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Post by paulpogue on Dec 13, 2008 11:13:12 GMT -8
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 11, 2008 19:36:44 GMT -8
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 11, 2008 19:18:03 GMT -8
Clor has also been suggested. Possible, but totally lame. Namor could probably take Clor single-handedly. Loki barely respects REAL Thor. Doom wouldn't even blink, just take him out in one panel and make some kind of crack about Inferior Richards Workmanship. Then again, we're talking about the same creators that let this particular visual of Namor get out the door, so maybe I give them too much credit. And it would explain why the Secret Friend is just standing there behind a door, totally silent, like a mannequin.
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 11, 2008 18:40:20 GMT -8
Norman Osborn's Little Friend is: Red Hulk: 10 percent. I find it hard to believe that all these guys, including someone whose entire modus operandi is "Whenever someone becomes God, I try to take it from them", and the leader of a team that regularly pwns Juggernaut, would be intimidated by Red Hulk, but the writers have sure been trying to set Rulk up as a major threat.
The Sentry, probably in Void Drag: 80 percent. It makes sense; as irksomely plot-convenient as it is, the fact remains that the Sentry has an enormous amount of power that even Victor Von Doom would think twice before going up against. (He'd still do it, but he'd think twice.) We will assume that Bendis is politely forgetting that Emma Frost totally has his number, no matter which one is in control.
Anyone else, who will be vastly disappointing: 10 percent. I don't underestimate their ability to fuck it up. If it's, like, Pluto or somebody, it's a joke to think this crew would even be intimidated by him. If it's Thanos or Annihilus or someone that would legitimately intimidate this group, why the fuck are they playing sidekick to the Green Goblin? (Plus, once again, Doom would play along for three panels and then whip out the Cosmic Power Vacuum to steal their power anyway.)
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 10, 2008 16:08:43 GMT -8
Odds that anybody remembers that the Illuminati have the Infinity Gems: 10 percent
Seriously, biggest dangling plotline in all of Marvel right now. Early on I was convinced it was part of some grand scheme that would end with the Gems being the Cosmic Power that saves the day, but lately I find myself thinking it was just a one-off story to make the Illuminati seem like badasses. (Seriously, anyone who would retcon the Beyonder into a rogue Inhuman is just not thinking crap through.)
Nope, they're out there in dangler-land and there they shall remain until the next big time writer thinks up a use for them. Which is a shame, because if things were tightly plotted, there's a hell of a good story hidden THERE, too. Consider the Illuminati, holders of the greatest weapons in the universe:
Iron Man: Actively evil, also on the run from EVERYONE Professor X: Disowned by his own followers, wandering alone, cut off even from his own memories Black Bolt: Skrull Namor: Always a little morally iffy, also part of the Evilinati Doctor Strange: All signs point to a serious power shift involving him before long Mister Fantastic: Oddly enough, not very compromised at the moment
Hell, so much happens at Marvel these days by ACCIDENT that even in "Guardians of the Galaxy," a reasonably well-put-together book, I'm not so sure that the reunion of nearly the entire Infinity Watch is actually intentional.
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 10, 2008 14:40:20 GMT -8
Dan DiDio answers many questions that indicate, among other things, the finale of Batman RIP might not suck as much as it seems, if only because it's not the finale. (It passes the plausibility test; the whole ending doesn't feel very Morrison, so the idea that Final Crisis is the real ending makes sense.) Also: Crank up the Jean Paul Valley stats to at least 1 percent, if only because there's a new "Azrael" mini on the way. www.newsarama.com/comics/120810-DiDio-20.html
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 7, 2008 14:31:04 GMT -8
Other odds:
"Reign in Hell" turns out interesting in the end: 10 percent.
Seriously, how do you put together a comic from the mastermind of "Annihilation," starring the Shadowpact, Zatanna and Zatara, about all-out war in hell between two Satan wannabes, featuring BLACK ALICE RUN AMOK IN THE NETHERWORLD, and still bore me to tears? Me! World's biggest Black Alice obsessive!
