The Four Color Media Monitor

The Sydney Morning Herald took a tour of Kyoto's International Manga Museum to see how comics influenced Japan as a country.

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime

The Colorado Springs Gazette writes its own sugarcoated coverage of Wolverine's soon to be taken trip to the dark world of the afterlife:

“The story opens where he’s already in hell, and we don’t really know how he got there or who put him there or anything,” said writer Jason Aaron. “Or at least his soul is in hell. His body is still running around on Earth, possessed by demons coming after people who are close to Logan.”

Oh, we know who put him there. Quesada, not to mention writer Aaron himself. And for what purpose? Nothing more than pointless zombie nonsense. As if that weren't bad enough, I see his body is being villified by targeting people he knows back on Earth, which'll make one wonder if he's better off dead, rather than resurrect and face a backlash from many angry humans.

In trying to fight his way out of hell, Wolverine will have to face all those foes he’s killed over the course of his very long life. Aaron, who was also the writer of “Wolverine: Weapon X,” says it’s an opportunity to put Wolverine in the middle of “a kind of horror story we’ve never seen before.”

Correction: a horror story we don't need to see. This is little more than a cardboard slosh through Wolverine's past, instead of looking forward to the future.

“Just having him in hell and facing all these characters is intriguing. There are the characters that everybody is going to expect to see, but there will also be a few that people aren’t thinking of.”

Wrong, it's a whole lot that people don't even care about. This is just the kind of farfetched nonsense that began to wreck Marvel in the mid-1990s.

The dark story might seen an odd choice coming as Marvel ushers in what it’s calling the Heroic Age, bringing in a bit of light after the civil wars, secret invasions and dark reigns of recent years. Not so, Aaron says.

“If you look at the Wolverine stuff I’ve done, one of the seeds I’ve been planting is that Wolverine is developing a sense of faith and hope,” Aaron said. That journey — to becoming a believer, a person with hope for the future — continues in the new story arc, he said.

“I’ve said all along this is my Heroic Age Wolverine story.”

Suuuurrre it is. If he's only going to face a hellish nightmare, I don't think he's getting neither rest nor joy, any more than the Hulk is. Then again, I don't think even those Marvel cast members whose stories usually work well in an optimistic light are getting any better treatment in the Heroic Age. Not Spider-Man, not the Avengers, not the Fantastic Four, not any of them. Peter Parker is still a galling slacker, the Avengers are treated pretentiously, and little is done to make the heroes inspiring and enjoyable. Nor is their any sense of continuity.

Update: USA Today's got its own superficial coverage, including the following, which I may not have noted yet:

Based in part on an idea that Aaron had pitched Vertigo Comics for a run on Hellblazer, the first story arc finds Logan's soul in hell while back on Earth, his body has been possessed by demons and is up to no good. Meanwhile, his friends and allies have been targeted by a mysterious group of villains, a storyline that continues to play out the next couple of weeks in the launches of both Daken: Dark Wolverine, written by Daniel Way and Marjorie Liu, and the Liu-penned X-23.

With the current direction they're taking, I fully expect this to be far more awful than it sounds. The first of these series should be a clear signal that any claim they're going to move to a more optimistic view is simply not true.

"We don't need to know anything about them, why they've done this to Wolverine, how they've done it, anything," Aaron says of these all-new antagonists. "We just know they've obviously got a serious mad-on for him and want to come after him and everyone close to him. So their story will unfold over the first couple of arcs as we find out their motivations and what they're really after."

When writer Aaron says we don't need any knowledge of the who's and whys, that's just a limp excuse for coming up with a lethargic story.

Labels: Avengers, dreadful writers, golden calf of death, marvel comics, msm propaganda, violence, X-Men

I recently scanned some pictures from a Flash: Blood Will Run TPB I once had access to, which is surely the worst, most disgustingly violent and vulgar of Geoff Johns' work on the Flash when he was just starting his career a decade ago. I decided to post them here so that everyone would get an idea of just how crude he could be, and still is, and that goes for Scott Kolins too. For example:
One of his mistakes was embarrassing Frances Kane more than a bit. Another, seen here on this page, was the shock tactic of her ripping the policeman's gold fillings out with her magnetic powers. Crudeness at its worst.

