New Venom being set up using old character, who's now being called "amazing" in another pointless Spidey spinoff

IGN says Marvel, already having done Mary Jane Watson enough damage in recent Spider-Man storylines, is now putting Eddie Brock back together with the symbiote, and putting a member of Spidey's rogues gallery in another symbiote, in preparation for a miniseries spinoff called - surprise, surprise - "the Amazing Venom":

Marvel is in the midst of the Queen in Black crossover, which sees the world caught in the middle of a destructive conflict between Asgardian death goddess Hela and the symbiote god Knull. It's a watershed moment for Venom, Carnage, and every other character connected to the symbiote family. And it goes without saying that the landscape of the Spider-Man franchise will look much different when all is said and done.

Part of that involves the launch of a new monthly Venom series that sees Eddie Brock reunite with his beloved symbiote at long last. But there's also a new spinoff miniseries in the works called The Amazing Venom. Who or what is the Amazing Venom? To answer that question, we turned to writer Jordan Morris. In an email interview with IGN, Morris explains how this series takes a cult-favorite Spider-Man villain and elevates him to new, ridiculous heights. [...]

When all they can think of is recycle certain adjectives, it's another example of how creatively bankrupt they are, right down to how there's still no sign they'll ever restore the Spider-marriage, even if MJ is no longer being depicted as a female Venom host. But, who indeed is this "amazing" Venom?

So who is the Amazing Venom? None other than Fred Myers, formerly the costumed supervillain known as Boomerang, and a character who makes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Fred has really come up in the world in 2026, as he's now bonded to a symbiote named Passenger and sporting a costume inspired by Spider-Man himself. As Morris explains, this new series serves as an exciting opportunity to fundamentally revamp a character who's suddenly been thrust into the forefront of the Marvel Universe.

"I love that Fred is a villain with simple ambitions," Morris tells IGN. "He doesn’t want to rule the world, he just wants to throw boomerangs at people and steal a bunch of money. I’d like to think that if I had access to exploding boomerangs and jet boots I’d be a hero, but if I ended up going villain, I’d probably go the Fred Myers route. It’s so funny that this two-bit scumbag keeps getting caught up in world-ending sci-fi madness. I mean, he got killed by a vampire and came back from the dead! That’s stuff that should be happening to Avengers or X-Men, not guys with boomerangs on their head."

Why not "civilian" co-stars? I sometimes wonder if the police captain Jean deWolff's death in the mid-80s was really called for, and civilians who aren't superheroes shouldn't be prohibited from the privilege of being able to be resurrected, a concept that's part and parcel of science-fantasy. What this Morris tells is insulting to the intellect.

It also sounds like the writer, most unfortunately, is opportunistically putting more tired and grating emphasis on villainy, which has become far overemphasized in modern times. That they even resorted to economy casting also speaks volumes. Looks like Marvel's done little more than bore the senses with yet more promotion of villainy over heroism. And that, again, is a leading problem with modern storytelling. We decidedly could do without Brock's new solo too.

Marvel crosses its universe with Star Wars, in a special written by filmmaker Kevin Smith

Entertainment Weekly says Marvel's continuing with their pointless distractions, producing a crossover of franchises:

Titled Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles, the five-part limited comic book series will launch in January 2027, Entertainment Weekly can exclusively reveal.

Figures like Chewbacca, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia will join Earth-616 — the primary continuity in which most stories of Marvel Comics take place —and mingle with the likes of Captain America, Black Widow, Spider-Man, and the Hulk. Meanwhile, Doctor Doom and the Marvel rogue’s gallery will join the likes of Darth Vader and the Galactic Empire.

But here's the bad part:

Kevin Smith, the actor/director who wrote major runs of Daredevil, Batman, and Green Arrow, writes the new story. David Marquez of Uncanny X-Men and Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man is the artist behind the comic, as seen in EW’s exclusive first look at the cover design.

Wow, what do we need such an overrated filmmaker writing this for? Even if this time, he doesn't suddenly, out of nowhere, take time off from completing the miniseries as he did with the horrible Black Cat miniseries he wrote in the early 2000s, Smith's resume is still just too insufferable to care about 2 ruined franchises crossing over. Another problem is that this perpetuates a serious mistake of the past 3 decades: hiring "celebrity" writers like filmmakers and novelists to script a comic book, yet not basing the employment on merit any more than talent and comprehension of the creations the writers are assigned to script.

Let's also not forget Smith once turned out a woke continuation of the Masters of the Universe cartoon, broadcast on Netflix, no less. That's all you need to know he could always render the Marvel/Star Wars crossover in similar ways. So again, what's the use of even advertising what's bound to be a time-waster?

What Polygon says about MTG cards based on Marvel illustrations

Polygon wrote a fluff-coated article about several cards from a new Magic: The Gathering collaboration with Marvel, and they sugarcoated at least a few things involving history, past and present. First, what's said about Contest of Champions:

Nowadays, Marvel Comics launches a new big event every year that’s all about stacking as many characters together as possible and seeing what happens. Well, it all started here. Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions is Marvel Comics’ first-ever limited series. Published from June to August 1982, it was written by Mark Gruenwald and penciled by John Romita Jr. It introduced the concept of crossovers, events involving characters from different comic books, getting together to face a big crisis that usually has an impact on the entire Marvel continuity.

Mark Gruenwald was an ante-litteram visionary. (Just check out his Squadron Supreme run: it was one of the first politically charged big superhero comics, before that became a cool thing to do.) Contest of Champions planted the seed of what would become a standard practice for the House of Ideas, and while that series is less ambitious than Crisis on Infinite Earths, it predates DC Comics’ famous crossover event by three years.

So that's a good thing these comics were "politically charged"? And that crossovers crowded out creativity? Wow, the writer here certainly isn't approaching this from an objective viewpoint, despite any suggestions to the contrary. Contest of Champions may have been one of the first limited series they published (years later, these would be more likely to be described as miniseries), but that doesn't make it one of the best. Nor is it truly a good thing we had to see Marvel/DC destroyed creatively by only so many crossovers that came about since. What does the writer even mean by "less ambitious"? Does that mean it didn't go far enough as Crisis did by killing at least a few characters like Supergirl and 2nd Flash Barry Allen? If that's what he means, that's quite tasteless, and the worst part is that years later, Marvel did go the killing route in some way or other with a number of characters, and in cases like Scarlet Witch's, subjected her to a fate worse than death in Advengers: Disassembled. Also vital to note is that around the turn of the century, that's when keeping consistent with continuity and decent characterization began to deteriorate more than ever before in the mainstream, and it's had a disastrous effect on storytelling cohesion ever since. Now, here's something even more unworthy of a MTG card:

This is more a personal favorite than one of the all-time greats, perhaps, but it’s still a milestone in Iron Man continuity. Written by Warren Ellis with art by Adi Granov, “Extremis” is a six-issue story arc that ran in Iron Man between 2005 and 2006. It introduces the Extremis virus (also featured in the movie Iron Man 3), which upgrades Tony Stark with real superpowers, allowing him to connect to his armor and other machines through a neural interface. Extremis is perhaps the last interesting Iron Man story published (except for the magnificent miniseries Infamous Iron Man, where Doctor Doom takes the mantle of Iron Man). It transformed Tony Stark from “former alcoholic rich guy in a suit” into his modern image of a futurist, before that term was spoiled by creepy technocrats.

Seriously, I can't see what's so appealing about Ellis' writing that he has to have his story become the subject of a trading card. Also note how the columnist sugarcoats one of the modern stories where the hero's replaced by a villain in the armor, or costume. As though it weren't bad enough Spider-Man had to be mind-switched with Dr. Octopus. And doesn't giving Tony actual superpowers contradict and defeat how he was first created, as a guy whose power was the armor suits he built? That was the emphasis for many years, and coming when these "real" powers did, it was just too late to work out anyway. So why does this tale of all things need a MTG card? And then, there's Infinity Gauntlet:

Thanos and his infamous Snap in Avengers: Infinity War became the most iconic moment of the golden age of MCU movies. 27 years before Josh Brolin “blipped” half of the universe away, Jim Starlin wrote one of the most important sagas in Marvel history, bringing back the character he created two decades prior. The six-issue limited series The Infinity Gauntlet shows the outcome of Thanos’s quest to collect the Infinity Gems (shown in The Thanos Quest). The Mad Titan has obtained absolute power over creation, but will it be enough to please his cold mistress, Lady Death?

Before Hollywood success went to his head (and ruined his comic book characterizations), Thanos was one of the most fascinating Marvel characters, a villain fueled by philosophical musings and unrequited love more than lust for power or conquest. This is Starlin’s Thanos at his best, and the incredible art by George Pérez and Ron Lim brings to life an apocalyptic tale unfolding at the edge of the universe, where gods are brought to heel and a Mad Titan finally gets his wish.

I think even this crossover can be subject to some objective viewpoints. The Infinity minis may not have had as many crossover connections as others did, but IIRC, they still had some nonetheless, and that was simply appalling, because it was entirely unnecessary in order to make it a story worth reading. That said, interesting that here, the writer actually admits Thanos' characterization was ruined later on, though it'd be a lot better if somebody commenting on these topics gave more attention to heroes who underwent the same. And then, Secret Wars gets fluff-coated:

If Contest of Champions opened the door for crossovers, Secret Wars smashed those doors down. Conceived as a big marketing gambit that would tie in with a Mattel toy line and an RPG from TSR, this massive 1984-1985 event spanned over 12 issues of the main limited series and more than two dozen crossover issues of ongoing series. Written by Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, with art by Mike Zeck, Bob Layton, and John Beatty, the series sees a host of heroes and villains transported to a mysterious planet dubbed Battleworld by an omnipotent entity known as the Beyonder, and forced into an all-out battle for survival.

In one of the most iconic moments in the series, the villain Molecule Man drops an entire mountain range (yup) on the heroes’ heads. The good guys barely survive in a wedge dug by Iron Man and Hulk, but the Green Goliath is carrying the entire weight of the mountains on his shoulders. To buy enough time to build a contraption to escape, Reed Richards insults Hulk since getting angrier makes him even stronger. Who else could have come up with this plan if not Marvel’s number one a-hole? It’s a pretty amazing moment and still one of Hulk’s greatest feats of strength.

