More on Secret Wars, NX, and the Commanding Fungus Officer who Tracks Gems and Stars

It's been over a month since I've posted here and I apologize.  I could make any amount of excuses and they wouldn't matter because... well...  Who cares?  Work, no computer at home, some sickness, all sorts of stuff.  But whatevs. 

Let's move on, shall we?  I'll try to cover as much as I can as terribly as I can.

First off, we have a lot more information about Marvel's upcoming Secret Wars.  We know Dr. Doom is somehow the orchestrator as the real identity of Rabum Alal (rah-boom ah-lawl) as a sort of future version of Dr. Doom along the lines of how Immortus is future Kang.  What we also now know a few more of the lands involved like the Regency which houses a pre-Brand New Day Spider-Man who is still married to Mary Jane, and a land dedicated to Doctor Strange where I presume there be the weird magic things happening, an entire world dedicated to Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur (love those guys), a land dedicated to Old Man Logan, and a few others.  What is really interesting is the potential for Marvel to not just simply go full Crisis on Infinite Earths their world, but do more of a Nu52 of their world as they can pick and choose from what timelines and characters from which they like and implement them as they wish.  Let me explain.

The most obvious one to me is Jubilee in terms of character replacement.  Hailing from "Westchester" a world which never stopped being what seems to be the animated X-Men cartoon universe.  So why Jubilee?  Well, as of House of M our good friend Jubilation became a "Flatscan," worked as a social worker of sorts for other depowered mutants, joined the renegade-esque New Warriors utilizing technology specifically from the Wizard, the Ghost, and Hank Pym.  Most technology was based on the Wizard and her gloves simulated super strength, super durability via force field, and flight, the Ghost tech allowed her to pass through objects, and once used Pym Particles to grow to giant size.  Either way, she grew out of that phase and went full vampire, and while some people delighted in this change the vampire phase is now on a strong decline while there seems to be some thirst for the old sparkler Jubilee if certain circles are to be believed.  And this can be a very good thing, because Marvel could basically put in place a Jubilee which was wildly popular for a while and not have to explain it with anymore than a handwave of, "Blame it on the Crisis Incursion."  And I really believe this has a chance because this is the best place to bring back Wolverine.  "But he just died!"  Let's not pretend he was gone forever, as almost no popular character gets to stay dead.  This is a perfect place because Wolverine in the early 90's was also ridiculously popular (as he really always was) and the old team up of Wolvie and Jubes would be a big appeal. And there are other characters like Spider-Man who can be again married to MJ, Iron Man who will again be returned to normal like with Heroes Return where they literally altered reality to bring back pre-Kang/Immortus fuckuppery, and a few others I'm sure I'm just not thinking of.  This isn't to say Marvel will push the big reset on all of their characters, as I'm sure Captain Falcon America and "X marks the" Cyclops are here to stay.  This can be both good and bad, and Marvel should take this chance to get rid of some of the crappier continuity to streamline and untangle the web of nonsense Marvel has.  And while I'm sure the previous sentence blustered people into a furor, I'll comment more on that in another post. 

Nintendo says they're working on a new console with the project name of "NX."  Knowing Nintendo, they'll throw away this perfectly fine console name and replace it with "Bleeg" as the official console name.  No new info, just that.  I wanted to say it because I do want to see Nintendo release another console.

Last but not least is I picked up and played Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.  Wonderful little game.  Beautifully crafted, plenty of quickfire fun, accessible to pretty much anybody but challenging enough to satisfy me.  I say challenging in how the puzzles work, not necessarily challenging on how well I handle a controller.  It really has a fun personality to it, and well... I'll probably review it.

Sorry I've been off the radar for some time.  I'm hoping to get a computer soon and post more here since there's plenty to share.


              ~ Love,
                        Mak

Happy belated Valentine's Day AND St. Patrick's Day.

Marvel: C-C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!!!

So this week Marvel did a live announcement concerning Secret War and I'd just like to say one thing:

I was right.

Marvel is kind of sort of pushing the reset button on their universe.  They are breaking the long history combo with a reboot counter.  And I think this might potentially be a pretty good thing, but that's not what this is about.