It gets worse:

I decided not to bother about the rest of that page. What's the use of seeing the poor young infant, Josh Jackam, crying in misery over the loss of his mother? As if that weren't bad enough, young Josh was obliterated altogether about 7 years after this story had been written, in Rogues' Revenge. Johns doesn't really have much affection for children, does he?

Here's another example:

This is extremely vicious and sensationalistic with its stabbing and blood dripping, as some more of the people whom Wally helped out in one way or another are sacrificed for the sake of more shock tactics.

And here, the Flash asks a very good question: "Why?" Yes, why did this have to be? Why did we need to wade through only so much bloodletting? This is NOT entertainment, nor was it needed for a series like this.
This little scene here in the Tarpit tale, where Captain Cold goes out with a hooker, seemed done for little more than for the sake of it too.

And even after the Blood Will Run story concluded, the bloodletting did not end there:
That's one of Johns' other "creations", a mad serial killer named Murmur, because he cut out his tongue(!). The Flash may have saved that radio host, but it still doesn't wipe away the disgust of seeing that blood-dripping knife being wielded over the target. Thank goodness we never saw the bodies of the radio host's colleages; this was revolting enough. Another problem is that Murmur is in the wrong book. In Batman, we'd expect this, but here? Completely unsuitable.

And those are some of the most disturbing examples from the collection of Johns' second storyline in the Flash, by far the worst he did, which don't mesh well with the elements that made the series work in the first place. The man was not doing it for the audience, he was only doing it for himself, and that's one of his biggest problems.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful artists, dreadful writers, Flash, misogyny and racism, violence

Comics Bulletin published a list of at least 10 trade paperbacks that are only a waste of more paper. And it's nice to see they thought to include Siege and its connecting miniseries on the list:

I'm including this as representative of a new kind of TPB. Siege Prelude, Fall of the Hulks Prelude and Prelude to Infinite Crisis are advertisements you pay for. These books contain comics from different series that supposedly relate to the big event crossover they're promoting. The comics are often collected in their own series' TPB where their stories can be read in context. These books are also a double-strike against the crossovers. The presence of a prelude implies a story so big and complex, it needs a long build up. And the events leading up to it will not be summarized nor explained. So the crossover looks likes it's badly written before it's released!

And that's only true of Siege.

Yup. I've noticed how quite a few of the TPBs Marvel's published lately are noticeably more costly than what DC offers, and it wouldn't surprise me if this is one of quite a few that cost 30 dollars. (I was lucky to buy a Thor Visionaries TPB of Walt Simonson's work from a bargain bin: it cost 30 dollars on the cover, but I got it for almost 20 dollars less.) Do they really expect people to buy any TPBs published at such expensive prices that easily? And if even the recent crossovers cost that much in trades, it's all the more reason for people burned on crossovers to avoid them.

Even DC's Millenium is mentioned here:

Remember what I just said about crossovers? This is why I said "most" and not "all". Millennium was a crossover published in 1988, 12 years before the millennium ended. A Guardian of the Universe and a Zamaron, his mate, have come to Earth to evolve 10 humans into new guardians. Their choices include a racist South African white male whom they expect to turn evil; insane plant-man Jason Woodrue; and two people who are killed by the second issue.

Earth's heroes must protect these chosen people from the Manhunters, a race of androids who've opposed the Guardians for centuries. These Manhunters have even secreted themselves on Earth, recruiting thousands into their secret society. The heroes are shocked to discover many of their closest friends, and even family, are working for the Manhunters! My God! Where did these evil machines come from? Oh yeah, the Guardians made them. The Manhunters were built to fight evil before the Green Lanterns. But when they learned the Guardians themselves were responsible for bringing evil into the universe, they rebelled and were cast out. Thus began the new legacy of the Guardians of the Universe being short-sighted, manipulative bastards.

Long story short, all the important plot developments happened in crossover comics not included in this collection. The New Guardians gained superpowers based on their ethnic stereotypes. Nearly all of them died of AIDS a year later. No, I'm not exaggerating. Bad story, wasted potential, pointless aftermath.

And it was just a warm-up for the really bad stuff that came out of Pandora's Box starting in 1991, when Armageddon struck, then Zero Hour, and they didn't even have to have quasi-political allusions to be bad.

