In coming up with titles for my post I feel like this is a scandal sheet type headline. Designed to garner attention, but not necessarily the actual truth of the matter.
New Avengers by Marvel to me is a strange animal. It is almost universally considered to be a horribly written book. I picked up the first six issue trade to read it just so I could be sure that if I was being critical of something I had an actual basis on which to criticize the book. It was worse then I thought it would be. Bendis had almost zero percentage on getting the characters' voices, the art was the over rendered David Finch - whose are has a certain quality that can make it appealing, but ultimately lacks consistency in faces, has poor layouts and has way too many lines. This was an absolutely horrible comic with a "team" that did not fit. Wolverine in this comic is so forced as to be unreal, Sentry does not work as part of the Marvel mainstream universe and Spider-Woman has been given such a convoluted background (triple agent - please) as to be untenable.
Yet the book sells well for Marvel. Give them credit with the long list of issues that had variable covers they jacked up the sales numbers. The non-thinking fans who buy any books their favorite character is in help to prop up this book also.
I never understand why such utter crap continues to sell.
Recently during an "online radio" show that I participate in ( http://www.cosmiccomix.com/conversations/index.htm), I heard the last two issues of the New Avengers were good books. So reluctantly I tried them and the solo Luke Cage and Spider-Woman issues were indeed decent reads, but then I realized these were solo books and not a team book. Bendis does okay on his solo work or a book like Powers, but his group book has been really, really been awful.
So I just ask that if a book sucks after six issues and no new team is in sight, please stop buying it just to have a full run. Or better yet try Wasteland, Invincible, Local, X-Isle or Fell - or any other book that you normally don't read.
The only awful book I'd miss is Nightwing... and that's mostly because there is the continuing hope of something better. The book is so bad that it makes me cry =/
ReplyDeleteWe live in a junk culture where a book like New Avengers, which totally blows ass, rises to the top of the best sellers charts and someone like Paris Hilton, who cannot sing one not on key, cuts a single that hits numero uno on the pop charts. Bendis is a hack, yet his books have a huge following. It's like reverse logic in comic book world. If something is terrible but has a hot writer or artist attached to it the book will be a best seller. Think back to the trash that was the Azz/Lee year long Superman run. What a horrible piece of dreck, yet month after month it was a top seller, often taking the top spot. With comics it seems like the cream sinks to the bottom and the watery undrinkables rise to the top. Loveless, Fell, Invincible, Local, Goon, Hellboy and lots of other really well written, fantastic pieces of comic literature sell like trash while Mary Marvel Buys A New Dress and Wolverine Takes A Dump And Wipes With Sabretooth's Fur becomes a mega-seller. The biggest shock is Civil War. Totally unoriginal, poorly written claptrap where the main characters aren't even portrayed true to form. Yet it sells huge and increases the sales of all books that crossover with it. Really wish more fans would overcome their Zombie status and buy the good stuff that deserves to be bought.
ReplyDeleteChsiana - With Nightwing we have new team and can at least hoep for a better run.
ReplyDeleteJeff - I agree, I agree and maybe the delay in Civil War will get the Zombies to try some other books to read. If each zombie tried an issue of invincible I bet sales would double or triple on that book. Then is they would try Fell. Love the Paris Hilton analogy, do you think the Hilton fortune purchased all the CDs? Probably a letter to all their employees worldwide to buy it and then expense it.