The Four Color Media Monitor

The Comics Buyer's Guide's Capt. Comics wrote an interview with Joe Quesada about Civil War in issue #1619 that took a swipe at the detractors of the company wide crossover:

CBG: With “Civil War” coming on the heels of DC’s successful “Infinite Crisis,” the online cynics are snarking that Marvel’s crossover is a “me too” response, and even the fair-minded wince at the timing. What would you say to counter this perception?

Really, is that so? And who might those "online cynics" be or include? The blogosphere, for example? I don't know, but all the same, as an online writer myself, I'm honored to be called a cynic! LOL, I'm sure he didn't intend to, yet that's what he succeeded in doing - making me for one feel honored by the implication of cynicism! Ha ha!

Seriously now, the interview still misses the bigger picture, such as the mass interruption of the natural flow for only so many once great titles at Marvel, continuing the assault on Spider-Man's ability to be entertaining, the misuse of Captain America, Iron Man, X-Men and the Fantastic Four, and just plain pitting everyone against each other in a contrived, forced storyline that nobody really needs. Except of course, for those who couldn't care less that they're insulting the intelligence of the readers who can't resist making a habit out of collecting.

And Quesada's reponse to the above question is rather laughable too:

Quesada: Well then, I suppose we could make the same claim, and say that DC’s event was a “me too” response to our big event of last year, “House of M.” But in all fairness, the actual answer is “no” for both parties; they’re just trying to keep interest up in their comics as we are with ours. It’s not like big events are some strange new thing to comics. Marvel has a tradition of doing yearly events, beginning with the mother of all events, Secret Wars (1984). Truth be told, if we wanted to take the steam out of DC’s event we would have shipped it concurrently, instead we’re shipping “Civil War” in May, which several months after DC’s event is over.

Here's the thing: Marvel refrained from crossovers for almost five years before boomeranging as hard as they did, first with House of M and now this. That's even more time than DC was willing to allow with their own stable of series.

And Secret Wars, as some might tell you today, was really nothing to crow over; just a kid's absurdist power fantasy in the guise of the Beyonder mixed with a silly fanfiction. The 1985-86 sequel though, is what really scraped bottom, right down to the Beyonder's hilarious costume (see below), which looked almost like a pair of airplane engines for shoulder pads! (Can anyone say "engine trouble"?) It's things like that which, from a current perspective, have pretty much frightened me away from company wide crossovers altogether. Especially when they turn out to be overly-political platforms, something that even comics from the Bronze Age didn't go overboard with, and usually had more sincere ideas involved anyway!
If comics cannot be allowed to flow freely and naturally, without being subject to editorial mandates at almost every turn, then it shouldn't be too hard to figure out why they could end up as ruined as they are now.

Labels: marvel comics, moonbat writers, msm propaganda