Now that we’ve stabbed DC in the back, it’s time to collect our 30 pieces of silver and praise Marvel.
Rest assured, this is the same Fortress Keeper who loudly proclaimed his disenchantment with the MU several months ago.
At that time, we swore on a stack of Marvel Essentials volumes that your buddy in the blogoverse would take a long, long break from the House Of Ideas. How could the Keeper possibly pledge allegiance to the Lord of Evil, Joe Quesada?
Lest you think we’re complete hypocrites, many of our original arguments still hold true. Civil War is easily the worst comic-book “event” the Keeper has ever seen, and we bought copies of DC’s rancid Millennium and Genesis crossovers back in the day!
The collected works of Bendis, Millar, Hudlin and JMS leave us cold, and we strongly object to Marvel’s apparent belief that “good” and “evil” are antiquated concepts - a philosophy that repeatedly allows hipper-than-thou creators to turn the company’s flagship characters into shady anti-heroes.
However, despite such overwhelming odds, Marvel still puts out a number of good books. Some - like Beyond! and Nextwave: Agents Of HATE - are even great.
In our humble opinion, Marvel’s quality books benefit from the same “anything goes” atmosphere that produces such annoyances as New Avengers.
When left essentially to their own devices, writers the caliber of Peter David (X-Factor), Brian K. Vaughan (Doctor Strange: The Oath), Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men), Dwayne MacDuffie (Beyond! and soon the FF), Mike Carey (Ultimate Fantastic Four), Matt Fraction (Punisher: War Journal), Jeff Parker (Agents of ATLAS), Sean McKeever (Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane) and Ed Brubaker (just about everything he touches) are free to produce books that truly build upon the foundation provided by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.
(It’s probably no accident that most of these books either dance around Civil War or use it as an opportunity for honest character development, something Mark Millar wouldn’t recognize if it hit him in the face … )
Old hands like Tom De Falco (Amazing Spider-Girl, Avengers Next) and Fabian Nicezia (Cable & Deadpool, Thunderbolts) also produce quality work underneath Joe Quesada’s radar while newcomers Christos Gage (Union Jack), Marc Guggenheim (Blade), Brian Reed (Ms. Marvel, when the character isn’t embroiled in Civil War nonsense) and Tamora Pierce and Timothy Liebe* (White Tiger, which is developing into a fun, kick-ass series after a tepid start) kick-start some of the company’s more obscure characters.
Hey, there’s even a great Iron Fist title!
Looking over that list, it’s apparent that Marvel’s C-list characters are experiencing a renaissance. Even (cool) D-listers like The Shroud are getting air-time, which is always a good thing in The Keeper’s book.
But that’s just Marvel these days - the company that drags its greatest, most famous characters through the mud while rolling out the red carpet for Bronze Age, shot-in-the-dark creations.
Whatever the reason for such discrepancies - and we realize the whole thing could go to heck during Marvel’s next “major event” - for now we’re having fun reading about some neglected favorites.
And at the end of the day, that’s why the Keeper plops down $2.99 (or more) for a comic - a good, fun read.
*Keeper’s Note: Like many others on the Net, we’ve neglected to credit Mr. Liebe for his contribution to White Tiger. Our apologies.
