You read the comics?
The idea of Thor was from the beginning “whoever is worthy picks up the hammer and becomes the mighty Thor”. First Thor in the comics was a crippled doctor. Why can’t it be a woman?
Anyway, the series has been awesome so far, great writing, and brings new things to the table (and I mean, other than having Thor have a female host, which is kind of irrelevant on itself).
That, I found weird especially after it shows he knows of Frank West and from the clip, it looks like Hagger is fought twice.
Regarding Marvel Comics, I’ve been unhappy with them for a while, but it has nothing to do with diversity. I’m all for it, but you run the risk of offending your intended audience sometimes when you try and pander too much. When I was a kid, during recess I NEVER got to be Wolverine or the Green Ranger, I was always made to be Bishop. When I used to draw, I loved making all sorts of OCs, but I prided myself on making black characters that could be something different and not yet another formally-from-the-hood-was-arrested-now-a-hero type. So I’m all for making new characters with a diverse background, but I don’t like clumsy tokenism. We can tell when a decision is done to generate headlines and not readership. Many times Marvel has pushed “The First___” hero while ignoring their past achievements because they weren’t marketable enough. I seem to recall something like that happening with Kamala Khan and them ignoring some Muslim X-men entirely. I dig the little I’ve read of her and think she’s a fine addition. I’ll cover more of her later.
My main issues have been the over abundance of events, ever-increasing (and annoying) shock-value events (usually killing off a hero) and the at-times messy pushing of legacy characters.
I’ll say this, I’m fine with legacy characters, but so many all at once at the cost of some of my favs isn’t interesting to me. I look at Ms. Marvel as doing it right. She’s a new character that’s filling the young hero in their early adventures style that Spidey had going for ages, but she doesn’t have the EXACT powerset as Capt Marvel or look just like her. She’s an adorable fan girl who took up an old moniker and wants to honour her hero. She’s not an oddly-specific carbon copy of her predecessor.
Marvel also has WAAAAY too many Spiders with not enough changes between them. I mean look, now we have:
Peter
Ben
Kaine
Miguel O’Hara
Miles
Gwen
Silk
That’s waaaaaay too much redundancy for my part, but it’s interesting. You can have multiples of the character type without replacing. I’m for letting new characters get introduced and grow - by solo book or starting off in a team book.
I’m a symbiote fan. Always been a Eddie Brock fan, but was unsure of how the “new Venom” was gonna be, but I gave him a chance. Fast forward years later and I absolutely LOVE Flash Thompson. With Flash, he got his own sidekick of sorts, in Mania, a student of Flash’s that got an offshoot of the symbiote in an accident. They co-existed for a while until Flash recently lost his suit to a new character and that character lost it to Brock. With Flash and Mania, their relationship (teacher and pseudo adoptive father made for an interesting relationship and they could grow more compelling tales for the two of them without killing anyone off.
Another example I’m fond of; I like Amadeus Cho. While I prefer him as being a human that’s super smart and witty, I was fine with him being the Hulk. The stories of him and a cured Banner were penned by the excellent Greg Pak and I felt that it was a great direction (though Bendis killed Banner uneccessarily in Civil War 2) Bruce finally being free and being a mentor to Amadeus as he made his way through his newfound existence could have been a solid path. Without Bendis’ interference this could have continued, but he had Banner killed off and thus having him replaced.
I loved seeing Rachel Cole-Alvez be an ally to the Punisher after losing her husband to tragedy. Frank and her understood each other, there was kinship, respect, and similar skills. She’s been criminally underused since the end of Greg Rucka’s Punisher run. She worked well as an ally who WAS NOT lined up to be a romantic lead. There was respect and connection there and I could see her grow to a point where eventually she could leave Frank and have her own adventures. Her wanting vengeance, but not being totally dead-inside like Frank gave her some interesting potential for character growth.
For me, it you do a good passing of the torch, you’ve got gold, but a lot of these recent legacy-identity adoptions bother me because of the sheer simultaneous launch of them and how it’s all going to be temporary, it also needlessly takes the potential away from new characters growing into their own. I just…I want more characters made to be their own without having to be borrowing an identity so heavily, more like how you’ve got Luke Cage, Storm, Jubilee, T’Challa and more.
