Toxxupation posted:

In fact, the most significant portion of Hickman's A/NA run (which SW 2015 is really the endpoint of, not its own self-contained story) seems more or less invalidated by the end of SW 2015 resetting to status quo. We know that the end of Infinity happened (because the Terrigen mists were still released and mutants are still dying from M-Pox, as the X-Men/Inhumans titles prove) but everything after Infinity probably didn't. Which makes sense, since that's the portion of Hickman's A/NA run that has the most irrevocable changes to people's relationships. If I'm remembering Hickman's run correctly, somewhere in the middle of that was an eight-month timeskip too, further reinforcing this idea. Steve Rogers and Tony Stark don't seem to hate each others' guts and as far as I can tell stuff like the Builder War never happened, and it doesn't seem like all the members of Illuminati are wrecks over having committed universal genocide so I'm assuming that the new canon states that everything up to Infinity happened and everything after didn't. But we don't know.

Toxxupation posted:

So, I finished a complete readthrough of Ultimate Spider-Man from the very beginning to Secret Wars (and I've read the first four issues of Spider-Man), and here are my thoughts on it.

I really did enjoy Ultimate Spider-Man. The pacing was quick and it moved fast enough to feel fresh and new constantly. I feel like Bendis did a really fantastic job on the run - I know he's persona non grata around here in BSS but I feel like he totally killed it for a good 90% of the issues, and the issues that didn't quite work feel like they failed due to nobody else really "getting" how the Ultimate Universe was supposed to work like he did and forcing the wider 1610 in worse directions.

The changes to most characters were intuitive and made sense. I really enjoy Ultimate Mary Jane and I felt like Bendis gave her character a lot of agency back. Ultimate Gwen is obviously the standout change that Bendis made, and I'm really surprised he killed her off and brought her back and both plot developments felt earned and naturalistic over dumb comics bullshit. Ultimate Kitty Pryde was a good character but her and Peter never really worked as a couple (her and Kong were clearly very suited for each other and I really wonder why Bendis pulled away from that). The writing out of Kitty Pryde from USM - I assume it was some X-Men tie-in poo poo or something - felt really awkward and she ends up not really having an arc.

It really sucks because it feels like, in general, Bendis wrote a great teen superhero teamup story during his run on USM. Most-to-all of Spider-Man's superhero buddies felt like fun, good characters in their own right - Iceman, Johnny Storm, etc.

I feel like the biggest way USM suffered was from dropped plotlines or characters. Kitty Pryde most obviously, but stuff like Black Cat and that key thing never really went anywhere, and a lot of Spider-Man's buddies felt like they just sort of abruptly left the narrative once Peter died. Which, well, makes sense but you know.

Ultimatum was a mess, and I don't think Spider-Man's tie-in issues were that great, but I feel like all the issues that came after injected new creative life into Bendis' run at a time that it was kinda needed. Basically the run from after Ultimatum ended up to Pete's death is the single best period of quality of the whole run, in my opinion, and the changes they made - as someone else mentioned, May's House of Wayward Superheroes, JJJ knowing who Peter is and supporting him, Spider-Man suddenly being popular - all paid off really well.

Peter's death was handled incredibly well. I think the biggest issue of his death is, as with most things during the USM run, crossovers having to implement other non-Spider-Man stuff and that stuff being kinda poo poo. Ultimate Fallout is a good example - the sequences where they're mourning the death of Peter Parker are fantastic, all the other stuff setting up storylines I don't care about and am not going to loving read are poo poo.

Miles Morales has a lot of hooks to his introduction and comes out the gate pretty strong. I enjoyed how he was a different character, from background to problems, than Peter, and I think Spider-Men is probably the single best crossover of the whole run, coming at just the right time to give Miles the motivation he needs to live up to the mantle of Spider-Man. I think the main problem with Miles is that he gets saddled with a lot of lovely storylines or storylines that can't really go anywhere significant because the Ultimate Universe is winding down - Divided We Fall/United We Stand is a goofy as gently caress crossover that just doesn't work at all, really.

What's surprising is that Miles assembles a totally different team of Super-Friends and they're all compelling and interesting characters in their own right. I'm surprised, as someone who adores 616 Jessica Drew as much as I do, that I ended up with that much affection for Ultimate Jessica Drew, but here we are. I also really liked Ultimate Cloak and Dagger and especially Bombshell (so much so I was visibly relieved to see she's still around post-SW). Bringing Kitty Pryde back the way they did was a bit late but ended up greatly appreciated, because I feel like her character ended fairly strong.

