we look at Xavier and given he was already being written as a complete bastard its not that big a deal.

Hate: Retcons that completely screw up the past and totally change the way we look at characters. Ala Sins Past and Gwen Stacy. Do I even need to say more?


Love: Marvel showing willingness to shake up the status quo with earth shattering ideas like House of M / No More Mutants, Civil War / Heroes fighting Heroes, and Spidey / Peter Parker out of the closet.

Hate: That the followup to these ideas has been very subpar (mostly referring to House of M as the jury is still hung on Civil War). Crossing fingers that these things stick.


Love: Marvel pushing some non 616 books like Supreme Power and New Universal.

Hate: The never ending delays on these books.

[projectnrm]

Love: The influx of great new characters (Winter Soldier, Young Avengers, the Hood, Runaways, etc.)

Hate: The abandonment of great new characters (Cecilia Reyes, Marvel Boy, X-Man, Young Avengers currently in limbo, etc.)

Love: The new, more streamlined X-Universe slate of titles

Hate: The congested, over-populated lineup of X-titles (While things are better, there's still three teams of core X-Men, young X-Men, overseas X-Men, etc.; and TWO Wolverine titles? C'mon!)

Love: The Dark Tower miniseries.

Hate: ...Nothing to hate here. I love that miniseries.

Love: The upcoming Avengers movie.

Hate: The fact that chances are Hulk, Thor, and Captain America might be rush jobs just so that Marvel can get to the Avengers movie.

[Belfast_Fanboy]

Hate: The abandonment of great new characters (Cecilia Reyes, Marvel Boy, X-Man, Young Avengers currently in limbo, etc.)

Hate: The fact that chances are Hulk, Thor, and Captain America might be rush jobs just so that Marvel can get to the Avengers movie.
Anyone know where X-man is?
Dont forget Ironman surely it'll be rushed? though at least its in the production or near production

[zebop]

What I like about Marvel:

1.Ed Brubaker and the born-again-hard art of Steve Epting (previously just another bad John Buscema clone).
2. Dan Slott
3. Daredevil
4. Brian Michael Bendis
5. The Punisher as done by Garth Ennis
6. Mark Millar
7. J. Michael Straczinski
8. Nighthawk vs. Hyperion
9. Wheldon and Cassady's Astonishing X-Men
10. World War Hulk featuring the return of Gary Frank

What I dislike about Marvel:

1. Does anyone say "no" to Brian Michael Bendis? The way he totally ignores the continuity of other writers (Spider-Man as a Jewish comedian in The New Avengers while Aunt May lays dying, Wolverine and Elektra during Millar's run were friends and now they're enemies. Did I miss an issue?)
2. Reginald Hudlin's Black Panther. Bring back Christopher Priest.
3. All of the other X-Men titles
4. Iron Man as a selfish dick.
5. The end of Civil War
6. The House of M
7. Joe Quesada sucking up to "big name" writers and letting them get away with screwing the fans (case in point the YEARS it took Kevin Smith to finish "Spider-Man and The Black Cat,")
8. If it's late, it's probably a Marvel comic book. For example: the never-to-be-finished "Daredevil: The Target," Quesada's own "Daredevil: Father," The Ultimates 2.0 issue#13, Squadron Supreme ends in the middle of a showdown, the delays on "Secret War" and "Civil War" and on and on.
9. The inability to come up with a decent "Dr. Strange" title.
10. Every summer another "war" crossover. How about a little peace next summer!

[sephirothskiller]

Hate: Crossovers. Or rather, I wouldn't really hate them if there wasn't about to be another one. Honestly, I could care less about WWH.

The fact that BMB, while a good writer, seems to get to plant his mark on everything, JQ needs to diversify. He should stick to US and NA, because giving him too much control over too many characters makes them go out of character. JQ said that the avengers became the "it group" when BMB started writing them. Not true. They became an "it group" when every major character in the MU was dragged onto the team. Cheesy. On that note:

Spoiler: Hawkeye, seriously? Why back in NA? When he said "I don't do banter" it was totally out of character. I would have liked to see him pick up the Shield myself.

Love: Omega Flight. The fact that people in the New X-Men series actually do die and the reprucussions of being a superhero are actually shown. X-Factor, because PD is just that good. In other words: The titles that JQ doesn't care about. (Oh, and Runaways, though I miss Vaughn.)

[Mikl C]

Anyone know where X-man is?


Dead :(
He merged with everything on the planet or something.

[colossus20]

I love the characters. I love the struggles they go throught to live with their powers, to accept responsibility and sacrifice, to deal with the consequences of using their gifts, and so on. I love the escape from reality.

