Spoiler Sunday--What Are Teachers Teaching The Children In Marvel-616?

[MINOR SPOILERS FOR NOVA #15]

A bit of background--Karl Moffet is a it of as bully towards Sam Alexander, our current Nova. But Karl just recently had a frightening close encounter with Beta Ray Bill, even though no one believes him.

So:

Now wait just one darn tootin' minute!!

Sam, of course, is just trying to torment his tormentor--he's well aware of many, many aliens out there.

But what about the teacher?

Let's be clear that this is Marvel-616, which in recent months has seen:

**The Hulk lead a force of alien warriors to Earth, publicly devastating Manhattan.

**A full-fledged alien invasion by Skrulls, who broadcast messages to the all people of Earth. And the entire world saw Norman Osborn shoot an alien queen in the head, which led to him becoming crazy popular and being put in charge of H.A.M.M.E.R.

**Asgard floating over Oklahoma, and an invasion of surly ur-Asgardians, again kicking the crap out of the entire planet. (Sure, they may or may not be technically aliens--but the question is what do the citizens of Earth consider them? Do they believe that they're actual gods?!?)

**Thanos and his minions taking over the planet whilst the Avengers were away.

All of these were massively covered by the media, and all had to have had some fairly major repercussions--economically, socially--on the whole country, if not the world.

Now, the tiny town of Carefree, Arizona was probably not directly impacted by too much of this. But then again, they weren't at ground zero for 9/11 or the moonwalk, either.

So, when this unnamed "science" teacher to say that there "may" be life out there, that there are "no signs" of regular visits, and to agree with Sam that it's all just media fiction...Really? Is this the guy we want teaching science to our kids? Because, well, that's shockingly ignorant, isn't it?

Or has the government done such a wonderful job of covering everything up, of running disinformation campaigns to hide the truth, that this is a mainstream opinion amongst the normal denizens of the Marvel Universe? "Oh, those New Yorkers, they exaggerate everything!" "Oh, it's just the administration trying to distract us from the economy?"

Then again, the people loved Osborn after Secret Invasion--that was a major plot point, that's why the president gave him the job. And Asgard is just hanging there, for everyone to see...

So, Marvel citizens? Dupes or dopes? Or is this teacher just some outlier...?

Full of Sound And Fury...

Some thoughts upon the "ending" of Skrullapalooza:

• Fair is fair, so I should acknowledge that, whatever else its flaws, Skrullapalooza was largely on time. There's certainly some utility, some virtue in actually bringing out a "spine" event for your entire universe in a timely manner. For comparison, we got 8 issues of Secret Invasion in the same time that we've seen 4 issues of Final Crisis. That's not to compare the artistic quality of the two--but in terms of keeping reader interest and maintaining momentum to establish a "shiny new continuity" (not to mention not keeping gosh knows how many other pending projects on hold), Skrullapalooza whooped Final Crisis.
• Perhaps as a consequence of prior delays, have you noticed that these spine events are trickling over less and less into the mainstream continuity? Ever since Civil War and Countdown, Marvel and DC have been less and less willing to have their ongoing series hijacked by inevitably late events. World War Hulk was pretty much ignored in every other Marvel mag--not a mention of NYC being devastated, Avengers Tower and the Baxter Building being flattened, etc--while instead we were given assorted mini-series so we could pretend this really was a universe-wide event. Skrullapalooza did cross over a little more...but the Fantastic Four, Thor, X-Men, Spider-Man, etc, couldn't be bothered to interrupt their own story lines to tie into the "new age" (Quesada's words) of the Marvel Universe--instead we got mini-series by different creative teams. If the patterns of WWH are followed (and if the solicits that have been released so far are an indication) we will never get even a mention in those mags of the universe changing events we've witnessed. Is this a preferable approach? Is it a sign that Marvel editorial has broken down into exclusive fiefdoms, where "I ain't tying into your crossover" is the rule rather than the exception? Discuss.
• One final bit of praise: however oddly and illogically it's been set up, it does sound as if there could be an awful lot of interesting story lines coming out of Dark Reign. Of course, I reserve judgment until some of those things actually happen, but there is some potential here.

