Aghast! What madness is this? A new column you say? Why yes, yes it is!Tuesdays have kind of been a dead zone on the site for the longest time. I never really had anything to put there (unless I forgot to put the Post-Crisis Previews up on Monday) and I've tried a few times to fill the void with new columns, such as the now defunct Cover to Cover, Comic Book Crisis of Faith and Comic Book Character Spotlights features.
However, those columns typically became too difficult to keep fresh (the Cover to Cover posts ended up being repetitive and most simply looked at the pretty pictures and moved on) or research and time intensive (Crisis of Faith and Comic Book Character Spotlights took hours of reading the books again, writing the reviews and finding scans from the books) to stick with.
Either too stubborn or stupid to give up, I'm giving a Top 10 feature a shot at the coveted Tuesday time slot. These won't be complete fluff or filler posts, like typical Top 10 posts on other sites, and I'm going to try and keep them relevant and informative.
For instance, this first edition is a simple list of Must Read books gone wrong, with reasons for their fall from grace and future prognoses for each. Future editions could feature topics such as Top 10 Spider-Man Stories (or any hero) or 10 Books You Should Be Reading or Top 10 Comic Book Tripes or so on. I'll try to stay away from the more fanboyish lists, such as Top 10 Hottest Comic Book Females or Top 10 X-Men, et al.
Anyways, enough rambling. It's a new column. I've explained what it's about, what to expect and we'll see how it goes from here. Hit the jump for the list of 10 Must Read Books Gone Wrong!
Quick note before we jump in - these are on-going, monthly books that have been consistently Must Read titles for the past year or so and have taken a sharp nose dive in recent months for whatever reason. Titles, such as Runaways or Ultimates 3, which are consistently late and barely qualify as monthlies anymore, are not considered in these listings.
TOP 10 TUESDAYS - 10 Must Read Books Gone Wrong
BLUE BEETLEBlue Beetle is, arguably, DC's best on-going, montly title over the past year or more. Or, make that was DC's best on-going, montly title. After wrapping up The Fall of Reach storyline with Blue Beetle #25, the writer, John Rogers, opted to take a break from the title in favour of more TV work and other, unannounced, projects.
With Rogers off the title indefinitely, DC has fumbled to find a new voice for the book as multiple writers take turns with fill-in stories. It hasn't been downright terrible, but the book has definitely suffered a noticeable dip in quality since issue #25.
Verdict - Check It. No longer the top dog on the DC buy pile, but still a fun book to read every month. There's a new writer waiting in the wings to take over the low selling title, but the damage of this unfocused and sudden departure by Rogers may have Blue Beetle on the chopping block.
CATWOMANOne word can easily sum up what's currently wrong with Catwoman - cancelled. Yes, a book that has been one of DC's best One Year Later titles and one of the few to actually make any use of that gimmick has been targetted for cancellation.
To be fair, DC did attempt to boost sales by forcing the writer to drop all his current plots and dumped Selina on
Oh wait, that was pretty much a curtain call for the series and a sure fire way to run it into the ground.
Verdict - Cancelled. While still a great title, which even managed to make the forced Salvation Run tie-ins readable, a feat even the main series couldn't do for itself, Catwoman is dead in the water and we're just waiting for the final issue.
CHECKMATEIt's evident after just one issue in the post-Greg Rucka regime that Checkmate is destined for cancellation. After capping off a great 25 issue run, which is eerily similar to Rogers' Blue Beetle run, Rucka has decided to leave the book in the questionable hands of Bruce Jones.
Probably not his smartest move ever, as the book has taken a drastic change in direction and it looks as if Jones has never read this book prior to coming on as the writer.
Verdict - Avoid It. Just pretend there are only 25 issues of this title and try to remember the glory days. I predict it's cancelled by issue 30. Any takers?
GREEN LANTERNGreen Lantern? What's this doing on the list, you ask? Well, it looks like Johns bought into his own hype, put his feet up on his desk and phoned in the last half a dozen or more issues of Green Lantern and that puts it on the Must Read Books Gone Wrong list.
Let's recap what we've been put through since the Sinestro Corps War ended, shall we?
Green Lantern #26 - the third epilogue issue in a row, counting the Ion special and GLC books, that we let slide since it was a well deserved break after the SCW.
Green Lantern #27-28 - Alpha Lanterns, a go nowhere concept that was imagined by Grant Morrison for his Final Crisis event, which Johns created and then threw away without giving us a reason to even care about them before moving onto our next reason.
Green Lantern #29-34 - Secret Origin. Also known as, "Geoff Johns retells a classic origin with pretty new pictures and five pages of new story over the span of six issues.".