I guess it just comes down to the fact that while Keith Giffen does many things very, very, very well, political intrigue is not one of them. Remember that GODAWFUL series with Colleen Doran a while back -- Zodiac, I think it was? Utterly unreadable.
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 7, 2008 7:45:17 GMT -8
Good point. Is there ANYONE left in the major Marvel U roster who can reasonably be called a Good Guy who hasn't completely undermined their own morality in the recent past? The entire pro-registration side, the Illuminati and all the Skrullified heroes are automatically compromised; Cyclops, moral heart of the X-Men, has formed a secret assassination squad; Spider-Man screwed over the entire world by CUTTING A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL; Captain America is dead and replaced by his decidedly morally ambiguous sidekick (although Bucky is at least trying); they seem intent on turning Hawkeye all grim-n-gritty; Herc and Amadeus definitely straddle the moral line; Ben Grimm, overall hero in general, approached Civil War by running away; Thor is in some other realm entirely; and let's not even get started on the Scarlet Witch.
Several of the cosmic heroes, Nova in particular, certainly count, but they virtually exist in their own alternate universe.
Seriously, to find a real hero in the Marvel Universe right now, I think you have to work down the roster all the way to SONGBIRD.
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 6, 2008 21:13:05 GMT -8
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 6, 2008 18:19:24 GMT -8
Hard to believe I forgot this one when considering "The Dark Knight." It's a different kind of nerdglee, but as nerds, deep down we really, really, REALLY want to see the heroic moments where people finally get it together -- it's the "regroup and rally" scene that's been missing from Marvel comics for years now that has really disappointed us, after all.
The finest superhero moral moment of the year wasn't in a superhero comic and it wasn't even delivered by a superhero. It's actually one of the finest moral moments in the superhero medium in the last decade.
"Now gimme that remote ... and I'll do what you should've done ten minutes ago."
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 6, 2008 17:51:29 GMT -8
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 6, 2008 17:35:42 GMT -8
Comic book historians, break it down for me -- what's the longest that a major, lead character of a book has remained "dead"? 22 years, not including time-travel cameos. Fella named Barry Allen. Good point! Supergirl probably fits in there as well, since aside from a couple of interesting cameos in a Christmas special and PAD's Supergirl, Kara Zor-El NEVER came back. (And the current one is clearly not the one who died in Crisis.)
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 6, 2008 17:33:45 GMT -8
A few others:
Karla Sofen is secretly taking orders over the phone from:
Norman Osborn: 10 percent. Not bloodly likely at all. Also, note that Osborn wanted Songbird taken out with lethal force but they're giving up an easy chance to shoot Robbie in the head.
Helmut Zemo: 70 percent. Nobody ever stays dead. And there's no way, NO WAY, Baron Helmut Zemo pulls off the greatest scam in modern history and lets the Green Fuckin' Goblin take the credit. And Zemo is one of the very, very few people Karla would trust that way. Ironically enough.
Somebody else: 20 percent. Maybe it's a big red herring, but I'll be amazed if it's anyone but Zemo. This is his kind of string-pulling; Karla is operating exactly the way she did when Zemo was in charge, and getting a known maverick and wild card like Robbie Baldwin out of the way is his kind of tactic. Doing it nonlethally is also in keeping with his most recent "dark antihero" approach.
Norman's recent popularity is ultimately Peter Parker's fault: 50 percent. The whole world forgets they saw him as the Green Goblin on live TV just because of some good PR? Nah, not plausible. I don't think this is ultimately the plan of the current regime, but when everything goes down -- which I would expect to happen around the point of "ASM sales drop below 55,000" -- I'll bet my favorite Doctor Who shirt that Mephisto is involved in some way.
By the way:
Mary Jane totally knows everything: 100 percent. Now that we know for sure that she's not Jackpot, all the stuff she said in her May appearance doesn't work any other way. MJ didn't just cut a side deal with Mephisto; she pulled strings with someone ELSE. Who, or when it will be revealed, could be years from now, and probably not from the current Brain Trust.
