Note: the first part of this article was written about 5 hours after the now infamous ‘Avengers Avenged’ blog was posted. A followup reaction to the strong reactions posted over the next twelve hours is attached at the end.

I woke up to this link of a comic fan at Wizard World pranking Rob Liefeld. Thank you, Yellow Hat Guy. Rob Liefeld’s ridiculous lines are a part of comic book history, and this was a pretty good epic footnote to it.

you are a dick for expressing your views of this creation to the creator in a public setting

To the more eloquent defenders of Liefeld who commented on that link, I understand how you feel about something like this. “Here’s this guy who is pranking a creator at a convention while that creator is trying to work, this is an incredibly rude thing to do.” While it certainly was rude, it’s also a non-violent reaction to art work that inspired an emotional response.

Comics books are an artistic expression, and that expression has formed a community. The artists and writers who create them are exchanging their time, talent, and creative spark for a paycheck that, no matter how large, will never truly repay that creator for those moments of self-perceived genius they feel for getting the wording just right or the lines just so.

Readers are on exactly the opposite end of this. They cough up their paychecks to follow their favorite characters and stories every month, hoping to be inspired, tickled, and moved by the contents of these pages. Their entire goal is to have an emotionally charged opinion about about an issue.

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New Avengers #50 Cover

I’ve been contemplating the difference between a great and a good comic lately. You’ll probably notice that we tend to write pretty positive reviews on this site. For me, this is because I really only read comics that I like. I stopped reading The Eternals after 1 issue cause it sucked. Despite being a Marvel book and in continuity, I just couldn’t put myself through it. It’s not worth my time when there are plenty of other comics that are.

That said, however, I do read quite a few comics that are just “ok”. These are the comics that are interesting and enjoyable in their own right, but sometimes just seem like a chore to read. These are the comics that automatically go to the bottom of your weekly read pile. These are the comics that, when you look at the release list for the week, you don’t feel even a little tingle of excitement for. And that, my friends, is the topic of this editorial.

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“The story of a *child* rocketed to Earth from a doomed planet…”

“In brightest day, in darkest night, no evil shall escape our sight…”

Yeah? Prove it.

“Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot, so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible…”

“Flash Fact.”

Just writing these phrases gave me chills. As I sit here, eating my 7-11 banana, my mind boggles at the wealth of powerful story material that DC Comics has to work with and play with. Truly iconic figures and an army of beloved (and lovingly behated) supporting characters, all with strong character traits and flaws, are available to work with and mingle across the entire DC Universe.

So why, I ask you, are comic fans getting stuck with a dead Batman that we have already been assured will come back with nary a scratch, two simultaneous summer events that have nothing to do with each other, one of which is essentially a serialized Elseworld, and story lines that, when set side by side, contradict each other without validation or explanation?

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I am a sucker. This should be a surprise to almost nobody, as I am still writing comic book reviews; this is a thankless and sobering profession that I really actually enjoy.

I am also a sucker for Tales of Lost Love. Not the sort of tales that one finds in the library of the eternal Spinster Aunt. No, sully me not with dreck involving crushed chests and heaving bosoms; I demand more. I want to see humans who go through trials both ordinary and extra; who share their love and pain; who fight and argue and make up; who buy groceries and lose children.

Then I want to be shocked, dismayed, and bitter for the latter part of a year because they have lost their life’s foundation which can never again return.

Well, I guess we can thank J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada for 2008’s Elephant In The Room, Spider-Man: One More Day.
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Secret Invasion #8 Cover

I had two editorials floating around in my head and I had thought about doing them separate. Then, I realized that both ideas tied together quite nicely. One was on the end of Secret Invasion. The other, the beginning of Ultimatum. What is even more interesting is the fact that this is a perfect time to be talking about both of these major stories. Secret Invasion just altered the Marvel Universe in interesting and crazy ways and Ultimatum is set up to do the same in the Ultimate Universe. And, as my title suggest, both events are “game changers”.

Game changers are always interesting, no matter what subject you are talking about. In sports, the game changer makes you stand up and cheer or shake your head in disbelief. When we’re talking about episodic story telling, like in comics, we get much the same reaction. Some marked issue 8 of Secret Invasion as a sign of great things to come. Others felt that we are in for a bunch of… well… bullshit.

So why do writers plan the “game changer”? Well, look no further than Joe Quesada’s own explanation in this past week’s “Cup O’ Joe“, where he said the following:

But the truth of the matter is, we wanted it to be more unpredictable. Being unpredictable, I believe, leads to better storytelling. It’s not clichéd storytelling. Again, we get or characters in a place that readers don’t necessarily expect, get their backs against a wall, and see what happens. Look, at the end of the day, I think that’s what leads to great storytelling—put your characters in a place that readers never saw coming.

I think that anyone who read the end of Secret Invasion and information about what Dark Reign is going to be feels the sense of uncertainty. A sense of unpredictability. Personally, since this is an editorial, this made me so very excited for the next year of Marvel comics and beyond. I immediately decided that I’ll be buying New and Mighty Avengers. I had already decided that Dark Avengers is going to be sweet. So, what did Secret Invasion do for me? It got me into Avengers books. And that, my friends, is a good thing.