There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Ah, but there's' the flip side, isn't there? Why, on the whole, was Skrullapalooza such a disappointment?

• How, precisely, do the heroes win? In theory, the Skrulls have millions of soldiers at their disposal, now with Magic Super-Skrull Combo Powers. Not to mention an obvious advantage in space-age weaponry. I mean, when all of the heroes gather in one spot for the final confrontation, why not just freaking overwhelm them, outnumbering them 1,000-1, and with more powers? Or better, why not just launch a nuke or 12 from orbit?!? While the heroes are making their "last stand," why not just ignore them, leave NYC alone and take over the rest of the damn world? Bendis never seemed to grasp that we were facing a full-out planetary invasion by an entire star-spanning empire, as the heroes seem to win with less effort than they expended against the Red Hood's gang. The outcome is illogical, and rushed--a total anti-climax.
  
• Speaking of rushed outcomes, what happens to all the Skrulls? I know we'll surely get some details in the future, but wouldn't an invasion on this scale by shapeshifters cause a massive upswing in global paranoia, an inability to have the trust to create a new world order with a new S.H.I.E.L.D. and whatever else Norman Osborn is setting up? And we know there are more Skrulls out there--at the very least, Skrull Jarvis escaped with the baby. Shouldn't we have a planet where nobody trusts anybody anymore, were the merest interaction requires biological proof that you're not Skrull, where any and every problem is blamed on those damned shapeshifters? Apparently not--everyone is "phew, that was close" and is going back to trusting one man with unchecked power...this time just Osborn instead of Stark.
• Speaking of Stark--"World's Most Wanted?" "Will Stark be indicted?!?" For what, precisely? I shouldn't have to point this out, but according to Bendis' own timeline, S.H.I.E.L.D. was infiltrated before the Civil War (before Stark took over), The Avengers were infiltrated before the Civil War. It's not as if he forced the world to buy Stark technology. Sure, he's a colossal doofus and a f#$%-up, but it seems obvious that the invasion would have happened even had we not had a Super Human Registration Act, even if Stark had never become director of S.H.I.E.L.D., even if everyone were one big happy Marvel family. Despite his crimes during the Civil War, Stark is mostly blameless here...and the populace of the Marvel Universe looks fickle and stupid (they now no longer care about Stamford??).
• Speaking of blame--Nick Fury trusted Spider-Woman, who was the freaking Skrull Queen, and dismissed Ms. Marvel as a Skrull. So much for all that time he spent in hiding sussing things out with bulletin boards and red circles. Where the heck is the public outrage at Fury for abandoning his post in time of invasion and running a triple agent who was actually behind said invasion?!?
• Who was a Skrull? As most people predicted, nobody important. Just as with DC's Millennium maxi-series 20 years ago, where we were promised earth-shattering revelations about what long-time characters we actually Manhunters and got bupkis, Skrullapalooza had no courage to do anything truly shocking. Jarvis? Please. She-Thing?? Stop the presses!! And making the cop-out even worse than it was, apparently everyone who had been replaced turned up alive and well. Cowardly, Marvel, cowardly.
• Speaking of cop-out city, not only do the good guys win ridiculously easily, with no casualties (even if you believe the Wasp is dead--she's not--than somehow miraculously returning Mockingbird from the grace counterbalances that), but we can't even remain true to the premises established. Stark tech is all compromised--oh, except for Maria Hill's LMD and ray gun and jetpack, conveniently. And except for Stark just happening to have "another suit of armor, not tied to the Starktech mainframe"--yet it still seems to have all of the capabilities of his old armor. And except for Nick Fury's big ass guns and magic teleporter. And the Scarlet Spider suits. And...well, you get the idea: total Plot-Convenience Theater. Pretend that you've completely disabled things, but actually not when you find you've plotted yourself into a corner.