That still doesn't justify the way Secret Wars was produced, as something where almost every Marvel title had to reference this story according to editorial mandate. Granted, unlike Crisis on Infinite Earths, it wasn't written for the sake of killing off any characters the editors considerd expendable, as DC did with Silver Age Supergirl. But it still has responsibility to shoulder for leading later to the disaster we see in the mainstream today, one that nobody writing these puff pieces has any intention of arguing against. And then, what does the writer say about one of Stan Lee's last creations:

Speaking of artists who loved to push the envelope, John Byrne’s run on Sensational She-Hulk in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s marked one of the few truly avant-garde moments in Marvel Comics history. Byrne took a minor character in the House of Ideas’ roster and turned it into a fourth-wall-breaking sensation. Towering over the series’ covers with a dominating, ultra-sexualized physicality, Jen Walters was threatening readers to rip up their X-Men collection if they didn’t buy her book, and openly mocking comics’ narrative tropes.

There’s no point in denying that the sexist tinges of Jen’s representation in the series were targeted at an audience of hormone-fueled, adolescent boys, but Byrne was still able to turn a relatively obscure character into one of the few culturally relevant women in Marvel Comics, at least for a while. It’s very cool that Magic’s homage to that historic run shows She-Hulk literally breaking the fourth wall.

Fascinating how the writer seems to be speaking with a forked tongue in regards to sexuality, though Byrne did have very questionable moments in his resume, including the time when he wrote a Superman story where Big Barda fell under the mind control of an alien from Apokalips named Sleez, who also brought Supes to heel, and then took them to a snuff filmmaker so he could film them engaging in sex?!? And you thought this kind of stuff was just relegated to fanfiction! That said, I think what the writer's telling about how Byrne handled Jen Walters is hypocritical, and certainly exploits it for the sake of pushing sex-negative visions simultaneously. At least the She-Hulk series Byrne launched during 1989-94 is more worthy of a MTG card than some of the above examples.

Anyway, this would've been a lot more charming news if it hadn't been for some of the more modern choices made like an Ellis story, and if it hadn't been for the realization the MTG franchise was subject to wokeification in the past decade. Who knows if they've reversed course since then? If not, that also dampens the interest.

After nearly 3 decades, Newsarama is closed down

Popverse, which, ideologically speaking, isn't all that different from Newsarama, announced the latter site's been closed down by Games Radar, the last to maintain ownership:

The storied comic news site Newsarama is seemingly defunct, after a series of layoffs by parent company Future PLC resulted in the elimination of the last dedicated person working on the website. Long-time Newsarama staff writer George Marson announced earlier this month that they had been laid off earlier this month as part of a broader round of cuts across the journalism & events corporation. [...]

Newsarama was formally launched in 1998 and quickly became one of the primary places to get news, interviews, and commentary on the North American comic book industry online. The site changed as the comics industry and the digital industries changed, and following a series of acquisitions, it was folded into the comics vertical of the website GamesRadar.com by 2018, while keeping the Newsarama branding, alongside other publications including Total Film and SFX. In the past 12 months however, the Newsarama branding on the GamesRadar.com website was largely eliminated, with the comics coverage remaining left as a secondary vertical and writing efforts minimized to focus primarily on games, film, & TV related to comics.

At its peak, Newsarama had a full-time staff of three with various additional writers, videographers, and others working in a freelance capacity. That was cut down to two by 2022, and, following his abrupt departure, co-founder Mike Doran was replaced by a general 'comics editor' that was shifted soon after to focus (in title and in work) on streaming TV & film, leaving Marston as the sole remaining Newsarama staffer until now.

Considering how biased they were towards the worst of the industry's leftists, their closure is no big loss. Unfortunately, Popverse is little more than a continuation of the same MO, perhaps even worse, and it's not like the writer's pointing out whether they made mistakes that need to be mended.

A writer at First Comics News, who used to work for Newsarama, tells the following:

Launched in 1998 by co-founders Matt Brady & Michael Doran, Newsarama quickly became a must-read destination during the early days of online comics coverage. It delivered breaking news, in-depth interviews, convention reports, and thoughtful analysis at a time when the internet was still finding its footing as a journalism platform. [...]

I had the privilege of contributing to Newsarama during its vibrant early online years. In 2004, I began producing interviews for the site. By 2005, I was regularly writing for both Newsarama and Comic Book Resources (CBR). Those were exciting times; the comics internet was exploding with new voices, and Newsarama sat at the center of it all.

Interviewing creators, covering trends, and helping to document the industry during a period of rapid change remain among my fondest memories in comics journalism. Newsarama wasn’t just a job; it was part of a community that connected fans directly with the people making the comics we loved. My time there bridged my earlier work at Silver Bullet Comic Books and led to my role as Public Relations Coordinator at Archie Comics starting in late 2005.

For close to three decades, Newsarama set the standard. It broke major stories, platformed emerging talent, and provided a professional home for writers who truly understood and cared about the medium. Many of us who built careers in this space, whether as journalists, publicists, or creators, passed through its virtual pages.

Yes, please tell us about it. There's quite a few who don't, no matter what they say. Otherwise, we wouldn't have had the embarrassments seen since the early 2000s, like Avengers: Disassembled, Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, Civil War, One More/Brand New Day and Forever Evil. They never argued whether fandom should ask if it's time to boycott the Big Two, if company wide crossovers, forced villifications, forced leftist politics and forced erasure of the Spider-marriage signaled they were going way too far at the expense of talented writing and artwork.

The comics community is resilient. New voices and platforms will rise to fill the gap, First Comics News among them, where I continue the work I started decades ago. But we should take a moment to honor what Newsarama accomplished and thank the journalists, editors, and contributors who made it special.

There was nothing special in it, since the writers never took objective stances on what Marvel/DC were doing wrong. Not even Dark Horse and Image. In past years, they fluff-coated the topic of deaths in company wide crossovers, they even gushed over the worst of Green Lantern stories, sugarcoated the forced replacement of Dr. Strange with Clea using his codename (and IIRC, she was later replaced too), and made no distinction between best and worst Spider-Man writers. Some of those examples may be more recent forms of tabloid nonsense they wrote up, but with that kind of propaganda being put out, is it any wonder if nobody liked their news in the end? Yet the former contributor saw fit to fluff-coat the site's MO, serving as little more than an apologist, and if that's how it's going to be, he can't be surprised if nobody cares in the end.

Newsarama won't be missed. But it's clear Popverse and First Comics News won't be good successors, if their sugary tales say anything. I have no thanks to offer, so long as they don't focus on how it's possible for propagandists like them to make serious mistakes, much like the industry insiders.

What Tom Brevoort says about the JLA/Avengers crossover

Popverse relays what the galling Marvel editor told a podcast interview about the making of the JLA/Avengers crossover, and how fans reacted to Superman besting Thor:

Marvel's longest-serving editor, Tom Brevoort, has a pretty thick skin when it comes to fan outrage. Having overseen decades of big narrative swings come out of the House of Ideas, he'd have to. And yet, there's still one moment of reader blowback that stands out to him, even decades after the choice in question went down. The reason?

Fans asked for it before it happened.

Brevoort was talking about his witness to unpopular decisions at Marvel (which comes with, we should note, absolute libraries worth of popular ones) on the Word Balloon Comics Podcast with host John Siuntres.

"I still hear from people that are angry about Superman [vs.] Thor," Brevoort told him.

Specifically, Brevoort is referring to the confrontation between the Man of Steel and God of Thunder that happened in 2003's JLA/Avengers #3. Krypton's favorite son ended up soundly defeating Asgard's, much to the dismay of Thor fans everywhere, but while people were grumpy about it after it happened, they were foaming at the mouth for it beforehand.

"The funny part for me," the current X-Men editor explained, "Is when we announced the project, Kurt [Busiek, writer] set up a dedicated email address that was like, 'If people have suggestions for what they want to see, email them there. We'll read through stuff and we'll look and see if there's anything.' One of the things that came in by the pound was fans on both sides of the equation saying, 'We want real fights with a real winner and a real loser. No mealy-mouthing about it.'"

I think a better complaint the audience could've raised is whether this represented one of the biggest problems with Brevoort's resume since the early 2000s - heroes clashing with each other instead of uniting against villains. Well okay, I realize that some of the leading villains in the story were Giganto, Fin Fang Foom and Krona, who IIRC, originally appeared in the Silver Age in Green Lantern. Of course, there's other problems with the story too, like retaining the mandate that put Kyle Rayner in the GL role, and Hal Jordan in the Spectre role?!? Based on that, this is why the tale doesn't age well.

That said, if we look at this story as a legitimate match between superheroes and their powers, skills and strategies, why does it matter so much whether Thor or Superman wins a duel against either? That's not what should count as a triumph. What matters far more if if there's a story where two or more superheroes from different universes and publishers can win a battle against formidable villains from either/both universes. But most importantly of all, what matters is the story merit. I think it's been unhealthy for mainstream comicdom in the long run to concoct these crossovers for the sake of pitting heroes vs each other. Why, this kind of event may have been what later led to 2007's Civil War, where fans reportedly told the MSM they were rooting for say, either Captain America or Iron Man, but no word was ever given as to the entertainment value of the overall story (and there wasn't). What's the use of these events if they're built on turning fandom against itself? That's what these crossovers feel like now, and it probably never occurred to anyone before.

All that told, something that needs to be made clear about Brevoort is that he's shameless, considering he's been party to many of the most unpopular decisions at Marvel, including erasure of the Spider-marriage, not to mention "narrative swings". And they have the gall to sugarcoat even that. If all a crossover tale like JLA vs. Avengers can do is present a divisive premise that has the effect of encouraging fans to choose a side as though one hero's less valuable than the other, that's what makes these kind of crossovers tasteless. Which was the case when it came to Avengers vs X-Men. In a time where there was more quality, it would've been far better if there'd been a team-up rather than a versus match, even if it was the villains who were pulling the strings. Now, both publishers have collapsed.

Greg Capullo retiring from interior illustration work

Popverse says the veteran artist Greg Capullo is retiring, mostly because his art team on Batman parted ways, and if he continues, he may limit himself to covers only:

Iconic superhero comics artist Greg Capullo is mulling retiring from drawing comics. Capullo is a rare breed — having been a top monthly comic book artist in two distinctly different eras, both in the '90s with Quasar, X-Force, and Spawn, and then going on a long hiatus only to return at the top of his form (and at the top of the charts) with DC's 'New 52' relaunch of Batman. In recent years, he's been the go-to artist for DC and Marvel major titles, drawing the DC events Dark Nights: Metal and its sequel Dark Nights: Death Metal, to the DC/Image crossover series Batman/Spawn, the Marvel standalone series Wolverine: Revenge, and the recent once-in-a-generation Batman/Deadpool event from DC and Marvel.

