Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Results 16 to 30 of 59
  1. #16
    Admitted Curmudgeon Steve068's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Location
    Phoenix, AZ (reluctantly)
    Posts
    274

    Default

    I lasted just a few months into his F4 run and not long into Secret Warriors. Heck, I'd even started the mini he did with the F4 prior to taking over the series but forgot to pick up any more issues. His plot heavy, heart free storytelling is not for everyone. I only read his Avengers/New Avengers stuff after Secret Wars was announced, having dropped it after Infinity bored me. It was homework to be done for an EVent like this that couldn't be missed no matter who was writing it...

  2. #17
    Spectacular Member TonySnark's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    175

    Default

    So yeah, pretty much any of the deaths was a theory on the small one; but I noticed all of them so I don't think it was as small as the reviewer put out there.

  3. #18
    Spectacular Member TonySnark's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    175

    Default

    I honestly don't think you needed to read the entirety of the run to understand this issue; a quick wiki on what Incursions are is all you really need. The finales of Avengers/New Avengers didn't directly lead into the events of #1, there was a bit of a jump so a lot of the information was new to even readers of both books. Like the Phoenix egg.

    I thought it was pretty straighforward, the 616 and Ultimate U collided, they fought for a bit, both were destroyed with a small group in the multiversal life raft. All that stuff is done now and the rest of the series should be easy to follow as it will establish how battleworld comes to be and how it works.

  4. #19
    Spectacular Member TonySnark's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    175

    Default

    I will add though that if you dead read both runs, its really cool to have had this scale building up for so long, its what makes it feel more epic and not forced in the way Convergence was just lazily thrown out there.

  5. #20
    Ultimate Member jackolover's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    10,163

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve068 View Post
    Is it a joke? I lasted just a few months into his F4 run and not long into Secret Warriors. Heck, I'd even started the mini he did with the F4 prior to taking over the series but forgot to pick up any more issues. His plot heavy, heart free storytelling is not for everyone. I only read his Avengers/New Avengers stuff after Secret Wars was announced, having dropped it after Infinity bored me. It was homework to be done for an EVent like this that couldn't be missed no matter who was writing it...
    I don't know if you needed to read anything. If you hadn't read a Marvel comic before, you saw two universes panic as they crashed together. When the dust settled, you saw a life raft sitting on a landscape. It's pretty much like a god come to earth origin story. This happened in the origin of Garth, the British newspaper strip. He just appeared on a raft suddenly, and floated to a shoreline, and the story started.

  6. #21
    Spectacular Member TonySnark's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    175

    Default

    Also I'd say as an alternative to googling what the incursions were all about, the FCBD #0 was really meant for those that hadn't been reading all along. I don't think knowing what the characters were doing in Avengers/New is as imperitive as to just grasping the idea of the incursions themselves. There wasn't really time for any character arcs here, just all out chaos.

  7. #22
    Spectacular Member TonySnark's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    175

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by jackolover View Post
    I don't know if you needed to read anything. If you hadn't read a Marvel comic before, you saw two universes panic as they crashed together. When the dust settled, you saw a life raft sitting on a landscape. It's pretty much like a god come to earth origin story. This happened in the origin of Garth, the British newspaper strip. He just appeared on a raft suddenly, and floated to a shoreline, and the story started.
    exactly. at its core its 2 worlds colliding and the aftermath.

  8. #23
    Ultimate Member jackolover's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    10,163

    Default

    Was the first issue of Secret Wars supposed to be just this snuff movie? Not much was expounded as far as recounting something from before, because after a mild introductory comment from Doom, it just opened into a chaotic maelstrom. If you were going to make a movie of Secret Wars, it could do worse than the opening of Star Wars 1, the movie. A few punchy lines about the universe ending, and ending with what comes next hanging just out of reach.

  9. #24
    Extraordinary Member
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    6,040

    Default

    I just really read it, and damn...they really did it. They did it! I sort of didn't think they would.

    Did anyone feel so bad for Ultimate Fury? The guy got played by forces way outside of his pay-grade, and he lost. Would 616 Classic Nick have faired better? Maybe, or maybe not.

    I wonder, if Miles does survive, what he's going to do? His inclusion on Secret Wars #3's cover suggests he will.

  10. #25
    Spectacular Member
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    151

    Default

    I've been following New Avengers and keeping loose tabs on Hickman's other two Avengers books through Marvel Unlimited, and this was still an unforgiving issue. I can appreciate that Hickman has committed to the long form, delivering a climax for long-term readers instead of reframing the story for lapsed readers and fence-sitters, but we still have about three or four different master-plans and back-up plans playing out simultaneously as the heroes shout expositional dialogue over massive detonations. But, on the bright side, the action is so hectic and the destruction is so total that Hickman was probably wise to let the spectacle overwhelm the details. It's easy to believe in the pettiness of human schemes in the face of total destruction when those plans barely come into focus before they have already unravelled. And the fact that the character deaths are so instant and final, with no pause for a melodramatic send-off, is both unsettling and refreshing given how often event books tart up their shock deaths with pushy sentiment.