There's more to this list, including the Clone Saga and Countdown: Arena, some of the additional examples of crossovers made into trades for the sake of fleecing more money from unfortunate customers, and it makes me wonder what's the point of reprinting some of these disasters when they're unlikely to find much of an audience even today. If there's any stories that are really not worth becoming TPBs, "event comics", editorial mandates and crossovers like these are just those.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, golden calf of death, marvel comics

It looks like Daredevil's title ending is only just the beginning of another one of their publicity stunts. Matt Murdock may be turning crooked, now that he's leading the Hand in Shadowland, and another character will take over his role. At least 5 possible replacements are on display at the link: Falcon, Black Panther, Gambit, Nova, and curiously enough, even Kraven?!?

This is becoming pure comedy now. These replacements are all just stunts, and have little to no character drama nor development. Besides, I'm not even sure Gambit is as fearless as Matt Murdock is.

Labels: crossoverloading, marvel comics

The Wash. Post/PC World writes about a new browser specially for viewing manga books through some of the special sites available online (although a few of them were taken down because of copyright laws).

Labels: manga and anime, technology

This year's Wizard World comics convention, held in Chicago, featured a most unwelcome guest: former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who was charged with attempting to sell Obama's former senator seat illegally. This is whom Wizard's pretentious editor, Gareb Shamus, sees fit to make a guest of "honor"? Judging from the comments on the page, many people clearly were not amused by this. This tells how comics conventions are not only straying from what they were originally built upon, they're also on the verge of becoming politicized as additional stunts.

Blago may have been convicted of only one corruption count so far, but he's facing a retrial, and if he does get convicted of additional charges this time, his appearance at Wizard World will look even more like a joke. Considering how bad the comics news magazine sponsoring this convention is, maybe this'll help people understand why Wizard is a waste of time and money.

Labels: conventions, politics

The latest sales charts came out, and only one title sold above 100,000 copies. Periodical sales are down by 12 percent compared to last year, and in graphic novels, only the Scott Pilgrim books made significant gains.

Comics Beat asks:

Is this the price increase finally coming home to roost? The effect of event-driven sales and marketing? The aging audience? PICK YOUR POISON. ICV2 notes — and we do too — that Marvel’s Shadowland event debuted to modest numbers — maybe Daredevil is not strong enough for his own event?

Or maybe the audience has had enough of the awful editors pushing these events that drown all character drama potential? If the audience is getting smarter and wising up to Quesada/DiDio's ways, that is something to be glad of. We can't be taken advantage of by them any more. The message has to be made that it's time for them to go.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, dc comics, marvel comics, sales

One of Marvel's most famous vigilantes, blind lawyer Matt Murdock, is ending the series run in another 3 months with issue 512.

Of course, they did more than enough to bury the Man Without Fear for several years now, including one where his secret ID was revealed in 2003 (at least I think his secret ID was, but I haven't read Daredevil for so long, I can't remember clearly), an early writing job by Bendis. And just like every other corner of the MCU, even Daredevil was not immune to today's crossover-event flood. So it's no wonder that, of all the superheroes who could have their series canceled now, DD has sadly become that very one.

And yet, it may be for the best, because if it went any further, DD would only be tossed into another Shadowland. Only when Quesada and company are finally gone and a more decent editor who's willing to clear away the mess they've created has come in will it be safe to relaunch DD anew. If Marvel is still around, that is.

Labels: marvel comics

The blatant ripoffs will never end. Now, Marvel is coming up with a miniseries called "Dead Avengers", a tie-in to their next time-wasting event called Chaos War, whose cast even includes Mar-Vell of the Kree, and I have no doubt they'll embarrass the character royally by the time this is done.

Strangely enough, for a miniseries featuring dead heroes, the Wasp is not mentioned here. The second Yellowjacket, Rita deMara, is here, but no mention of Janet VanDyne. I guess she's not good enough for Quesada, Bendis and their horrible stable of current writers and editors, right?

Worst of all, however, is what they say about Scarlet Witch and the Vision, the latter who is part of the cast:

"In this miniseries, the Chaos King has put together a very Avengers specific threat that only the Dead Avengers can stop. Since they are the only ones around to do it, they have a chance at redemption," Van Lente revealed. "This is very much a story about redemption. The entire cast, with the exception of Captain Marvel died rather dishonorably or tragically. The Swordsman was accidentally killed by Kang. The Vision's wife used him as a pawn to help blow up Avengers mansion in 'Avengers Disassembled.' Yellowjacket was killed by Iron Man when he was possessed by Immortus. She died without anybody really noticing, which is even more horrible. Doctor Druid was killed by Nekra…[who] may be a character appearing in this series, which will give you a huge hint as to who the main villain is."