Overall, though, the biggest flaw of Secret Invasion was the pathetic loss of so much potential. Bendis and Yu seemed content to shower us with splash pages and epic crowd scenes, rather than actually telling the story. The entire planet was under attack by an alien species bent on conquest, and we beat it with a Sharks vs. Jets rumble in the park? DC's Invasion! and Our Worlds At War we far better, more convincing depictions of that premise. They're Skrulls--anybody could be one of them!! No, we got Kirby the Pup. We're going to show what happens when we deprive our heroes of their most important technology...no, we're not, really. Look, all the Skrulls are Super-Skrulls now, they can do crazy things with their powers!! Not so much--aside from growing big, did we actually see a Skrull using anything more than a generic power beam within the series? Nope...just lots of static crowd shots of crazy quilt Skrulls not actually doing much.

The actual series itself was padded beyond belief, giving us, at most, 3 issues of content over 8 issues. Yet despite that, almost all of the big revelations took place elsewhere, in New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, and Avengers: Initiative. It's almost funny--Bendis was apparently dead set on showing off how clever he'd been by showing us every clue he'd planted over the last 4+ years, every single moment of a couple of people being taken over and clandestine meetings and filling in background, all over the last who-knows-how-many issues of the Avengers mags. But if he had spent 1/10th of that effort on the actual invasion itself, and actually had something happen during it, it probably could have been a decent story. But instead we got huge build-up; deeeeeeeeeeeppppp background presented elsewhere; little of interest during the invasion aside from stilted, poorly drawn crowd fight scenes; and a rushed transition to the new status quo. For $3.99 per issue.

That was an awful lot of time and effort just to get to "Norman Osborn runs the planet now."

Who Are You Going to Believe?

Heaven knows, I give Bendis a lot of grief around here (deservedly so, but...). Yet I'm man enough to admit when he's right about something.

That something? The insane idea that Greg Pak has been putting forward that no one has ever died in one of the Hulk's many rampages.

It all started when Amadeus Cho, also known as *ahem* Mastermind Excello, came on board. And to convince Hercules and his little band of heroes that they should help Bruce Banner crush the Illuminati, Cho came up with the little chestnut that no one had ever died because of the Hulk. Not a single person. Here, check out this from Incredible Hulk #110 (2007):

And from #111:


And he's even gone so far as to have someone else state that there's never been a single casualty from the Hulk (sorry, I couldn't find it...).

Now, you can give Bruce Banner all the props you want to, but some things are way beyond instantaneous mathematical calculation in the heat of battle, no matter what Cho might say. If you've seen the results of enough military helicopter crashes, it strains credibility to believe that knocking them out of the sky could never result in a casualty, no matter how careful you did it. If you saw the results of the evacuation of New Orleans, it's not conceivable that you could evacuate a panicked city 10 times that size, and then fight 10 or 12 monstrous battles there, and not have a single person inadvertently die.

Sure, Pak adds enough caveats to try and cover his ass, like "never killed an innocent," or "self-defense," or "that was a war" or "as long as your brain hasn't been tampered with." So any exception you can find, Pak can argue it somehow doesn't count.

And that bugs the frak outta me, for some reason. Probably because it's yet another attempt by comic writers to have their cake and eat it too: they want to write a book about a destructive monster, but somehow have him still be a hero. Look, Hulk can destroy the biggest city on Earth, yet magically no one ever dies!! See, he is a good guy!! We want him savage, but still basically a nice guy. Next: Galactus can eat a planet, but miraculously, his brilliant mind ensure that there are no casualties. It's cheap, lazy writing, not to mention morally questionable: let's have all violence and zero consequences!

But Bendis didn't get that memo. Look at New Avengers: Illuminati #1 (2006)...not the mini-series, but the one-shot that served as a prelude to the Civil War. Commander Hill is lecturing Tony Stark about the Hulk's Las Vegas rampage, which happened in Fantastic Four #533:


So, despite Cho's having "studied every recording and report of every fight" the Hulk "has ever been in," I guess he missed that one, eh? Except Stark says "How many this time?" That certainly implies deaths other times, right?

Then later, when proposing exiling Banner to the Illuminati:


So, according to Bendis, innocents have died in Hulk rampages (and a dog!!). And it's not the first time. And more people will die.

And if you think about it, isn't that the only thing that makes sense? If no one had ever been injured in a Hulk rampage, why would Tony & Reed et al have bothered to blast Hulk off Earth? If he was no threat to human life, why would the military have wasted a kajillion dollars worth of equipment trying to destroy him?

