FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #21

Or, THE POST THAT STARTS OUT AS A REVIEW OF FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #21 BUT DEVOLVES INTO A PETTY RANT ABOUT STEVE ENGLEHART.

"CRYSTAL BLUE PERSUASION!"
Story: Steve Englehart | Breakdowns: Kieron Dwyer | Finishes: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Ken Lopez | Colors: Gregory Wright | Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Plot: The Fantastic Four return to their headquarters after a mission in space and spend some time relaxing. They're about to leave on their next mission, to the Negative Zone, when the Inhuman royal family arrives and requests that Crystal return to the Moon with them and reunite with her estranged husband, the mutant Quicksilver. Crystal refuses and a fight breaks out between the FF and Inhumans.

Meanwhile, on the Moon, the High Evolutionary sends his Gatherers and Eliminators into the Inhuman city of Attilan to steal the Inhumans' Terrigan Mist. The Watcher, Uatu, appears to converse with the Evolutionary while his men carry out their mission. Within Attilan, Quicksilver mounts a resistance.

On Earth the fight comes to an end when the Inhumans are informed of the attack on their city. The royal family and Fantastic Four all return to Attilan together and battle the High Evolutionary's forces. The Gatherers and Eliminators are routed and return to the High Evolutionary, who teleports away with them. The Thing attempts to get the Watcher to reveal their destination, but he refuses. Another Watcher appears, but is also silent at Uatu's command.

In the aftermath of the fight, Black Bolt flies Crystal away and asks her to stay among the Inhumans. His guilt-trip works, and she chooses to remain and try to work things out with Quicksilver.

CREDITS WHERE CREDIT IS DUE

Been a long time since I posted a nice hyperbole-laden rant here, so let's get right to it:

Since joining Marvel Unlimited, I've reviewed a few modern Marvel comics, the most recent being 2012's WOLVERINE AND THE BLACK CAT: CLAWS II, last month. As always, I typed out the issues' credits at the start of the post. For CLAWS II, the credits read like this:

Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray | Artist: Joseph Michael Linsner
Colorists: Dan Brown & Nick Filardi with Ian Hannin | Letterer: Jeff Eckleberry
Production: Maya Gutierrez | Assistant Editor: Jake Thomas | Editor: Mark Paniccia
Editor-in-Chief: Axel Alonso | Chief Creative Officer: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley | Executive Producer: Alan Fine

Does this look wrong to anyone else? The creative team is encapsulated entirely on two lines, followed by three lines of editorial, production, and, most mystifying of all, executive titles! This is insane. Compare the above credits with AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #236, from earlier that same week:

HOW TO DO AN OMNIBUS WRONG (AVENGERS BY KURT BUSIEK & GEORGE PÉREZ)

Recently, ghost listings have popped up on a few sites, including Amazon, for an AVENGERS BY KURT BUSIEK AND GEORGE PÉREZ OMNIBUS:

I've been waiting a while for something like this. I already own the first three AVENGERS ASSEMBLE hardcovers, which collect the full Busiek/Pérez run, but they are a product of their time -- the early 2000s -- and feature some pretty horrid reproduction in a few places, as well as covers without any trade dress, logos, blurbs, etc. They're nice books, but not as nice as they could be. So, when this book appeared in the Hachette Book Group's catalog last week, I was thrilled. I would sell my AVENGERS ASSEMBLE books and grab this. Surely it would collect all the same material as those three volumes, right? AVENGERS (vol. 3) issues 1 - 34, plus the associated annuals and such, would be the perfect size for an Omnibus!

Not so, apparently. Behold the (currently unconfirmed) solicit:

SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL

This is old news to many comic fans, but please bear with me (or as relates to Shanna, bare with me).

Back in 2005, Marvel produced a limited series under the Marvel Knights imprint, written and illustrated by the great cheesecake artist Frank Cho, titled SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL. It was a reimagining of the character who was originally Marvel's answer to Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, set in its own universe independent of Marvel's main continuity.

The thing is, the title was originally intended for Marvel's adult-targeted MAX imprint, and was to feature plenty of gratuitous nudity. I was looking forward to the series, until Marvel changed it to Marvel Knights. At that point I resolved not to support it.

SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF

The other night I read the first three issues of AVENGING SPIDER-MAN on Marvel Unlimited. Partly to ogle some awesome Joe Madureira artwork, and partly (morbidly) to see if Zeb Wells still has as poor a grasp on the web-slinger's character as he did during the "Brand New Day" era, the last time I read Spidey's adventures regularly. I was not disappointed on either count.