Granted, the argument about dishonor and tragedy is a worthy one, save for one problem: here, it's coming from a writer who follows Quesada's bidding with few complaints and who hasn't done much to improve things from the dire state they're in. And his citing the Scarlet Witch as though he considers it acceptable that she was villified in that horrible "event" of 2004 just further cements the mistakes Van Lente is making on his part.

Just another clue this'll be as worthless as their other recent junk.

Labels: Avengers, crossoverloading, dreadful writers, golden calf of death, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, women of marvel

The Wall Street Journal says that manga/anime downloads are making waves on Apple's iPad.

While as for American comics, I'm guessing they're still way behind.

Labels: manga and anime, technology

Wired's blog reports that Alex Ross and Christos Gage are coming up with a new Invaders series set in contemporary times, but that may be as far as it goes:

Comics artist Alex Ross has teamed up with writer Christos Gage and artist Caio Reiss to resuscitate Marvel Comics’ World War II supergroup The Invaders for the new millennium. But who will they fight after the Human Torch kills Hitler? Themselves, of course.

Yup, instead of fighting al Qaeda or even Hydra, the only thing the writers and artists can think of doing with these classic teams today is to pit the heroes against one another. They've become just so predictable...and boring.

And somehow, it doesn't surprise me that Ross, who signaled his dislike of the conservative movement a few years ago, would be involved in this.

When the company and their staff let it be known that the heroes are only going to fight each other instead of villains, that should be all one needs to know that this won't be worth the paper it'll be printed on.

Labels: dreadful artists, dreadful writers, marvel comics

This tasteless page from Dark Avengers #15 shows the wife of Sentry being choked by Bulleye (in Hawkeye's costume, if I notice correctly). One of the worst acts of violence to a woman ever seen in Marvel comics, and shows how Bendis has quite a bit in common with Geoff Johns as a would-be writer who goes overboard in his own way with sensationalized mayhem, and Mike Deadoto is just as bad with this as an artist.

This is definitely not what I read the Earth's Mightiest Heroes for when I was younger. Ugh.

Labels: Avengers, dreadful artists, dreadful writers, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, violence

Collectors Weekly has an interview with historian Mike Madrid, who wrote The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy and the history of the Comic Book Heroines. Among the things told about here, there's the costume change for Wonder Woman:

It was a big deal in the news, especially the tension around how they had changed her costume and put her in pants. What I noticed more than the pants was that they changed her story as well, including her origin. It remains to be seen what that’s going to be like, but they’ve started her back at the beginning so that everything you knew about her is no longer the case.

Not exactly. They do acknowledge that history was changed (yet with Cassie Sandsmark and Donna Troy, everything remains the same, just to show how laughable their idea of continuity is) and WW needs to change it back. But does that make J. Michael Straczynski's story any good? I don't think so, and it's no substitute for real character drama.

And while it may have been a big deal in the news, that's as far as it gets, since that, in and of itself, does not a story make.

They even mention JMS' grave mistake capping his run on Spider-Man:

Collectors Weekly: With Spider-Man, though, they erased his marriage?

Madrid: Yes, that’s true. In “One More Day,” Spider-Man and his wife made a deal with the devil. They could save his aunt, but the price would be wiping out their relationship. So they accepted it and it was as if everything was back to the ’80s, before they got married, as if it had never happened. He’s still single and they’re not together. A lot of people were really mad about that.

You better believe we are, and the sales plunge is proof of that.

Of course, they also “killed” Superman in the ’90s. That was kind of the beginning of the big ’90s collecting bubble because people who didn’t collect comics heard that there was going to be this super valuable “Death of Superman” comic that going to come out. Everyone bought it up. Then the people who run comics companies said, “Well, if we keep creating these big, hyped-up events, people will buy up more of our comics.” And people were buying, supposedly because they thought it was going to be an investment, but it turned out to be somewhat of a bust.

So yes, they killed off Superman. He was gone for maybe about a year, and then he came back with a mullet. They were trying to make him more edgy, so he had this really bad hairdo, almost like Richard Marx.

In the ’90s they did a lot of that, trying to make these characters more edgy. They changed Wonder Woman’s costume. She had something of a bondage costume with these biker shorts, and she looked tougher. They orchestrated a lot of hyped-up events that were designed to drive the collectors’ market. Ultimately, these gambits just wound up producing a lot of really bad comics.