So Pak's idea doesn't even make sense in terms of his own story. If no one ever, ever died because of the Hulk, there was no reason for Planet Hulk, no reason for World War Hulk. And no reason to lock up Bruce Banner afterwards, either.

I know Marvel writers don't bother to read each others' work, and doesn't have editors who actually coordinate things, so this all really could be a case of "didn't get the memo." But looked at as two writers arguing about the implications of a character's actions, Bendis clearly wins this one.

So see? I'm not irredeemably anti-Bendis...until the next issues of Avengers and Skrullapalooza, at least...

It's a Random Note Kinda Day

No theme today, just a lazy bullet point kinda thing.

*Now that we're well past it, and get some sense of what the aftermath might be, I've a couple of Deep Thoughts on World War Hulk.

First, it was really kind of mis-named, wasn't it? It wasn't actually a World war at all, as essentially just New York was involved. No other countries, even! The most blatant case of false advertising since The Neverending Story!!

Secondly, it's nice to see that the complete devastation of the nation's largest city has had ZERO impact on the rest of the Marvel Universe, including the mags set in NYC. Spider-Man, FF, Daredevil, Red and Blue Avengers...nary a damaged building, not even a stray mention of evacuation or devastation or rebuilding. Nada. For all the impact this "must-read" event had on the rest of the Marvel Universe, it might as well have taken place in Exiles or What If?? Maybe that was part of Mephisto's continuity revamp, too...

Finally, don't you think that maybe we'd see Stark, Richards, et al hauled in front of Congress for hearings into how they caused this mess? I mean, if one mildly damaged city block was enough to make the public turn on Captain America in Civil War, you'd think the destruction of the entire city would have some repercussions, too, like Stark being removed from S.H.I.E.L.D. command or something...

Secondly finally, Red Hulk #1 was a massive waste of time. Oh, and Amadeus Cho is still a colossal tool.

*OK, how do I say this? There aren't enough drugs in the world to cause my head to trip out like the "Lost" Teen Titans Annual did. And do you know why there aren't enough drugs for that? Because Bob Haney must have consumed them ALL when writing this...ahhhhhhhh!!!!!

*"Brand New Day?" Let's see...Peter's broke, can't get a decent job, Aunt May is sweet but clueless, J. Jonah Jameson is an asshole. Yup, this was a brand new day, alright--in 1974, maybe...

*Hey, look, now Mighty Avengers is only 17 issues behind New Avenger's continuity! Pro-tip for colorist Justin Ponsor and letterer Dave Lanphear: dudes, Stark's "armor captions" are impossible to read when you make them light green lettering on a bright yellow background. Seriously. Fix this.

And I used to like Mark Bagley's art. Wha happened? Maybe it's the 14 different inkers they used this issue...but that doesn't explain why you can't understand what the frak is going on in that page set in space...

Oh, and by the way: is there ANY reason for this book to exist? Just askin'.

*I've been a good boy, not complaining about Countdown, and about how the explanations for the Monitors' behaviors not only make no sense but also directly contradict everything shown so far; about how the characterizations on Monarch (Captain Atom!!) or Ray Palmer seem like the writers have never even heard of these characters before before; or about how the series is still just treading water, but disguising it better by not even mentioning certain plot lines for issues at a time so we don't realize how slooooooowly everything is moving as we kill time for 16 more weeks. And how am I rewarded?

The Batman from Earth-51 cares more about the resurrection of Jason Todd than our Batman does. Kudos, DC, kudos.

*My co-worker Robert didn't think I would post his picture in my blog.

I like to tease him because he waits for the trades on the Walking Dead. So I taunt with with my knowledge gleaned from the floppies. That's what kind of guy I am.

It's About Time Somebody Said It

Thank you, Warren Worthington III.

Panels of someone finally speaking the truth to naive super-brat Amadeus Cho appears in Incredible Hulk #111. Now if someone can explain to "Mastermind Excello" that you can't forcibly evacuate the biggest city in the country and destroy half of it without somebody dying, I'll be happy.