Some people (read: ridiculous amounts of people) compared this to DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths when it's really a lot more like DC's Flashpoint.  Why?  Read on before you start flinging your poop at your monitor.

The event basically spells the end of several universes, two of which are definitely the standard 616 regular Marvel Universe and the 1610 Ultimate Marvel Universe.  Following the line of stories Jonathan Hickman has been writing, Earth will enter an Incursion and those two Earth's will definitely collide and sort of meld creating a new permanent Marvel Universe.  Of course several other universes will be part of this new "Battleworld" and most likely some of their histories will get tied up into this as well.  While I don't expect this hodgepodge world to exist as a puzzle, I do think it will most likely meld into one cohesive history like Nu52 (NuMarvel? Post-Flashpoint Marvel?) and become it's own world.  Now, if you followed the live feed you'd see some people just being dicks (like me) who kept claiming things about this being a reboot (like I did), and while they were right they represented the worst of the commenting crowd with most others either being wary or okay with the reveal.  Okay, about half.  But then Tom Brevoort said something, "If someone wanted to bring back Gwen Stacey, this would be the time to do it," or something to that effect about ressurecting Gwen Stacey.  

Twitter lost it's shit.

People who were simply posting along with updates became hostile, paranoid, sad, and/or angry.  Some decried the entire event. Some felt the event was irrevocably ruined.  Some felt the event was originally a great idea but now felt betrayed (which is funny since Marvel is on nobody's side).  In short, people actually turned against the event, but that wasn't the worst part.  People in a hope to establish some sort of normalcy began to turn on each other.  Some people were beyond furious their history of comics was possibly going to pot for what may potentially be a disaster, some were striking out in fear of losing ongoing books (which all ongoing books will be cancelled temporarily for the event), many were afraid of the Gwen example being evidence this event might just return comics to a state of horror.  

It was insane.  

Some poured their hearts out, some tried for calm, and everybody was so pitched it didn't matter since all sides could only field the extremes while trying to make sense of everything.  People followed and unfollowed.  People raged against walls they or others put up.  In one particular battle of names who won't be posted, one person tried to appeal for calm but did it in the worst comic fan position possible: Since he has read comics longer than the other person, the other person should get with the program and calm down.  While it's not what he meant (sort of) it's what he said, and that sent the other person into a furor because gee golly, she was definitely a comic book veteran at 12 years of collecting and with that much investment she was definitely entitled to her feelings.  Shocker, I know.  Others had similar experiences.  As an aside, I understand what the guy sort of meant because as one becomes older in any community they become dulled to the reality of that world like doctors and bill collectors and these things just don't effect them and the guy probably just wanted to share that (I hope).  If that is what he meant, he just shouldn't have been so crap about it and pull the, "MY POWER LEVEL IS HIGHER THAN YOURS!!" card, and probably should just realize the wounds were too raw to close right away. Discretion is the better part of valor and such. Some people didn't want to be told how to feel (valid), and some people felt that other opinions were the ones we should aspire to (touchy subject).  I honestly stayed out of it or just joked around by telling one particular poster "Look at it this way, maybe they bring back Gwen as Ultimate Carnage/Gwen."  Even though the person humored me with a witty "Lalalala Can't hear you!" I'm sure they were dreading this might be possible.  In fact, people were really worried the characters they've grown to love will be perverted in such a fashion.  One person claimed Peter would be outright replaced, and while he might, I think it'll most likely he'll be replaced with a MJ married Peter who is otherwise the same.  This leads me to a thought other than comic fans are the worst in any fandom.