I'm glad to see they bring that case up, because it still holds true today, and has since ruined a lot of good comics and their casts.

The most interesting part here, related to the main subject though, are the situations some females ended up in during the 1990s:

This was the era of when sexualized violence went mainstream. In a lot of the imagery of these heroines, they almost look like they were being humiliated. Some of the images had a voyeuristic quality about them, like a cover with just some heroine’s face with someone’s hands around her throat, or just a heroine’s face being held under the water, depicting her being drowned.

Even though bondage images were common in the ’40s, in the ’90s there was a different edge to it. In comics, especially on covers, there’s almost always going to be an image of the hero or heroine in a dangerous situation because it drives sales. But there’s not often a cover image of Superman looking kind of sexy but beaten up and bloody at the same time. There is something obviously disturbing about images of women, even of comic-book characters, looking kind of sexy but battered at the same time.

Correct, and I think even today, if you know where to look, you'll find this is still going on. Sexiness and violence do not mix in the manner conjured up during the 90s.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics, sales, Spider-Man, violence, women of dc, women of marvel, Wonder Woman, X-Men

The Press Democrat has an interview with Craig Shultz, the son of the later Peanuts cartoonist Charles Shultz, who's trying to keep the integrity of the famous comic strip alive, and the Peanuts on Parade art project.

Labels: comic strips

Comic Book Resources has a tedious interview with the writer of a miniseries that features Hank Pym, now taking up the role held by his own onetime wife (!) who was killed in the Secret Invasion crossover, and the new protagonist named Eric O'Grady who's taking up his and Scott Lang's own prior Ant-Man role. About O'Grady, they say:

Like Lang, the third and latest Ant-Man, Eric O'Grady, began his heroic career through thievery. Pym had no respect for O'Grady's methods or motives though because he took Pym's redesign of the Ant-Man costume in order to become a "hero" for selfish and amoral reasons. Eventually, the consequences of O'Grady's behavior came back to haunt him in several painful and frightening ways, so he's made an effort to try to be a better man. In his quest to do so, the current Ant Man joined The Initiative and was later selected for the Thunderbolts program.

Wow, I'm sure I won't want to know what those consequences were. Under Brian Bendis, they can only be truly awful. And no wonder the O'Grady character joined the Thunderbolts; the direction they took, quite the opposite from Scott Lang's motivations, is pretty poor.

Pym recently took up the mantle of the Wasp in order to honor the memory of his late wife and is currently an instructor at "Avengers Academy."

He may be trying to honor his wife, who's still buried, a victim of awful writing, but he's actually made himself look more like a joke! It's not that simple for a man to take up a woman's role. And under the kind of people in charge today, it can only come off as insulting.

Labels: Avengers, golden calf of death, marvel comics, misogyny and racism

Kirkman, the writer of The Walking Dead, was interviewed for Gentleman's Quarterly, and lets know that he doesn't think the big two are right to soil their mainstream books with the kind of junk they've come to be known for this century:

The interesting part of the original statement you made about why people need to get away from doing the corporate thing, beyond the need for new characters and new books, is the idea that the audience for comics is aging, and that by sticking to work-for-hire projects, creators are contributing to the aging of that audience, and by extension the cultural irrelevance of comics in general. It seems like that was the most controversial part of that argument.

I think that's the most obvious part. When I was reading comics when I was 15, Superman didn't deal with rape so much, you know? There weren't a lot of dark elements to mainstream superhero comics. I think that it's pretty obvious that one of the things that's hurting comics is that the subject matter is so inappropriate for a mass audience. You know, Marvel just did an intercompany crossover which was supposed to be something all of their readers can read, and it had guys ripping each other in half and intestines were flying all over the place. That's the kind of thing that you would see in a Walking Dead comic. I don't want to see Spider-Man swinging around, tripping in intestines going, "Aw, crap! What a mess!" That's not the kind of thing that's going to get Billy down the street off of his Xbox. I think part of the problem is that the writers and artists that are doing these books want to write them for themselves, instead of for the audience they should be writing to. And I think that's a real problem.

So you think they're trying to have their cake and eat it too? That they want the creative freedom to write stories where guys get ripped in half, but also the comfort and job security of writing these brand-name corporate characters?