Ultimatum #1 Cover

On the other side of the Marvel pond, we have the Ultimate Universe, which just started the Ultimatum big event. It is hard to judge Ultimatum yet, because there’s only been 1 issue thus far, but it’s hard to get as excited as I did for Secret Invasion. And I really, really, really want Ultimatum to be awesome. I love the Ultimate Universe and it has seriously been going downhill recently (except Ultimate Spider-Man, of course. Love ya, BMB). So far, however, things are not looking good for Ultimatum.

First, the delays. I don’t know whether to blame Jeph Loeb for this or artist David Finch. According to what I’ve read, it is because the other Ultimate titles are not lining up correctly with the Ultimatum story and they are not quite ready for the end of Ultimatum. This is quite disappointing. Marvel did a great job keeping Secret Invasion on track, for the most part, and was able to immediately launch into the post-SI/Dark Reign world.

This brings me to my other problem with Ultimatum thus far: it is causing the end of 2 of the Ultimate books, Fantastic Four and X-Men. Now, of course, either one of these books (or both) could both be relaunched, as it is hard to imagine a Marvel universe without these characters, but as it stands right now, these books are gone at 60 and 100 respectively. So what does that leave? Spider-Man and the already announced Ultimate Avengers, which is less like Ultimates and more of a book that will focus on a bunch of different characters. This is not enough to keep this universe going. If this is the big game changer for the Ultimate Universe, it feels more like the game is going to be the end of the universe. And that would be a very sad day.

So, what’s my conclusion? Game changers are good. In fact, they are great. Whether you agree with the change or not, it helps keep things interesting. I was upset about Brand New Day at first. Now, I still don’t know if I agree with a lot of it, but at least Spider-Man is interesting now. In fact, it is one of the most interesting Marvel books right now. However, this game changing events need to be handled correctly and, unfortunately, this is not happening in Ultimatum.

It seems to happen every year. All your favorite comics start ramping up their storylines. Something big is coming. They are all leading to something. The big summer event! And, like moths to the flame, we get extremely excited about the upcoming crossover in our favorite universe. Finally, all our beloved characters join together to fight a common threat and we flock to the comic shops to pick up endless tie-ins.

And then, 4 months later, suddenly, our passion for this event, this amazing, life-changing book that will forever alter the comic world forever, dies and we are left wondering when this epic story will end and we can get back to loving our comics again. This, my friends, is what we call event fatigue and it can happen to the best of us.

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If you haven’t seen them, I’ve been writing a series on my favorite’s and this week I am continuing on with something people don’t really talk about and usually someone wouldn’t really have a “favorite” of these types of characters, but I’m going bold and stating my favorite non-”super” character.

Now, I know this is kind of a gray area, because you could say Batman doesn’t have any powers or Iron Man doesn’t have any powers, but to me—and most people I’d say—those characters are “super.” What I’m describing here are characters like Ben Ulrich, or Lois Lane, or Alfred Pennyworth, or Pepper Potts—just characters who define so much in comic books but are just normal people and I’m trying to focus on characters that aren’t main characters. I just want to make sure everyone gets what I’m trying to say.

With that said, I have to declare my favorite Non-”Super” comic book character: J. Jonah Jameson.

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The world of comic book super heroes is something we all can come together and say we love and we know that this world couldn’t exist without some kind of villain to be there and wrong was was already right. Just as a cop needs to catch a robber, a super hero needs to catch a super villain. To continue my series on favorites, I have to think to myself and wonder: Who is my favorite super villain?

Just as I did for my favorite super hero, I need to think of what I would judge my favorite super villain on. Is it his super power (because that is really what makes him “super”)? His ability to fight with this enemies? Why he is a villain and was it an accident? There are hundreds of factors that come into deciding who your favorite super villain is, and I know exactly what mine are and who my favorite is: Dr. Doom.

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Beginning my 4-part series on favorites, I’m beginning with the number one question any comic book fan will ask you: What is your favorite super hero? But as soon as you answer, the person asking will then ask you why? I mean, what does one gauge his response on: physical powers? Keen detection skills? The ability to banter well with super villains?

Picking your favorite super hero can be as easy as Emma Frost or as tough as the metal that lines Wolverine’s bones, but nevertheless I’m sure everyone has a favorite and my guess is they have a damn good reason for picking who they picked. It’s always a fun thing to sit down and discuss your favorite super hero and that’s exactly what I want to do.

So, to begin things I want to start with my favorite super hero of all time: Gambit.

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Given the success of Nick’s personal post about why he reads comics and a sudden rush of ideas between the two of us, Nick and I have decided to start writing weekly editorials on subjects we hope people can comment on and talk back and forth.

To kick start this whole ordeal, I’m going to begin by writing a series on favorites. I don’t want to give it all away (though it’ll be kind of obvious once I start the first one what this is all about), but I’ll be writing about 4 types of favorites that I feel everyone can talk about and give their say on the subjects. We really love seeing your comments here and hope that our “editorials” will encourage people to comment and talk to us and all of our other commenters–we’ve installed a thread-based comment system to help that along.

So keep an eye out for all of these upcoming editorials. I’ll probably be publishing my posts for this series on Tuesdays/Wednesdays (depending on how much time I have!) for the next month. After this month, we’ll be trying to get one of these bad boys out once a week. It shall be a fun journey.

One more thing we’ve decided on trying is getting guest bloggers. If you’re interested in writing an editorial on something for our site or just writing one review, shoot us an e-mail (cyborg@destroythecyb.org) and let us know what you would want to write about or even send us a copy of your post and if we like it we’ll post it!

And I think that’s about it. Thanks for reading guys.