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The crazy thing is he peaked in his Sunspot/Cannonball/Mojo story in Astonishing Tales. Perfection is a rare thing, but those issues had it. I have loved everything he has done since for the most part, but that is still the best.
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# ? Feb 25, 2020 18:42 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 14:42 |
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Peak Hickman?
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# ? Feb 25, 2020 18:49 |
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Rhyno posted:I seem to recall that SW got cut short and he had to really load up those final issues to wrap it up. ahhhh, yeah in his farewell message at the end he did say the series had struggled with low sales for a while by that point. so that would make sense Lord_Hambrose posted:The crazy thing is he peaked in his Sunspot/Cannonball/Mojo story in Astonishing Tales. Perfection is a rare thing, but those issues had it. no, forgive me, i meant it was the peak of the series, not out of the entirety of his work
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# ? Feb 25, 2020 18:53 |
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Hickman wrote avengers casino night and for that he is forever good.
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# ? Feb 25, 2020 18:56 |
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I really need to dig out my boxes with Secret Warriors. That does seems like it would be worth rereading. Really, I am a sucker for anything Ares related at Marvel. He was perfect as the Villain in Incredible Hercules (a real gem itself).
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# ? Feb 25, 2020 21:22 |
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I miss Ares. That issue of Mighty Avengers with him defeating Ultron was just metal as gently caress
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# ? Feb 26, 2020 04:16 |
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Happy Hippo posted:I miss Ares. That issue of Mighty Avengers with him defeating Ultron was just metal as gently caress He was in Sword Master! A surprisingly fun book, but I definitely did a double take when I flipped through a copy and saw Ares yelling at the main character.
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# ? Feb 26, 2020 04:32 |
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Lord_Hambrose posted:He was in Sword Master! A surprisingly fun book, but I definitely did a double take when I flipped through a copy and saw Ares yelling at the main character. I guess he missed out on all the other Greek gods dying (although they're now sort of back in Guardians).
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# ? Feb 26, 2020 05:32 |
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Secret Warriors was originally planned to be sixty issues and was shortened for a number of reasons:quote:When Hickman began "Secret Warriors" in 2009, he had plans for about 60 issues worth of story. As the story progressed, though, the writer felt his narrative would be best served by streamlining his agenda for the series. In the full interview he talks about some of the stuff he decided could be cut out, and also talks about how this was his first long-form series. I can see all of these things converging into a rushed last issue or two (which is how I remember it too), the whole "oh I can trim things down and combine a few threads and definitely wrap everything up by oh god I'm out of space/time" thing that plagues a lot of long works. This was also a period of a big rise in Hickman's stock at Marvel/in general, and I can see them pushing to not spend 60 issues on what he explicitly describes as a "a solid midlist book". If you look at his Marvel gigs across a two year span: February 2009: Secret Warriors #1 (co-written by Bendis, an event spin-off) March 2009: Dark Reign: Fantastic Four (another event spin-off that initially seemed to exist mostly to fill in the schedule while Millar/Hitch's underwhelming Fantastic Four run was experiencing delays and fill-in art) August 2009: Fantastic Four (based on the successful 'audition' of the Dark Reign mini-series) April 2010: S.H.I.E.L.D. (which was delayed to all hell but was already a sign of Hickman/Marvel offloading some of the lore out of Secret Warriors into a separate book) October 2010: Ultimate Thor (which was basically an audition for a main role in the Ultimate Universe, also the trivia answer of what was the first "day and date digital" Marvel comic release at a time when that was still a controversial move) March 2011: FF (right as Secret Warriors is wrapping up, Hickman's better-selling Fantastic Four run spins up to two titles/basically bi-weekly shipping) July 2011: Secret Warriors ends Ultimates relaunch under Hickman + Ultimate Hawkeye mini (sets up Hickman as the new architect of the Ultimate Universe) And then from there in 2012 his FF run wraps up and he's yanked off the Ultimate line to take over the Avengers books at the end of the year. If they'd stuck to a 60 issue run for Secret Warriors he'd still have been writing it throughout his (often twice a month) FF run and his (fully twice a month) Avengers run. I can see why all parties would be on board for a quicker wrap-up. It's also an impressive ascent for Hickman. Also Ares has been back for awhile! Al Ewing brought him back (via Elders of the Universe cosmic hand-waving) in Contest of Champions and used him again in USAvengers. He was one of the main antagonists in the McElroy Brothers' War of the Realms mini-series before popping up in Sword Master. Given that half of his post-resurrection appearances were written by Al Ewing who is writing all of the New Greek Pantheon stuff in Guardians of the Galaxy, I'm expecting him to show up there sooner or later. Edge & Christian fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Feb 26, 2020 |
# ? Feb 26, 2020 06:00 |
site posted:so finished secret warriors last night. good to see even back in 08 hickman was using his patented interstitial matter in the first trade to lay out organizational charts and the like, shine on you crazy diamond i think the "best" moment was the dual flashback the the howling commandos bar meetup cut with the attack on the hydra base that got most of em killed. was pretty well composed (although thats not to say the rest wasnt, hickman can apparently write some good fury based spy story, just that was a peak point for the book). i dont want to use the word "bad" because it wasnt, but i feel like if the ~ full reveal ~ at the end needed TWO issues in order for fury to monologue out his whole plan out maybe it was a tad bit overly convoluted lol. Man I hated that book.
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# ? Feb 26, 2020 06:25 |
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really? what didnt you like about it?
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# ? Feb 26, 2020 07:11 |
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Edge & Christian posted:Secret Warriors was originally planned to be sixty issues and was shortened for a number of reasons: id like to return to this cuz i just read the interview. i would be curious to see the full planned out 60 issue version of that, but maybe not with the "just getting his sealegs at marvel" hickman, but like current hickman lol. looking at the timeline it really is kinda crazy how fast hickman went from his first books to running the show...or maybe it just feels that way? for comparison, how fast did bendis go from his first issues to top dog?
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# ? Feb 26, 2020 21:48 |
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Five years roughly? Ultimate Spider-Man to New Avengers #1 was that long, and around New Avengers he started being in charge of all the big stuff.
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# ? Feb 26, 2020 22:08 |
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site posted:id like to return to this cuz i just read the interview. i would be curious to see the full planned out 60 issue version of that, but maybe not with the "just getting his sealegs at marvel" hickman, but like current hickman lol. looking at the timeline it really is kinda crazy how fast hickman went from his first books to running the show...or maybe it just feels that way? for comparison, how fast did bendis go from his first issues to top dog? Bendis's Marvel debut was Ultimate Spider-Man #1 in October 2000 (though he had written an unpublished Nick Fury story before it.) He followed this up with Ultimate Team-Up, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate X-Men, and a few Ultimate event/crossover/miniseries things. He took over Daredevil in May 2001 as his first foray into 616 Marvel, as well as starting Alias in November under the MAX branding. He then got Avengers for Avengers Disassembled in September 2004, which is arguably the start of him as "top dog." So four years.
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# ? Feb 26, 2020 22:09 |
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The Future Foundation trade came out today and now more than ever I hate it got cancelled so quick (but then 'half of Power Pack leads kid geniuses around the universe to reassemble the Molecule Man is probably a hard sell'). It's nice North remembered that
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# ? Feb 26, 2020 22:44 |
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x-slack after dark https://twitter.com/JHickman/status/1232879662717685760
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# ? Feb 27, 2020 05:08 |
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Deleted already.
