What really baffles me is the way that Marvel (DC do it to a lesser extent, but did it notably with Geoff Johns) get fixated on these writers who really aren't that good, and give them the run of the whole line. We're seeing it with Bendis, who's at least managing a 50%ish success rate. We saw it with Austen, who, despite universally bad reviews and sales, was given the X-Men, the Avengers, the Exiles, and a bunch of lower-tier stuff too. Way hasn't had that much in the way of high-profile stuff, admittedly, but I'm getting the same feeling; that Marvel think he's a dependable superstar writer who can do anything, when he's anything but.
Actually, is Ghost RIder still being published, or have Marvel given up on it now that the film's bombed too?
They've just solicited the first of two World War Hulk-tie-in Ghost Rider issues.
Given the fact that the current GR series is meant to be locked into a single repeat-until-bored plot, I think that's a sign that it's not doing well...
And it's possible to pinpoint the EXACT moment when Way went from "a promising young talent" to someone no-one admits liking:
This - http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/u...c&f=36&
t=001701 - He practically Ratnered himself.
The Ant-Man series in question is still to see the light of day as a result.
I don't think you can really lump Bendis in that category. Although he's been getting dodgy reviews over the last couple of years - and seems incapable of recognising the glaring flaws in books like HOUSE OF M - he does have undeniable talent and a glowing track record of high sales. They've got every reason in the world to view him as a creative lynchpin.
Ah yes, the notorious ANT-MAN interview - promoting a book that never actually came out, as I recall. That was certainly a turning point where a large chunk of the audience thought "Wow, this guy's convinced he's something special. What a dick." But I think it was a while later that he started putting out comics that got bad reviews.
Actually, his Venom series came out before that interview and was roundly trounced as I recall, but the interview made him a laughing stock he never recovered from.
And the Ant-Man series was iced only two weeks later. Cause and effect, I suggest.
Well, I'll concede on Bendis (and Johns does bring in the punters at DC, despite being awful), but it's still a weird psychology for editorial to have. Why go back to people like Way and Austen again and again? Do they really think there'll be a sudden change, and these guys will be creative geniuses (genii?)?
In Austen's case, I believe the perception is that he's quick and reliable, and he's also apparently on good terms personally with some of the key people. It's terribly easy to become blind to the flaws in your friends' work. (And it's also very easy to read a bad comic in the light of a much better pitch document or plot discussion while overlooking the fact that the audience don't have access to it, which I suspect is happening a lot at Marvel these days - look at Tom Brevoort's interviews.)
VENOM: yes, that's probably the book that killed Way's reputation. Not only was it slow, boring and pointless, but it failed to deliver anything that anyone could conceivably have been looking for in a VENOM comic - such as Venom.
Oh, and regarding GHOST RIDER, the series is not in any immediate danger. It's dropping rather faster than Marvel would want, but it's doing okay. The January issue outsold FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN, for example.
And I wouldn't say the film was a bomb. It certainly did okay in the UK.
07/06 #1 - 98,826 (+77.1%)
08/06 #2 - 61,793 (-37.5%)
09/06 #3 - 54,029 (-12.6%)
10/06 #4 - 50,925 ( -5.7%)
11/06 #5 - 47,929 ( -5.9%)
12/06 #6 - 46,673 ( -2.6%)
01/07 #7 - 43,557 ( -6.7%)
Interesting. I had no idea GR was doing so relatively well. Given how dull and aimless it is, I'd have thought it would be floundering.
I did have a question, Paul. When did your Buffy conversion happen? I seem to remember reviews of stuff like Fray in which you'd say that you couldn't be dragged to watch an episode of the TV show, but your review of the new comic implies that you've watched quite a bit of it since then. No criticism intended, I'm just wandering what changed.
Oh, and yes, Brevoort does seem to think that everyone has attended the same plotting meetings he has, which is a bit odd. He used to be an excellent editor too.
Origins just seems to be a "I love the 1990s" style approach to Wolverine. I'm waiting for Paul Ross to show up and talk about Albert and Elsie Dee.
To me the most pointless thing so far, was showing Jubilee gratuitously impaled then getting medical help immediately. No tension or payoff at all, just randomly impaled.
Way is a writer who isn't bad, exactly -- he's just a bit blank. I don't find myself screaming with rage when I read his comics; I just get to the end and say "was that it?"
I somewhat agree, except when I get to the end I don't think anything. I just put it away and completely forget about it. The downside is I'm normally confused when the next issue comes out.
