Too Often or Not Enough - Episode 3

Changes to creative teams.
So, the breakout hit if the New 52 is getting a new artist. Travel Foreman is leaving Animal Man and Steve Pugh is making his return to the character. Now, I hadn't seen Pugh's artwork, so I had to look him up. I like his art, but I feel that Foreman's unique style is a big part of what cemented this title as a frontrunner. Now, I have faith in Jeff Lemire as a writer and I am certain that the book will continue to intrigue, but I feel that we have lost an extremely dynamic writer/artist duo. I understand that Travel Foreman is dealing with some loss in his personal life, and I can't fault him for getting burnt out, but it brings to mind other series that have drastically changed tone with the transition between artists.

Different artists aren't always a bad thing, and there needs to be change sometimes in order to get those memorable titles, but I find that we get changes too often. I miss the days that we would have one consistant artist for years. Here's some notable changes that have happened over the years that I feel have affected a comic for better or worse.

X-Men Volume 2 and Uncanny X-men

Now here is an interesting transition. Jim Lee had been drawing Uncanny for a long time and really defined the type of X-Men stories we got to see in the late 80's and early 90's. Then when the new X-men book arrived, it was easy to read, because Jim Lee was the artist. However, where we gained a great new book with great familiar art, what happened to to the original book? Uncanny X-Men #281. You know the cover. I has Jean and Storm and Colossus battling sentinels with art by Whilce Portacio. I sorry if I offend anyone, but I HATE this art. I dropped Journey Into Mystery when he came onboard halfway through Fear Itself. I really just can't look at it. I read adjectiveless X-Men exclusively at this point. It's kind of like what's happening now with Regenesis. I hate the art on Uncanny, and love it on Wolverine and the X-Men. To the point of hating the stories. It was supposed to be a brand new era, but it just falls flat.

X-Force 1991

Those of us in my particular age range remember the speculative days of the early 90's. When Rob Liefeld took over New Mutants, I'm sure it was an exciting new change. I fell for it, and it made sense that Rob would be drawing the book that replaced it, X-Force. I know it's easy to jump on the Liefeld hate train, so i will. Comics readers are going to look back on this era and wonder what the hell we were thinking. In any case, I was reading through my old X-Force collection and getting ready to swallow a bottle of pills, when I realized that the art takes a distinct turn around issue 20. I recognize this! Like, it looks like something from recent memory. This can't be. This is 90's X-Force! It is not something that should be appreciated artistically. So who is this mystery artist that saved this book from fading into crappy obscurity along with parachute pants and grunge? Only one of the best artists of today, who is getting praised by everyone for a book that is on everyone's radar from the New 52. I'm talking about Batman artist Greg Capullo. It was a time warp seeing his name on my 1993 X-Force comic. This is an example of an excellent change of art.

So, artistic change is not always a bad thing. I just feel like it is not always well planned. In the case of Animal Man, it's something that is a special case. The artist has personal things that need his attention, I understand. It just reminded me of the times when changes in art are editorial in nature. You don't go from Jim Lee to Whilce Portacio, and you do go from Rob Liefeld to Greg Capullo. Unfortunately, I don't think you can go anywhere from Travel Foreman. His style is too unique and perfectly suited to Jeff Lemire's Animal Man to avoid anxiety with his departure from the title. We'll miss you, Buddy(pun intended). FYI, as you all probably have heard, Trav can be followed over to Birds of Prey, so show your support and pick up his new book, but don't stop buying Animal Man, because Jeff Lemire is killing on that book. Also, put in your preorders for Frankenstein to keep it around for awhile because this is another example of how Lemire is a wonderful writer and I want him to continue to get work.

Too often or not enough - Episode 2 - Renumbered!

So I received my Wolverine #300 in the mail yesterday. Which is funny, because I received my Wolverine #20 about a month ago. I'm going to have to call Marvel again and tell them that they failed to ship me over two decade's worth of comics. Those silly bastards. Why is this necessary? Is it because you prematurely renumbered and renamed the Wolverine series several times for no particular reason? This is a conversation I imagined they had at Marvel between an intern that has too much time on his hands and someone in management:

Intern:  "Hey, if you never renumbered Wolverine, we'd be on issue 300."

Management:  "Actually, this IS issue #300, you just don't know it yet."

Intern:  "Why are we doing that?"

Management:   "Because we will get to stick a $4.99 cover price on it and sell a shit ton of them to retailers who will over-order them because of speculation, and only sell a third of them."

Intern:  "So will this still be volume 3?"

Management:  "No, no. This is volume 1."

Intern:  "That makes no sense."

Management:  "YOU MAKE NO CENTS! YOU'RE FUCKING FIRED!"

Intern:  "But I'm not even on the payroll. That pun carries no weight."

Management:  "SNIKT!"

I predict similar conversations from the Uncanny X-men department around about Issue #56 when they reach the point in which they can call it Uncanny X-Men #600 NOW ONLY $9.99! It doesn't make any sense because nothing has changed really. Wolverine #300 starts where Wolverine #20 left off. Jason Aaron is still writing for it. This renumbering is completely unnecessary. 

Next thing you know, we will be celebrating every change in creative team with a new #1. Better yet, why don't we just start every story arc at #1. That will make these comics much easier to archive!. I get the reason why we have different volumes of the same comic, just fucking stick to it when you make a change and don't fuck up my longbox with this renumbering garbage. You want to see a screwed up chronology? Look at volume one of Journey Into Mystery. It just skips about 120 issues randomly, and then it does it again!

Wolverine will never have an issue #299. Uncanny X-Men will never have an issue #545. X-Factor will never have an issue #151-199. Am I the only obsessive compulsive lunatic that is infuriated by this impulsive numbering system that Marvel has? I would rather read 52 #1 issues in one month than read one more issue that is a multiple of 100. Stop it or I will hit you with a rolled up Fantastic Four #600.

Too Often or Not Enough - Episode 1

This is a new segment that I am starting that should appear often at The Negative Zone. Here we are going to delve into the bad habits of comic books in regards to stuff that happens too often or not enough. I was going to call this shtick 'Kicking a Dead Horse', but I feared that I might get some traffic from really strange people then. I want to start with something obvious. So let's board the planetary buffet and gorge ourselves on a giant purple bastard with questionable hat choices. The planet devourer himself, Galactus!

So this asshole shows up and is all like "Get in my belly, Earth!", and the Fantastic Four are all like "Go to hell".

Then he comes back and the FF get him to leave again.

Then he comes back and Thor hits his hat with his hammer and he goes away.

Then later Wolverine has to fight him on some other planet and Galactus is like "Fancy meeting you here."

Then he fights Odin way later.

In between each of these visits he shows up a hundred times, and that's probably not much of an exaggeration. In real time that's about once every couple of years.

Now, let's do what I like to call Galactumath.


Now, considering the amount of comic book time that has passed, (The X-Men were in their teens when Galactus was getting smoked by the FF in the 60's and are now only in their mid-to-late twenties 50 years later) it's really only been about a decade of comic time. This means that since his appearance in FF, he has shown up about ten times a year. Also, it should be noted that the grass in the Northern Hemisphere is always green when our heroes have to face him. So those ten times are concentrated into the spring and summer months.

I'm not a manic depressive, but if that was what I had to look forward to every summer, I'd have offed myself after the second year of Galactus arrivals.

Why is Earth not feeling the stress of this phenomenon?

Also. The. Hat.

All that being said, I really enjoyed the last Galactus written by Matt Fraction in The Mighty Thor. Nothin but love, my friend. I want to see a story in which Galactus is bulimic.