Is "Marvel Now!" better than The New 52?

[glennsim]

One man's clutter is another man's treasure.

Quite possibly, but the length of time spent reading before may not be an indicator of which way the man goes with that.

[MichaelPaytonMZ]

What's good?

Marvel's best books right now are easily Hawkeye & Thor. I didn't even like the characters before this.

FF isn't bad, but so far I feel like I HAVE to buy Fantastic Four as well, which isn't quite as good.

[Desaad]

I haven't read any of the Marvel titles but I like the talent on Hickmans Avengers, I haved loved Waids Daredevil, Aarons Thor has good press, as well as Fractions Hawkeye. I may pick up trades of all of those books.

Still, When Nu 52 came out, there were lines outside the comic store before it opened. I didn't see that with Marvel now.

I think DCs last few events from Infinite Crisis to now have been more fun. Fear Itself and AvX were dreary, I think Flashpoint was more fun and successful storytelling wise. Marvel Now would have to be doing something drastically different to get my hopes up, and I don't see it yet. Maybe Allreds FF, but I doubt that is as out there or inventive as DCs Dial H?

What do I know, maybe today I will pick up some Marvel Now books...

What's good?

Thus far, in order of my favorites, I've liked...

Allred/Fraction's FF (Not Fantastic Four)
Fraction's Hawkeye
Aaron's Thor
Hickman's Avengers.
Waid's Hulk

The thing is, you're right -- with the exception of the Fraction/Aja Hawkeye, none of them are really blowing me away. With a few exceptions (Thunderbolts, Deadpool, Iron Man are all genuinely bad, I think), I've found Marvel NOW's output to be GOOD, but never great.

The Allred/Fraction FF is heartfelt as hell, and that makes it one of the best of the bunch, but it's not exactly innovative. Aaron's Thor is wonderful old school Fantasy, but that's all that it is. Hickman's Avengers has thus far been fun, but fairly cliche; some nice ideas, but no bedrock that is really blowing the roof of of things. Waid's Hulk has some fun character moments, but also some very off character choices, and we're two issues in and there is no real plot, the villains a complete afterthought.

All of those are worth my money -- none of them is really worth a re-read. That said, it's still early, so who knows where we'll develop? But there are no books there that compete with Dial H, Action Comics, Batman Inc, or Wonder Woman. Fraction's Hawkeye strikes me as a sharper written Flash, primarily art driven, but no book really matches the experimental, innovative nature of The Flash or Batwoman (though, of course, Batwoman will soon lose that with JH Williams moving onto Sandman).

I'm still hoping that the best is yet to come -- very excited about Young Avengers.

[Billy Batson]

Aye, Grand Dictator, check page 16.

[Desaad]

Azzarello is the Hemingway of comics?

I'm curious how you got to this conclusion and I'm not being a snarky ass.

You can see Hemingway's influence all over Azzarello's work. They are both as concerned with what isn't being said as what is. Every word is meticulously chosen, and one gets the sense that much has been cut by the time the script is finalized. The glacier theory is ALL OVER Azzarello's work.

[JSA]

Welcome to the Unofficial Marvel Thread
and Marvel 2.0 Forum.

let´s talk about Peter's Death....

[Bonemachine]

New 52 was a massive success as a jumping on point for me. Not only I am I keeping up with around 20 titles a month but I also went back and bought tons of older DC books because of it.

Deadpool and Hawkeye are the only two Marvel books I'm currently reading and I'm not even sure if Hawkeye is technically part of Marvel Now!

[Billy Batson]

New 52 was a massive success as a jumping on point for me. Not only I am I keeping up with around 20 titles a month but I also went back and bought tons of older DC books because of it.

Deadpool and Hawkeye are the only two Marvel books I'm currently reading and I'm not even sure if Hawkeye is technically part of Marvel Now!

Yeah, it isn't.

[CaptCleghorn]

Marvel Now got me to try a couple of Hickman's Avengers series as well as Bendis' All-New X-Men. What it didn't do was to change series I liked into series I wasn't as fond of. The big difference between the two is that Marvel redecorated, changed creative teams around and shuffles team line-ups. DC rebuilt a lot more. There's something to be said for both methods and most of the recent posts have favored DC's approach.

Me, because I liked the way some DC series were going before Flashpoint and these weren't continued after Flashpoint (a more fun time-traveling Booster, a more mature Barbara Gordon, a multi-generational JSA, a Legion book that's not a 1990's team book knockoff, Secret Six, Doom Patrol). Although I am reading Animal Man, I don't see it as the greatness others do. It's Jaime Delano lite. I think Earth 2 is a great book and Worlds' Finest has loads of potential, but with Earth 2 has left out what I liked most about the JSA and WF is definitely not Power Girl's old book. I've also tried other books but didn't get into them. In all for me, more cons than pros.

Those of you who actually pay attention to numbers may have realized that I wasn't reading that many marvels before Marvel Now and you'd be correct. But I've tried books because of it and even if I drop them all, I'm still even with pre now as it didn't cause me to drop anything and it didn't cancel anything I was reading. So I've got possible pros and no cons.

What does this mean? It means I preferred now to the nu52. Doesn't mean it's better or worse, only different. I hope DC and Marvel are looking at numbers and trying to figure out what works well for them and what doesn't. People are going to favor one, the other, both or neither and regardless of how the majority feels, the likes and dislikes are personal.

[JasonTodd428]

What's good?

The only Marvel book that has gotten my attention is Faction's Hawkeye so that is the one I recommend. I grew up reading Marvel but nothing from them lately has been very appealing to me and MarvelNOW! hasn't changed that a wit. I much prefer DC and IDW titles to Marvel's at the moment.

[Sissel]

I prefer Marvel NOW(!) because they didn't mess up continuity and only hire authors like Scott Lobdell and Howard Mackie.

[Bonemachine]

So I just heard there's a new Marvel Now! issue that's going for $7.99?!?! Who do they think they are to just spit in all the readers' faces like that? That is pathetic and disgusting. I'm pretty much done with Marvel for good when they go pulling antics like that.

[Kymeric]

Marvel changes and retcons everything so I dont even know wth is going on when I pick up a new book. Harry osborn is alive now? Peter never got married? Daredevil is a girl? Spideys black?

A reboot answers these questions. Sure I could wiki it, but I dont wanna work that hard for my entertainment. Plus with a reboot, everything old is new again.

Marvel should reboot.

[Mr. Holmes]

I prefer Marvel NOW(!) because they didn't mess up continuity and only hire authors like Scott Lobdell and Howard Mackie.

Lobdell is much better than the worse of Marvel's talent pool.

[Billy Batson]

That post is funny because he tried to be clever but he left out a word and end up calling the Marvel writers bad instead.