I hate what writers do to great stories. I can't stand seeing classic origins and histories changed simply because the writer wants to soothe his massive ego. I hate it when things that are better left mysteries are "explained" in a way that is totally lacking in creativity and imagination, effectively ruining the aura of a character. I hate it when writers take someone out of character, twisting their personality into something impossible to recognize, alien and unwelcome. I hate the ridiculously overblown superpowers of so many villains and "omega mutants", as well as the myriad Superman clones that have cropped up over the last few years. I hate the unending supply of mutants with increasingly lame abilities, many of which are just copies of older, established characters that are much better written (example: Dust, a female mutant who changes into a living sandstorm. Basically a lame Sandman rip-off). Stick to the classic and give them better writers. I'd much rather see some older characters like Beast, Nightcrawler and Colossus get the solo treatment again than watch yet another crop of wannabees get their collective a$$ handed to them. I hate time travelling, alternate realities, etc. I hate that adamantium and vibranium are now about as common as tin foil, despite being the rarest and most valuable metals in the MU. I hate the massive number of magic and psychically gifted characters. This is supposed to be Marvel, not Dungeons and Dragons (don't get me wrong, some are great, like Prof. X and Dr. Strange, I just don't like how common they've become). I hate the reformation of classic villains, like Juggernaut. Now who's supposed to go toe to toe with the Hulk and give us a decent showing? I hate a lot of things, more than I have time to mention here.

But I'm not about to stop reading.

[Heraclevs]

Love: Everything Marvel was, more or less, through the early 80's, with occasional flashes of brilliance after that (Avengers Under Siege, Busiek & Perez Avengers, Art Adams' X-Men books, Byrne's FF, Simonson's FF)

Hate: What Marvel has become. Also, just as I posted on the similar DC thread, the books have become too political.

NOTE: The one exception I wholeheartedly approve of wa sin the Spider-Man 3 movie rather than in a comic. Unlike in Superman Returns, where the makers of the film were clearly embarrassed by "And the American Way" and went instead with "All that stuff," Spider-Man still struck an iconic pose in front of a huge American flag. That was cool!


- Romans 9

[Heraclevs]

Love: Everything Marvel was, more or less, from 1961 through the early 80's, with occasional flashes of brilliance after that (Avengers Under Siege, Busiek & Perez Avengers, Art Adams' X-Men books, Byrne's FF, Simonson's FF)

Hate: What Marvel has become. Also, just as I posted on the similar DC thread, the books have become too political.

NOTE: The one exception I wholeheartedly approve of wa sin the Spider-Man 3 movie rather than in a comic. Unlike in Superman Returns, where the makers of the film were clearly embarrassed by "And the American Way" and went instead with "All that stuff," Spider-Man still struck an iconic pose in front of a huge American flag. That was cool!


- Romans 9

[Diablito]

LOVE:
1. The X-Men!! (Includes New, Adjectivless, Astonishing, and First Class)
2. Mutants!
3. New Warriors!
4. Avengers: The Initiative
5. Writers and artists such as Carey, Bachallo, Whedon, Cassaday, Young, etc
6. Huge changes every once in a while
7. Future X-Men crossovers!
8. Fun histories
9. Omega Flight
10. Wide variety of products

HATE:
1. Uncanny X-Men! Grrrr.
2. Wolverine, and any book he's in at the moment (excluding Astonishing and New Avengers)
3. Shift of focus from X-Men to Avengers
4. Salvador Larroca's art
5. Retcons! (I'm looking at Deadly Genesis)
6. Vulcan
7. M-day and Decimation
8. Lack of Maggott
9. Registration-friendly sides win in Civil War
10. Captain America's death

[Lanowar]

LOVE:
1. Comedy in there titles (C&D, She-Hulk etc)
2. The bringing back of characters to the limelight (Luke Cage/Nova/Spider-Woman etc)
3. An decent urban super team
4. Avengers: The Initiative
5. Daredevil still going strong
6. Ultimate Spider-Man
7. The push of new young superheroes
8. Annihilation
9. re-printing of classic stories for a new generation (like me!)
10. Shift of focus from X-Men to Avengers

HATE:
1. Delays
2. Overexposuing characters (Wolverine and Spider-Man come to mind)
3. "Superstar" writers not being held to account (Whedon/Hudlin/Heinburg)
4. Overhyping of Jeph Loeb
5. Comics trying to tie into movies
6. Bad books being overhyped while poor selling "cult favourites" left to die
7. Writers ignoring continuity (Spider-Man's spilt personailty comes to mind)
8. Civil War being as bad as it was
9. Approving titles that will never be popular (howling commandos/claws among others)
10. Grinding new ideas into the ground before they've had time to grow. (Marvel Zombies springs to mind)

[rZi]

Love:
1) Moody and depressing spider-man stories
2) The new Thunderbolts line-up
3) Epic battles
4) The new astonishing X-line up
5) the new standard of artwork shown in their recent books

Hate:
1) The other and totemstic origins of spider-man
2) Clones
3) Stupid stuff - powerpack,howard the duck etc.
4) New avengers
5) Captain americas death

[Roquefort Raider]

Love: How overall continuity has been sort of maintained over the decades, without re-boots or crises or whatever.