Verdict - Avoid It. It's a sad state of affairs at this point for the Green Lantern title. Unless you are completely new to the book, Johns just copy and pasted a wikipedia entry / Emerald Dawn story and spaced it over six issues with pretty new art. If that's not reason enough to dump this title from it's place at the top of the Must Read pile, nothing is.
IMMORTAL IRON FISTImmortal Iron Fist just finished wrapping up what I consider to be the definitive Iron Fist story for the character in the form of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven storyline. To celebrate, Marvel announced that the writers, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, AND artist, David Aja, were all off the title, effective immediately.
On top of this, they let us know that the new writer for the series will be Dwayne Swierczynski, the current writer of the abysmal Cable series.
Verdict - Avoid It. Marvel effectively tore the heart out of the book and left it a shell of its former self by allowing all three creators to leave at the same time and replacing them with an unproven writer, who's only comic book work has been on the relaunched and horrible Cable series.
INCREDIBLE HULKAfter the massively successful and critically acclaimed Planet Hulk and WWH storylines, Jeph Loeb is the current writer of the only Hulk book on the market and it features a red, gun wielding Hulk who curses and killed the Abomination, who's been reborn as A-Bomb, the new gamma alter ego of Rick Jones. Do I even have to explain this one?
On top of this, Marvel sold off the Greg Pak penned Incredible Hulk to Hercules, probably in a moment of clairvoyance, possibly forseeing just how badly Loeb would ruin the Hulk.
Verdict - Avoid It. Incredible Hercules is great, but, for Hulk related stories, Marvel has driven the franchise into the ground with this Red Hulk / Loeb nonsense. Maybe Skaar - Son of Hulk can rekindle one of the biggest falls from grace I've seen in a long time.
IRON MAN: DIRECTOR OF SHIELDIt's still too early to tell how badly Iron Man: Director of SHIELD will turn out, what with the Knaufs fleeing the book with nary a word from Marvel or the writers as to why. We can only assume it was for television related duties on the Knaufs part or they simply wanted to do the Eternals on-going and couldn't fit DoS into their schedule anymore.
However, they've already made plans and announced to do a Madame Masque storyline, which I assume is scrapped now, making the departure even odder.
While the first issue of the first fill-in writer wasn't terrible, it paled in comparison to the Knaufs' masterpiece Mandarin storyline that just recently wrapped up. We can also look forward to more fill-ins in the future from Chris Gage and an undisclosed full-time writer post-Secret Invasion.
Verdict - Check It. This title is rumoured to be getting the Incredible Hulk treatment. No, Loeb isn't going to write Iron Man screaming, "Oh the humanity!", in DoS anytime soon. I mean the pawning the book off to another character treatment. It looks like this could be "cancelled" and passed off to Nick Fury post-Secret Invasion. While I no problem with Nick getting his own book, I'm a bit peeved that the Knaufs are gone and it looks like Marvel is planning to go with the movie-version Iron Man title in the form of Invincible Iron Man. Shame, really.
MANHUNTERThis is probably the oddest entry on the list, as it's actually a book that was put on indefinite hiatus a while back and pretty much hasn't "existed" or been a monthly in, well, months.
As such, it wasn't even a book that could fall from grace. It simply didn't exist anymore. DC simply decided it hated producing good books, didn't market this one and promptly put it on the shelf indefinitely.
So, how did it make the list? Well, it showed up on the stands last week, marking the only book on the list to defy the odds and return to the Must Read pile, that's how.
Verdict - Must Read. As I said, after about a year or of being labelled "Cancelled" in most fans' eyes, the little title that could has defied the odds and returned to the land of the living.
NEW X-MENMy personal favourite X-title was the victim of "we need to kill people in this crossover, so let's kill the young guys no one cares about" cliche of comic book events, which can be seen in action in last week's Secret Invasion #3 where the Young Avengers and Initiative kids are all punked out as sacrificial lambs to the Skrulls.
New X-Men, however, was punked out to the dreaded, "Let's relaunch with new creators and a shiny #1 after we kill off a bunch of characters!", tripe.
The team didn't even get a proper send off and had their series cancelled without a single announcement or acknowledgement from Marvel until the last issue hit the stands at the end of the Messiah Complex crossover.
They ended up replaced by the monstrosity known as Young X-Men. To add insult to injury, Greg Land has taken one of the cuter and more charming characters, Pixie, and turned the 13 or 14 year old girl into a traced 21 year old porn star that makes nothing but o-faces now.
Verdict - Cancelled. While other cancelled books at least managed to get replaced with something worthwhile, New X-Men is just gone and nothing but misery and tears is left in its wake.
X-FACTORAnother victim of Messiah Complex and, no, I'm not talking about Xavier or the other random mutants killed off. X-Factor went from first to worst in a matter of months, all thanks to Messiah Complex.