God, it just kills me that there's still an awesome story to be told following up "One More Day", if only they were interested. "Hero beats the devil by getting his act together stories" always sucker me in, and so far Spidey has has his act completely NOT together and he's been completely snookered by the Devil.
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Post by paulpogue on Dec 6, 2008 17:08:33 GMT -8
2009 will see Marvel heroes acting like heroes again: 90 percent. It looks like the whole point of this Dark Reign thing is to jumpstart the concept of "heroism" once more and have the Avengers acting like Earth's Mightiest Heroes and not a warring group of revolutionaries versus government-sponsored sociopaths. Depending on how Dark Reign is handled, it could actually be a hell of a good story.
Speedball will return: 90 percent. Jesse has pointed out elsewhere that the current setup has so completely deconstructed the ridiculous "Penance" thing that it's inevitable that the current storyline will end with him returning to his old self, with a bit of a grimmer outlook but not so whiny, leading to ...
Moonstone gets punched through a cliff and crippled: 50 percent. Admit it, it would be cool, but there's a good chance she's a Dark Avenger.
Songbird-led Thunderbolts at the forefront of the anti-Norman revolution: 90 percent. Whether they'll have their own book is debateable, but that moment in the latest issue really nails it: when Songbird remembers how good it felt to be a real hero, even when they were faking it, that brief time when everyone loved them, the Avengers were gone and they were doing the Right Thing. It was all a scam, but let's face it, their current run of "heroism" is actually far darker than anything Zemo ever did. And this time ... this time they could get it right ...
Norman Osborn dies at the end of all this: 50 percent. I find it rather likely, but I can also see them wanting to keep him around. But with all this buildup, and his high prominence as a Spider-villain, it really needs a hell of a payoff in the end.
Captain America returns in 2009: I think they're going to hold off on that a bit, but I'll still put it at 30 percent.
Captain America returns in 2010: 69 percent
Cap returns later than that: 1 percent. Comic book historians, break it down for me -- what's the longest that a major, lead character of a book has remained "dead"? Hal Jordan might actually be the winner there, but let's face it -- even when he wasn't GL, how long was he out of action? The gap between Final Night and Day of Judgment was something like two years, and that's the longest major-hero-out-of-action gap I can think of in modern times. Superman was dead for around 18 months. Spider-Man, Iron Man, Batman, Iron Man and all the rest of the marquee heroes have never actually been "dead" for any significant length of time I can recall. ("Significant" meaning six months or more. Tony's faked it once or twice, but I don't think it even stuck for a month from the reader's point of view.
We will for these purposes consider Captain Mar-Vell to be an extraordinarily unique case, who -- among other things -- actually had his book cancelled after his death, and died on-panel in a WHOLE lot more definitive way than just about any superhero before or since.
The Cosmic Cube is just being referenced a little too often. The only reason I can think of that it might NOT be the way Cap comes back is that this is the route they're already taking in Avengers/Invaders -- in which the entire world's desire to see Cap alive again brings him back. But then again, Marvel has never been subtle.
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Post by paulpogue on Nov 30, 2008 5:37:56 GMT -8
While everyone's thinking about the next Doctor Who, let's not forget the all-important question of the next Companion. Some opening odds: I'm going to crank Sally Sparrow down to 5 percent, for all the reasons Kirk mentioned (though I don't entirely discount her) and dial Martha Jones back up to 15 percent. I don't really know why; just an instinct that she's a character that, in the right hands, could be done so well, and now that she's over her Doctor-crush and has experience as a doctor and soldier (not to mention the Year That Never War), it's easy enough to hit the reset button on all that "Rebound Girl" madness and give the character her proper due. Also, my original reason for not thinking she was high up there was because she's so busy right now, with Torchwood and Law & Order, but BBC filming schedules are odd things, and she could be done with both (probably already IS done with both) long before it was time for Who. Moffat only wrote Martha for a period of about two minutes, but I can certainly see him feeling that she needs some proper treatment from the writers for once. And with Donna, the team has shown they can write a whole season of Nu-Who without any romantic overtones.
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