Marvel Universe

[anarky]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.

I guess they're leaving all the other books untouched? No mention of FF or Spidey titles.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Wow. Just wow.
I'm looking at that announcement and thinking about all the titles I buy right now that'll get canned. And therefore considerably lightening my weekly pull.

Remender on Avengers? No fucking thank you.

Could this be a temporary thing ala Age of Apocalypse or Heroes Reborn?
Might be the perfect time to take another break from comics like JJreason's been threatening to do. I already dropped DC. I could do a massive Marvel cleansing as well, and just keep up with the IDW stuff and Atomic Robo.

[jjreason]

The concept of bringing the original X-Men into the current day has my interest piqued, but I'm not sure if it's enough to keep me buying. I would truly like to be done with it & envision a great day where my comic collection is boiled down to the essentials, with many floppies gone for good and many more sold in favor of the TPBs. The trick is, how do I get from here to there without having to do a lot of work?

[anarky]

I can't see this as a big reboot. There are too many other things that are getting ready to start up. It's got to just be "the X-Men and Avengers end up closer than ever before--so close, in fact, that they're the same team!"

[RoIIo Tomassi]

That's why I think this is some 'Post-AvX' temporary storyline. Like X-Factor became Factor-X, etc. The Phoenix somehow wreaks havoc on the Universe. It may even last six months or a year before they inevitably snap the rubber band back to status quo.

[anarky]

This is true. We are talking about the Phoenix Force and time travel here. And Hulk looks substantially different enough from what Hulk's been in the past that that seems like a strong possibility.

[Diabolical]

Maybe Frank kills everyone else.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Maybe Frank kills everyone else.

President Frank Castle.

[anarky]

Here's my guess: at the end of it all, Cyclops, still in possession of the Phoenix Force, will wish Jean was alive. However, Jean won't be returned to life, but brought from the past. The more I think on it, the more I agree this is an AoA type thing. Sure, they say "jumping on point," but Quesada doesn't know what the fuck that phrase means and throws it around a whole lot.

Too many characters look way too different. My thoughts are that the X-Men traveling from the past (and not liking what they see--I think that's key here) results in a lot of major differences to the timeline. So we get Hulk as a cyborg, Thor with swords, etc. The X-Men have to go back to the past; there's no question of that. If they don't, then they're not really the X-Men of the 616, but the X-Men of a parallel universe. Will they go back and try to make things better, or try to? I'm thinking yes, since it'd be stupid to know the future, hate it, and just accept it--particularly in a book where "Days of Future _____" is a weekly occurrence.

However, this could easily lead to a "New 52." Flashpoint was also "just another stupid time travel/alternate universe" story, and look where it wound up. Where all sorts of cosmic beings had failed, fucking Professor Zoom rewrote the entire history of the universe just to piss Flash off. I'm thinking there will be repercussions across the board from whatever the X-Men do when they return to whenever, making the resulting stories more of whatever Quesada thinks a "jumping on" point to be, but not so drastic as the New 52. Who wants to bet Gwen Stacy never died now?

Neal Adams' X-Men series won't be affected--it takes place before the now-supposed original five were together.

[anarky]

Thoughts on Nick Fury Jr slowly taking Nick Fury's place:

Marvel is fucking up.

Why?

They're trying to not confuse new readers by having two different Nick Furys (Furies?). But one thing editorial has proven over and over in the last decade: they're really, really good at underestimating the intelligence of readers. Seeing a white Nick Fury wouldn't bother people. I didn't hear people bitching that Kingpin was a white guy in the comics, or that Hawkeye sucked.

But for lapsed readers to pick up a new issue and see a black Nick Fury, they very well might think that this is a different universe from the one they grew up with, and feel no need to stick with it.

[Diabolical]

So new readers are smart enough to understand it, but old readers aren't?

[anarky]

New readers will do the same thing new readers have always done--check to see why it's different. People who came into Batman in 1989 either realized quickly it was a different Batman universe when the Joker showed up, or they figured it out when they said to themselves, "Why the hell isn't the Joker dead?" and looked it up. (Easier now with Wikipedia!)

Lapsed readers will know who Nick Fury is, and, when they suddenly see a black guy with an eyepatch being called Nick Fury, they might look it up. But all of them won't, and those will assume that they just re-booted, or, worse, decided to not even give a shit and started drawing him like Samuel L Jackson.

[vynsane]

So new readers are smart enough to understand it, but old readers aren't?

more that new readers ar smart enough to go with the flow but not smart enough to smell an old comic book publisher ploy from a mile away.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

They could solve the dilemma by just having both Fury Sr. and Jr. prominently in the comics and having the new Fury referring to the old white guy as 'dad' on occasion.

Buy mostly, LOL at your "new readers". Which rode in on unicorns and beat up all the leprechauns and bigfoots no doubt.

[Diabolical]

New readers will do the same thing new readers have always done--check to see why it's different. People who came into Batman in 1989 either realized quickly it was a different Batman universe when the Joker showed up, or they figured it out when they said to themselves, "Why the hell isn't the Joker dead?" and looked it up. (Easier now with Wikipedia!)

Lapsed readers will know who Nick Fury is, and, when they suddenly see a black guy with an eyepatch being called Nick Fury, they might look it up. But all of them won't, and those will assume that they just re-booted, or, worse, decided to not even give a shit and started drawing him like Samuel L Jackson.

I really don't think you're giving old readers enough credit and you're giving new readers far too much credit.

And I don't quite understand your Batman example. Are you saying people would confuse comics with the movie? That would be worse than wondering why Adam West and Burt Ward weren't in the '89 movie.