I have no plans to review the issues here (though I will say that nearly any Spider-Man creative team from the Silver or Bronze ages could've easily told this story in a single issue), but I just had to comment on this one scene, at the end of the final installment. I can suspend my disbelief as well as, if not occasionally even better than, the next guy. But that suspension only goes so far, and it certainly does not go far enough to allow for idiocy like this:

There is no way Jameson is unaware he's talking to his long-time employee Peter Parker, here. No. Way. Two-thirds of his face are visible!! This has to be one of the stupidest things I've seen creators do in a comic set in the mainstream Marvel Universe in a long time.

Okay, just had to vent. Carry on.

WISHFUL THINKING

I'm not really into original comic art or commissions at all. I have a few sketches I've picked up at cons over the years for reasonable prices, but in general I'm priced out of the comic art market. Even if I had the money, though, I just think the prices fetched by original pages and high-end commissions are insane. Thousands of dollars for one page or one piece? Ludicrous. If you can buy a TV or a computer (or maybe even a used car!) for less than the price of a piece of original art, then the original art costs too much. I don't care that the work is one of a kind. In the end it's just a piece of paper, and no piece of paper is worth that much, regardless of what's on it.

But that doesn't stop me from fantasizing. There are plenty of artists from whom I would commission some artwork, if their prices made any sort of earthly sense. For whatever reason, though, my dreams of original art return most frequently to John Byrne. Byrne's commission work is hit or miss, but when it's good, it's very good. And if he was willing to take the request, I would ask him for a series of X-Men commissions. But since I'm never going to actually do it, I want to get this out of my system. So here's the fantasy letter I would write to Byrne's art dealer, Jim Warden, in a different world:

COMIC BOOKS, THEN AND NOW

Note: This post uses the general term "comics" throughout to mean specifically Marvel superhero comics.

Okay, look -- I don't mean for this to turn into a "get off my lawn" rant, but there's a good chance it will. I am 34 years old -- apparently the target audience for today's superhero comics (which is ludicrous to begin with) -- and I fully, honestly believe comics were better when I was younger than they are now. I don't necessarily mean from a technical standpoint, of course. While I admit I tend to prefer many of the artists of my youth to the ones of today, there are plenty of great artists doing excellent work nowadays. And computer coloring and lettering, when done well, blow most of the old stuff out of the water.

Art by Jim Lee (left, 1991) and Dale Keown (right, 2011).
Note the much brighter, more exciting, and visually appealing
colors on the left piece vs the drab, boring hues on the left.

ON MATTERS OF (RE)COLOR

PART ONE: COMMON SENSE
I love Marvel's current collected editions department. Really, I do. They put out quality books with top-notch production values and graphic design work. I'm proud to have their products on my bookcase. So when I go off on my rant here, just remember that I'm railing on one relatively minor aspect of something that I otherwise love pretty much unconditionally.

Left: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #238, 1983
Right: SPIDER-MAN: ORIGIN OF THE HOBGOBLIN TPB, 2011

EARTH 616

You may note that during my Captain Britain reviews, I never use the term, "Earth 616". The reason is simple -- I hate it.

"Earth 616" is the designation that was given during the Dave Thorpe/Alan Moore Captain Britain stories to the Earth where the "real" Marvel Universe resides. I believe Moore has alternately taken credit for the number and said that Thorpe coined it. To my recollection, I don't recall it appearing in a Thorpe story, but it's possible I'm wrong. At any rate, I really feel that if it weren't for its association, deserved or otherwise, with Alan Moore, "616" would not see nearly as much use as it does.

But the point is, the term bothers me because it just sounds silly -- I (figuratively) roll my eyes when I see or hear someone refer to the "main" Marvel Earth as "Earth 616," "616," or, stupidest of all to my ear, "the 616." Just call it the Marvel Universe! No one will stop and ask you if you mean Earth 12, Earth 457, or Earth 8532. I promise we all know exactly which Earth you're talking about. Trust me.

Even if fandom doesn't necessarily agree with my above sentiment, I'm gratified that Marvel does. I've said before that I have little use for modern Marvel, but one area where we see eye-to-eye is the stupidity of "616". Several of Marvel's editors, from Joe Quesada on down, have stated their distaste for the term, as well as their confusion as to why anyone would even want to use it.

So: sorry if I've offended anyone who uses the number. This is only my personal opinion. You will never see the term "616" used on this blog beyond this post. And yet somehow, even without that indicator, you will still know which universe I'm referring to at any given time.