Let's be perfectly honest:  In ten years, all the characters we know now will be different anyway.  I know people don't want bad change, but comics thrive on change.  I know I just said people's feelings are valid, but fans know this sort of thing is inevitable and this isn't at fans who are facing drastic change and are worried about their books.  This is pointed at the Gee Wun fans I also saw who probably believe comics went bad the moment Jim Hammond the Human Torch and Namor went toe to toe.  This is a chance for Marvel to spice up and shake up their roster and make changes they want but couldn't feasibly do without breaking a story ala Brand New Day. And let's face the facts that Marvel can't have Dan Slott write every freaking book to smooth things over with the fans.  People are really worried characters who just got their start will just go away.  But let's be honest:  The big examples of Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, and Squirrel Girl are here to stay.  You think they won't?  Ratings and sales (and the newness of Ms. Marvel and SQ) say otherwise.  Marvel is sly to the game and those three books represent some of their best writing currently.  The crowds they're attracting won't be forgotten.  Captain America (I wish was named Captain Falcon with an energy punch) and the new Thor will stay.  All recently changed characters get to stay, almost guaranteed.  Who might go?  Spidey, like I said, but will most likely be replaced with a similar Spider-Man.  Iron Man might be changed to a non-Extremis or just more jokey, less dickish Iron Man.  I'll bet thirty bucks vampire Jubliee is replaced by '92 X-Men Jubilee with the yellow jacket.  Hank Pym might get replaced/changed because he ALWAYS gets screwed in Big Events.  Maybe Scott Lang will.  The Fantastic Four are primed for it.

You know what might also happen?  A bunch of characters might get Power Girl'd, and not in the way you're thinking.  They might simply get added on to the universe.  Miles Morales I bet sticks around on the new world (Nu616?) as someone with a modified history to fit if Marvel goes full Flashpoint.  Spider-Gwen might stick around (ARGH!! HOW CAN I BETRAY PEOPLE BY SUGGESTING THIS?!?!?!)  Other long time dead characters, or minor characters, or really just anybody in need of a restart might get this treatment.  Alright, I'm joking about Spider-Gwen.  If she sticks around, she sticks to the shadows of L.A. and becomes ultra sparse.  The chance for Marvel to adapt characters actually becomes pretty unique and might potentially be good.

Clearly the next day everything more or less calmed down with some people feeling bad for their behavior, some feeling that their worlds were a little smaller from the fighting, some feeling better just simply for venting and thinking things out.  As always with comic fans life just sort of goes on until the next reboot or cash grab.  But really, we should argue and such but we shouldn't be terrible fans because of this sort of stuff.  Not when there's so much worse things happening to real people.

Did you know Dan Slott was put on Jury Duty this week?  Seriously.  And Slott had to explain what comics he worked on and a DA told him the DA knew what Slott did to Spider-Man implying possibly villainous undertones.  But that and Marvel's problem pales in comparison to Peter Simeti's cat who had to go to the vet.  Seriously, there is almost nothing more sad than a cat in a crate who needs shots. 

Do these look like happy cats?  No, they do not.  THESE look like happy cats:

Okay, so maybe cats always sort of look displeased with us humans in some way.

Don't be the reason these animals look down on us.  I'm sure they ponder why we got opposable thumbs when they're clearly more deserving.

Congrats Rosetta! Happy Veteran's Day! Comic Books and Their Movies/Shows. Character Changes.

Good day and congrats to the Rosetta Probe!

Sorry this is later in the week than I wanted.  I really want the format of a news entry on Monday with an opinion article on Wednesday and maybe Friday.  Oh well, I'll sort of mash them up unintelligibly here.

Firstly is the news segment.  The Superior Iron Man and the Spider-Verse event has launched from Marvel today, as well as the new Captain America series starring former sidekick (though he'd say partner) Sam Wilson as a Falcon/Cap hybrid.  Notable releases from Image include The Walking Dead #134, new series Drifter, and another TPB release of Invincible (vol. 20).  For DC, Dinah Lance finally takes up the (non-fishnetted) Black Canary guise in the Arrow show, and...well... Convergence.  Frickin' Convergence.

Let's start with DC.  The hard one.

The show Arrow has been fairly successful and was somewhat controversial in how it was clearly meant to be a show about Batman but someone scribbled out "Batman" on the top and renamed it "Green Arrow" about Dinah Lance, who in the show was Ollie's former love interest he cheated on with her sister (long story sort of), and how she wasn't the Black Canary but her sister (same one) was until the sister died.  The death led to the obvious in which Dinah will be stepping into her sister's non-fishnetted persona and continue on as a crime fighter.  So not news exactly, but it still seemed relevant enough.  Picture of her in the wrong costume below.