Venom Wars was a really good storyline and that stuff, and Spider-Man No More, is probably the best stuff in the Miles Morales run.

Cataclysm was actually a really good crossover event - probably the only good Ultimate crossover event - and it ended up changing stuff while still being itself a good story, which was surprising. By the end of Survive I was super excited to see the New/Young Ultimates because I ended up really liking all of the characters on the group.

So...yeah, post-Cataclysm it's basically a complete loving mess. The relaunched Miles Morales book has the "revived Peter Parker" storyline, which is just awful and unnecessary and doesn't go anywhere. It feels like Bendis knew that the 1610 was being scrapped soon so decided to give Ultimate Peter and Mary Jane a "good ending", but in the process totally hosed over Miles' character for no reason - he basically gets muscled out of his own book, in the service of turning Peter Parker into a weird vindictive prick so he'd get the girl and just as quickly leave. Seriously, no part of the revival of Peter Parker storyline makes any loving sense. The circumstances were dumb as hell, the idea that Pete would come back and just decide to cowardly leave but not before taking his web-shooters back (to the point where he's willing to beat up a fourteen-year-old for them) was a dumb as hell orchestrated way to loop him back - I just didn't need to loving see any more of Ultimate Peter Parker. Especially since it was at the point where I had less than ten issues of USM left, so any changes were going to be super temporary at best. Seriously, I don't know who decided to revive Peter Parker at the last minute but it was a loving bad one, especially the way they ended up writing both him and Mary Jane out of the story.

On the other hand, Spider-Man 200 is one of the best issues of the series, so.

Outside of All-New X-Men, specifically the 1610 crossover arc, basically everything that happened with USM post-Cataclysm was really loving bad. That All-New Ultimates books is one of the worst comic runs I've ever read - which is saying something considering how hyped I was going in to reading about this specific team going into it, but it's like someone read Gillen's run on YA and decided to ape it extremely, extremely badly. Also, the whole plot of it kinda revolves around Miles being a dumb rear end in a top hat for no reason.

The final issues of USM weren't really that great, and felt like a story with stakes too high considering the universe in which they happened was going to be wiped away. I dunno, it's hard to end a run well but I don't think Bendis really did with Miles in the 1610, since everything about the Hydra/Doctor Doom stuff just didn't really work or feel important.

I think it's a story that doesn't feel grandiose enough for what Bendis is going for. It feels like he's trying to give the series that started the 1610 one last big baddie to fight, but weird centaur Doctor Doom combined with Hydra against the All-New Ultimates - fresh off a very bad run that burned off any goodwill I had for the characters - isn't big enough. I feel like going in a larger or a smaller direction - Spider-Man just punching some everyday baddies OR everyone in the Ultimate Universe, all the X-Men and former Ultimates and current Ultimates and every single Ultimate hero at one time or another all teaming up to fight one last huge guy - was the way to go. It just felt like it was stuck in the middle between being a small, intimate, Spider-Man focused ending or this giant over the top thing (which I don't even get because why wouldn't Marvel let Bendis play with all the toys that were about to be eliminated with Ultimate End anyways?) and was really unsatisfactory either way.

Basically for as much affection that I had for the Ultimate Universe and for Miles the end couldn't have come at a better time. Everything after Cataclysm was just...not very good at all, and at that point it was a creative mercy-killing. The post-SW Spider-Man issues I've read feel fresh and exciting with the new status quo, and I'm really interested to see where Bendis goes from here.

X-O posted:

They definitely committed genocide, or more accurately Namor did. And he was killed by the Squadron Supreme for it. But Toro seems to find out from Ulysses that everything will work out for Namor in the end as he lets Doctor Spectrum go after learning what she and Squadron did. Spectrum then makes peace with Black Bolt and the Inhumans after finding out why he saved her from her universe.

Nilbop posted:

Since Secret Wars ended and ANAD began are there any absolute must-read stories (as in excellent, not as in "important info contained here")?

Nilbop posted:

Very kind of you all to explain so much so readily, much appreciated! I've got two questions.

Since Secret Wars ended and ANAD began are there any absolute must-read stories (as in excellent, not as in "important info contained here")?

And why (and where is it shown) that Thanos remembers when presumably guys like Phoenixclops and even Doom don't?

Nilbop posted:

Very kind of you all to explain so much so readily, much appreciated! I've got two questions.