Not confused as to whats going on in the story, but confused as to why its still on my pull list. :P
Read his Punisher Bullesye and you see how ridiculus way is.
Just a good old slap in the face to punisher fans. I mean they make Bullseye out to be like a god or something.
I mean he just feels so smarthy and self important when he writes garbage like that.
Origins is just so unexciting. I mean wolverine's son is in two or three issues already and I couldnt care less. I'm just numb to him and the whole story so far seems like its going nowhere. And Dum Dum is not dead? I mean what does he accomplish? Honestly I cant see the point of any of the book up until this point, particularly Savior. I mean wasnt jubillee supposed to be a big deal in that?
It does surprise me how many retailers appear to have been surprised by the reaction to Buffy #1 - it seemed quite clear to me that there'd be a much bigger reaction to creator-written, in-canon material than the licensed comics of a few years back.
That said, this isn't exactly the first canon material to come out of Buffy comics so maybe that's what wrong-footed them a little.
Kelvin - That review of FRAY #1 was written five and a half years ago, before I had Sky, and I'm astounded that anyone even remembers it. Without Sky One, watching the show would have involved buying DVDs or tracking it down on obscure BBC2 slots in heavily edited form.
Billy - the last ORIGINS arc seems to have undergone a last-minute rewrite, because they solicited it by promising the death of a major character and then failed to deliver. So in fairness to Way, who knows what he was originally planning to set up. I wouldn't be shocked to learn that the original ending had Jubilee dying, which would at least have carried more weight than bumping off a guest star - although Marvel seem to be saying that they had a last minute change of heart about killing Dugan. I can't begin to imagine how that would have been a good idea, at least not without doing a very, very different story.
James - The retailers DID order higher for this Buffy book. Just not enough higher.
It's not Fray specifically, just that whenever Buffy was mentioned, the impression was that you had no interest at all.
I seem to recall that the BBC2 showings (at least the later ones) were unedited. More so than the US originals apparently (which I know sounds weird, but I mean that the BBC obviously had direct access to the original episodes and weren't just getting them from the US networks). I even recall Whedon stating this as one of the reasons he was going to work on the Giles spinoff with them.
That really doesn't make any sense, does it? Let's try again. The BBC showed unedited Buffy (in the 11ish pm slot), which wasn't even the case in the US. There, that's better.
Paul, have you given any thought to chucking the overriding "X-Books" theme and turning X-Axis into a broader-spectrum weekly round-up? While the X-theme is what lead me to the X-Axis years ago, I'm now much more interested in your general commentary on the books of the week than on whether or not the issue has an "X" on the cover. I can only attest to my personal perspective, but I'd rather see more capsule reviews, or some of the interesting capsule comments expand into full write-ups in place of one of the currently-plodding X-books.
It just seems like it would free you to flag up whatever you felt interested in discussing in the world of comics, instead of chaining you to a prerequisite that frequently has you digging about to review a mid-storyline X-comic strictly to justify the site's theme.
This isn't a knock on the quality of the X-Axis — I look forward to it every weekend! It's just a constructive suggestion based on my (possibly flawed) observation that you seem to be a bit wearied with the "all things X" prerequisite.
On the subject of X-Axis, any more indexes coming soon?
My wife read Buffy #1, nodded in approval, then groaned when I noted that she has to wait a month (if she's lucky) for the second issue. Her reaction, only slightly facetious, was basically, "Why can't it come out more often? Stupid artists. They should draw quicker."
She doesn't care whether it's a superstar artist or even the same artist, as long as it's basically serviceable - and after all, this is a reasonable attitude when applied to a Disney cartoon. What she wants from a Buffy story is the "Buffy story" part of it, and if I tried to say, "Hey, wife - comics!" to her she'd just roll her eyes and say "Yes, but why bother?"
And I have to say I think she'd be right. She's read most of the Buffy tie-in novels, which are, what, six quid apiece? And generally quite good value (for 'shippers like her, anyway). For that money, she'll get maybe two-and-a-half issues of the comic, and the chances are it'll take a lot longer than that for a single story to play to a resolution. If anything, she'd rather wait for the trade - except that then she'd have to remember *once every six months* that, oh, there's another collection of Buffy... which will take about twenty minutes to read. Compare that to the frequency of the novel tie-ins for any reasonably successful series. And, just as importantly, the books are in the library right now.
