Newsarama thinks crossover deaths are oh-so important
1 Comments Published by Avi Green on Friday, April 18, 2014 at 7:02 AM.
Newsarama wrote another of their lists of 10 most important incidents in publication history, or what they think amounts to importance. But truly, it's not. This one's about crossovers with character deaths, which they shamelessly call "hallmarks", and one of the examples they cite took place during Civil War - the death of the New Warriors, something I hadn't been fully aware of those 7 years ago:
They blatantly call CW a "success" when it was anything but that; it certainly didn't sell in the millions. And what resonance did it have? Nothing of artistic value, that's for sure. This whole article list they've drawn up is a joke that only furthers the feeling of juvenile insularity that's long been devouring the medium.
Civil War is one of the most successful comic book "events" in history, and it started with the New Warriors – at the time stars of their own Marvel Universe reality series – bungling the capture of supervillain and "human bomb" Nitro, leading to a high toll of civilian deaths and the demise of Night Thrasher, Speedball (who actually ended up surviving and becoming tortured Thunderbolt Penance), Namorita and Microbe. [...] Since Civil War lasted for months and the aftermath, "The Initiative" era, lasted even longer, the death of the New Warriors definitely had resonance (and not just with angry fans of the team unhappy with what happened to the characters).It's not just that the New Warriors were turned into sacrificial lambs that's offensive. It's that they were scapegoated and made out to look bad, and many civilians died in the accident too. That's another of many terrible elements that have long invaded superhero comics - too many obscure civilian deaths for the sake of it. Even innocent bystanders shouldn't have to be turned into cannon fodder, yet this is exactly what's gone wrong with the superhero and adventure genres in modern times.
They blatantly call CW a "success" when it was anything but that; it certainly didn't sell in the millions. And what resonance did it have? Nothing of artistic value, that's for sure. This whole article list they've drawn up is a joke that only furthers the feeling of juvenile insularity that's long been devouring the medium.
Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, golden calf of death, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, violence
I'm curious exactly what impact Civil War had on the MU.
Speedball is back to being Speedball. Night Thrasher's brother(?) took over that role. Microbe... let's be honest, never heard of him before or since. Namorita (or an alternate universe version of her) is back in the MU. Cap was quickly brought back to life. Iron Man and Cap are back to being besties.
About the only thing of note was the death of Bill Foster. Yay, Marvel, you managed to pointlessly slaughter yet another long-time black character. That's the legacy of the Civil War crossover.
(And even then, I think they replaced him with a nephew or something, then had Pym digitally reconstruct his mind or somesuch.)