Since Secret Wars ended and ANAD began are there any absolute must-read stories (as in excellent, not as in "important info contained here")?

quote:

And why (and where is it shown) that Thanos remembers when presumably guys like Phoenixclops and even Doom don't?

Nevvy Z posted:

Annihilation: Conquest Wraith

SynthOrange posted:

I read it and I still dont remember what the gently caress happened or who the gently caress Wraith is

Toxxupation posted:

Okay, I'm going to go generally, then I'll describe differences title by title.

Rhyno posted:

As great as Ultimates and Vision are, my #1 must read Marvel series right now is Mockingbird.

SynthOrange posted:

I read it and I still dont remember what the gently caress happened or who the gently caress Wraith is

Toxxupation posted:

In fact, the most significant portion of Hickman's A/NA run (which SW 2015 is really the endpoint of, not its own self-contained story) seems more or less invalidated by the end of SW 2015 resetting to status quo. We know that the end of Infinity happened (because the Terrigen mists were still released and mutants are still dying from M-Pox, as the X-Men/Inhumans titles prove) but everything after Infinity probably didn't. Which makes sense, since that's the portion of Hickman's A/NA run that has the most irrevocable changes to people's relationships. If I'm remembering Hickman's run correctly, somewhere in the middle of that was an eight-month timeskip too, further reinforcing this idea. Steve Rogers and Tony Stark don't seem to hate each others' guts and as far as I can tell stuff like the Builder War never happened, and it doesn't seem like all the members of Illuminati are wrecks over having committed universal genocide so I'm assuming that the new canon states that everything up to Infinity happened and everything after didn't. But we don't know.

Nilbop posted:

And why (and where is it shown) that Thanos remembers when presumably guys like Phoenixclops and even Doom don't?

JoshTheStampede posted:

People always ask for diversity and black characters, so I wrote a guy who literally doesn't have a body and takes over the cultural speech patterns of anyone he inhabits.

DrProsek posted:

On the one hand this sounds awesome and something I could totally be into but a solo series for a brand new character who sounds like he'll be off in bis own corner of the world doesn't sound long for this world.

Nilbop posted:

I got a digital preview of Vision 1 with something or other and it looked dark and depressing as hell with art that didn't do anything for me. Why does everybody have it at the top of their list?

Is it just the Stepford Family thing?

Nilbop posted:

I got a digital preview of Vision 1 with something or other and it looked dark and depressing as hell with art that didn't do anything for me. Why does everybody have it at the top of their list?

Endless Mike posted:

Because it's really, really good.

But yes, it's dark and depressing. Totally understood if that's not what you want!

In other news, Chip Zdarsky confirms Howard the Duck is ending with #11.

http://zdarsky.tumblr.com/post/146264751026/scienceninjaturtle-howard-the-duck-11-chip

Endless Mike posted:

In other news, Chip Zdarsky confirms Howard the Duck is ending with #11.

http://zdarsky.tumblr.com/post/146264751026/scienceninjaturtle-howard-the-duck-11-chip

Edge & Christian posted:

Toxxupation posted:

On top of being one of if not the best comics I've ever read, it's genuinely revolutionary in how it conveys its narrative. At times it feels like a high-class cable drama while still being clearly a comic book.

It's crazy. On basically every single level Vision is doing stuff that most other comics haven't even thought of doing. I imagine this is what people felt like when reading Batman: Year One or Watchmen in the early eighties, a complete and total revolution in the types of stories communicated in comics and the way in which they are communicated.

Endless Mike posted:

Uh is that Slapstick?

Edge & Christian posted:

I like this book and all (even though it's basically not a book about the Vision as a character who has been published for 40-50 years) but what do you think it's doing that has never been done in a comic before?

Edge & Christian posted:

I like this book and all (even though it's basically not a book about the Vision as a character who has been published for 40-50 years) but what do you think it's doing that has never been done in a comic before?

SirDan3k posted:

It is drat close to perfect funny books though, the only real flaw I've found is the artificially high stakes. "World is gonna end because of the events in this gook guys, totally, this is in no way out of tone with the books narrow focus on characters and family"

bobkatt013 posted:

Yeah he is currently in Deadpool as one of his mercenaries.

Endless Mike posted:

In other news, Chip Zdarsky confirms Howard the Duck is ending with #11.

http://zdarsky.tumblr.com/post/146264751026/scienceninjaturtle-howard-the-duck-11-chip

Norns posted:

The book does a good job setting up why it's not just the same 40 or 50 year old story though.