As it was noted by MrFroggy when we talked about “Spider-Men”, Joe Quesada admitted that if they ever crossed over the 616 and the Ultimate universe, they were officially out of ideas. Of course, maybe around the time they put out “Spider-Man: The Dark Spider Returns Peter’s Evil Cancer Baby Batter Reign”, they should have admitted this.
Or maybe when “The Twelve” became a blatant, if pretty entertaining, rip-off of “Watchmen” before behind the scenes drama derailed it and gave it an unsatisfying climax (seriously, issue #11 stank on toast).
Anyway, Quesada was apparently serious, because Marvel is going to back to two characters who didn’t work before in an ongoing and probably aren’t going to work again.
First up, Gambit. He had an OK ongoing that started in 1999, and a god-awful ongoing in 2004. This time, James Asmus will be handling the writing and Clay Mann the art, and apparently it’ll focus on Gambit being a “sexy thief”. Well, it can’t suck worse than “Catwoman”.
Second is Hawkeye, who Marvel has been trying to stick into an ongoing for thirty freaking years. No, seriously, the first miniseries was in 1983, followed by at least three others that we could find and that ongoing with Mockingbird that died two years ago. Not to mention the West Coast Avengers.
This time around, they’re throwing Matt Fraction and David Aja at it, so it might stick for a while, at least.
How about you, true believers? Any interest in these books?
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Ultimate Hawkeye was great. ANd i don’t mind seeing him in a movie costume in the ultimate line.
i miss the real hawkeye uniform of the regular universe, though. wolverine kept his ridiculous mask after the movies, why can’t clint?
I’ve been rewatching “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes”, because I’m a nerd, and I have to admit, seeing pissed-off purple-suit Hawkeye is a hell of a lot of fun. Then again, I have a serious soft spot for the Avengers back when it was Hawkeye, Cap, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.
well, that cartoon is just a blast from front to back, dan.
i miss the avengers when there was an east and a west coast team and from time to time the East Coast Team and the WaCos would play baseball against each other.
Hawkeye is my all time favorite character, but he just doesn’t work outside of The Avengers. He IS The Avengers. He’s always been a professional superhero. When they try to do series with him solo, they end up making him something he’s not, so what’s the point?
wait, what has JMS ever finished well? the ending to rising stars was embarrassing, and didn’t babylon 5 have a dumb ending? and he walked away from superman, wonder woman and spider man mid arc, and now the 12 ends horribly. Maybe it’s not behind the scenes drama, maybe he’s just a shitty writer?
seriously, there are not many people in comics who I really, truly, actively hate, but JMS is one of them. He’s a terrible person and a worse writer.
Generally, he’s solid as a writer, but, not unreasonably, the dude follows the money and I get the feeling he sees most of his comics work as a way to make rent. “The Twelve” actually had a great first ten issues, and I’m hoping issue #11, which basically wraps up the climax in two pages, will be redeemed by the final issue.
He left spiderman because Quesada hijacked the story to serve their own twisted purposes for the characer.
[jmsnews.com]
Also kind of curious why you think he’s a “terrible person”, is it based solely on your feelings about his art or did he do horrible things in real life that I’ve totally missed?
I will read anything that Fraction and Aja do. Iron Fist was a joke for the most part, and look at what Brubaker and Fraction did, adding the 7 Kingdoms, expanding on the lore/history of the Iron Fists, etc. Also, Fat Cobra!
Granted, I don’t expect a new mythos for Hawkeye, but I’ll read it. At any rate, Aja’s artwork is great, and I imagine his style will work well for the character.
He does have a good art style, and at least Marvel is putting their big guns up first for the title.
100% agreed. I’ll basically read anything that Aja does. He’s tied for favourite artist with Imonnen and Scottie Young!
Hawkeye is one of my favorites too, but I agree that he works better in a team than solo, even if he is the leader. If anyone can make a solo comic it would be Fraction though.
Oh, and I still stand by the idea that Marvel ran out of ideas when they got the super hero that was suppose to symbolize “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” to make a deal with the a literal Devil not think of the consequences of altering freaking reality for the very selfish purpose of saving his 70+ year old aunt.
Oh hey, recognition. I feel special
The difficulty about these guys is that they are best served for ensemble books. Outside of their teams, the whole thing feels… off. I give Hawkeye 24-25 issues and Gambit 12-15. Hawkeye has that killer creative team going for it so it’ll probably last longer. It’s a good sign that they are moving this Gambit series into making him a thief. Doing heist stories with him could be quite entertaining. The key will be to distance it from the other x-books and build up his own cast with a crew of thieves for example it could be quite entertaining.
It also means he’s not dying in AvX. Dammit.
I hadn’t thought of that. I’d expect any x-men casualties to be on Cyclop’s X-men anyway. Other than Wolverine and probably Beast, are any of Wolvie’s X-Men in on this? I’m not following it.
I just had a complete Nerd-gasm, because Hawkeye and Gambit are my two favorite Marvel characters. James Asmus, Clay Mann, Matt Fraction and David Aja… I fvckin love you guys right now!