So let's get down to Convergence.  DC really loves it when people say they steal from Marvel (and vice-versa), but when Marvel has the same exact big event coming out of the pipeline you do, well... There you go.  Convergence is about Brainiac pulling the wool over a great and underappreciated character named Booster Gold in getting to something called the "Vanishing Point" where he basically has access to all realities and all time.  From here, Brainiac picks up all these quaint little cities/worlds/events/etc. and puts them under domes for his collection next to one another.  You might say, "Mak, isn't that the premise of Secret Wars?" And I'd say, "Only to this point."  The difference is, unless the Collector is the one placing all of Marvel's periods under one Battleplanet roof, then no. So what's the difference?  Well, it looks like instead of an all powerful time and space capable Beyonder placing specific points in history he probably enjoys onto a planet to encounter one another, Brainiac is reaching through time and space to specific points in history he enjoys and is putting them onto a planet to encounter one another.  Totes different, because the Beyonder is a snappy dresser.

You must be this fancy to be omnipotent for a while until you're not

 So the question is, "What is different?"  Well, the Beyonder at his core is someone who wants to see what people will do under conditions he sets and in locations he has selected and is in general curious.  Very different from Brainiac who wants to see what the people will do under certain conditions he sets and in certain locations he has selected and is in general a curious guy.  Hmmm....  Okay, well...  The Beyonder is a formerly all powerful sort of guy (who probably will have some influence in Secret Wars), and Brainiac is more or less a collector who has gained access to enlarge his collection.  There are subtle differences in the characters (assuming Marvel plays this straight and has the Beyonder come back and at near original power), and well... Yeah.  The events seem a lot of the same.  And this is very weird.  I'll explain in another post why I think this is weird.  But ONWARDS!

Image is releasing a new Walking Dead issue and that's important because people like the Walking Dead.  While they release comics every week all year long, WD only comes along once a month and blah blah blah.  I honestly have a real monotone reading of this in my head.  Image's other comic Drifter and this is the one I'm excited about. 

From Bleeding Cool: " Mankind’s colonization of the galaxy has left countless planets mined bare and lifeless in DRIFTER. A space transport crashes onto a backwater world whose unique properties set the stage for a story that combines the dark wonder of a strange and alien landscape with the struggles of an abandoned and lawless frontier town."

That's the basic premise of Drifter and judging by some of the art it will look great, and the premise has me interested enough to check it out.  Written by Ivan Brandon who is a complete unknown to me and art by Nic Klein who is also an unknown (but the image below is wonderful), I'm definitely seeing potential in this series and I'm glad Image has their hands on it because Marvel or DC would probably not even allow this series to see the light of day, and even if they did they'd axe it within a couple months when it doesn't reach Captain America numbers of sales.

SPACE FRONTIER, AHOY!!

 Finally is Marvel with Superior Iron Man, Spider-Verse, and good ol' Cap.  First up is Superior Iron Man which I hinted about in a previous post being Tony Stark with the dick knob turned up to 15.  Apparently from the events in Axis (which I skipped because of how I normally feel about Big Events), Tony Stark has been switched from his normally heroic (ha) persona to what he was pre-Iron Man: The incarnation of ego and evil with little regard to the people he may potentially harm.  That's right, an entrepreneur who's looking to make shareholders happy.  Daredevil is supposed to feature heavily in this and I should have a review on this soon-ish.

So is he superior because he's white?

 Next is Spider-Verse.  Written by Dan "Always a good time" Slott, this series is about a being named Morlun who is going about the entire multiverse destroying spider totem types, aka versions of Spider-Man, and it's up to every Spider-Man (or girl as famous now) to team up and prevent this disaster.  Notable because this series launched an entire cosplay fever and entire new ongoing comic series about non-616 Gwen Stacey: Spider Girl just by the cover alone.  And I can't blame them. That cover is gorgeous and the character design is just beautiful.

                              

The cover on the right is the only one anybody really cared about anyway.  Love that design.