She's also a Star Wars fan. Number of Star Wars novels we own: 12 hardback, 32 paperback. Number of Star Wars comics we own or have ever owned: none. Because the ones she looked at, she concluded were a waste of time. Sure, she hates Kevin J Anderson's Star Wars novels, but she doesn't think that the novel is an intrinsically flawed format, and I think that's exactly how she thinks of comics. They're the second worst value for money in entertainment... the worst being a call to ITV Play...
~ Gil
Any chance we'll see some indexes in the next few weeks?
What really baffles me is the way that Marvel (DC do it to a lesser extent, but did it notably with Geoff Johns) get fixated on these writers who really aren't that good, and give them the run of the whole line.
In fairness, it's not like Marvel has much choice in the matter, since they lost most of their best writers to DC during the Jemas presidency (ie: Simone, Rucka, Waid, Morrison).
(The irony, of course, being that those guys haven't exactly lived up to their full potential since signing exclusives, and some of them - Winick comes to mind - have gone completely off the rails.)
True, but there's always the phenomena of new writing talent. I mean, I find it hard to imagine that there aren't untested writers out there who are better than Austen or Way.
On writing talent, of course, the line has always been that it's simply impossible to evaluate new writing talent as easily as new artistic talent: it takes more time and effort, and there's far more dross to wade through to dig out the potential stars.
As far as the X-Axis goes, I'm not going to make any requests of Paul, but I will ask (in full-on pedant mode) why the more euphonious plural form "indices" has been banished fromt he language for decades now.
I'd like to respond to an earlier comment: As of last weekend, the Ghost Rider movie has pulled in $110 million in the US, hardly qualifying it as a bomb.
Actually, speaking of Bendis, I can't help but wonder if he's destined to be this generation's Chris Claremont. That is, someone who's seen as wildly successful and influential writer, at least by the standards of the medium, despite having an overbearing writing style, a tendency to write in pet characters, and stories that have serious flaws in.
According to ads, Ghost Rider was also the number-one movie in Canada two weeks running (granted, not hard in February).
Claremont managed to keep Kitty Pryde out of the core x-books for a good 70 issues though. In fact bar the odd cameo, I don't believe she was even in a main x-team from the mutant massacre until the hunt for xavier? He has gone a bit mental lately with his favourites though.
Whilst Bendis and his Cage/Jones obsession is just ridiculous. Despite most of the supporting cast being MIA for ages, he introduced ULTIMATE JESSICA JONES in the last Ultimate Spider-Man issue.
> Claremont managed to keep Kitty Pryde out of the core x-books for a good 70 issues though. In fact bar the odd cameo, I don't believe she was even in a main x-team from the mutant massacre until the hunt for xavier? He has gone a bit mental lately with his favourites though.
But he was writing Kitty in Excalibur for most of that time, and after that other Excalibur writers had priority.
> Whilst Bendis and his Cage/Jones obsession is just ridiculous. Despite most of the supporting cast being MIA for ages, he introduced ULTIMATE JESSICA JONES in the last Ultimate Spider-Man issue.
Amusingly enough though as I recall, Miller beat Bendis to Ultimate Luke Cage and made him a no-powers loser in the Ultimate Defenders 
Taibok: I'd say Bendis is this generation's John Byrne - enormous ego, retconning everything in sight so it fits with his vision of the Marvel Universe, increasingly antiquated style of writing/dialogue...
Billy Whizz: Claremont's a bit more complicated than that - he also brought Magneto back in Excalibur #1 less than six months after Morrison killed him in New X-Men. And it was obvious writer's fiat - "Oh, that guy? Just an impostor. Yeah, whatever. Moving on." He did the same thing for Psylocke too.
Kelvin: It's sort of a vicious cycle - the current trend in the industry is putting the writer in the spotlight (as opposed to how artists were prioritized in the previous decade), so if you're a no-namer without at least a background in TV or movies, your sales will drop even if you're talented. So Marvel, with their typical myopia, just conclude that it's better to have "name" writers everywhere, even if they pull disappearing acts (Lindelof, Heinberg).
Fair point on the Ghost Rider movie, although I was more referring to it as a critical bomb. Silly me, of course Marvel wouldn't take notice of poor reviews if it was doing well financially.
Diana, agreed about Bendis/Byrne and agreed on no-name writers.
But almost everything Bendis writes turns to sales gold. On that basis, "give him everything he can write" sounds like a reasonable enough plan. He seems to deliver on time. If he's selling well, and has done so for some time, then critical denunciation is pretty irrelevant.