We’ve got more people than ever aware of comics, in large part to the marvel movies, but also due to comics opening up and not being an obscure hobby. We can and should see a large amount of fans and characters from drastically different creeds, sexualities, ethnicities and more being involved. I just don’t want it done as a PR stunt and have potential shoved back into the attic once things aren’t as fresh anymore.
I dunno, this is getting long and I’m rambling, but I think DC is handling things generally better on several fronts now and I really want to pick up some of their titles. I have my current Marvel favs, but in combination with general comic prices these days, I’m just not reading the large amount of books I used to when I was younger.
tl;dr: Diversity isn’t bad for comics and has great potential, excessive company-wide events weighs us all down, clumsy implementation of new characters while tossing away old favourites will be bad in the long run for everyone.
The same reason Athena can’t be a man.
@Shockdingo Black Widow would be the power character not Mika. She’s the largest woman fighter Capcom has by far. She’s 6’6" 209lbs. Black Widow fought in an all male wrestling organization and no one was the wiser until she unmasked herself. Also bare in mind how light Capcom’s weights skewed back then.
Completely agree on that. I’ve found the Marvel events, since Siege, to be utter garbage. They’re over-stretched, badly written and usually have terrible conclusions. They’re mostly sad publicity stunts.
I usually don’t look forward to Marvel’s “main” titles (like Avengers or X-Men), but they’ve been putting on some great side-dishes.
Mike Allred’s Silver Surfer is great, Captain America Sam Wilson was great, Jade Thor was great, Ms. Marvel is great, Moon Knight’s last three volumes were great, Squirrel Girl is a great comedy/adventure comic for younger readers, I liked Robbie Reyes’s Ghost Rider, Silk Vol 1 was OK… so, there’s still great talent in the company.
There are bad “new, diverse” characters that are given too much importance for their merits, like Riri Williams or Moon Girl (but children seem to like her, which I think was the idea), and Miles Morales has been dragging for a while, but they also have had many great slamdunk titles. So, the talent is there.
Shock, that’s why I just read classic Marvel nowadays. I absolutely can’t read the stuff nowadays. I liked Civil War 2 more than most did, but I’m just not feeling most of their books anymore.
God, so much this.
Every comic that’s not about a white guy is SJW propaganda to that guy.
And, don’t get me wrong, there are comics that are like that. Champions is all about superheroes fighting social issues. Sam Wilson Captain American is almost entirely about people being mad about there being a black Captain America. Ms. Marvel didn’t start out that way, despite being about a Muslim protagonist, but has become lately just stories about fighting oppression of minorities.
But other books aren’t. Iron Man has been about a genius kid building a robot suit fighting supervillains while an A.I. Tony Snark cracks jokes. Wolverine is about Wolverine’s clone daughter murdering scumbags. Mighty Thor is about long standing Thor character Jane Foster fighting a fucking war against dark elves, fire giants and a Roxxon corporation lead by a freakin minotaur. It’s as Thor a Thor story as you can get.
There’s no SJW agenda that these stories are focusing on. They don’t really spend any time on the fact that these characters are women. They’re just fucking superhero stories.
You do realize they didn’t actually turn Thor into a woman right? It’s just a different person is wielding the hammer. And whoever wields the hammer possesses the power of Thor.
That said…I do think it is weird that she uses his name, because it is his actual name. It’s like if Trump changed his name to Obama when he became president.
Sadly, the only social issues D&C cares about is maybe black, female and LGBT people having more rights and visibility. I’ve never understood this kind of guys who complain about comics being “too political! I don’t want politics in my comics!” Like, maybe they only like to live in their fantasy world where social order is perfect and superheroes should be stopping bank robbers and multiversal gods that could destroy the universe…
Comics like Ms. Marvel or Champions focus on important nowadays social issues and they have a more “peaceful” approach. That’s more valuable and relevant than just having some silly fantasy adventures (which is alright and should be a part in comic books, but becomes stupidly escapist when people are not willing to accept anything but that).
That doesn’t mean I think they’re perfect comics anyway… Waid’s writing in Champions is subpar, he doesn’t have good team mechanics, and fails to write people like Miles or Sam Nova as attractive or interesting characters, and also makes Ms. Marvel act like an asshole, which she’s not in her own comics. And yes, there were some times his presentation of social issues (Muslim women oppression) were too on the nose for my taste (like, the women telling the superheroes to shut up and not interfere, and the Champions were all the time like “wow, these girls are so amazing!”… which they’re indeed but becomes so repetitive it feels so on the nose). The intention was alright but the execution was kind of eye-rolling. It was just… bad writing; not bad topics.