But now, at age 64 and recent upheavals in his art team, Greg Capullo sees 2026 as possibly his last year drawing actual comics.

“I’m kind of feeling like I’m going to be done doing interiors,” Greg Capullo said recently during a MegaCon spotlight panel shared with Scott Snyder and Frank Tieri. “I have reasons for that. I can give them to you."

I vaguely recall Capullo was one of those creators who indicated he was a leftist with appalling positions in the past decade, though he did once make a valid argument about why talented scriptwriting is important, and blocked fellow leftists Kurt Busiek and Gail Simone after they disagreed. Even so, is he somebody to miss in the medium after he fully retires? Maybe not.

Another key part of Capullo's reason for stepping back from interior comics is that his primary art team for the 17 years, from his return with Image's Haunt on through to DC's Batman and everything after, has broken up.

"I recently lost my art team, my longtime art team," Capullo continues. "One guy I won’t even discuss, but Jonathan Glapion, my friend, has gone on to become his own artist. I’m very proud of him. He’s working under McFarlane. He’s got his own thing going."

While Capullo's days of drawing interiors comics are coming to a close, Capullo says he plans to continue drawing covers whenever possible.

So here we have another guy who's now limiting himself to covers only, and on pamphlets, no doubt. What good is that? There's other artists like J. Scott Campbell who long stopped drawing interiors, and IMO, unwisely. Others like Stanley Lau seem to have made covers their sole type of career. I'm sure there's other artists out there with talent, but they shouldn't be wasting them on Marvel/DC, certainly not so long as they're in an artistic shambles under a conglomerate ownership. Notice how Capullo contributed to at least 2 of DC's crossover events, one of the biggest problems that metastasized ever since Marvel's Secret Wars. If that's what he considers worth working on, that's just the problem. So if all he could think of doing was wasting his talents on meaningless crossovers, then he wasn't utilizing his skills well at all. Maybe if he stuck with Image, but even that's not an instant guarantee he'll turn out something with long lasting value.

Now, he's semi-retiring, and he'll probably never admit the Big Two did terrible things over the years and that it was a serious mistake to lend his talents to their businesses after all the harm they caused. The refusal of some veterans to publicly admit something went wrong is what makes this a very sad affair.

What Tom Brevoort says now about the affordability of crossovers

According to Popverse, one of Marvel's worst modern editors told a podcaster he seemingly recognizes why crossovers have made collectibility too costly:

If you've been collecting Marvel Comics for, say, two or three decades, you've maybe noticed a shift in how the House of Ideas runs its line-wide event tie-in issues. Namely, that they put out less of them. And while there are doubtless a lot of factors that go into that decision (more regular events, a global pandemic, etc.), a deciding factor from within Marvel HQ is simply that, these days, people can't afford to buy tie-in issues.

At least, that's how Tom Brevoort sees it.

Gee, why didn't he consider all that years before? And surely most importantly, why doesn't he consider the vitality of merit-based storytelling? What came as the result of Secret Wars and Crisis on Infinite Earths could've been avoided going forward, but the publishers regrettably came to rely increasingly upon crossovers instead of merit, and that's one of the biggest problems that brought down comicdom in the long run. If Marvel and DC really put out less now, well, they did so awfully late, and after only so much ruination of their cast of characters in the process. As far back as 2 decades ago, DC was the one who first began pandering to woke directions like DEI, and Marvel followed up on that several years later. None of that was merit-based, and coupled with all the line-wide crossovers, made for a very alienating approach going forward.

Marvel's longest-serving editor was recently a guest on the Word Balloon Comics Podcast with host John Siuntres, where the pair discussed Brevoort's storied history of working on line-wide Marvel events. "I've done more of these than anybody," the current X-Men editor said of Marvel's company-wide events, "Every time you try to take the lessons of what you did and apply it to the next one."

Wrong, he didn't, and their discussion of line-wide events proves it. And if we take Avengers: Disassembled and House of M as examples, he let Bendis turn Scarlet Witch into a dishrag. In hindsight, it's sickening, especially now after the WandaVision TV program and the 2nd live action Dr. Strange movie made use of the forced changing of Wanda into a one-dimensional madwoman.

One of those lessons, it appears, is that while comic sales are certainly not crashing, it's less likely that collectors are going to shell out money to collect tie-in issues for every company-wide event, such as last year's One World Under Doom. Although to be fair, you don't have to be an editor at Marvel to know that people's budgets are tighter than they were just a little while ago.

"The reality of the world is different now than it was 20 years ago," Brevoort told his interviewer. "Which is to say: when we were doing something like House of M or Secret Wars, you could do an awful lot of tie-in books and have the expectation that a certain amount of the audience was going to want to read all of those books, and was going to be financially able to read all of those books."

No kidding. The problem is that Brevoort and other staffers like Joe Quesada were counting on the entire fanbase to literally buy these things up completely unquestioned, no matter how poor the story, and no matter how horrific the treatment of the cast of characters was. It's the same with DC under Dan DiDio. This gives a telling clue they were also unofficially relying on speculators to buy these up in hopes they'd be worth a lot of money in the future. But all that did was cause the speculator market to collapse in the mid-90s, and it's only gotten worse since.

"As times have gotten tighter," he concluded, "And belts have gotten tighter, it's maybe not the best idea in the world to go quite that deep, quite that far. If we publish a crossover now and did as many tie-ins as we did in during Civil War, I don't know whether it would succeed or fail, but my guess would be those tie-ins would not perform as well because no one would be able to afford to read them all."

As if we already weren't going to defer to Brevoort's decades of experience in this, our own ailing bank accounts would have us agreeing.

Well why didn't anyone even back then make the point? Better still, why didn't anybody at the time argue that, if they alienated the audience, they can't be surprised if not only sales would decline, but prices would go up as the publishers became desperate to compensate for loss of revenue? This is just another clue what's gone wrong with serial fiction storytelling and publishing, and despite what's told, there's no chance even Brevoort will do anything to mend a horrid situation. After all, what did he do to reverse the severe damage done by erasing the Spider-marriage? Or the maltreatment of Mary Jane Watson and Scarlet Witch, to name but a few examples of Marvel cast members who were wronged? And then they have the gall to talk about company wide crossovers as though it was never a slight to artistic quality. I'm sorry, but despite suggestions to the contrary, this article isn't doing enough to repair the fiasco Marvel and DC became since the turn of the century, and Brevoort should've resigned his positions long ago. If he continues to bog them down with his very presence, it only confirms he hasn't learned any lessons, and if DC hires him despite how clear it is he hasn't or no longer has any talent, that too will make clear they're not learning lessons either. Nepotism is one of the biggest problems in comicdom today, and a leading reason why we still have dreadful figures like Brevoort to contend with, who don't have any genuine remorse over the disaster they turned mainstream comics into.

Alexandra DeWitt's 1994 death in Green Lantern may have been retconned away

Superhero Hype lets know that DC, surprisingly enough, appears to have done one thing decent of recent, and that's abandoning the original premise used for setting up Kyle Rayner as the forced replacement for Hal Jordan during Emerald Twilight. More specifically, what originally became of his first girlfriend, Alexandra deWitt, who was repellently murdered by Major Force in 1994, when he throttled her and stuffed her corpse into a refridgerator:

The possible retcon came in “City of Angels,” by Jeremy Adams and V. Ken Marion. The story centers around Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, as he returns to Earth and his hometown of Los Angeles. Joining him is Odyssey the Time Bandit, who is assisting him in tracking fugitive aliens as part of her parole.

While stuck in traffic, Kyle begins to relate his life story and how he became a Green Lantern. He speaks of being raised by a single mother and how art was his only outlet. However, one key event of Kyle’s history goes unmentioned in his recollection.

While discussing his youth, Kyle mentions his first love, Alexandra “Alex” DeWitt. Kyle tells Odyssey of how his sketches of Alex got him a job as a comic book artist. However, Alex grew tired of supporting them both, as Kyle’s dream job didn’t pay well. She also disliked Kyle’s becoming a shut-in, as he stayed home to meet his deadlines instead of going out with her. Both issues led her to dump him.

What Green Lantern death did DC retcon?

In the new story, Kyle tries to impress Alex by showing up at her favorite club. However, this doesn’t work. She doesn’t believe he’s really changed his ways. However, this trip wound up changing Kyle’s life in another way. After the awkward artist stepped outside to get away from the crowds, he was entrusted with the last Green Lantern ring.

[...] Green Lantern #33/#600 seems to change this history. When Odyssey asks what happened next, Kyle does not mention Alex’s violent death. Indeed, he does not mention her at all. Instead, he talks about how becoming a Green Lantern taught him that “sometimes your dreams aren’t just one thing.”

If they really have produced a story retconning a cheap, obnoxious setup - one that was entirely unnecessary for "defining" Kyle - that is admittedly amazing, because it was uncalled for to begin with, one of the worst things the then editor Kevin Dooley oversaw (and also writer Ron Marz, and artist Darryl Banks), and most tellingly, what occurred going forward was held hostage to economy writing, since the only girlfriends they'd give Kyle at the time were Donna Troy, and then Jade. Editorial mandates of that sort never work out well, and that kind of approach is what otherwise brought down superhero comics, since in terms of character growth, they were written into a corner by that kind of character casting, which was increasingly forced. As a result, while this new approach is laudable, Kyle Rayner still doesn't stand as his own character, because he was the product of a mindset that, despite what might seem to be the case, demands that the reader care more about the costume than the character wearing it. Also note that much of the "characterization" Kyle received was contrived and forced, and despite what the apologists might claim, he bore no more personality in the scriptwriting than Hal Jordan allegedly lacked.

Also interesting about this possible retcon is that, as seen in the panel, Alexandra's drawn pretty hot, and the artist wasn't held hostage to the kind of wokeness that Donna Troy was subjected to of recent, and come to think of it, Starfire too. That said, this still doesn't excuse how Hal was forced into the role of a deadly villain back in the day, depicted murdering at least a few other GL Corps members, and then sent into the grave for a time, and later being shoehorned into the role of the Spectre, replacing Jim Corrigan. And that's just another example of how even classic cast members had their personal agency revoked by blatant editors and writers.

