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.

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.

I have loved everything he has done since for the most part, but that is still the best.

Happy Hippo posted:

I miss Ares. That issue of Mighty Avengers with him defeating Ultron was just metal as gently caress

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.

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.

"We're ending at #27, but we could have gone longer than that because our numbers have stabilized to the point where we're not really losing readers on the book. Which is, of course, very nice. Now, we're not a top ten book by any stretch of the imagination, but we consistently hit around a certain number and we make a little money - and there's certainly nothing wrong with that in comics nowadays. So, yes, we could have gone longer, but once I made up my mind that we needed to shorten the series and make it a bit more compact, I didn't deviate from that.

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.

left me craving another good fury and/or shield book tho, drat

Edge & Christian posted:

Secret Warriors was originally planned to be sixty issues and was shortened for a number of reasons:


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.

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?

site posted:

really? what didnt you like about it?

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.

Lord_Hambrose posted:

The Crucible is a neat idea.

site posted:

https://twitter.com/Newsarama/status/1233454766803607552

Edge & Christian posted:

wielder posted:

Marvel ongoings tend to end up being stealth mini-series these days, but I think it's good to see Silk again.

site posted:

its probably already cancelled

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

site posted:

https://twitter.com/Newsarama/status/1233501945593311234

IUG posted:

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.

Yvonmukluk posted:

People, people! Let's not fight!

Swords can be both dope and dumb.

Kill 6 Billion Demons posted:

“To train with the sword event comic, first master sweeping.

When you have mastered sweeping, you must master the way of drawing water. Once you have learned how to draw water, you must split wood. Once you have split wood, you must learn the arts of finding the fine herbs in the forest, the arts of writing, the arts of paper making, and poetry writing. You must become familiar with the awl and the pen in equal measure. When you have mastered all these things you must master building a house.

Once your house is built, you have no further need for a sword event comic, since it is an ugly piece of metal paper and its adherents idiots.”

– Meti’s Sword Manual Understanding Comics