It was a
while ago – certainly earlier this year – that I decided to make
some changes to this site, because, given the horrible state of
Marvel’s output today, I felt I couldn’t go along with it.
When I
first built the site, as a special dedication to the Fantastic
Four’s famous wisecracking guy who’d become orange stone in 1961,
I’d initially included a few pages listing books dating past 2002,
the time I feel the Marvel universe really went downhill, like
Freakshow and the second Thing volume written by Dan Slott that
lasted only 8 issues.
But as
the quality of Marvel became worse and worse, ever since they
devolved into throughly pointless, repellent crossovers, like the
recent Avengers vs. X-Men, I decided that listing some of those
items just wasn’t worth the effort.
For example, the Freakshow miniseries
is written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Scott Kolins, the former
who’s now the “chief creative officer” for DC Comics, and whose
work I’ve since become very disgusted with. The cover for the 2nd
issue is insulting, making Ben look like a slob as he eats a
greasy burger. The 3rd cover makes it look like he
vomited all over the street and sidewalk. And the story? It’s what
I’d call a Volkswagen, which to me is synonymous with junk. Just
look at that picture from the miniseries where Ben falls victim to
a nasty joke. Why should anybody have to receive such a crude
miniseries as a suggestion for reading? I don't like Kolins'
artwork either.
And
then, there’s Dan Slott, one of a couple writers who’ve turned
Spider-Man into a pure travesty after he wrote up a storyline
where Dr. Octopus switched minds with Peter Parker and took over
his body. Whatever for? One of the most vulgar, revolting problems
with that is how Slott’s story makes it look like Doc Ock is
taking advantage of women like Mary Jane Watson without letting
them know who he really is, which is a form of exploitation. As a
blogger, I’ve had the experience of having
Slott come onto my site using insulting defenses, and the
last time he did that, he
went on anonymously, yet using the same tactics. There are
writers who’ve let me down. But few have turned me off as badly as
Slott does.
And his
work on the Thing is nothing to write home about either.
With
this in mind, I finally decided that, as somebody who really does
consider himself a Marvel fan, I could no longer dedicate this
site to highlighting monstrosities published in a time when
Marvel’s output was turned into a travesty by former EIC Joe
Quesada. Avengers: Disassembled was just the beginning of the end
as we see it today, and even before that, they were already
coughing out garbage by writers with no respect for the heroes and
their supporting casts. So, I purged a couple of items (i.e-books
and pictures from past 2002) off this site, as I no longer see the
point of suggesting I’m fine with them. Because I’m not. I tend to
feel disappointed with some fansite builders who keep going with
all this stuff even as the quality vanishes. I’m not one of those
kind of people. That’s why I decided to just limit the listings
here to the better stuff, and likewise, the stuff published in
better times.
That’s
what I consider real fandom.
So as of
now, this site, I can safely say, will only be devoted to
highlighting pictures and other stuff from times when Marvel
really did crank out wonders. There’s no need to recommend to
anybody products that are useless. Just the really readable stuff
prior to the turn of the century is what we need.
For example, the Freakshow miniseries
is written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Scott Kolins, the former
who’s now the “chief creative officer” for DC Comics, and whose
work I’ve since become very disgusted with. The cover for the 2nd
issue is insulting, making Ben look like a slob as he eats a
greasy burger. The 3rd cover makes it look like he
vomited all over the street and sidewalk. And the story? It’s what
I’d call a Volkswagen, which to me is synonymous with junk. Just
look at that picture from the miniseries where Ben falls victim to
a nasty joke. Why should anybody have to receive such a crude
miniseries as a suggestion for reading? I don't like Kolins'
artwork either.