Hate: How continuity, on a smaller scale, is constantly being messed up with; resulting in things that must later be undone or ignored.


Love: How writers can be allowed to change things dramatically for established characters (Jean Grey dies; aunt May dies; Matt Murdock's life is destroyed by the kingpin; Johnny Storm marries Alicia).

Hate: How such changes never last (Jean comes back; aunt May comes back; Murdock gets all his stuff and his old job back; "Alicia" is a Skrull).



Love: The rich history of the Marvel universe, which can be a source of great storylines with its almost mythological status.

Hate: How writers will despoil that rich history by abusing it and re-writing it for a few cheap thrills or fanboyish what-if stunts (sins past comes to mind).

[Verydopey]

Hate: all these bloody crossover "events" they get in the way of what the writers have in mind.

[Retrodork]

I love the time travel/alternate reality stories if they're done right. Exiles, for example is one of my favorites and has been since its inception. I just wish they hadn't killed off Mimic, though in general I do love the fact that the characters in that series obviously are all in danger of getting offed and replaced at any given moment.
And I think one of the best time travel stories took place back in West Coast Avengers during the 80's. It had some very nice continuity nods to Marvel's classic Western characters, and to previous time travel arcs in both Fantastic Four and Dr. Strange.
I'm not going to go into a huge hate list here. I hated the multi-part crossovers of the 90's and all the other stuff that I've seen listed. The multiple covers, the gold foil BS. I'd like to erase just about everything from 1992 on to 2001 for the most part.
What I really hate is the shabby way in which Captain America is being treated. Cap deserves so much better than this and I think that the majority of the anti-registration heroes taking the general amnesty was a blatant cop-out. Of course, that entire series would have made a lot more sense to me if Cap's faction had staged a very public, non-violent protest campaign prior to the SHRA going into effect. It would have garnered a lot more public support and avoided that final battle that really played completely into Stark's hands. A couple of 'dream team' lawyers and the backing of the ACLU would have resulted in a major re-writing of that law. It wouldn't have made for non-stop comic book action and lots of violence, but to me it would have made the story a lot more interesting. If Cap had gone to the Media right after Maria Hill pulled that nonsense on the helicarrier, things could have gone differently. You simply don't tell somebody at gunpoint that they will obey and carry out the edicts of a law that hasn't even been passed yet and not expect negative consequences. That woman is an idiot. That's the sort of tactic the Nazis employed, so how else would you expect the living legend of WWII to react? "Sure, Maria. I'm happy to follow your fascistic orders and start rounding up people with a total disregard for due process. Glad to help!" She would have had her a$$ bounced right out of SHIELD for something like that and Congressional oversight committees would be all over the organization like a rash.
So, yeah. I pretty much hated the way Civil War got handled more than anything else. I can't wait to get rid of every single Iron Man I've ever collected over the last twenty some-odd years because they all feel dirty now.

[ultramandingo]

i heart

- marvels best book "criminal". no muties , spandex or clones

- fraction and brubaker on iron fist .they made marvels geniric white kung fu guy intresting buy adding more back story and backbone in 5 issue than ifs whole histoy.

- likewise ellis making me like friggin radioactive man and american eagle on thunderbolts

- bvk's doc strange , brubaker's daredevil and cap'n a , whedons x-men and runaways , ennis punisher

ill read any thing by those guys , dont care whos in the tights or if it in
continuity or not or if it ships on time . id buy ellis's ultimate "skrull kill krew" if he was bothered it write it

- hate .......

- duno, i dont bother reading that stuff

[Brian "Vash" Ashby]

Dead :(
He merged with everything on the planet or something.

Yeah. I still dont see why we dont have a subatomic x-man vs sublime fight

It will be the biggest invisible to the naked eye fight ever

[Rahul]

Love: Anything that Bendis and Fraction writes, most of what Guggenheim, Slott, Brubaker and JMS writes, and the artists on their respective books except..


Hate:Chaykin's art on Guggenheim's Blade, the onlt turnoff in Marvel for me. And Spidey needs to take a loooong breather between event stories...

[Den]

Love: Some of Marvel's writers are truly amazing. Brubaker, Slott, Fraction, D&A, Giffen, BVK etc.
Mary Jane and Peter being a supportive loving couple to each other
The revamp of old 70s characters (Nova, Iron Fist, etc)
She-Hulk

Hate:
Civil War's execution and character portrayals
The post Civil War setting
The Death of Captain America (yes, despite my high opinion of Brubaker's writing)
Sally Floyd
Cross overs that are almost impossible to avoid if you want to read about the mainstream MU

[tony2074]

love: all the classic tales, the more modern "real world feel" of the universe, classic characters like spider man and the f4.

hate: joeq's hatred of the spider man marraige, he seems desperate to undo it whatever the cost (even though we have a single young spider man over in ultimate.) the lateness of some books, bryan hitch being so brilliant that i really don't mind him being late!