Next is one of the controversial (only if you subscribe to the White Power movement) character shake ups: Captain America!  (Who am I kidding? The same movement is just as pissed off about Thor being a woman now even though she's technically white)

Due to the events of a battle with a cloned Red Skull, Steve lost the Super Soldier Serum which kept him eternally fit and youthful, which aged him to an extremely old man.  In his place he has selected his previous partner in crime-fighting, Sam Wilson the Falcon, to take his place.  Right away this is an interesting decision as Marvel has been under fire recently (as have all comic books) about inclusion and variety.  This is actually a pretty good move for Marvel because it's not just "See, we can have black heroes who aren't Luke Cage!" (Yeah, I know about Black Panther, I mean always in your face heroes.) This feeling is organic, and Sam's design alone makes him his own Cap even better than Bucky did when he took over the shield.  Sam has integrated much of his old Falcon suit into this new Cap suit and really melded both identities together to create something new, fresh, and very exciting to look at.  This is less "Black Captain America" (Yeeees, I -do- know about Isaiah Bradley.  I own Truth: Red, White, and Black and many comics concerning Josiah X, and his descendent Patriot was an extremely well conceived character) and more a great Captain America who happens to be black.  It's organic, it makes sense, it doesn't feel forced.  You don't read it and say, "Oh yeah, I forgot Marvel's PR needed a boost with all the crap going around all entertainment industries right now."  This also might set a precedent for the future of Marvel's movies with how after the Civil War-like movie of Cap 3 (which I said would never happen, so egg on my face), Chris Evans is probably done with Marvel (I think), and Sam (played by Anthony Mackie) might step into the shield wing first to continue on the tradition and keep the movies from getting too stagnant.  I cannot stress how good of a move this is.  Too bad Steve will be back in his red booties in the next few years.  Oh well.

Fear my Super Soldier/Captain America/Falcon fusion!

I wanted to write an opinion piece, and I will try to later this week.  Maybe it'll be about Big Events.  Maybe.  Or maybe just comic book fans in general.

Oh, I did want to put a quick bit about how Naruto is now complete.  I didn't realize in a previous post that it would be over the VERY NEXT DAY after I posted it.  I mentioned before how life is a little darker without a series like that going on.  It really brought it home today when I realized it wasn't coming out this week anymore.  You really sort of get hooked on a schedule of watching and waiting, and then finding out it's gone.  I mean, it's not like losing a pet, but it's definitely a little weighty.

Either way, thank you very much for taking the time to read this!

Is This The Best Time For A "Jumping On" Point In Mainstream Comics?

As the title asks, "Is this the best time for a jumping on point in mainstream comics?"  Clearly not verbatim.

It's a good question.  The answer is no.  That would've been the early 2000's when the Big Two (Marvel and DC) decided to pull the nearly dead body of good comics out of the financial gutter and breathe life back into quality and sales.  So unless you have a time machine you will have to settle for this point in your life.

But this is a good time to jump into the big two superhero factory comic companies, and that's because of the hair width, finely tuned, sweet spot planet aligned placement the two companies are in right now.  Let's start with Marvel.

With Marvel, as I've talked about two posts back, we see they're gearing up for some huge multiversal event which promises to bring out many of the most well known Big Events and somehow have that lead up into what seems to be (from the art provided by Alex Ross) multiversal fight between the current timeline and possibly their past counterparts and even other universal counterparts.  And while I'm not sure, I am sure about one thing: Continuity of only the most important parts will come to light.  With all of these Big Events possibly being revisited, which really only reinforce how I feel about modern Big Events and how they mean nothing, new readers will be treated to a rare conglomeration of points in important moments of a character's life.  See the photo below for reference:

