When It Reigns It Pours
Secret Invasion ended last week. I wish there was more to say about it than that, but that’s pretty much what happened. It ended abruptly, Wasp died, and then we quickly got away from that Skrull nonsense and jumped into Dark Reign mode, the next Marvel cross-title gimmick.
We should be used to this by now - the massive build up into the crossover and the quick deflation, which happened with House of M, Civil War and World War Hulk. And we should also be used to the way a new status quo is set.
Now this is probably due to Bendis’ style of writing, throwing several characters together and seeing what happens. But what we are continually seeing is another team or sets of teams thrown together, pulled by their respective stories and redefining Marvel due to the new situations they get thrust into. Of course that’s what always happens, I guess, but let’s look at the Illuminati, the New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Secret Warriors and now the Dark Reign team. These groups are just cobbled together for invented reasons, so that random and now important characters can bounce off of each other.
This makes for interesting reading, but what it does is make the burden of the story rely on events and character reactions, not the individual characters’ stories or strengths. If there is ever a team for more than a few years, let’s change the roster, make a new team of Howard the Duck, Thor, Penance, Professor X and Dracula and then have that juxtaposition make up for the lack of original story.
Bendis and Marvel have been focusing a lot on implications, on how these fake comic things would be like in a real world setting, but then forgetting to focus on what’s doing the implying - the characters and the original stories. Secret Invasion and Civil War were really unsophisticated slug fests without any real character development - there was only event development. When characters are put together in a room with other characters, their personalities have to stay the same so they can bounce off the other characters and no real progression can take place. Of course comics are usually very static, but I thought comics these days were meant for mature, discerning readers who wanted more literature from their books. Right?
Matt Knicl: My name is Matt Knicl. I'm a U of I alumn and one of those unemployed English majors Garrison Keillor likes to make fun of. I've been reading comics since high school and one day I would like to write them. My goal is to expose readers to what is out there in the world of comics and using my English powers, show what is worth reading or not. I can be reached at buzz.comics@gmail.com.
Comments
Add your comment
the217
Sections
Buzz Magazine
Matt Knicl
My name is Matt Knicl. I'm a U of I alumn and one of those unemployed English majors Garrison Keillor likes to make fun of. I've been reading comics since high school and one day I would like to write them. My goal is to expose readers to what is out there in the world of comics and using my English powers, show what is worth reading or not. I can be reached at buzz.comics@gmail.com.
James (James) says:
(Posted December 19th, 2008 at 1:00 am)
Wholeheartedly agree, I was talking with a fellow co-worker and we agreed that characters are not given time to develop a personality anymore, their just tossed into the next big crossover and sadly you don’t feel any type of connection when something bad happens to the character which makes you wonder why you spent $3-4 on a book plus nothings done to tie up the lose ends (It really pi$$ed me off when it took Bendis about a year to finish House of M and theres still lose ends on that book). As for Bendis’ I’m in between how I feel about his writing some of it’s good and other stuff is kinda of WTF! was he thinking, I understand he has a lot of ideas but I think he needs to slow down a bit and give other writers a chance to do their job and let them work on the characters, let them give them their flaws, their quirks, and anything else they feel is worthwhile.