    Meanwhile, I don't think it would make sense to give this climax a higher page-count when the whole point is a clean break. Next issue we're starting in with a new world with new rules. It might have made more sense for this to be a final issue of New Avengers or even a standalone one-shot, because presumably the new story begins in earnest next issue. This one just wrapped up the months-long build up toward the end of the multiverse. It's not the home run I was hoping for, but at least Secret Wars is ballsy enough, so far, to compensate for its opacity.

    And it was great to see Esad Ribic return to his cyber-punk version of the Ultimate Universe, with the City, the Children, an eerily calm Evil Reed, and the coolest-looking helicarriers ever to grace a comics page. Hickman's run on Ultimates was probably my favorite thing he has done at Marvel, so it was cathartic to see the end-game after the initial run was truncated. Ribic can be a little rote with facial expressions, especially given his over-reliance on widened mouths and eyes bulging with intensity, but no one else in Marvel's current stable can match him for Dutch angles of aerial maneuvering.

  11. #26
    Extraordinary Member
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    6,040

    Default

    I love this issue's art...except for the faces.

    Did Ribic just Photoshop the same face on all of the characters?

  12. #27
    Ultimate Member jackolover's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    10,163

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Cryptid View Post
    I've been following New Avengers and keeping loose tabs on Hickman's other two Avengers books through Marvel Unlimited, and this was still an unforgiving issue. I can appreciate that Hickman has committed to the long form, delivering a climax for long-term readers instead of reframing the story for lapsed readers and fence-sitters, but we still have about three or four different master-plans and back-up plans playing out simultaneously as the heroes shout expositional dialogue over massive detonations. But, on the bright side, the action is so hectic and the destruction is so total that Hickman was probably wise to let the spectacle overwhelm the details. It's easy to believe in the pettiness of human schemes in the face of total destruction when those plans barely come into focus before they have already unravelled. And the fact that the character deaths are so instant and final, with no pause for a melodramatic send-off, is both unsettling and refreshing given how often event books tart up their shock deaths with pushy sentiment.

    Meanwhile, I don't think it would make sense to give this climax a higher page-count when the whole point is a clean break. Next issue we're starting in with a new world with new rules. It might have made more sense for this to be a final issue of New Avengers or even a standalone one-shot, because presumably the new story begins in earnest next issue. This one just wrapped up the months-long build up toward the end of the multiverse. It's not the home run I was hoping for, but at least Secret Wars is ballsy enough, so far, to compensate for its opacity.

    And it was great to see Esad Ribic return to his cyber-punk version of the Ultimate Universe, with the City, the Children, an eerily calm Evil Reed, and the coolest-looking helicarriers ever to grace a comics page. Hickman's run on Ultimates was probably my favorite thing he has done at Marvel, so it was cathartic to see the end-game after the initial run was truncated. Ribic can be a little rote with facial expressions, especially given his over-reliance on widened mouths and eyes bulging with intensity, but no one else in Marvel's current stable can match him for Dutch angles of aerial maneuvering.
    Are we to believe, because of the sudden Secret Wars #1 deaths without requisite acknowledgement, that the whole Hickman run of Avengers purposely desensitised the book. Because I got a very distanced feeling to the characters from Hickman, and if SW told us why, then I suppose Hickman had to tell it this way. The Avengers were expendable, so don't spend time on them. If you compare Avengers #1 to Avengers #44, Tony and Steve walk down a hall arm over a shoulder, then , beating each other senseless, as something comes crashing into them, while fighting, and that's the end of their appearance in-story.

    You know, even that lecture Reed gave the Illuminati in NA #2, was formal. You would think Tony would crack saying "WHAT!?", Namor being melodramatic and pacing the room, saying "this cannot be allowed". But no. Hickman has everybody sat in their seats accepting calmly, everything Reed tells them. This sort of portrayal of unemotional Illuminati runs against previous examples of the opposite happening. And Incursions were way worse than sending Hulk into Space or the Civil War.

  13. #28
    All-New Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    25

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by jackolover View Post
    Are we to believe, because of the sudden Secret Wars #1 deaths without requisite acknowledgement, that the whole Hickman run of Avengers purposely desensitised the book. Because I got a very distanced feeling to the characters from Hickman, and if SW told us why, then I suppose Hickman had to tell it this way. The Avengers were expendable, so don't spend time on them. If you compare Avengers #1 to Avengers #44, Tony and Steve walk down a hall arm over a shoulder, then , beating each other senseless, as something comes crashing into them, while fighting, and that's the end of their appearance in-story.