Yeah. And I don't fault them for it—I think it's cool to see superheroes rip people in half. Because if superheroes really had superpowers, that's the kind of shit that would happen, just on accident, you know? And so I created a book called Invincible that isn't meant for a younger audience, and has superheroes ripping each other in half. But I didn't try to take Superman and turn it into that book. I did my own book. I think that's the key.

Undoubtably, it is. And the big two's biggest problem is that, instead of writing and publishing special books that don't feature or intrude upon their core stable of characters, they tinker and tamper with established ones, draining the appeal or entertainment value so that in the end, they appeal to neither old nor new readers. And it's not only the fault of the writers in question, it's the fault of the editors too, for not having the strength to draw the line.

This also suggests that the writers who're foisting this kind of excess on mainstream comics don't have enough faith in their own material to sell on its own terms, so instead, they foist their jarring mayhem and other troubling ideas on what the big two have to offer, yet without even providing any meat-and-potatoes to their storytelling. In that case, I'd hesitate to think of what their creator-owned material is like.

Labels: bad editors, dc comics, marvel comics, violence

When Warner's proposed movie based on the Justice League of America was first announced 3 years ago, it may have been suggested they'd take America out of the title, for PC's sake. But even if it hadn't been, any problems with the screenplay would've been far from over. According to Cinematical, what was proposed then could or would've been quite jarringly violent:

According to Baruchel, Miller's vision would have finally put to rest any fears that a big-screen Justice League movie was a cheap cash grab that would degenerate into an exercise in camp.

Baruchel explains, "I'll just say this, if we had been able to make the movie that we had gone down [to Australia] to rehearse, if you had seen the production art I'd seen ... it would've been the coolest thing ever. It would have been the neatest vision of Batman and the coolest vision of Superman you've ever seen. It would have been dark and fairly brutal and quite gory and just f**king epic."

Now I'm going to turn it over to the experts out there: Is a 'dark an gritty' Justice League the key to bringing the DC heroes to the big screen, or are you relieved that Miller never got his way?

Well, I certainly don't think it should've been campy, but that doesn't mean it should be gory and graphic either, surely the biggest mistake for a movie that, even if not aimed squarely at little children, we'd still think was aimed at a family audience. It's bad enough the comics have degenerated into vicious, sensationalized brutality and bloodletting in recent years. We certainly don't need that in a major movie, and it'd be a really bad way to start off any franchise of sequels, assuming they'd get off the ground at all. So the answer is NO - a dark and gritty rendition is not the key for bringing DC's famous heroes to the movie theaters, and personally, I'm glad Miller didn't get his way.

I don't expect whomever else they hire to write the screenplay to do any better though. Biggest problem is that, with the kind of people they've got in charge now, no matter how it's written, it may not have any meaty substance, and that could be its undoing.

Labels: dc comics, Justice League of America, violence

Comics Alliance presents another nominee for one of the worst DC books of the year/decade, written by none other than Kevin Smith, Batman: The Widening Gyre, where the Masked Manhunter is made to tell the other guy in the picture that he urinated in his pants, in the 6th issue.

Yes, this is what Smith, to say nothing of DC and their alleged editors, have sunk to these days. As if that weren't bad enough, Batman smacks Silver St. Cloud around at one point, because he thinks she's a robot!

Kevin Smith has already proven he's no comic book fan, if this kind of embarrassment is all he knows to script. Come to think of it, he's no movie auteur either.

Labels: Batman, dc comics, dreadful writers, misogyny and racism

At the SDCC, Marvel - yes, Marvel - announced that they'd be reviving the works of this failed company anew. They'd been bought by one of Disney's affiliates shortly afterwards, and that explains how this has happened.

I'd like to think this is good news, and Tom Brevoort indicated here that they wouldn't try to merge the properties with the MCU proper, but with people like Quesada in charge, this might not have the impact it could've had.

What's more, when Bill Jemas was in charge, he did a lot of damage by inciting against them, and while there were some legitimate criticisms to be found, the way Jemas went about this was simply inexcusable.

At least Disney is now their owner, and that might prompt them to maintain better behavior.

Update: here's what some of their former contributors have to say about the announcement.

Labels: marvel comics

The Honolulu Star Advertiser says that, while some sites for manga are closing to curb piracy, at least 2 US publishers are launching some for legally published manga books. One of these is Square Enix.

Labels: manga and anime