Does this mean Alexandra DeWitt will turn up alive later, in whatever they're planning for publication? I don't advise buying DC's modern output so long as they continue to be held hostage to far-left ideologues, but it will be interesting to see if current writers are trying to mend some mistakes as an apology to GL fandom. The premise of Emerald Twilight, along with the maltreatment of Hal in 1994's Zero Hour, will have to be jettisoned as well. Why, it might be more beneficial to rework Kyle and Alexandra into non-superhero cast members, and also non-costumed protagonists. Mainly because even Alexandra had no agency in the handful of issues where she appeared back then, when she served as nothing more than a plot device to be slain by Major Force just to serve as "motivation" for Kyle. There's a lot of things that went wrong with DC around the time of Zero Hour that writers involved with it won't admit, but aren't impossible to mend. And the best way to do that is simply to jettison some of the bad ideas from canon. If writers who care would like to hear what could be done, I'm always open to offering them ideas how to work things out.

2 more crossovers coming from Marvel this year

Marvel simply refuses to cease with the endless flood of company wide crossovers, and IGN in turn refuses to take any kind of objective view of how negatively this affects their now sorely lacking creativity:

Marvel Comics took to the Comics Pro retailer convention to shine a spotlight on two of its biggest 2026 storylines, Avengers: Armageddon and Queen in Black. Both of these crossover events will help to define the ongoing direction of the Marvel Universe in the latter half of 2026.

First up, Avengers: Armageddon is a new limited series from Captain America writer Chip Zdarsky and artists Frank Alpizar and Delio Diaz. Aramageddon is being compared to 2004's Avengers: Disassembled in terms of being a major watershed moment for the Avengers franchise that will completely transform Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

Armageddon builds on the fallout of One World Under Doom and ongoing story threads in Captain America and Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon. As the world continues to reel from Doctor Doom's brief reign, Red Hulk decides to claim the kingdom of Latveria for himself. That sparks a global conflict that draws in the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and Wolverine.

...Meanwhile, Queen in Black is an event spinning out of the pages of Al Ewing's Venom series. [...]

Yup, a crossover based on the writings of one of the wokest writers of the past decade. And two crossovers is simply 2 too many. That this is being compared to one of the worst productions of Brian Bendis - one that degraded the Scarlet Witch - is telling. No matter how this turns out, it's not worth wasting money upon, and its being developed as a crossover at this point is a most serious problem, because of how as time went by, crossovers served to destroy creative autonomy and stand-alone storytelling. This is one of the main reasons Marvel and DC will never recover from the damage crossovers have resulted in long term, so long as they continue to stick with them so casually.

What Polygon says about the new Wonder Man TV show

Polygon wrote about the new TV program running on Disney Plus based on Wonder Man/Simon Williams, one of the most notable members of the Avengers in decades past, and what they say about his exact history in the following paragraph is rather confusing:

In the comics, however, Wonder Man’s origins are vastly different from his TV counterpart’s. Despite his deep ties to the Avengers, most notably Vision, his footprint in both the comics and the MCU has been surprisingly minimal. Add in his close friendship with Beast and his broader connections to the X-Men, and there’s a lot to unpack when digging into everything you need to know about Marvel’s next installment.

Oh, please. His presence in comicdom was anything but minor, considering he was cast in West Coast Avengers later on. But, if you want an example of where things went wrong with the use of Simon in past Marvel publication, there's the worthless 1991-94 solo series written by the disgraced Gerard Jones, which, like several other comics he wrote, contained dreadful sexual/political allusions, and that was definitely a stain on the character's publication history. With shoddy stories like those around, is it any wonder such an otherwise impressive creation could end up having minimal footprints? And, there's another problematic moment in Marvel history itself dating back nearly 2 decades ago to consider:

Wonder Man isn’t a mutant in the comics, though. But after he had a falling out with The Avengers over the Human Registration Act (the equivalent of the Sokovia Accords in the MCU) during the Civil War crossover event, he became a de facto homie of the X-Men. During Civil War, Simon vowed to never use his powers again and to use his public relations skills more instead.

One of the most insulting to the intellect crossovers ever produced when Joe Quesada was EIC, built on some very terrible premises making the USA look bad just because of a right-wing government being in charge, and they have the gall to sugarcoat that. Let's be clear. I don't think Captain America - or even Wonder Man - should've been written supporting the Human Registration Act, but neither did I want Iron Man to be depicted doing so. Yet they obscured all that for the sake of asking readers whose side they're on, not whether the story had merit, or was lacking. And to think, the crossover was produced for the sake of depicting WM shunning use of his powers? For shame. That was disrespectful to creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. At the article's end, it mentions:

Now that he’s back, still a pacifist, Wonder Man maintains his X-Men ties: He’s developed a strong friendship with the apelike mutant Hank McCoy, aka Beast, whose extroverted personality complements the more introspective Simon. Wonder Man considers Beast his best friend, a friendship that developed during their time as Avengers. The last time we saw Wonder Man in the comics was in Astonishing Avengers Infinity Comic #30 in 2025, but the character has a self-titled limited series expected to debut in Marvel Comics on March 18.

Which I'd advise all to stay away from. And if Simon's still depicted as a "pacifist" according to what Civil War set in motion, that's very bad and sad, and makes a mockery of what the character was created for, much like Captain America, Iron Man, and even the Beast. Assuming the TV miniseries goes more by the original premise of the past century, that's why it'd only be head-shaking if WM's allowed to be portrayed according to what earlier comics writers set up, but back in modern comics, Marvel's staff won't allow it, resulting in an absurd contradiction. Yet it wouldn't be surprising if the TV show did follow what was set up by Civil War, based on where Hollywood's been going for a long time now.

Regardless of that, because of how bad Marvel comics became under Quesada and Axel Alonso, that's one more reason why I'm not up to watching a lot of these live action films and TV shows at this point, because if the films and TV programs portrayed the characters as they originally were, why aren't comics writers willing to or allowed to do the same? The contradictions only make it a joke, but then, the live action films have become pretty woke regardless in the past several years, so it's not like there's much to look forward to now anyway. But to conclude, I will say that Wonder Man/Simon Williams, as a creation of Lee/Kirby, deserves far better, like many other creations major and minor who've been destroyed as storytelling vehicles by political correctness in over a quarter-century. And it won't happen under the current corporate managements and ownerships.

Update: and as noted here, the TV adaptation is little more than DEI propaganda. So clearly, something did go wrong, as expected.

Does Superman really "leave" his own comics that often?

A writer at Comic Book Club Live discusses how the Man of Steel seems to have quite a few moments where he's missing from his own solo comics:

While Superman launched the modern superhero era in Action Comics #1 and has been the hero of that title for almost all of its long run, the Man of Steel actually finds himself displaced — both in Action Comics and in the Superman comics titles more broadly — more often than most other heroes. And we’re gearing up for it to happen again with Reign of the Superboys, a big crossover event in which the various characters known as Superboy — but who aren’t actually Clark Kent — take center stage in a story whose title is lifted from Reign of the Supermen! (itself a story in which the Man of Steel was mostly absent).

To understand why this keeps happening, first, let’s take a look back at other instances when Superman disappeared from his own titles. Action Comics Weekly ran for over 40 issues, from Action Comics #601 through #642. During that time, Superman was no longer the lead feature in Action Comics, which became an oversized anthology featuring characters like Blackhawk, Green Lantern, Arsenal, and Nightwing. The experiment eventually ended and Superman got Action Comics back, leading into the “Triangle Era” of the Superman titles, during which time Action Comics, Superman, and The Adventures of Superman were joined by Superman: The Man of Steel to make a functionally-weekly story.

That wasn’t the last time Superman exited his own titles, though, and while Action Comics Weekly was seemingly an experimental proving ground for characters who didn’t have their own comic, later stories that took the Man of Steel out of his own comics were more narrative-driven.

The most famous example, obviously, was the stories that happened following 1992’s The Death of Superman. It’s also illustrative of why removing Superman from Superman works so well.

Say what? That's about as effective as saying that turning the Man of Steel into a crazy villain works so well. Sorry, but when it happens far too often - and potentially far more often than it does for Batman - then it doesn't work well at all. It only hints the writers don't know what to do with the star of the show, and would rather look for excuses to spotlight other characters in the star's main comics, rather than in their own separate miniseries or even paperback developed and sold on its own merits.

Interesting that Action Comics' weekly run of 42 issues was brought up, because while there were some stories there starring other characters that worked well enough, the Green Lantern stories almost single-handedly ruined everything. That was where GL's descent into horrible storytelling first officially began after his own solo book ended, as the assigned "creators" went miles out of their way to depict Carol Ferris in the Star Sapphire guise murdering Katma Tui, and if they were trying to make a statement about the South Africa republic's problems with racist apardheid at the time, they destroyed everything based on the bizarrely implausible way John Stewart was turned into a scapegoat: he recommends that Hal steal diamonds from a mine in South Africa, which goes against what Hal was written standing for, which is opposition to stealing. And then somehow, John gets blamed. If the whole idea was to comment on racial issues of the times, they totally botched it. And then, the Cosmic Odyssey special from 1989 made things worse by making John guilty of enabling a planetload of people to die. This is why it's actually despicable Action would be turned weekly, if any stories inside were going to be that bad, and alarmingly forced. Especially considering what other horrors awaited the DCU by the turn of the century. So, while stories featuring Nightwing, Black Canary and Deadman were okay, GL stood out as the rock-bottom feature of the lot, and the whole notion Superman would be sidelined for that is addtionally miserable.

That said, the Man of Steel wasn't literally absent from his own foremost book at the time. But based on how badly written GL's feature was by Christopher Priest and even Peter David, that's why it's a shame Action had to go weekly for that.

As for the Death/Return of Superman in 1992-3, what's so "famous" about that? As I've argued before, when the storyline got around to depicting the Toyman murdering Cat Grant's son, that's what really made it tasteless, and it also came at the expense of a crooked character whom I don't recall ever being portrayed as vile as the Joker before. If that's what the Man of Steel's being absented from his own comics for, no wonder quality went way south since. And what's so "narrative-driven" about all that anyway? It's laughable.

Anyway, this new crossover they speak of is decidedly another best avoided, and while it may not be surprising nobody's willing to insist universe-spanning crossovers have to stop, it's certainly disappointing. Superman should definitely not have to be sidelined because assigned writers may not know what kind of stories to give him, and the increased focus on villains has to stop too. It's no substitute for merit-based writing.

What's so special about DC's Kingdom Come that it should be adapted to film?