See the two Iron Men there?  One all white, and one all retro?  One of them isn't Tony Stark.  Well, at least in the original Secret Wars.  This would be a very interesting conflict as Jim Rhodes is actually acting as Iron Man as his Tony is lost in the pit of alcoholism and had recently relinquished his role and responsibility as Iron Man to Rhodes.  Rhodes would see Stark is back in a fantastically futuristic armor and only 40 times the dick he was when Rhodes knew him.  Cap is fighting his protege who has taken his place.  Heck, Iron Man 2020 and Miles Morales the Ultimate Spider-Man are even in there.  Thor fighting new female Thor, etc.  With all these characters converging on one point, and all these Big Events being teased up to it in a single year, Marvel will have to be working in overdrive to get important character points (especially points in time) about the differences between characters.  If a new reader ever needed a synopsis and comparison about a character's past, this would be it.  And like I said, it seems Marvel is looking toward some sort of reboot and so maybe this would be good to get a taste of what might be coming.  I'm pretty sure I see Earth X in there as well, MC2, and definitely Marvel 2099.

For DC.  If Marvel ever had a reason to not reboot their universe, DC is that reason.  While the House of Ideas isn't exactly ashamed to copy what DC does, it at least tries to not make it so obvious (though both do steal and both fail at subtlety).  DC has this history about rebooting their universe both hard and soft.  They've done it quite a few times actually. And while each time is met with groans, it seems everybody forgets and adapts to the new universe with positive reactions.  Such is also the case with their Post-Flashpoint New 52 universe.  Not to be confused with their New 52 post Infinite Crisis where Superboy Prime retcon punched the universe until it changed history in the fallout.  This New 52 is much more severe in that it completely reset the entire universe and merged DC's other imprints (which were their own dimensions) into the fold.  Superman got a new start and was no longer married, the Justice Society was now Earth 2 specific, etc.  DC just basically pressed the reset button on their universe so they can tell similar stories, but in new and potentially exciting ways.  While you may think, "Well Mak, shouldn't the jumping on point have been three years ago when they actually pulled this stunt?" I'd say the answer is, "No."  Why?  Simple.  DC has had three years to put this new universe together, which means that you get to jump in AFTER the confusion of the reset.  You don't have to wonder why Tim Drake wasn't the Robin, but is Red Robin, or why certain characters behave as they do now.  You can read a few issues knowing they're still fairly recent, and if you like them you don't have a gigantic several hundred issue backlog to look up.  You can just go and pick from the previous few dozen issues which exist in their print line.  Granted the New 52 isn't a completely hard reboot, but is just mostly a hard reboot.  Just shy of Crisis on Infinite Earths, which means that some of the stories prior to Flashpoint are still relevant and you can search those out as you desire.  So long as they have nothing to do with Power Girl or any of the JSA.  So with only a few back issues and most of the wrinkles iron out of the Post-Flashpoint universe, you can jump in and have yourself a good ol' time in the Big Two publishers.  I'd talk about Image, Avatar Press, and all the rest, but I'm sure if you're new to reading you've probably watched DC and Marvel movies and want to start there.

Marvel's Secret End?

Let's begin with the end of Marvel comics.  Well, maybe.  I'm not exactly sure what's happening.  I'm sure Marvel isn't closing its doors, just read on.


Yesterday (November 4, 2014), Marvel released another little idea, storyline, something, to finish off what has so far been a whole slew of older "Big Events" dealing with next year's Secret Wars (named after the first Marvel big event) which includes Planet Hulk, Armor Wars, House of M, Age of Ultron, and others.  While I'm not exactly sure what it's about, this idea given only as "Everything Ends" with a dramatic white background and fading letters seems to imply that something big is ending before this Secret Wars thing goes on and it looks multiversal.  Could this be a Marvel reboot similar to DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, or maybe even a softer reboot in the form of DC's New 52 (or Post-Flashpoint as I've seen some call it)?  I honestly don't know.  It could be just a rehash of old stories told again, or maybe have no bearing whatsoever on the primary 616 universe.  Whatever it is, Tom Breevort has said it is the biggest thing Marvel has ever attempted.  But take that with a grain of salt as Marvel always says this about every big event they have and so go ahead and paint me as a brainless skeptic.