I have great sympathy for comics creators confronted by internet message boards. I work in computer games, and what counts there is sales and mainstream reviews, not what tetchy buyers say online. In fact, in games, you can generally make a connection between review scores and sales. That doesn't happen in comics. I've seen comics get totally and utterly panned online, but they've still sold well - or at least they've been sold successfully, would maybe be a fairer way of putting it.
In games, though, there's an accessible public review system - the games magazines, plus some of the bigger online sites - which are considered basically trustworthy and sort-of-untarnished by hype (although whether that's entirely true is another question). I don't see that with comics. Most individuals or reviewing groups I see writing about comics online have prejudices which they only rarely manage to suppress and which make it practically impossible for me to care what they think. It's an impression of amateurishness which I just don't get when I read reviews at GameSpy or in PC Gamer.
(I should say that you're one of the exceptions to that rule of thumb, Paul.)
~ Gil
Actually, I was thinking more of Claremont grafting Longshot and Captain Britain onto the X-teams. Bendis did more or less the same thing when he decided that Echo was one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
I also wouldn't necessarily say that Claremont lacks strong opinions as to what the Marvel Universe should be. Granted, unlike Bendis, he's never had the keys to the toybox, but he's expressed very strong opinions as to how the X-Men SHOULD be in several forums. Still, at least Claremont understands the meaning of a shared universe and, generall, recognizes other writers' plotlines.
I've just read the new buffy comic... and it's not too bad.
It's well written, Whedon has come on leaps and bounds since he started writing comics. Fray has been mentioned previously, and it *was* fairly poor. A terrible attempt to cash in on the success of Buffy with a rubbish plot and terrible script.
I've been enjoying Whedons writing on astonishing X-men, but it's been far too slow. I agree that the first issue of Buffy season 8 is better paced, but he's pretty much exhausted the appeal of the characters for me.
I look forward to his runaways... uh... run. We all know Joss Whedon can write witty juvenile team based dialogue and interesting plots. I'm obviously sorry to see B K Vaughn leave the title, and arguably if Marvel are going to continue their apparent fetish for putting non comics specific writers on their titles, this seems like a good match. I just hope he can keep up the pace Vaughn has set. Also, Here's hoping it comes out on time.
As for Daniel Way, I really don't get it. Thankfully I've not been buying Roigins, but a friend foolishly has, so I'm up to date. It's slow, boring, and the characters are woefully underdeveloped. As Paul has repeatedly said Steve Dillons generally wonderful art feels terribly misplaced. What's the point of having an artist who's excellent at displaying emotion, if your established characters have absolutely no chance to show it, and your new characters apparently have none. Terrible pacing aside, the overall story arc feels pointless and a bit seedy.
I disagree with the negative Bendis comments to an extent. While I agree that his over exposure has rendered the original excitement of his being so heavily involved with Marvel and his writing style a bit less interesting than it might have been originally, he's still a damn sight more imaginitve than Way or even Geoff Johns. I don't even dislike Geoff Johns. Sure he's a bit workmanlike, but I think he generally seems to turn out good scripts.
Overall I'm mainly a bit wary of the big two focussing their attentions on a very few writers. Why stretch *anyone* that thin? Surely by giving any one or two writers such a free rein you're going to dilute what makes your comics so interesting. Variety.
Oops. Sorry for the long post.
Diana: Claremont brought back Magneto, but I'm not sure he made the Morrison one an imposter. Excalibur had a vibe that there was more going on that met the eye with Magneto, and that Xavier might be playing mind games with him. Marvel Editorial was the one reversing Morrison, and seemed to have their own plan that didn't necessarily mesh with Claremont's. Austen, for example, said he was told to introduce Xorn as a real character.
On Bendis, I'm not sure half the writers at Marvel couldn't have written Civil War and had it sell. (I'd like to say any writer, but I can't. I'm sure there are writers that could manage to make such a hash of it that it wouldn't sell.)
On Ghost Rider, Box Office Mojo says as of March 19th, it has made $110mil in the US and $197mil worldwide. It now has a better worldwide gross than Daredevil ($102mil/$179mil), but still is shy of Constantine (only $75mil domestic, but jumps to $230mil worldwide.)
I do my commenting on Usenet still. But Usenet is deader than dead compared to this, it seems. :/
As for Wolverine... When people start debating whether your new character is lamer than Cyber, you've got a serious problem.
Wolverine's son is just unnecessary. Under normal circumstances, he is a lousy design. Worse for him is that he came after X-23, a freaking clone of Wolverine based off of a character from the X-Men cartoon, who managed to be a *good* character. Wolverine's son in comparison is a poor copy of Sabretooth recast in a role where Wolverine should feel some kind of attachment or responsibility.