Geek Vibes Nation wrote a list of at least 5 comics stories they believe "deserve" a movie adaptation, and one of those is Mark Waid's Kingdom Come, the miniseries built upon a dark angle:

Written by Mark Waid with breathtaking painted art by Alex Ross, Kingdom Come is a four-issue miniseries that presents a future where the classic heroes have retired, giving way to a new generation of reckless, violent metahumans with no regard for human life. When tragedy strikes, an aged Superman emerges from exile to restore order, leading to a clash between old ideals and new chaos.

The story explores profound themes like legacy, morality, the role of heroes in society, and the dangers of unchecked power. Iconic moments include Superman’s return in a redesigned suit, epic battles involving the Justice League, Wonder Woman, and even Captain Marvel (Shazam), and a climactic confrontation with a brainwashed Captain Marvel orchestrated by Lex Luthor’s Mankind Liberation Front.

Why it deserves a live-action film: In the current DC Universe reboot under James Gunn, Kingdom Come could serve as a mature, standalone Elseworlds tale or a future-set epic. Its stunning visuals—thanks to Ross’s hyper-realistic style—would translate beautifully to CGI-heavy spectacle, while the generational conflict mirrors real-world debates. Imagine veteran actors portraying older heroes alongside younger stars as the new guard. No full live-action adaptation exists yet, making this a prime candidate for a prestige superhero film that balances action with philosophical depth.

Oh, so Gunn's new takes on the DCU are their excuse? Sorry, this is simply tasteless, and only regurgitates the cliches that set mainstream comicdom on the path to ruin in the 1990s. They don't clearly mention that the story built on the death of Lois Lane, and Superman all but quits the crimefighting business as a result. Seeing how such themes were cliched to death over the past decades, that's why I don't consider the story philosophical, let alone having much depth. Some could even argue the clash with a brainwashed Billy Batson preceded some of Marvel's stories where heroes clash with each other too more than villains. And while I don't deny Ross is a talented artist, the way they describe his style is all to reminiscent of why the medium's been brought down so badly - too much fuss about the supposed need for "realism". Must I point out one of my favorite Marvel books is the 1988-98 Excalibur, which had quite a few surreal moments? Its first half was certainly pretty good in that regard, and I think Alan Davis was a very talented artist with his cartoonish designs back then. Hence, I wish they'd quit implying "realistic" is what makes a fictional story great.

The point is, whether a story is realistic or surrealistic, both will only truly work if there's merit, and it isn't heavy-handed. Stories like Kingdom Come really went out of their way with the darkness, and the damage its done to practically any and all parts of the entertainment industry have long taken a toll, and no telling if the medium will ever move away from it. Also, what makes a story with a premise like Kingdom Come's far more important than a story where say, there's marriage or even a reunion leading to resumption of one? Modern PC has really led to a situation where it's near impossible to write up a plausible marriage premise between men and women, let alone appreciate the idea at all, and it's been setting a very unhealthy example for years now, with no telling if the situation will ever improve. And then we wonder why the Spider-marriage was destroyed. Kingdom Come isn't a good wellspring for a movie at all.

The history of a now 50-year-old specialty store in Santa Cruz

Good Times wrote a whole article about Atlantis Fantasyworld, one of the oldest USA specialty stores, located in Santa Cruz, whose owner Joe Ferrara once knew comics writer Mike Friedrich, and they discussed, in example, how the store's been able to last as long as it has for nearly 5 decades:

Approaching its 50th anniversary, I sat down with owner Joe Ferrara to chronicle how a personal collection grew into a half-century institution—and to understand the quieter values that allowed it to outlast earthquakes, recessions, and the digital revolution while so many brick-and-mortar stores disappeared.

Founded in 1976, Atlantis is stocked with comics, graphic novels, toys, magazines, art books, and collectibles. Its longevity isn’t nostalgia alone.

It’s consistency, care, and an unshakable belief that stories matter.

In that case, I hope he focuses more attention on independent/creator owned products, because after the way DC/Marvel went since the turn of the century with divisive politics and woke directions, it'd be better to lavish some more focus on creator-owned stories and judge which are the best ones for promotion.

According to January 2025 retailer reports, there are between 2,000 and 3,000 specialty comic shops in North America. Even broader business directories count fewer than 4,000 stores nationwide—a figure that includes “hybrids” that act primarily as game centers or tournament venues rather than dedicated comic bookstores. No other California shop matches Atlantis’s nearly 50 years under the same ownership—a true survivor in a landscape where many independents have closed.

To be sure, that's because they relied far too heavily on modern DC/Marvel output, though that's obviously not the only reason any stores could've gone out of business. There's also, as I'm well aware, problems with rent prices going up. Of course, regarding the comics themselves, when divisive politics are shoved into the pages as viciously as they were since the turn of the century, that too is dispiriting.

Ferrara’s love of comics was born from a childhood obsession that initially worried his mother.

“I loved comics as a kid,” he recalls. “My mom complained to the nuns, ‘He only wants to read comics.’ And God bless them, the nuns of the ’50s didn’t say no. They said, ‘Mrs. Ferrara, he’s reading.’”

What could have been brushed aside became literacy, curiosity, and eventually a life’s work. Comics weren’t a phase. They were a language.

That's certainly amazing the Catholic representatives he studied under recognized the medium in itself is valid. It's just the content and suitability level at a young age that's in question. Of course, today that might've changed in ways that aren't for the better, sadly, and in the past decade, it was certainly evident some of the worst forms of censorship were being promoted by leftists who didn't uphold the values of their predecessors.

Ferrara’s passion for comics was reignited in college by his roommate Mike Friedrich, who went on to write for Marvel and DC on titles such as Spider-Man and Batman. By the time Ferrara moved to Santa Cruz in 1976, he’d amassed more than 6,000 comics.

The turning point came during a dinner at his mother’s house.

“My mom, between bites, says, ‘He’ll probably open his own store,’” Ferrara remembers. “Bang. That did it. That was like a tuning fork. My body just started vibrating.”

And it's great he wanted to work as a salesman for the medium. Of course, while I appreciate that he'd owned plenty of back issues at the time, I'd be even happier if he agreed the medium's got to make the shift to formats like paperback/hardcover, because pamphlets have long become too expensive in over 20 years, and the way DC/Marvel rely so heavily upon crossovers has worsened the situation, regardless of whether you have to read all connecting issues to understand the whole. Somebody's got to make clear within sales management itself that this cannot go on, no matter how "clever" they might claim it all is.

Atlantis holds a unique place in Santa Cruz film history as the comic store featured in The Lost Boys. The original location at 707 Pacific Ave. was transformed by director Joel Schumacher’s crew to create the illusion that the shop sat on the Boardwalk. They built a wall in the gutter, placed Laughing Sal in front of it, and shot at an angle that hid the actual street—even removing a tree from the beach in post-production.

Seriously, considering Schumacher was such a wokester in his own way, one who brought the live action Batman films of the times down to shoddy levels, that's why I'm really not impressed to know this. And it's just as troubling to know the following:

The Lost Boys connection runs deeper than souvenirs. DC Comics published a six-issue sequel series, written by Tim Seeley, based on what was supposed to be the next film. Ferrara invited Seeley to the store’s 40th anniversary, where he signed the first two issues. When Seeley went home and finished writing the series, he included a tribute: in the final issue, the vampires kill Joe Ferrara.

“I’m dead in the comics,” Ferrara grins. When Atlantis sells out of those issues, they’re gone—the series is out of print.

In that case, is this miniseries really some massive success? Obviously not, and if I were in Ferrara's position, I'd be repelled that they put me in a horror-thriller setting that awful. That aside, Schumacher was such an overrated director in his time, and his take on any kind of comics, Batman or anything else, did no favors for the medium.

While the global comic book market continues to expand into a multi-billion dollar industry driven by manga and digital access, brick-and-mortar specialty shops like Atlantis navigate distinct pressures. Many diversify with events and tournaments to thrive, but Atlantis has stayed true to its roots as a story-centered bookstore. Its genre-racking and welcoming vibe proves that heartfelt, innovative retail can remain a cultural anchor amid broader industry evolution.

This may be a cliche, but if manga's the big deal, are USA comics by contrast such a success if manga's surpassed them in popularity? That said, it is impressive the specialty store's stuck by its core mission, and not tried to water down the whole purpose they got into the business for. They also bring up a former publisher who proved a letdown in the long run:

Ferrara’s longevity has earned him deep respect across the industry. Paul Levitz, who spent 47 years at DC Comics and served as its president from 2002 to 2009, calls Ferrara a pioneer. Levitz played a central role in shaping modern comics publishing, helping hire influential creators like Alan Moore and building the Direct Market system that made independent comic bookshops financially viable in the first place.

“Joe Ferrara has been a stellar example of the independent comic shop owner almost from the beginning of comic shops in America,” Levitz says. “He’s led the recognition of successful shops, and been a gentle godfather to the growth of our industry.”

And Levitz became a huge disappointment over time, to the point where I seriously doubt he ever got into the business because he cared about the creations he got assignments to write.

Industry admiration has also taken formal shape. Atlantis Fantasyworld won the Eisner Award for Best Comic Shop in 1996, one of the highest honors in comics retail. The award was created by Will Eisner, widely regarded as the father of the graphic novel, to encourage professionalism and elevate standards across the industry.

“His intention was that comic book retailers would become more professional,” Ferrara says. “Not just being like, you know, indoor flea market guys.”

Well I'm not sure if all became as professional as Eisner must've hoped, nor did standards improve, based on where they've gotten to now. At this point, it's much more likely they could turn against him for publishing his last GN, The Plot. And the Eisner awards, IIRC, even ended up going to comics that didn't deserve it, like Identity Crisis, and there were other troubling choices made by the panel of judges for the ceremony. That the Eisner awards went down in quality is, predictably, not dwelled upon here. The writer even made the mistake of referencing a now disgraced author who did no favors for the medium in the long run:

Beyond comics, Ferrara’s long-standing advocacy for prostate cancer awareness earned him the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, which honors individuals who have contributed to the comics community and public good beyond business success. Past recipients include science-fiction author Robert Heinlein, writer Neil Gaiman, and Jeannie Schulz, who has overseen and protected the legacy of her late husband, Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz.

Did they have to put somebody whose reputation and career have since plummeted due to the sexual assault allegations against him into this article? I do wonder if Ferrara's store and other business associates ever had figures like Mike Baron and Chuck Dixon as recipients? If not, that's decidedly a flaw.