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# ? Feb 27, 2020 05:32 |
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# ? Feb 27, 2020 05:34 |
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Getting handed the Avengers in 2005 when Bendis got it was a very different level of prestige than when he handed it over to Hickman six years later. Avengers wasn't a failing book, but it was, to borrow a phrase, solidly midlist. To do the timeline thing again: 2000: Ultimate Spider-Man is a surprise breakout hit, one of the very few books to actively grow readership after the first issue: #1 - 54,000 #2 - 47,000 #3 - 52,000 #4 - 59,000 #5 - 59,000 #6 - 65,000 #7 - 76,000 #8 - 85,000 #9 - 85,000 #10 - 86,000 #11 - 89,000 #12 - 89,000 All matters of critical acclaim or quality of writing aside, USM and Bendis made a huge splash, and he was almost instantly a Big Name. Ultimate Spider-Man would eventually grow its monthly circulation to over 100,000 and stay a Top 10 book for around five years. Bendis won the Eisner for best writer in 2002 and 2003, Daredevil won Best Series in 2003, and Marvel chose Bendis to write the launch title for their "MAX" line (Alias). He was definitely a Big Player before he ever took over Avengers. Honestly the "Bendis is going to shake up the Avengers!" move was more similar to the (current) "Hickman is going to shake up the X-Men line!". Brubaker's big run on Captain America (and Ellis's short but delayed run on Iron Man) were both part of the shake-up, too. Which to be fair also probably had a lot to do with Marvel wanting to beef up the profiles of the characters they actually had the rights to in preparation for the film studio launch. You've also got to remember that at the time they rolled out the New Avengers relaunch, Marvel hadn't even officially announced that they were going to be producing their own movies (they were in negotiations to buy back the options for Iron Man and some other stalled film productions) and when they announced their plans a lot of people (in the film industry, the comics industry, on this very forum) scoffed at the idea that they'd be able to do anything with C-list characters like Iron Man/Captain America/Thor, after all the A-Listers (Spider-Man, X-Men) and most of the b-listers (Punisher, Ghost Rider, Hulk, Daredevil, Fantastic Four) were all tied up elsewhere. Even before they announced their movie ambitions, there was a lot of groans about how Marvel/Bendis was goosing the New Avengers by shoehorning marketable characters like Spidey/Wolverine/Sentry/Daredevil into the book so someone would give a poo poo about Captain America and Iron Man and etc. Fast forward to 2013 when Hickman's handed the Avengers books: 1) Bendis's multiple Avengers books were consistently top sellers, with obvious spikes for relaunches and revamps and etc. 2) Bendis/The Avengers had been the fulcrum for most of Marvel's Big Events (House of M, Civil War, Secret Invasion, Siege, Avengers vs. X-Men) 3) The MCU had grossed a few billion dollars It was a much bigger "handing over the keys to the kingdom" in the Bendis --> Hickman changeover, certainly much moreso than "Bendis takes over the Avengers line that has kind of been meandering for a few years with weird short Geoff Johns and Chuck Austen runs after Busiek wrapped up".
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# ? Feb 27, 2020 06:09 |
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good points, good post
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# ? Feb 27, 2020 06:58 |
site posted:really? what didnt you like about it? The characters and their relationships. They were all so cookie cutter written to fit in with the "lessons" and arcs that lay before them. I never felt like I was reading about real people, just plot devices and archetypes jawing at each other. The half assed one-shot Bendis wrote introducing the concept had more humanity than Hickman's entire run.
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# ? Feb 27, 2020 07:39 |
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Lurdiak posted:The characters and their relationships. They were all so cookie cutter written to fit in with the "lessons" and arcs that lay before them. I never felt like I was reading about real people, just plot devices and archetypes jawing at each other. The half assed one-shot Bendis wrote introducing the concept had more humanity than Hickman's entire run. This was also why his Avengers run never clicked with me. The characters and themes he introduced just seemed so out of place from the universe he inherited. I'm getting the same vibe from the X- Men relaunch too. The Magneto speech on economics from a few issues ago, for example, would've worked better if it was any other character giving it. But instead he gives it to Magneto, who's killed I don't know how many people through his fantastical godlike powers, and he's talking smugly about how economics is how we're gonna getcha.