Well, "worst" is probably too harsh, but it's still a pale shadow of its former self in the post-MC world.
Marvel decided to rip the heart out of the book by stranding Layla Miller in the future and commandeering Wolfsbane for the new killsquad book, X-Force, leaving X-Factor high and dry with nothing but long forgotten plots and characters in its wake, especially since the X-Factor team didn't even star in its own book for the duration of Messiah Complex.
Verdict - Check It. It's showing signs of life, but it's just not the same X-Factor we were reading six or seven months ago.
Conclusion
There's my first Top 10 Tuesdays post, I hope you all enjoyed it. Any major books I missed that you feel have lost their coveted Must Read status over the past year or so? Any of my choices you don't agree with? Let me know about them and any other thoughts you have on the new feature in the comments!
There's my first Top 10 Tuesdays post, I hope you all enjoyed it. Any major books I missed that you feel have lost their coveted Must Read status over the past year or so? Any of my choices you don't agree with? Let me know about them and any other thoughts you have on the new feature in the comments!
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10 comments:
Blue Beetle: I read issue #25, and while it was good I didn't think it was anything special.
Catwoman/Checkmate: I was actually thinking of picking these books up but then Catwoman got canceled and Jones got put on Checkmate.
Green Lantern: Disagree. I like the three epilogue issues and I am enjoying Hal's origin. I will give you that it is treading water though.
Immortal Iron Fist: It is said that the book is basically getting canceled. I assume Fraction and Bru were taken off it for money reasons since they are writing UXM.
Incredible Hulk: The surest way to ruin a book is to put Loeb on it. Its a good thing that Herc came out otherwise the WWH fallout would have been a complete failure.
Iron Man: Never read it but I am thinking Fury is probably going to become the headliner after SI.
Manhunter: I checked out the trades, loved them and loved issue #31.
New X-Men: Never read it.
X-Factor: While the story has been lacking, the character moments have been great and keeps the book from faltering completely.
I wish some people at DC and Marvel would get their heads out of their asses and read this article. Good stuff.
Blue Beetle: I didn't read this, had no real interest in the character (spanish dude with alien powers, meh). I was going to start reading it then the team changed. Frowns
Catwoman: Read this for like 2 issues, got bored, don't mind it being cancelled, hopefully she gets a BoP spot...?
Checkate: Loved this book, hate to see it being terrible now. Sigh.
Green Lantern: Well, I'm optimistic after reading that Johns has no intention of dropping the title and has "too many ideas" off his own website. However, this secret origin junk is getting boring.
IF: Die Marvel, Die
Incredible Hulkerles: Dropped this once the title changed. Major frowns as this was enjoyable from planet hulk onwards. Fuck Loeb.
Iron Man: I was just getting into this, and I had no idea the movie would have such a negative effect on the character. Jeez. (Might explain Hulk, too?)
Manhunter: I think I'll start picking this up after you review a couple more issues. Sounds like great stuff.
New X-men: Meant to read it, didn't, not disappointed. I hate too many x-titles.
X-Factor: I got bored with this when I read it a couple years back. I'm hoping they do SOMETHING to improve the x-titles, and this would be a good place to start.
"DC simply decided it hated producing good books, didn't market this one and promptly put it on the shelf indefinitely."
That sentence is so full of win.
Comic fans like me however, are epic failures for not picking up such a great book like Manhunter and causing it to hit the chopping block in the first place.
We buy every crossover and its tie-ins, we buy three versions of Ultimates (stomach churning) #1 for variant covers, and we refuse to buy a female or lower tier character's title (even when its good). /rant
New X-Men - read the first volume post-Decimation, liked it but didn't quite care for Mark Brooks' art.
literally the other day got the final two volumes (the one dealing with The Facility creating Predator X, and the kids going to Limbo) and OH! MY! GOD!
I think i'm mostly talking about the Limbo-Belasco-storyline here, because I had to re-read that three times over, it was so good! Skottie Young's art, the writing, it all came together in one big lovely pie! it felt as if the characters, which I knew very little about, were finally getting to where Kyle and Yost wanted them to get! the characterisation is amazing, some moments hilarious, others extrememely touching, it was actually the best arc of any book I have ever read. and then it got f£$*king cancelled! It sucks! I think if they had kept Skottie Young on the book with those same writeres, or, even, since the beginning, it would have drawn in a lot more readers.
That moment where Darkchild is sucking out Pixie's soul, and Santo, who, up until that point, is pretty much a d!ck (but a really funny one), forms himself out of the Limbo lava rock stuff and shouts "GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY FRIENDS!", that was comic book gold right there. really sold me on Rockslide's character. I don't wanna give away any more scenes like that in case peeps wanna read it, and you SHOULD!