    You know, even that lecture Reed gave the Illuminati in NA #2, was formal. You would think Tony would crack saying "WHAT!?", Namor being melodramatic and pacing the room, saying "this cannot be allowed". But no. Hickman has everybody sat in their seats accepting calmly, everything Reed tells them. This sort of portrayal of unemotional Illuminati runs against previous examples of the opposite happening. And Incursions were way worse than sending Hulk into Space or the Civil War.
    You've hit on what is, in my opinion, Hickman's biggest flaw as a writer -- he simply doesn't care about the characters. They're little more than opportunities for him to introduce his themes through dialogue. Although he does offer some nice character moments here -- the Punisher gate-crashing the supervillains' party; Reed's pride in Susan -- they're probably the only instances in the 80 or so issues of Avengers that he's written. I never felt like I was reading about Captain America or Iron Man or T'Challa or Namor; I felt like I was reading Hickman's pet interests dressed as Captain America, Iron Man, T'Challa, etc. (Though, to be fair, this is also something that could be said about Chris Claremont.) This might also explain why he introduced so many characters to, ultimately, so little impact. I remember when it seemed intriguing that he brought New Universe characters into the Avengers books, or that Eden seemed to be a fresh addition to the Avengers, or that Captain Universe might become more than an unwieldy character. Instead, it's now pretty obvious that the characters were added to serve plot points, nothing more.

    He is also bad at writing action sequences, and in a book that is 90% action sequences, this flaw is particularly problematic in Secret Wars. At times I had no idea what was happening or why -- spoilers:
    who killed Groot and Rocket Raccoon? where exactly is the Triskelion for Hulk, She-Hulk, Colossus and others to knock it over? if it's on the Ultimate Earth, how did they get over there?
    end of spoilers. I rarely get the impression that Hickman particularly likes comic books.

    That said, I'd give the book 3.5 stars. It did capture the sense of doomed stakes, and the art was for the most part gorgeous, though Rosebunse's point about Ribic's faces is true; it's really noticeable on the castlist page.

  14. #29
    Mighty Member Darth Kal-el's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Location
    Houston, TX
    Posts
    1,572

    Default

    I read all of avengers and New avengers but not his ultimate stuff so I understood 95 percent of everything but I do feel sorry for those that had not because Marvel and Hickman both said you didn't need to and that was a flat out lie. The beginning scene with Doom would make no sense without NA and neither would the incursions, Ultimate Reed, the cabal or why 1610 was attacking 616. Also no one would know Tony and Steve were dead because Stark turned out evil. They lied about accessibility. Never will trust marvel again

  15. #30
    Rachel Grey-Summers Sardorim's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    Rachel turned into Ahab's baby momma by Marvel. Disgusting.
    Posts
    6,829

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Sam Robards, Comic Fan View Post
    This was one of the most inaccessible and borderline incomprehensible books I've read in a long time. It seems like Hickman (and editorial, by extension) are saying, "Oh, you haven't been reading both Avengers titles for the past 3 years? Then F*%& you. A new reader wants to jump into Marvel Comics through this well-publicized event? Good f*&^ing luck."

    I understand that in an event dealing with this many characters in this kind of situation, you won't know everything that's going on with everyone. But I read all the core X-Books, so why is it that I have no F*%&ING idea what Nation X is or why Cyclops has Sentinels? Not to mention whatever the Phoenix Egg is. I mean, you'd think they'd be able to base the X-Men's current status based on their actual books, but maybe I'm just being naive.

    I'm sorry if it seems like I'm ranting, which I kinda am, but this issue was such an extreme disappointment to me, especially knowing that I will need to go back and buy a number of Avengers books from the last few months to have any idea why things are the way they are with characters I like (Cyclops, specifically).

    I have hope for the rest of the series since it seems that building Battleworld up will be easier to follow than watching both universes end. But this issue was a massive, MASSIVE disappointment.
    Agreed.

    If you weren't reading the Avengers up to this point then you're going to have a rude awakening when all those other characters you were reading about turn up erased and maybe getting a battleworld imposter.

    Quote Originally Posted by LightningBug View Post
    This is a shamefully low score. This is one of the best event first issues any publisher has ever put out. Finally we have an event that rewards long term readership. If readers don't get the context because they didn't read Avengers, that's not Hickman's fault. I'm extremely relieved I didn't have to suffer through any expository catchup meant to hold new readers' hands through concepts that are frankly not that hard to understand. I haven't read an Ultimate comic since Millar left the Ultimates, but I was able to understand everything on that end with a quick visit to Wikipedia. This comic was a huge payoff, and masterfully executed.
    I disagree. This makes RR blush with such a huge death toll that happened in an instant.

    At least RR kept his Uncanny Avengers mostly self-contained and he reversed things. Here is no such thing.

    It's basically Marvel erasing everyone, saving the few they like and then making altered versions (For those that even get that) of the erased to suit what they want without having to deal with canon or history.

    The lead-up is also completely horrid if you weren't already an Avenger reader and understandably Spider-Men, Cosmic, Inhuman and X-Men fans have every right to be displeased that the characters they like and read about are now gone forever due to an unrelated book.
    Last edited by Sardorim; 05-07-2015 at 10:40 PM.

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •