If there's one thing modern Marvel fans don't like it's...Uh, it's kind of Marvel. Yeah. They don't like Marvel. This happens to fanbases all the time, actually. They end up pretty much hating what they love.
I think it's actually starting to turn around recently, but the fans kind of decided they were getting enough of what they loved in the movies, I guess. And the comics just kept driving them away. Secret Empire happened, of course, but before that they didn't like Civil War II (which I loved) and before that there was Hickman's Secret Wars. Yeah. The fans were sick of Hickman. Then of course in recent months they love him again because of X-Men.
A lot of this hate was derived from the perception that Marvel was attempting to ignore everything fans loved in an attempt to replace them with other things. One of those things was Captain Marvel. No, not the original one. That one died in a graphic novel that those fans probably barely remember today, thanks in part to Marvel's complete inability to evergreen its past. For years this was unnecessary, since Marvel fans loved everything Marvel did, and everything was remembered and considered continuity, even with a thousand LMD gotchas (please don't make me explain LMD). There were exceptions, round about when the company was facing bankruptcy in the '90s, such as the Clone Saga, and then Morrison's Xorn reveal, and Loeb's Ultimatum, and a few other examples. But it wasn't until social media went full poison and everything was awful that Marvel officially lost its cool status. In the comics, anyway.
Anyway, this Captain Marvel is Carol Danvers, a character with a huge amount of history behind her...and about as many identities. Which is to say, it's hard to pin down her legacy, let alone her relevance. Eventually, her status as the new Captain Marvel helped her settle down, and Marvel decided that she could have a movie. And, in all horrible audacity, about equal status as Iron Man, which was why Civil War II was so upsetting, because Iron Man, who had been the bad guy in Civil War I, was now the good guy. And Captain Marvel was the bad guy.
And fans responded as if, even though they never really thought Iron Man was the bad guy in Civil War I, that Captain Marvel as the bad guy in Civil War II was bad enough to hate the character forever. Until the movie, which was about as successful as any other solo MCU movie.
The point is, it's really tough being Carol Danvers, but Marvel is keeping up the commitment. So this latest reboot (in an era of Constant Marvel Reboots) sees her chumming around as Just Another Significant Avenger, including a super awkward reunion with James Rhodes (who sort of died during Civil War II, or maybe it was Secret Empire), with whom she'd had a relationship (y'know, before he died).
And then she becomes the latest Marvel superhero to End Up In A Strange Land. Because that's one of those things, most famously depicted in "Planet Hulk," which is what the Hulk arc in Thor: Ragnarok was drawn from.
Now you know way too much. Or too little. Either way, that's it for this sort-of review.
I liked the Planet Hulk story a lot but that Captain America in Dimension Z or whatever felt like a bad copy so I'm not sure I'd want to read this.
ReplyDeleteAs to your first point, I'm not a Marvel guy, so maybe I can't really speak to it, but the constant renumbering and big crossover events (War of the Realms being I guess the most recent) is pretty annoying. And then you had that period around 2015 where almost all of the main Avengers (Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and Thor) were replacements. As people of limited means it can be annoying when there are all these gimmicks trying to separate us from our money. And when you're renumbering every year it starts feeling desperate.
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