Inspired by how breast cancer awareness made pink a universal symbol of solidarity, Ferrara worked to bring the same visibility to prostate cancer through the color blue. He convinced Marvel to create special blue-themed variant covers for awareness campaigns—an industry first that amplified life-saving messages nationwide. IDW Publishing followed suit, running ads inside their comics. This pioneering advocacy solidified blue as the cause’s symbol within the medium. At Comic-Con, Bob Clampett’s daughter Ruth presented Ferrara with the award that bears her father’s name.

While the subject of cancer is a valid concern, what good does it do to promote awareness through variant covers, which has made a joke out of the mainstream in particular, since it only obscured how the stories became monumentally awful? Anybody who's going to push variant covers at the expense of the interiors is undermining the belief in need for merit.

The staff reflects the shop’s ethos: everyone belongs here. Atlantis has always been a place where all are welcome—no gatekeeping, no judgment, just a shared love of stories.

“If you hire the right people, you don’t have to worry,” Joe says. “They care.”

Well I sure hope they don't take a naive view of certain ideologies, including how communism's made such a troubling presence in USA society these days. I think it's great Ferrara's been able to keep the store running as successfully as he has for 50 years, but when the talk of variant covers comes up, that can be a telling clue something's wrong with the approach, and when they don't discuss any seriously challenging issues involved, that only dampens the impact of the article, along with what the store's meant to be about. Retail specialists need to consider that if they want anything to improve, they certainly can't overlook what went wrong with the mainstream.

Artist Ben Harvey believes drawing covers for One World Under Doom was actually getting somewhere

The Chesnut Hill Local spoke with artist Ben Harvey, another artist who may do more work with covers than anything else, and he's one of those kind of sugarcoaters who won't admit he's working on an overrated crossover that does no favors for the previous stories of the past:

Ben Harvey was busy when Marvel reached out to him to create covers for the “One World Under Doom” comic books a little over a year ago. Working on multiple other projects at the time, the illustrator politely declined the opportunity. However, when Marvel insisted they could work around his schedule, Harvey relented. He is glad he did.

“I had no idea what I was getting into,” Harvey told the Local about the project. “It wound up being this huge event,” a multi-issue storyline with large ramifications for the comic book’s universe.

According to Harvey, “One World Under Doom” has gone to its third printing, an accomplishment that indicates just how popular the comic books are. With issue No. 9 — the final one in the 2025 event — releasing on Nov. 19, Harvey will be celebrating the release at Multiverse (8026 Germantown Ave.) in Chestnut Hill on Nov. 22 from 1-3 p.m. He will be signing comics, and the first 30 attendees to purchase the “One World Under Doom” comic also will receive a free Ben Harvey print.

Forget it, these crossover events have become so insulting, it would be meaningless to own a print that pretentious. Again, sales figures aren't given here, so one must reasonably wonder if the company's wasting money trying to make it look like everything's dandy. We're supposed to waste money on this shoddy item built on the concept of crossovers, which eventually ruined mainstream superhero comics? That kind of stuff has also made it nigh impossible to develop stand-alone stories that could be built on character drama, but apparently, none of that matters to an artist who's clearly only in the business for drawing coverscans.

In addition to Marvel, Harvey has worked with multiple prestigious publishing houses such as DC Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, and Valiant Entertainment. Outside of the world of comic books, he also has provided illustrations for Wizards of the Coast’s Magic the Gathering x Marvel crossover and partnered with Epic Games to produce loading screens for the popular video game Fortnite.

Harvey said these high points of his career so far have typically been unanticipated.

“I guess you could say I’m just happy to be here,” Harvey said. “I never realized going into this [industry] I would be able to reach such successes with my work.”

With “One World Under Doom,” the work has not just ended in success, but also provided Harvey with “solid job training.”

“Throughout this whole ride with Marvel, as you do more and more of these covers for them, it’s a learning process,” Harvey said. “Looking at that first cover, issue No. 1 all the way out to No. 9, I feel like I’ve grown a foot between all that.”

And once more, what are the sales figures for this shoddy crossover that had its share of political metaphors? Harvey's just as dismaying as various other artists who've sugarcoated these overrated events intended only for short-term headlines, and what's to learn from participating in a story with tasteless political motivations? That's hardly "solid" training, and if he's going to keep propping up the company despite all the bad directions they sunk into, that's one of the ways things have gone wrong with modern comicdom. No doubt, Harvey also takes a naive, fluff-coated view of DC and Valiant/Dynamite, even though they too have their share of ill-advised directions they won't take responsibility for. I've seen some of his art, which appears to be more of the computerized variety, though what's really sad is how he wastes his talents on unproductive crossovers like One World Under Doom. Something which'll only be forgotten by next year, and will have accomplished nothing lasting, contrary to what Harvey wants everyone to think.

A columnist who was convinced to try modern comics because of woke Jason Aaron

A writer at Popverse claims he was encouraged to read more modern mainstream because of Marvel's "War of the Realms" crossover that Jason Aaron, one of the wokest writers in modern comicdom, was involved in producing. And, he belittles the complaints of the traditional fanbase that was driven away:

Today, the spectral form hovering above every conversation about the current state of the comic book industry is the amorphous group called 'new readers.' These 'new readers' are used to drive a wedge between Western comic book readership (which, in many conversations I've observed, tends to get flattened down to superhero books from Marvel and DC) and the popularity of manga, manhua, and manhwa from East Asia. The cynical narrative goes that the history of in-universe continuity reboots in both Marvel and DC Comics has driven away 'new readers,' who are reportedly too intimidated to take the plunge.

Ahem. It's not just that now routine reboots are dispiriting. It's also that moral and common sense were thrown away, and only so many characters from both universes had their personalities turned inside out for no good reason. All this, along with the very events the writer is sugarcoating, are what discouraged fandom from continuing, and he has the gall to call it "cynical", but not the writing of woke scribes like Aaron.

Suffice to say, I've never really agreed with this narrative, and I have writer Jason Aaron to thank for that. At Fan Expo Canada 2025, Aaron talked about the approach he takes as a writer to ensure that his books remain both exciting to returning comic book fans while "accessible" to newbies.

"I want every book I write to be accessible to somebody who's never read this character before, whether that's when I was doing Thor, doing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," says Aaron. "For me as a writer, you always have to show your work. I can't expect that any of you kind of show up to the party already invested in these characters... When I'm writing the book, I have to think of it as you've been stuck in a bunker for 40 years, and you've never heard of these characters before, and you just came out and the first thing that happens is for some reason somebody hands you this first issue of this comic, you need to get everything to get you excited about these characters in the pages of that book."

When I heard Jason Aaron say this, my hackles were raised, because I have him to thank for how I got into present-day Marvel Comics. Without getting too bogged down in my origin story as a comic book reader, I was that reader who was stuck in a bunker for 40 years - and that bunker was Walt Simonson's run on Thor (as far as bunkers go, it was luxurious). It wasn't until I was a college student that I finally had the money to get into comics, so I bought an omnibus of Simonson's Thor with funds from a research fellowship I was in. I later branched out and got into G. Willow Wilson's Ms. Marvel and then Greg Pak and Frank Cho's Totally Awesome Hulk, but I didn't go much further than that. I was overwhelmed by the state of contemporary Marvel Comics and the endless aisles of the white and red trade paperback dress that lined the shelves of Forbidden Planet - until I picked up War of the Realms by Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman in 2019.

Wow, one of the biggest advocates of social justice pandering is who convinced him to read Marvel's modern output? Well, it's really no shock at all. These modern news writers don't have what it takes to appreciate older stories, let alone encourage audiences to buy and read them to see what stands or falls on its own merits, and figure out how to develop stories in a modern context that can actually resonate. Interesting he also considered other social justice advocates like Wilson and Pak scribes whose works were worth reading, but not figures like Mike Baron or Chuck Dixon, or even liberals who were blacklisted by the Big Two because they weren't considered PC enough, like Larry Hama. I'm sure the citation of such writers and artists as Aaron, Wilson and Pak was no accident. It's insulting to say Simonson's Thor run is the equivalent of being "stuck in a bunker" if it's entertaining, and how is sticking with leftist PC nonsense of modern times not being "stuck in a bunker"?

Another odd thing about this puff piece is that it almost sounds like Thor was the only Marvel comic he ever read years ago. It's enough to wonder if he really is a Marvel fan, or he'd be chatting about how even early Golden Age output was far better than what we see today. He continues:

Marvel's War of the Realms was a perfect introduction for me to the larger Marvel Universe

At the time, War of the Realms was Marvel's most recent company-wide event, and I had been following Marvel's promotion of the event on social media closely because I could tell that it was a Thor-centric event. I saw the cover for War of th[e] Realms #3 and noticed that Spider-Man was wearing what appeared to be a winter hat while hiding from Frost Giants with Luke Cage, Captain America, Iron Fist, and Wolverine, and that won me over. Why did Spider-Man have a hat on his head? Is Thor going to be okay? Can he let Luke Cage keep Mjolnir, please?

Oh for heaven's sake, this is just so dumb, right down to how every other character is depicted lifting the Uru hammer as much as Thor himself. And despite any attempt the columnist might make to sound like the contrary, it doesn't actually focus convincingly on story merit.

War of the Realms was my ticket back to present-day Marvel, and I devoured the trade paperback in one sitting on the bus in Los Angeles. Obviously, I was a big fan of Thor, and the fact that War of the Realms featured Malekith as the villain was a perfect jumping-on point for me from Simonson's Thor. Dauterman drew Malekith with the type of enthusiasm that the character deserves (is Malekith the reason why I always play as a drow in Dungeons & Dragons? More on this at 10). I didn't know all the characters in the story, but that was okay - the action was so exciting that I was motivated to learn more about who they were.

Please, do tell us about it. Somehow, it's hard to believe one could actually read a whole trade collection that easily on a bus too without getting carsick. In any case, if he only got into the crossover because Malekith the Dark Elf was featured, I'm sorry, but that's not a reason. Yet at the same time, I think he's exaggerating the action factor deliberately, and again, he's given clues this is about anything but merit.

Even though I hadn't yet read Aaron's run on Thor that led up to War of the Realms, it was easy for me to immerse myself in the story because the premise is simple: Malekith wants to make everything cold. He always does! Then there were jaw-dropping moments peppered in the event, like Daredevil wielding Heimdall's sword and becoming the God Without Fear, that had me hooked. I got the sense that if War of the Realms was only the tip of the iceberg for this era of Marvel Comics, then there was plenty of stuff for me to enjoy.

