Marvel Reboot #123098123
Step right up! It’s that time of year again, where Marvel does another franchise reboot and claims everything will change, the Marvel universe will never be the same, rinse and repeat. This time, we’re getting a Marvel “Fresh Start” banner promising to simplify? Go back to basics? Kind of the same thing they announced with Marvel Legacy just back in September 2017? Yes, we’re playing this again. Yes, we’re getting big and giant promises from the Marvel brass about how this time it will be different.
Spoilers: It’s going to be more of the same, and probably even more of a rehash of pandering to the more conservative base of readership. Look, this reboot does have one thing going for it. It’s not on the heels of an absolutely mind-boggling decision to run a franchise-wide story on making Captain America a Nazi. And then doubling down on the support of said story and its very troublesome writer, Nick Spencer. But we’ve written about that. At length.
That said, this new reboot is at the helm of C.B. Cebulski. “But Kori! He’s not Axel Alonso decrying diversity titles as being responsible for sales flopping!” No, he’s not, and I’ve talked about Alonso previously, also outlying several issues that are far more contextually sound for Marvels struggling sales. Cebulski, on the other hand, is a weeaboo who pretended to be a race he wasn’t to write horribly stereotyped comics. No offense, I am not particularly inclined to believe a word out of his mouth as he heaps ebullient praises on the Marvel team and how he’s never seen such excitement since the Marvel NOW! event from 2012.
Make no mistake, this new Fresh Start looks to bring very little “fresh” to the table and instead goes back to a lot of old, “safe” standards while having already dropped more diverse solo titles at the end of 2017. That’s probably a good bet to make the older, whiter, dude-ier segment of their market happy. Unfortunately, it comes at the cost of bringing in newer, more engaged, and eager readers.
DC Comics Cleans House For Bendis
Right, so that title might be a little unfair, but it’s hard not to side-eye DC brass and Bendis himself with the cancellation news that came out this week. After a surprise move, Brian Michael Bendis of Jessica Jones and Civil War II fame announced he was going to Marvel’s rival, DC, to write for Superman. Many of us waited to see what he would come up with, and now we have some additional news that makes his move rather sour.
With Bendis’ arrival, several ‘Super’ related titles will be wrapping up, including Super Sons, Supergirl, Superwoman, and Trinity. While some of these titles have left us merely whelmed, it’s not the greatest look when two female titles get dropped to make way for one guy getting to run amok in the Superman mythos, nor does it seem fair for Super Sons or Trinity. The beauty of comics is that it’s a shared universe where multiple people can play in the same sandbox. Declaring a chunk of that sandbox to be off-limits so one person can play exclusively seems elitist, and we have no guarantee when the characters we’ve come to expect will get to have that level of attention again.
Detective Comics Polarizes Readers
In the shot heard round the world, Batwoman made a judgment call in killing Basil Karlo, aka Clayface*. In the process, the Batfamily appears to have been permanently torn apart. A week later, there are very, very polarized reactions across the internet, and even among Fandomentals. For one take, catch Griffin’s article “Batwoman Was Right.”
Do you agree with Kate and Griffin? Do you think there was no Doylist reason for this to ever happen? Are you somewhere in the middle? Let us know in the comments below!
Whedon is Off of Batgirl
On Thursday, the Hollywood Reporter broke the story that Joss Whedon (Avengers, Justice League) was walking away from the Batgirl movie. According to sources, Whedon apparently couldn’t come up with a suitable story for a silver screen version of the heroine. This, of course, begs the question, who the f*ck hired him for the project without even having the slightest spec plot? There’s obviously room to talk about how white men in Hollywood get chance after chance to make their movies, fail, and make another one. Whereas women and people of color have to fight years just to get even one movie made.
Still, many fans rejoiced at the news (particularly in light of poor reactions to Justice League and Avengers: Age of Ultron) and are hoping the movie goes forward with a female director. According to Variety, sources say the parting was mutual and reflects Warner Brother’s desire to hire more female directors, especially for female-centered projects.
Do you have a director you’d like to see hired for Batgirl? Comment below and tell us who!
*Editor’s Note: Earlier this character had been misnamed. We regret the error.
