Smack Talk! DC vs. Marvel
I was planning on reviewing Young X-men and I promise I'll do that soon. However, at the moment I feel the need to square off against members of Merry Marvel Marching Society. Over at Pulp Secret I've gotten guff for feeling that DC does superior cross over work and reacting to Brian Micheal Bendis's interview in the aforementioned link, please read and watch the vid first.
First of all as far as Bendis and the interview go, it really pisses me off. I like Bendis's writing, I've enjoyed almost every issue of New Avengers and I enjoy the way he treats Luke Cage. On the other hand, every time I see him speak publicly he comes across to me like the most pompous self righteous ass. Claiming that he doesn't do retcons is ridiculous. Secret Invasion looks like a pure retcon machine. Hank Pym as a skrull seems like the perfect avenue to shed his wife beating past and give him a chance to be heroic once again. Secret Invasion feels to me like the spider clone saga on a massive scale. Which although it discredits years of continuity, I think that is something comic book companies have to do, but why can't marvel do it like DC in the form of directly reshaping reality and time so that past stories aren't tainted. (Side note: I've never seen the new BSG but i've been reading all over the blogosphere that the plot is ripped from BSG. Is that true?)
As far as my claim of this Secret Invasion marketing being all BS. Marvel is not only prone to hyperbole, which bothers me, it's the fact that I think they believe it. I'm not alone either. Also I am reminded of issue 2 of Civil War Spider Man unmasks and Joe Q goes out publicly and said this is the direction were taking the character we're not going to undo it. How did that turn out?
On the point of DC doing superior cross overs. I'd say marvel has been jumping from one event to the next. The only events that seemed logical to being back to back was Civil War and World War Hulk. House of M came out of the blue, same as Secret Invasion(although I hope Bendis does a good job explaining why the New Avengers has been building to this). There events call for all of the heroes in the Marvel U which means that every book needs a crossover, or maybe affected by the result of the event. Which was the case for New X-men which lost it's happy fun teen angst filled high school drama after house of M. To be replaced with mourning students, and apocalyptic extinction melodrama. DC on the other hand has had Identity, Infinite and Final Crisis. Identity was pretty self contained but it changed the dynamics of the Universe for a short time but was wrapped up with Infinite Crisis in a satisfactory way, uniting the heroes that had divided. 52 was totally self contained. So there wasn't crossover fever. It also allowed the new DCU to find it's place and setup a status quo. Countdown despite it's poor quality didn't interrupt the status quo for any of the major players.It seemed, to instead of push stories outwards onto other books, pulled stories into it's main theme. With Karate Kid and the lightning saga, to the death of Bart Allen, etc. Both 52 and Countdown gave the spotlight primarily to secondary characters. Allowing them to shine and find a new voice for these new times. What i find most comforting about DC universe cross overs is that although worlds change and planets collide, characters never get the short end of the stick(except for Max Lord).
So Bombardem am I just a DC punk on Dan Didio's jock? Or someone that has thought this crap through?