This too is hopelessly silly. If all he really cared about was seeing other heroes besides Thor brandish weapons belonging to the Norse deities, then it sounds awfully superficial, and any discussion of merit becomes all the more ambiguous. Most of what he brings up are just cheap attempts to have every possible character take on certain "characteristics" of other Marvel cast members, and these alone don't add up to anything meaningful. Even Spider-Man's black symbiote costume during Secret Wars had more meaning than this.

And then the rest is history. I jumped into the Krakoan era of X-Men comics, ascended into a realm of my own from Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto's Daredevil run, and became obsessed with this character called Swordmaster while fully knowing that I was probably the only Swordmaster fan in America. And look where we are now: Lin Lie is the face of Iron Fist for a new generation of Marvel fans.

Thank you, Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman, for freeing me from my bunker.

I guess he has no thanks to offer to independent creators by contrast. There's a lot of these phonies who can only seem to get as far as the mainstream, and never give the independents any love. And how about that, he even considers a diversity pandering replacement for Danny Rand a big deal. That says all you need to know right there what he really thinks of the creations of more talented veterans like Roy Thomas. Though Rand may still be around, the way they're handling him now is no improvement. It's also laughable how the writers keep resorting to alliterative names for new characters. Just because Stan Lee made use of the idea doesn't make their employment of it as good. Mainly because Lee made his stories more entertaining than theirs will ever be. And I've got a feeling the columnist wouldn't be interested or impressed if there were romantic tales explored in these stories, old or new.

In the end, it only sounds like another attempt to sugarcoat how awful mainstream superhero fare become in the past 2 decades, and the continued fluff-coating of modern comicdom is all that's gone wrong with how it's spoken about. The obsession with forced politics in these stories is another awful mistake that was made. If they're not willing to write nice long essays about older items and why they matter more, they definitely fail to convince they're actually Marvel/DC fans.

Collider thinks cinematic Peter Parker should be jettisoned for sake of woke casting

Collider wrote a sugarcoated and utterly insulting article about why they believe the most recent cinematic take on Spider-Man should be sent to the grave, and the social justice pandering creations first seen in the tail end of the Ultimate line take his place:

From the very get-go, it should be stated that no one is saying Tom Holland's Spider-Man needs to bite the bullet in Spider-Man: Brand New Day or by the end of Avengers: Secret Wars. By the end of his next trilogy in many years, however, it honestly only makes sense that he meet his heroic end, based on a lot of factors. Not only would it be a great set-up to introduce Miles Morales, but Peter Parker's storyline has always been about sacrifice, so it makes perfect narrative sense.

There is no secret that one of the most impactful Spider-Man comic book stories is the iconic "Death of Spider-Man" from Ultimate Spider-Man (2009). Spider-Man is Marvel Comics' bread and butter, so to kill him—truly kill him for good—would be a huge and incredibly bold move. The confidence it takes to do something like that is huge. Unlike comic books, however, the Marvel Cinematic Universe cannot last forever, and adapting "Death of Spider-Man" is most likely the best route to go.

This is something only somebody who's not a Marvel fan could possibly write. And why do they think the comics could last forever? They certainly haven't survived artistically, and the Spider-marriage may never be brought back. I can't believe how stupid these entertainment sites can be, and they clearly don't care that the biggest problem with the introduction of Morales is that he was an early example of social justice/diversity pandering, without any interest in emphasizing merit. He was also a creation of the aforementioned Brian Bendis, who's regrettably returning to Marvel and the Avengers soon, about a dozen years since he'd last written the title, and based on the bad job he did with Avengers: Disassembled and the equally pointless House of M, that's why the whole notion he's improved is unlikely. He was possibly the first writer Marvel employed at the time who helped them mandate that all stories be at least 5-6 parts long, even if it led to padding out the stories implausibly. And that C.B. Cebulski would be willing to rehire Bendis is just another example of how Cebulski turned out in the long run to be as bad for Marvel as Quesada/Jemas/Alonso.

Collider must realize, even as they don't genuinely admit it, that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is collapsing artistically, but if they really wanted improvements made, they wouldn't have recommended Disney fall back on the woke pandering. Rather, they'd have insisted the studio make improvements to the screenplay and acting/directing. Instead, they only perpetuate the tabloid direction only so many entertainment sites have taken up for years already, even as Hollywood continues collapsing.

Popverse fluff-coats the history of the awful Avengers: Disassembled

Popverse wrote a brief sugarcoated item about how the overrated Brian Michael Bendis got the assignment to write Avengers: Disassembled, which is being alluded to as part of Marvel's next crossover to avoid:

The mention of Avengers: Disassembled in the announcement of 2026 Marvel Comics storyline Armageddon is something that might worry fans of certain superheroes, given the death toll of that earlier 2004 storyline. Turns out that killing off so many heroes — and so many high-profile Marvel characters, at that — wasn’t necessarily writer Brian Michael Bendis’s original plan.

Unfortunately, that he went along with everything as planned, entirely unquestioned, speaks volumes as to how much value he really placed on any of the characters who were subject to such loathsome abuse.

For those who weren’t reading comics in 2004, Avengers: Disassembled was a four-part storyline in which the Avengers have what Bendis described as “the worst day in Avengers’ history” — a day that results in the destruction of longtime HQ Avengers Mansion, the deaths of members Jack of Hearts, Ant Man, The Vision, and Hawkeye, and the discovery that the Scarlet Witch’s mental instability led to her making all of this happen (albeit unknowingly). The storyline ends with the team disbanding.

Don’t worry; a new Avengers formed a couple of months later, in a comic book series sensibly titled The New Avengers. In fact, The New Avengers had been the point all along, with Avengers: Disassembled created as a bridge between the Avengers of old and the new all-star team that included Spider-Man, Wolverine, and other best-selling characters intended to raise the profile of the team. The storyline was pulled together quickly, and intended to have a big impact to get fans’ attention — but even the writer of the comic was surprised how far Marvel was willing to go to make that happen.

I think it was established 8 years later that Dr. Doom may have been behind Wanda's neo-insanity. But it was 8 years too late, and look how the columnist has no complaints over how Spidey and Wolvie were chosen in such a way as to symbolize that the new team was comprised of members who weren't exactly the kind intended for combating the most larger than life villains the Avengers could face in the past, though worst is that these were hilariously cheap selections, shoehorned into Avengers at the expense of established members, Scarlet Witch included. There were stories in the past where Spidey came to the aid of characters like Scarlet Witch, and to think that here, instead of teaming them together in the same group, they wanted to kick Wanda to the curb for Spidey and Wolvie's sake.

What they say about Marvel seeking attention at all costs was also what led to the even more offensive Identity Crisis at DC, and nobody complains about how common sense was sacrified for the sake of scriptwriting that was offensive to women. Nor are any questions asked as to whether it was appropriate to alienate longtime fans, not to mention people who find misogyny repellent. It's absolutely disgusting, and both Marvel and DC have suffered from it since. Now, here's a part where Bendis indicates he never had any qualms about killing any characters the editors would greenlight for the grave:

“I was sitting there cooking my moments and instead of pitching a bunch of deaths, I go, ‘Can I have a list [of characters I can kill]?’ And they came back to me with a list that shocked the shit out of me. I would never have asked for The Vision. Hawkeye shocked me,” Bendis revealed in SKTCHD’s 2024 oral history of Avengers: Disassembled. “These were not asks. They were offers.”

“There wasn’t any debate over [killing] Ant-Man or Jack of Hearts any of those guys for the most part. Even The Vision. They’re not going to be in the new book. They have to go somewhere,” added editor Tom Brevoort. “So, the place that they’re going is potter’s field, and that means it’s explosive. Not to be gauche about it, but obviously death in comics sells. People turn up when superheroes go belly up. And so, the idea that they kill off a bunch of these characters was exciting.”

As a way of grabbing attention, it worked; Disassembled was the start of a significant sales renaissance for the Avengers as a franchise, catapulting the team back into the collective attention of fandom in a way it hadn’t been in decades. All of which should make fans of current day Marvel superheroes a little bit nervous — especially given that there’s now a Macguffin in the Marvel Universe to create new versions of old heroes pretty easily…

This is head-shakingly stupid too, mainly because no sales figures are presented. And to sell comics based on characters getting slaughtered is horrific and offensive, but do these overrated writers care? Even now, when what's alleged has mostly waned - mainly because the audiences were driven away - it's unlikely they'll ever admit death for the sake of it is repellent. Unfortunately, the seeds for this mentality were laid out long ago, with Gwen Stacy's death at the hands of the Green Goblin one of the beginners, and DC's killing off Supergirl, no matter how heroically she was portrayed in Crisis on Infinite Earths notwithstanding, another horrid prominent example. All because the writers either don't know what to do with the characters, or they believe everybody's that fine with casually killing off characters and never cared about the designated targets in the first place. Or worst, because they believe the audience is all that desensitized to violence. I've had the feeling DC's management was even more lacking in confidence in past decades, and it got worse when Identity Crisis came about, minimizing serious issues like sexual assault as it did during the same year Disassembled came out.

I looked at what's available from SKTCHD's interview from last year, and a problem with their MO is that they employ a paywall for a lot of articles, so I can't tell if anything was brought up about Scarlet Witch. But I wouldn't be shocked if anything that does come up is pretty sleazy. For now, I guess I'll highlight some examples of what is available, and they do offer a surprisingly large amount regardless that's quite sugarcoated, to say nothing short of disgusting. For example:

One of the most notable examples of this from the history of superhero comics was published 20 years ago. It was a four issue storyline that featured everything you could imagine from this type of tale. An endless onslaught of villains! A million guest stars! The destruction of an iconic location! Character deaths! A long-standing hero breaking bad! You name it, this comic had it. More than that, it led to a complete status quo change for the franchise it belonged to, helping turn what was already a big moment into something more.

[...] While it was polarizing upon its release, [Personal take: I find it to be an exciting superhero blockbuster.] it led to one of the most creatively fertile and commercially successful periods the franchise has ever seen, starting with Bendis and Finch’s New Avengers #1 that came in its wake. More than that, it was the beginning of one of the most prolific partnerships in Marvel’s modern era, with Bendis and Editor Tom Brevoort’s collaboration helping define an uncommonly strong period for the publisher.