Also, I'm not sure how this can all be multiverse as Armor Wars, Civil War, and Planet Hulk have all taken place in the 616 unless this is some sort of Sphinx vs Sphinx gambit where they just pull people from space and time as they want in a champion's like match the original Secret Wars was like.  This very well could just be a blown up forum argument told in grand comics style.  Maybe the three are from the What If universes or something.  Like the one where Cap died and Stark took over his role, or the Annihilation wave came and the heroes resolved themselves.  Or maybe they're all brand new interpretations of these universes as suggested by "Years of Future Past."  Who knows? Is this even a good idea?

What I do know (going back to the topic) is that with Marvel sort of capping the prior events before Secret Wars with "Everything Ends," does lend to the idea that Marvel is considering something of a reboot after seeing the success DC has had with it and Marvel's struggles to create fresh new readers.  This could be an appeal and huuuuuuge jumping on point for the influx of fans the Marvel movies have but which are not flocking to comic stores despite the interest.  It's not like Marvel hasn't heavily changed characterizations and storylines to better match stories.  Just look at the awful Invincible Iron Man in the Marvel NOW! line written by the normally pleasing Kieron Gillen and given pictures by Greg Land (I'm not sure how I want to title what Greg Land does, but I don't want to say "artist" because calling him one would be like calling Taco Bell authentic Mexican fare).  In this title Tony Stark was Robert Downey Jr.'d hard to appeal to the extremely popular movie fans and it came off as this really weird hard to read character who was a lot less like Tony Stark and more like some guy trying to imagine what being Robert Downey Jr trying to be Tony Stark was like.  Where Tony Stark was definitely condescending, he was now like some guy who didn't understand why his cute and quirky charms weren't winning over anybody.  And then Stark headed to space when he realized he didn't understand what planet he was on anymore Marvel demanded him to be.  And while some good has come of this (such as Hawkeye's costume), I can't help but feel that Marvel feels like they're having a hard time making a translation of good will from the movies to their comics where they're struggling to find new readers.  Chituari were Skrulls, and now they're a subsect of Skrull.  The Guardians of the Galaxy were more or less a space horror slave team turned serious (if humorous) heroes and now they're fun little jump around heroes led by Peter Quill who previously wouldn't even entertain the name Star Lord prior to Annihilation: Conquest and now happily quips it whenever he gets the chance.  If I were a new reader and I wanted to read some prior history, I would be at a loss of the confusion.

And so...  maybe a reboot would be best.  At least a minor one.  To take off some of the old stories, beat the carbon out of them like an air filter you don't want to replace in your car, and shake up the universe just a bit.  It's not like Marvel hasn't flirted with restarts before in stories like Heroes Reborn or the Ultimate Universe being a fresh take, and which both were bleh.  But that's because Marvel never really dedicated hard to them.  Sure, you'll tell me Marvel had to push these stories as they wanted to sell books, but Marvel didn't dedicate like they do to their primary books like DC would.  Marvel is generally cowardly in this regard, but maybe they're finally ready to take the plunge and go into at least "Infinite Crisis" territory where it turns out the Sentry from another universe comes along and punches reality so hard it would explain why Ant Man and the winsome Wasp were no longer founding members of the Avengers and instead Black Widow and Hawkeye took their places.

So maybe this Everything Ends is something of a new beginning like DC has successfully done.  I sort of hope so, actually.  I'd like to see a continuity reduced Iron Man going around as the Superior Iron Man without all the weight of the Armor Wars sort of contradicting the whole idea. (Armor Wars was about Stark wanting to keep his tech out of other's hands since it was killing people, where SIM sort of wants people to have his tech despite this being way worse.)  I'd like to see a fresh take on other story lines like Civil War, where Marvel makes better writer decisions than the extremely lopsided JMS for Anti-Reg/Mark Millar for Pro-Reg. It's hard to not see benefits to a reboot for many forgotten stories and characters despite my liking for old continuity.  It does suck to think that the stories I've collected for years and years and years and years (let's call it at least a couple decades), might amount to just a little more than "nothing," but as a comic fan who loves stories I can't help but feel a little excited.

But then again, it could be Marvel hyping up some sort of big event with "EVERYTHING CHANGES FOREVER AND EVER FOR SERIOUS, GUYS!" only to return to the status quo later on.  I hope not, but you never know.