Solipsistic Meanderings » The Distinguished Competition and the Marvels of comics

February 3, 2006

The Distinguished Competition and the Marvels of comics

I think I wrote a while back about how I really liked what DC was doing with their various comics. I also wrote about how I picked up a couple of Marvel titles after that and found that surprisingly, I liked them too. That was over a year ago. Since that time, my perception of comics (both Marvel and DC) has changed again.

Originally, I wasn’t so sure about "Infinite Crisis" since it seemed to be just another effort to cash in on the old "Crisis on Infinite Earths" twenty years later. But as the story progressed, it has become interesting, engrossing and I love how the story affects so many corners of the DC universe. I just finished reading the "Rann-Thanagar War Infinite Crisis Special" and all I can say is "Wow!" One of the changes I’d hated about the new DC universe was that Hal Jordan was back (not to mention the way he made the entrance – decking Batman, eerily similar to how Batman decked Guy Gardner when the JLI was formed. That seemed like a cheap shot on the part of Geoff Johns to me but YMMV). I actually liked Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern way more than I’d liked Hal Jordan and now that Hal was back, it looked as if Kyle was going to take a back seat. But the "Rann-Thanagar Special" shows that Kyle is going off in a completely new direction and Ron Marz is writing the story. Wow! Double wow!! (Yeah, I like Rayner, think Jordan never amounted to much – get over it :p)

While all that (and more) is going on with DC, what about Marvel? They actually seem to be sinking again. The "Young Avengers" started off well but now seems to be bogged down in the sexual choices of the characters and some weird Skrull storyline at the moment. It’s stopped being fresh and new. Marvel did the whole "House of M" thing which did nothing for me – I’d hoped that they’d at least bring Hawkeye back and while there are hints that he might be back, we don’t know for sure. The "Thunderbolts" have again gotten really convoluted and uninteresting. Peter Parker’s life is being turned upside down in Spider-man and I’m not really sure that’s a good. Basically, Marvel seems to be making waves just to be making waves or trying to play catch up with DC and not really concentrating on writing good stories. Now I hear that they have a "new" cross-over event coming up, "Civil War" and that Spidey’s going to get a new costume designed by Iron Man – wahoo. Yeah, doesn’t really spark much interest. But let’s see what the new year brings, maybe they’ll surprise me …or maybe not :p