Whatever your opinion of it is, Avengers Disassembled was a massive story. In the events that transpired in its pages. In the conversation surrounding it. In the impact it had down the line. And with its 20th anniversary [Avengers #500 kicked off the storyline with an issue that arrived on July 28th, 2004.] and another of those moments of transition nearly upon us, [One that even shares a key player from this story in Brevoort.] it felt like the right time to revisit Avengers Disassembled and how it came to be.

No matter what the interviewer says, this is insulting the fandom, and perpetuates examples of apologia that're prevalent from then till now. I'm not buying the notion the interviewer's actually an Avengers fan, an X-Men fan, or even a Spider-Man fan. There's no sales figures given here either, and worst is how the interviewer dismisses any questions of merit and morality for the sake of selling at all costs. Something that continues to this day, and nobody's willing to admit sales are dismal. Again, where does he get off lecturing us that Disassembled is "massive" and literally got everybody to buy it month after month simply because it killed characters and gave Wanda a fate worse than death? This is nothing more than tabloid nonsense.

Tom Brevoort (Editor of Avengers Disassembled and New Avengers): When we get to this period, [This was around 2003.] Avengers was not a top 10 seller. But it still sold respectably, and it still carried its weight as an upper midlist title. It had good talent on it, and it was generally well regarded. It just wasn’t as fresh and exciting as what was going on in the Ultimate line.

Brian Michael Bendis (Writer of Avengers Disassembled and New Avengers): (The Avengers) were doing absolutely fine.

Brevoort: Geoff (Johns) had signed an exclusive deal with DC, so we had to replace the writer on Avengers. And this was in the middle of the days when (then-Marvel President) Bill Jemas was at his craziest, so I needed to cast somebody that I could get Bill and (then-Marvel Editor-in-Chief) Joe (Quesada) to approve.

So, we ended up with Chuck (Austen).

Austen’s first issue was January 2004’s Avengers #77, and his run was troubled from the start. As Brevoort said, “almost every story he did wasn’t really the story he originally pitched by the time it got to the page.” The demands of leadership and Marvel’s own universe resulted in necessary adjustments, something that made delivering a quality title a tricky proposition. They still had big plans, though, as Brevoort, Austen, and artists Olivier Coipel and Scott Kolins knew they were on their way to a big anniversary issue in Avengers #500, which was set to arrive later that year. The team was already well into plans for that — and more.

If this was supposed to be a justification for where they went with Bendis' story, it's just as reprehensible as what DC did to the 2nd Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, during Emerald Twilight. Interesting how Brevoort uses the Ultimates, one of the crudest alternate world takes on a Marvel title, as an excuse for where they went with Bendis' shoddy story in Disassembled. How interesting "quality" comes up here, when the finished product was nothing of the sort, and no challenging queries are raised in that context. Yet interesting they bring up Austen, because he was a writer whom some PC advocates were only willing to admit was bad based on how, leftist or not, he didn't meet their standards. This also reminds me of when the disgraced Gerard Jones was writing Green Lantern during 1990-93, and then, simply because he screwed up horribly, that somehow justified Emerald Twilight. It sounds vaguely like the same thinking affected where things went with Avengers too.

Amidst all this, Marvel was going through a bit of a transition, as well. Its focus wasn’t even on its original line of comics but the Ultimate line, a parallel universe that had its own Avengers in Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s The Ultimates. Ultimate Marvel was a major point of emphasis for Jemas and Quesada, creating a situation where the “classic Marvel universe” material wasn’t “well-supported” in the moment, according to Brevoort. That was the way things were. But shortly before this story truly begins, there was a change in leadership. Jemas was out and Dan Buckley was in as the new publisher of Marvel. This was big for two reasons, one of which was Brevoort’s own health. He had an “incredibly contentious” relationship with Jemas.

Brevoort: He and I did not see eye to eye and did not get along. My job was not fun at all, to the point I would be thinking to myself on a daily basis, “Is today going to be the day that I’m just going to blow a gasket and keel over, or is today going to be the day that I hurl him down an elevator shaft?”

One of these two things is going to happen eventually.

The other reason it was important was it created an opportunity for the original line of Marvel comics to retake its place in the hierarchy, if only because of where Buckley’s interest lied.

Bendis: The Ultimate line took off in a way that was beyond what anyone was hoping for.

Brevoort: The Ultimate Universe was the new hotness for a couple of years.

Gee, that hints it was wearing thin and turning stale sooner than expected. Mark Millar's take was shameful, right down to how he treated the alternate world Wasp, and to think they'd go the sleazy route in order to compete with his book is atrocious. Including how Tigra was treated. It's certainly surprising to learn Brevoort wasn't comfy with Jemas, yet even after the latter left Marvel, any destructive approach Jemas put to use remained, and Brevoort contributed to much of it over the years that followed, including how, by this time, a lot of the stories he edited emphasized heroes fighting themselves. And when they turn to a storyboard meeting that preceded the official writing, they say that:

Brevoort: The conversation came around to Avengers and it went hot and heavy fast. And the reason it went hot and heavy fast as much as anything was Mark (Millar) and Brian were both there.

Bendis: Mark and I both had strong takes on what team books are and what they should be.

Brevoort: What Mark said essentially was, “When I was a kid growing up, I would buy Justice League of America. The reason I would buy Justice League of America is I would get all the best superheroes in one story. Why is it that the Avengers doesn’t have all the best guys in it?” And this became the conversation that dominated this setup.

Bendis: My bugaboo from when I was a kid was, “Why aren’t Spider-Man and Wolverine on the Avengers? Why aren’t the Avengers the six coolest people in the Marvel Universe?”

And here too is a serious flaw: they're going according to whom they consider their "favorites" (and considering where they went with Avengers, even that's questionable), not by the entertainment value in the finished product. And most of the writers of the past century didn't cast new team members at the expense of the core members. So what's the point? I'm not surprised Millar had no issue with where they were going, since it's not like he was respecting the same characters in his own alternate dimension title. The discussion continues with the following:

Brevoort: Most of my arguments about things like why Spider-Man and Wolverine shouldn’t be in the Avengers had less to do with the Avengers and more to do with Wolverine and Spider-Man. Part of the thing that makes Spider-Man work is he has problems balancing his superhero life and his real life, and those problems typically involve money woes, difficulties being in multiple places at the same time, and the impact that being a superhero has on his relationships. So many of those problems just go away if he’s got the Avengers as his buddies on speed dial.

Bendis: I remember the argument was, “Spider-Man’s not an Avenger.” That was the desk-pounding moment. And I was like, “Yeah, that sounds like a good story about why Spider-Man’s not an Avenger, or why Spider-Man is graduating to be an Avenger.” It just sounded like a good story to me. That was my argument. And if it’s only for a year and it didn’t work…even that’s interesting.

Brevoort: By the end of the day. I walked out of that meeting being like, “This again,” because I’d been through things like this with (Jemas) a lot. I came out of that evening going, “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do now. This is another kick in the teeth.” But after having the night to kind of settle myself, the thing that made (it better) was, “Okay, Mark is pitching this. Mark is going to write this book. I know Mark. I can work with Mark. This will be fine. I’ll go in, and me and Millar, we’ll be able to do this, and we’ll figure it out.”

Interesting how Millar's backing for the direction persuaded Brevoort to go along. Additionally interesting how Mary Jane Watson isn't brought up, but then, if Axel Alonso was fine with One More Day, it shouldn't be surprising if Brevoort was too. Some of his arguments, however, could just as easily be made about Iron Man and Thor as well, based on what relationships were to be seen in their solo titles. Putting Spidey in a team title isn't the problem, it's just how plausible it is or isn't that's the problem. There were times when Spidey appeared in Avengers, and that itself was okay, but it wasn't based on recognition, but how good a story could be built around him. The same could be said for Wolverine, based on whether a plausible scenario could be written up about whether Capt. America approved of his claws. And if the Black Knight was a member before, blades alone aren't a problem, just the writing merit, or lack thereof.

The promise of New Avengers was why Avengers Disassembled existed at all. It was the path to a new era for a new team. How Bendis got to this squad of A-listers was up to him, Brevoort, and everyone else. What mattered most to the room was the destination. Everyone viewed it as one with great potential — even Brevoort.

Brevoort: As much as I argued, and I certainly was defending my existing creative team and defending my ego and pride, I always knew New Avengers would work. If you put Spider-Man, Wolverine, and the big characters in Avengers, that’s going to work. It was less about that and more about, “You’re trashing this thing that I’ve just been building with this other team and we’re treating them not terribly well.” That as much as anything was the concern.

And here's where Brevoort contradicts any previous argument he may have had that he didn't think it a good idea to put Spidey and Wolvie in the Avengers. Yet how hilarious he claims he'd worried they were deconstructing what he'd built up with previous writers, because on the one hand, he went along with Bendis' cheap vision, and on the other, the writing turned out by the aforementioned Johns was awful, as was Austen's. Kurt Busiek's Avengers run was the last palatable run on the series to date, and it's a shame he's such a leftist wokester. That said, I will say that if Brevoort and company deconstructed the best parts of Busiek's run, that's why it's such a sad affair.

This is about what I could get from what the site didn't put behind a paywall, but one more thing I will add here is what a commentor replied:

I can say, without hesitation, that I was one of the readers Disassembled drove away. It remains (and will remain) a gap in my collection and mind, along with everything else Bendis ever wrote for the Avengers. I appreciate that he and Tom can look back at the warts (some of them), but not enough was made of how odious Bendis was online, including a CBR interview I can unfortunately no longer find where he said that long time readers were just mad that he wasn’t doing “Roy Thomas” type stories and that he could write you “as Roy Thomas-y of a story as you want.” I’ve never forgotten that.

Bendis is no Thomas, nor did he ever turn out a story as good as what Thomas did, though if there's a shortcoming Thomas' writing may have had, it's that he wasn't all that different from some other writers of the times who chose to pair up superheroes and superheroines with each other, rather than developing civilian co-stars who could be paired up with the costumed characters. Now that I think of it, did Scarlet Witch ever have a civilian boyfriend? I do own a lot of Avengers stories in Epic Collection archives now, so I'll have to find the time to read as many of those as possible to make sure I know the exact answer, but if Wanda was never paired up with a mortal man on a long or short basis, that's got to be saying something.

Anyway, it's sad but no surprise how these apologists for Marvel/DC continue to fluff-coat their worst output since the turn of the century, and with people like them still running the department store, that's why even Avengers will never recover, nor will team titles see any talented writing.