And now we see if the Cup O’ Joe panel has anything worth mentioning.
The panel then revealed some art for a new special being produced in conjunction with the NBA featuring superstar basketball players drawn up in classic Marvel Comics covers. One featured Labron James leaving behind his Cleveland Cavaliers jersey a la the “Spider-Man No More” cover and a piece featuring Lakers start Kobe Bryant wearing the Infinity Gauntlet. “We’re marrying superhero iconography and superhero iconography in one big mash-up,” Alonso said of the project, which will arrive near the start of the NBA season under a cover by Quesada.
Wait, is this another alternate cover “event”? Otherwise, does anybody think and NBA comic book is going to do as well as any of the other sports comics out there?
A young man who’s serving as E-i-C of a small comics publishing concern asked what advice Quesada could give to him. “The only advice I can really give you is to be as honest as you possibly can be with the creators that work with you,” Quesada said, citing that as a freelancer, he always appreciated when the editors he worked for gave him both good and bad news in a straightforward manner.
That puts him about Pat Lee’s “Dreamwave” career, I guess.
Quesada and Bendis then recounted their first phone conversation when the former was editing the Marvel Knights line. He’d received a packet of Bendis’ indie work from David Mack, and when Bendis asked for any artistic work on the Knights line, Quesada paused and said, “You know your art sucks, right?” But that conversation led to Bendis taking up writing as a full time pursuit.
Another insert your own comment moment.
A fan gave a very well-thought out if somewhat snarky complaint about the tryst between the Sentry and Rogue revealed in the recent “Fallen Son” one-shot saying that the affair could not have happened unless “they were both cheating whores.” Quesada said that he felt it worked for the universe for new ideas and takes to work their way back into the line over the years. As for the complaint against the story, Brevoort stood by the creative choice, though he respected the fans right to dislike it, while Loeb offered up the challenge of coming up with a way that the affair could have remained secret – the hallmark of winning a Marvel “No-Prize.”
Did they just defend the Sentry/Rogue affair without addressing the fan’s problem? THE SENTRY WAS A MARRIED MAN! Rogue may well have been involved with Gambit at the time. They were both cheating on their partners! Nobody cares about it remaining secret and the “No-Prize” is supposed to retcon mistakes, not acts of stupidity!
The Sentry came up again later when a reader asked how they could have approved of the character’s death when it seemed to run contradictory from everything fans had seen about the characters “return” from the beginning. “The reason this death-scene stays is that Robert Reynolds wanted out,” said Bendis. “One would argue that when he resurrected himself, he didn’t want to go. But now he wanted to go.”
The fact that he could resurrect himself or the fact that he (read the current writers) just “doesn’t want to anymore”. Which is more ridiculous?
A fan who works at a comic shop asked after how Marvel set the standard for their rating system, wondering why some books for kids seemed to have content that was over the line. “Like any grading system, it’s always going to be objective. What one person finds mild, another will find way over the top. It’s always hard to judge,” Quesada said, noting that even on bigger media outlets like cable TV channels work in a wide range of subject matter depending on who owned them and how they saw their audience. Alonso said one staffer is hired at Marvel to read each book objectively without having been in on the creation of the books, so that editors could only discuss issues of standards once the core of the creative process was done. “This is art, so we don’t want to make it like an assembly line,” he said. “Once you say ‘You can’t do this’ it sucks the creative life out of the room.”
I’m sorry, the age rating system seems obvious enough even to fans who would otherwise have no personal issue with certain content but doesn’t want their kids reading it. Is it really that hard to say “cool, but would I be comfortable with my five-year-old son/daughter seeing this”? Isn’t this what Marvel complained about when they told the Comics Code Authority goodbye, that they didn’t know how to decide what was cleared for which age group?
What else do we have here? Video of Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 with Magneto and MODOK? I’ll have to check that later. The Women of Marvel panel was interesting, but why slam Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers to defend the X-Men cartoon from around the same period?
Amanat noted that the X-Men cartoon did not talk down to kids, which was another part of its appeal, unlike, for example, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. Sankovitch added, “Kimberly the Pink Ranger was always to reliant on her White Ranger to come save her.” Sankovitch did add, though, that, “I had a crush on Tommy; I still have a crush on Tommy.” Strain wrapped up by saying, “Storm wouldn’t live in anyone’s shadow,” pointing out a woman dressed as Storm in the front row.
Do you not know how the “sixth Ranger” bit worked? Tommy didn’t just come down like a white knight to save Kimberly (who did kick her own share of butt, by the way), but to save EVERYBODY, even the guy Rangers. This was mostly due to the Sentai footage, but that’s what Tommy and most sixth Rangers since have done–be the plot device when the Rangers get into trouble. (Or the Sentai footage lets him show up.)
Marvel’s “Next Big Thing” panel starts with a crossover event I couldn’t care less about, and then goes into Spider-Man’s next event.
(Dan Slott) said of the package “Peter is going to expand his arsenal of stuff” outside the webshooters, spider-tracers and his classic gadgets. The series will also see Parker gain a new job which Slott described as “a career” as well as multiple new costumes for Spidey to climb in and out of – one of which will be playable in the new “Marvel Vs. Capcom 3” video game.
Does this mean a return to teaching and of impact webbing? Otherwise, why should I care? Oh, and multiple costumes. How toyetic. And a waste of time.
Hobgoblin returns in the first new “Amazing” arc, which will also see Mac Gargan return to being Scorpion instead of Venom.
Character advancement? What’s that? Can I guess who the “next” Venom is going to be, or is Brock already back in black?
Asked if the Peter Parker in “Ultimate Comics Spider-Man” was a clone replacing a dead Spidey at the end of the last volume, Bendis essentially said no, but added that last week’s Ultimate Creative Summit was one in which he, Loeb and Mark Millar “concocted a plan for the Ultimate Universe that was startling to us when it was done. What will happen from issue #150 through the calendar year, you have never seen done in a mainstream comic book…we’re priding ourselves in stories you’ve never seen done anywhere.” Bendis noted that in the “Ultimate Secret” trilogy, the reveal that Reed Richards is a major villain is the kind of thing that fans can rely on moving forward.
Does anything not make you cry there? I ask because between a new way to say “will change (X) forever”, a promise of “never been done” that’s tough for me to believe from Marvel anymore, and evil Reed Richards, I can’t find anything that doesn’t make ME cry.
So what’s happening on the toon side?
BW Media Spotlight 