I don't know, I'm not the hugest Buffy fan in the world, but I preferred Fray to AXM.
It'll be interesting to see how Whedon does on Runaways, not least because it's something I don't think I've seen either Marvel or DC try before. Putting the big name creators on big name comics that would sell anyway doesn't seem that smart to me; putting the big name creators on the titles at the lower end of the scale seems a lot more clever.
I believe Claremont's said that bringing back Magneto was an editorial edict, and he just felt that they should get it over with as soon as possible. Also, it seems Morrison was off in a little world of his own with his final arcs (partly because he'd fallen out with Bill Jemas), and so other writers simply didn't know that he was planning to blow up the school, unmask Xorn as Magneto, and then kill him. Consequently, other writers simply HAD to undo a lot of his finale just so that they could get on with the stories they were already in the process of telling.
Ah, I hadn't known that. It's just that Magneto was resurrected pretty much the same way Claremont brought Psylocke back - "eh, whatever, abracadabra and moving on" (and, as far as I know, that particular return was executed against editorial policy - there was, IIRC, some sort of fracas regarding the "Dead Is Dead" thing as it applied to poor Betsy?). So it seemed like a pattern was coming together. Guess not...
It can't be entirely true that other didn't know about Xorn being unmasked as Magneto. It seemed pretty evident that was the plan all along. Isn't that what the blacked-out section about Xorn in the Morrison Manifesto published in the New X-Men Vol. 1 Hardback was all about? And didn't Austen have a weird Xorn scene with Polaris foreshadowing his unmasking in Uncanny in the weeks before Planet X started? And why Austen didn't have Xorn heal all the X-Men that the Church of Humanity killed in the $0.25 issue? At least some other creators and editors had to be in the know.
PS. Paul, how about posting links to your PW columns here?
I think the blacked-out name in the Morrison Manifesto was Colossus...
Bendis didn't write Civil War, Millar did.
Well, "write" is such a strong word...
Xorn being Magneto was certainly planned well in advance by Morrison, before Xorn ever appeared. His entire design is built around being Magneto. And there are clues throughout the run. Unless Morrison kept it secret for years, someone at Marvel knew. Marvel was still gung-ho about Morrison after Xorn appeared, it was only around "Here Comes Tomorrow" that they started making public claims that Morrison was turning scripts in too late to be changed.
Heck, I still want to know if the artwork for the Sentinel flying fist crashing into Magneto's tower was intentional or a mistake. The explosion doesn't touch the side of the building, as if there were a (magnetic) shield in place. It easily could have been planned that Magneto destroyed the fist, put on the Xorn helmet, and then destroyed the building as he escaped. Or it could just be bad artwork with the explosion placed too far to the right, and Magneto put on the helmet and shielded himself as the building was destroyed.
The fracas about Psylocke was that Claremont killed her. Then he decided to bring her back, but was told that he couldn't. He claimed the death and return was all part of a planned story (which was the exemption to the "dead stay dead" policy,) but Marvel apparently disagreed. So Betsy stayed dead until Morrison's run finished, and Marvel almost immediately dropped the policy (which had been active throughout Morrison's run. And which as I recall kept him from using Colossus.)
I think someone else already asked, but anymore indexes soon?
In fairness to Marvel, it sounds like Claremont's plan for Psylocke was a little too close to the Search for Cyclops debacle - which wasn't all that long before. Why kill a character off if you're only going to ressurect them?
And I wonder how many people at Marvel knew who Xorn was. Morrison and at least one of his artists knew and, presumably, Quesada did. On the other hand, did Chuck Austen actually know that Xorn was Magneto? It would make sense, given his dialog in the Church of Humanity arc. On the other hand, this is Chuck Austen we're talking about - it could have just been him misunderstanding the character.
As for Morrison, what's his track record for punctuality, anyway? It seems like All-Star Superman, New X-Men, and Seven Soldiers have had issues there. How much of that is him, how much is a succession of slow artists?
Taibak: Well, that's the million dollar question, isn't it? Because every project he wrote that faced delays also happened to have an artist who - on some level - had a reputation for lateness (ie: Frank Quitely, Gene Ha, Jim Lee). On the other hand, Morrison is stretched very thin these days, on top of his duties as unofficial Grand Poobah of Creativity for DC... who knows?