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 02:33 |
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I have always been against rehabilitating Magneto, but if they’re going to have him on the same side as the X-Men, this is as good as it gets. Seeing Xavier and Magneto together has been great, but now I’m all about seeing where Nightcrawler and Apocalypse go.
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 02:53 |
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The Crucible is a neat idea.
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 02:54 |
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Lord_Hambrose posted:The Crucible is a neat idea. I love it even if I'm not sure it's, you know, a good idea because it shows Hickman actually thinking through some ramifications. "If depowered mutants can die and be reborn repowered, why aren't they all just killing themselves like right now?" Okay, let's build something into our Krakoan society to explore that. It's that willingness to explore some of the details and ramifications and ripple effects that I really appreciate about Hickman's approach, even if sometimes some of his actual stories feel a little flat for me; he's thinking about the world he's building, not just telling stories and not really giving a poo poo if they fit into anything established (the way Bendis had a bad habit of doing). I really dig that.
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 04:44 |
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https://twitter.com/Newsarama/status/1233454766803607552
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 19:13 |
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Neat!
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 19:20 |
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Marvel ongoings tend to end up being stealth mini-series these days, but I think it's good to see Silk again.
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 19:26 |
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its probably already cancelled
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 19:39 |
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IIRC, one of the things Bendis complained about when he took on Avengers back in 2004 was that there were too many B- and C-list characters he wasn't allowed to use in Alias because of their ties to the Avengers, hence putting Spider-Man and Wolverine on the team instead of Stingray or Firebird or whoever
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 19:47 |
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Not familiar with the writer but I'm happy to see Cindy and JJJ interact again.
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 19:52 |
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wielder posted:Marvel ongoings tend to end up being stealth mini-series these days, but I think it's good to see Silk again.
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 19:58 |
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site posted:its probably already cancelled Do not bring that evil here. Cindy is cool and good and I'm happy she's got a series again.
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 22:28 |
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https://twitter.com/Newsarama/status/1233501945593311234
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# ? Feb 28, 2020 23:21 |
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Barry Convex posted:IIRC, one of the things Bendis complained about when he took on Avengers back in 2004 was that there were too many B- and C-list characters he wasn't allowed to use in Alias because of their ties to the Avengers, hence putting Spider-Man and Wolverine on the team instead of Stingray or Firebird or whoever Literally the first issue of Alias guest stars Captain America (an Avenger). Carol Danvers (an Avenger) becomes a supporting character within a few issues. Scott Lang (an Avenger) becomes a supporting character not long after. The entire Avengers team is referred to consistently and appears in flashbacks throughout the final arc of Alias, which ends about a year before Bendis takes over the Avengers. And then when he takes over the Avengers, he almost immediately adds Luke Cage to the team. Was the logic that if he 'couldn't' use the Avengers in Alias, that he'd put A-listers on the team so he could use the C-listers in a hypothetical follow-up Alias book that wasn't the Pulse? I'm legitimately confused.
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# ? Feb 29, 2020 00:20 |
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See and I thought that was a Cyclops solo book, the symbol being his visor. EDIT: No, this sounds so much more dumb. This is like an 80s cartoon giving your action figures new weapons so you have to go buy a new one.
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# ? Feb 29, 2020 01:21 |
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IUG posted:See and I thought that was a Cyclops solo book, the symbol being his visor. nah gently caress you, swords are dope
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# ? Feb 29, 2020 01:27 |
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People, people! Let's not fight! Swords can be both dope and dumb.
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# ? Feb 29, 2020 09:41 |
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Yvonmukluk posted:People, people! Let's not fight! Highlander taught us there can only be one
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# ? Feb 29, 2020 11:06 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 14:42 |
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Drakyn fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Feb 29, 2020 |
# ? Feb 29, 2020 18:17 |