So let me get this straight - Ben Grimm's on-again, off-again girlfriend of the past sixty-ish years of publishing never gets proposed to...but his new Mark Millar-flavored teacher girlfriend of the month does?
It's been a while (since the end of Dan Slott's Thing series) since we've seen Alicia Masters, but is there any specific reason that she couldn't have been used for this storyline? Maybe there is as admittedly we haven't seen how it plays out yet, but this really irks me for no good reason.
I'm normally pretty supportive of Millar's work. I liked Civil War for what it was, I'm okay with 1985 even though not an awful lot seems to be happening, I liked the first volume of Ultimates - hell I even liked Chosen. But damn, does his Fantastic Four stink up the room.
One common trick I hate in comics is the tendency for a title's stars to be the only possible people to be able to save the day - and that's exactly what he pulled early in his and Bryan Hitch's run with the crazy CAP robot who single handedly defeated Earth's combined heroes, including the combined rosters of both Avengers teams, off-panel...and then got beaten soundly by Reed Richards' Anti-Galactus Armor. Sigh.
Oh, and don't get me started on the appearance of new foes billed as the New Defenders (at the same time as the Last Defenders mini wraps up) who appear to be made up of some alternate earth characters...who not only beat Doctor Doom - because they're so bad ass! - but are also using Galactus as a battery.
Wow, we haven't seen that since...oh, let's see, the much-superior Annihilation a few years ago.
Granted, there's some indications that this may be an alternate world Galactus but still, it's jobbing for the sake of building up a new group that Millar's introduced.
To some extent, Millar's Fantastic Four suffers from the same problems as Jeph Loeb's Hulk - it seems to be an unsubtle collection of 'Look, isn't it cool, I'm writing this book and it's all cool and stuff!' moments that don't really hang together that well.
Characterization of the main cast has slipped back to whatever suits Milllar (I swear, one day someone's characterization of Johnny Storm maturing will be kept past that writer's tenure) but I guess that happens a lot on corporate properties. Even so, there's very little to recommend the comic past Bryan Hitch's art...
...unless of course you're hopelessly trapped in a completist cycle like your truly.
You know who you are.
27 minutes ago
4 comments:
Well, if you read the comic, you might notice that Ben's new squeeze is actually conning him. So, you know, maybe they didn't want to have Alicia Masters turn out to be gold-digging Ben Grimm?
David, if that's hinted at in the comics at all that's a fair point. I don't recall it - although I could go back and reread them I suppose...
...although I have better things to read at the moment!
It's not really "hinted at" as much as "outright stated." Just saying.
Mark Millar has done what Doctor Doom never could: He has KILLED the Fantastic Four.
his mis-characterization of Johnny Storm is particularly inept and disgusting, as in the cuurent issue (#559) where Johnny actually using visiting children with leaukemia as a LIE to cover his dalliance with 2 models.
What is wrong with TPTB at Marvel? They are proving themselves VERY undeserving custodians of the Lee-Kirby legacy.
Post a Comment