I'm still not entirely convinced that Xorn-as-Megneto was planned from the very start. There's some odd stuff that doesn't quite fit in, mostly from the 2001 Annual, like how the X-Men see him without the helmet, or that the deception, if he is Magneto at that point, is ridiculously elaborate (he's been in a Chinese military prison since a child, which involves an awful lot of bribery, brainwashing or loyalty and secrecy from one's hired help).
Completely off-topic, but this month's Cable/Deadpool was worth the wait. For old time Agent X fans, seeing all of them back together (sadly, minus Taskmaster, though we got him two months ago) was great.
Now, if only we get an explanation next month that the Skull-Faced Taskmaster we've seen getting punked out by Sue Richards and crying when his mask is removed is a different person from the kick ass, take names later Taskmaster from UDON. I'd gladly take that retcon since every person who has used Tasky since Gail jumped to DC has turned him into a pansy.
I'm with kelvin, that annual simply doesn't work with the Xorneto story. Moreover, Morrison himself littered the Planet X finale, #150, with clues that Magneto wasn't Magneto at all (both Wolverine and Beast didn't recognize his smell. Why?)
If Morrison had stuck around, probably it would've involved That Which Endur--er, Sublime. In any case, the 2001 annual, Xorn's first appearance, basically undermines Xorn-Is-Magneto from the start. And I've never seen Morrison explain it. But maybe someone has a good theory?
I'm also hoping for more indices, please!
And oh, yeah, Bendis's stories turning to sales gold? Powers? Daredevil? The books that are actually typically Bendis without involving Marvel's cashcows, Spider-Man and Wolverine? No high sales there at all. Bendis's sales power couldn't be more overrated if his fans tried.
Magneto/Xorn was clearly planned all along:
http://groups.google.com/group/
r...ica.demon.co.uk
Yes, good, but the bit missing from that list of clues is when Xorn is standing there in the middle of a great big field, in full view of the X-Men, with his helmet off and his star-for-a-head blazing away like nobody's business.
It's possible Magneto could fake that, but I don't know how.
The other hting is that if he was able to hide is identity from telepaths like Xavier and Emma, presumably he'd remember to disguise his scent from Logan and Beast.
I always assumed the last pages of the annual were an art mistake, considering that earlier in the issue, exposure to the "face of Xorn" supposedly atomizes a couple of children. If Xorn can control his powers without the helmet, why would he kill those children? Why wear the helmet at all?
I also maintain that the blacked-out section of the "Morrison Manifesto" in the first New X-Men hardback is about Xorn being Magneto.
"his star-for-a-head blazing away like nobody's business" is a pretty good reason why he could stand in a field with the X-Men with his mask off. They couldn't see anything except a blazing bright light. He even could have have had a second helmet under there just to keep himself telepathically blocked, as the X-Men sure wouldn't be able to see it.
Jeff raises the only issue I had with helmet-less Xorn, in that removing the helmet didn't fit with the idea that he fried people who saw him unprotected. Unconditional frying was the logical excuse for keeping the helmet in place, but then he is shown with it off? The only other time before the big reveal is when he shows his face to Quentin, and only to Quentin.
Yes, it's possible that Magneto had a big lightbulb on his head underneath the helmet...
The head-frying is another good point. I suppose there's some explanation involving iron in the blood, or nano-sentinels or something, but it's hardly a neat part of the puzzle.
Actually, didn't Magneto show that he could manipulate light during the Eve of Destruction storyline?
Taibak--regarding your question about Morrison's punctuality, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Back in the late '90s, THE INVISIBLES became consistently delayed and had some real art problems because Morrison was late turning in scripts. On the other hand, his JLA work from around the same time was (I believe) pretty consistently timely.
SEVEN SOLDIERS was on time right up until the end, which is pretty impressive for what was essentially a bi-weekly comic. But then there was that long, long delay on the final issue, compounded by the artist moving on to other projects.
I strongly suspect ALL-STAR SUPERMAN's delays are mostly the result of Quitely's speed.
Anyone still reading down here?
Hey, speaking of Bendis and (less so) Civil War, Paul, did you read the Confession this week?
(Side note: I miss you writing capsules on everything you read. It gave one a better sense of your overall taste than what you do now.)
Anyway, I thought Confession was pretty good -- perhaps the best thing out of Civil War that wasn't part of a regular series.
Seven Soldiers wasn't all on time. There was a delay in the middle of Zatanna which went unexplained, but was rumoured to be due to rewriting as a result of clashing portrayals of the character between 7S and the various Crises.
Oh and yes, bring back the capsules.
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