@ Kirk, you think we could start some kind of petition to get it going again? worked for Manhunter, didn't it?
What about Runaways, that was a great title that really slipped. delays don't help. But it did get the movie announcement so it's still making some noise.
I want a good Hulk book, Herc is cool, but want a good green Hulk smashing things.
Really enjoyed reading this i agree with all of your points (proving your / our genius ;)- how many series do you plan on covering each week? Just curious.
@eric - I like Green Lantern, despite the way it's currently turning out, but it's a far cry from Sinestro Corps War and that's the reason it made this list. Feels like wasted potential to me after such an epic event.
As for Blue Beetle, if you only read issue 25, which was part 3 of the culmination of everything Rogers had done since issue 1, I could see why you'd probalby feel less enthused about the book than I or many others.
@rawnzilla - It's easy for me to say "make the book better again!" or "don't cancel good books!", but they run a business and businesses run on money. I do agree they've made mistakes with many of these books, but a lot of it is simply due to readers not buying the books. Whether it's marketing, not enough money, comics too expensive or what, it's still our fault for not buying them, not DC/Marvel for cancelling them
There's no excuse for Jeph Loeb though ahaha.
@ethreal - I'd recommend grabbing the first four trades off Amazon or eBay. You can get issues 1-25 (the 4 trades) for like $20-25 total. It's a great run that reads as one cohesive story. I'm probably going to get mine singles bound into one big hardcover in the future.
@darin - Don't blame yourself, we're all guilty. I didn't even pick up Manhunter when it was first coming out and only got into due to recommendations from commenters on the blog.
Catwoman kind of requires coming in at a certain spot. The last 6 months of stories have been less than thrilling due to Salvation Run and there was forced Amazons Attack tie-ins before that. Just about anything pre-OYL and the early issues dealing with her baby during OYL were great though. Not sure what you picked up along the way.
@danielwoburn - I share your pain with New X-Men. Man did I love that book. When Yost & Kyle took over, it was simply amazing and easily my favourite X-books and one of my favs to get every month. I agree about Skottie's artwork. It's got a certain scratching / kineticness to it that I love and it fit the tone of the book perfectly.
My favourite arcs, however, were back when the Purifiers attacked and they dealt with Nimrod, but I loved everything in that book for the longest time.
I'm not sure what a letter writing campaign will do. They typically don't gain any traction and email versions just don't work. I don't think I'd want anyone else to take over, as Marvel could just as easily toss the book at Guggenheim or the Cable writer (who's name is too long and difficult for me to spell ahah) and it would be worse than just leaving it cancelled.
Hell, Young X-Men is butchering several New X-Men characters every month already and Pixie is a porn star traced by Greg Land. Letters don't fix that.
I'm kind of resigned to at least enjoying X-23 over in X-Force and they had Elixir show up last issue and I thought I heard rumblings of Hellion appearing there in the future.
@mrpeepants - Runaways is pretty much a great book gone bad, but I felt even BKV seemed to be running on fumes near the end of his run to the point it wasn't the same Must Read title it was in the first year of the second volume. Having 6 issues in the last year or two meant it wasn't even worth mentioning for me. Just didn't come out often enough. All the books I decided to feature were actual monthlies that dipped in quality or were cancelled.
msavoie - ahaha, genius status achieved! Next stop, godhood!
I'm not sure what you mean by series covered per week. Do you mean in my reviews? I just cover whatever I buy that week, which is usually anywhere from 6-15 books, probably averagine 10 a week or so.
If you mean in the new Top 10 Tuesdays, I'm going to feature different "Top 10's" every Tuesday. I made a big list of post ideas for it before deciding to go with this, so I should be able to draw something every week for the post without resorting to complete filler.
I might switch to a "10 Greatest Spider-Man Stories" (well, could be any character, not just Spider-man) in future editions or go with a list of 10 Books You Should Be Reading or even 10 Indy Books You Should Be Reading and so on.
HOpe that answered your question. If not, let me know and I'll try to clarify.
Man, did you really pass judgement on the new creative team for Iron Fist?
Dwayne Swierczynski was hand-picked by Brubaker to take over.
Travel Foreman did great work on the Ares mini-series, although he is using a drastically different style for Iron Fist.
You hadn't even read their first issue. The Bru/Fraction run wasn't even over.
@fucknbowen - I wrote this several weeks ago, but, yes, I did pass judgement on Iron Fist's future based on the announcement that both Brubaker and Fraction were leaving along with Aja.
It didn't really matter if they handpicked Dwayne Swierczynski or not when his only comic work at the time had been Cable, which has been universally agreed upon to be quite bad by just about eveyr review I've read and based on my own experiences with the title.
If you've read my review of Dwayne Swierczynski's first issue, you will see that I recant on my words and actually gave it a very favourable review.
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