That doesn’t mean all “SJW” (Social Justice is a GOOD thing!) stuff should be exiled from comics forever. If it had been the case, we would have never had characters like the X-Men and their memorable and culturally-relevant storylines.
Superheroes should inspire you to BE A BETTER PERSON. And nowadays’s society NEEDS better people, more empathetic and more willing to embrance tolerance, to denounce discrimination and to do something for their fellows. Everyone’s invited!
Oh hey guys!
I agree. I’m not actually against the actual social justice stuff(unless it’s, you know, boring), I’m just pointing out that that channel labels things as SJW that aren’t even actually SJW.
I especially get annoyed when Mighty Thor gets labeled that way by dipshits, because that comic is metal as fuck.
I’m okay always to passing the mantle to a follower, the only thing that I dislike when thing are done in an instant and simultenously thats were thing gets un natural and gets saturated.
Agree on that. But they were mostly good ideas… aside from Riri.
Ah, good point, so she’d have the advantage of experience (she’s a generation above Mika), powerful,agile and unpredictable. Good point on the weight, she’s probably…A LOT heavier now. Man, her design was pretty cool, I’d love to see her back.
I don’t blame you. The only Spidey I read now is Renew Your Vows, but unfortunately they’re gearing up for a new creative team and a significant time skip, so I’m a bit worried. I miss the Fantastic Four, I miss the heroes in general liking each other and spending down time hanging out rather than being at each other’s throats.
So… How do you think Marvel’s story compares to SFV?
I’m not watching it unless one of the LP groups I like decides to do it.
Way worse. I got to say, I enjoyed A Shadow Falls. At least half of the characters had some depth and motivations. MvCI is nothing but a 6 year old kid playing with Marvel and Capcom action figures, it’s embarrassing.
https://i.imgur.com/axmxWrX.png
Great characterization of Ryu XDD
I haven’t gotten around to RyV, but I’ve heard good things. I recently began to reread 80’s stuff again and I still love it as much as I did when I first read it a few yrs ago. The Hobgoblin stories, Spidey Vs Firelord, Harry Osborn as the Green Goblin, etc. Cool stories from that era are timeless. I remember when I thought it’d feel odd reading Spider-Man from the beginning some yrs back, but it was quite easy. Those stories are very enjoyable.
I’ve read the current Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man series is good… better than Slott’s Amazing.
I think it’s a bit worse in some ways due to the gaps and large amounts of characters it had to cover, but I still liked it. Since no endings in arcade mode, I’m wondering what’s gonna happen with the lore moving forward. There’s a lot of potential due to the ending so it would be nice if we got a story boost in some fashion every season. It’s gonna be DLC heavy, so they better not leave them hanging.
Hey Gouken had a doctorate in Interstellar Spacial Anomalies. He wrote his thesis on The Theoretical Affect of Black Holes on the Satsui No Hado. Even Dr. Light was impressed. Wily was hating though. I’m sure he passed his scientific knowledge on to his prized pupil.
SFV’s story was a funnier experience IMO purely because Street Fighter has such great and distinct personalities and it was great seeing all kinds of interactions between old and new characters. Also there were some nice fanservice moments with Ryu fistbumping Ken, the World Warriors uniting (FINALLY) for like first time ever on screen, Sean playing Megaman on his portable console, Bison saying the “delicious” line, etc. Although ultimately it undoubtedly has its issues, especially with pacing/scene cuts, and sorta ends on a cliffhanger or a hint at a sequel
MVCI’s story is I guess overall structured better and majority of the cast had a more or less equal screen time (unless you’re Spencer, Dormammu, Firebrand, or Thor), but it ends kinda abruptly, some things don’t quite make sense, and the post-credits scene just felt like it was cut and should’ve been longer or ended on an echo, I dunno. Max in his stream gave an idea that [details=Spoiler]Thanos should’ve started shouting Shinku -> cut to black -> Hadoken[/details], or Akuma coming in with a Raging Demon and bodying [details=Spoiler]Thanos and/or Jedah[/details], which would be really fucking sick even if Akuma isn’t playable nor intended to be DLC) at least for now)
But both story modes IMO are just 6 or 7 out of 10