Oh snap.

New X-Axis went up yesterday – just had the time to go over it as I seldom miss a chance to do so. As always an interesting read. At first it seemed as though Mr. O’Brien was past his crusade against Marvel advertising but, nope, check out the second review (Cable/Deadpool which I’ve heard good things about but just haven’t been able to check out as yet. Being nearly broke kinda hurts my ability to buy all the comics I want, you know.) and watch him tee off. Again, always an interesting read and more than a little fun.

And, for the record (as there seem to be some people who can actually argue the point in the face of such red hot fury), I’m in agreement with Mr. O’Brien. Marvel is a comics company. True, they need to make money. But they also need to put out a product which allows them to do so. I would think this would be an elementary point in their business model but putting out nearly unreadable comics seems to be a bit of a misstep. One that evokes the ire of Mr. O’Brien – a longtime and, no doubt, more than a bit obsessive, at some point anyway, fan – to the point where he makes a point of mentioning as much as he can. If it’s annoying him then it seems likely, to me at least, that there are several more people – without well-written and frequently visited websites – that are approaching that level of anger. And more besides who are hovering at that point of slightly annoyed. In other words, in an increasingly small and competitive marketplace the Marvel corporation has decided to release an inferior product – from a readability standpoint – that serves to annoy if not anger a good portion of their fanbase. This, to me, doesn’t make a lot of sense. But, then, I’m not a businessperson or anything. If I were I’d say something like the temporary gain of increased ad revenue has to be weighed against all those people who are going to throw up their hands and stop reading comics, so to speak – not just against the “artistic” vision of the creators. These comics might be published with very lofty goals and extraordinary craft, of course and many are, but at the end of the day they exist to move product. No matter how fanatical or enthusiastic about the company’s line with enough mistakes then even the most loyal of customers will start to fade away. People, for whatever reasons of their own, will stop buying. At least, in the monthly format. As Mr. O’Brien points out there’s more than one way for people to get their fix these days. And many of them lack the intrusive and annoying advertising that’s swallowing up more and more of the content of Marvel’s comic books. If the Marvel editorial team want to transition away from publishing monthly comics, well, they’re off to a great start – getting people to stop reading the comics that way sounds like a great first step. But, until they’re ready to abandon individual issues for some other format then monthly sales seem to make up a large proportion of their revenue. Protecting and encouraging that segment of the market would seem, to me anyways, like a good idea for the present, anyway. Then there’s the issue of, you know, actually making comics people will enjoy reading, of course but I think I’ll let the point go now.

I’m also in agreement with regards to “Astonishing X-Men”. Although I do like the details, the small moments, and the character Hisako (Who, really, is what I think the X-Men line needs a whole lot more of. Even if she's not the most original of ideas, she's well executed, for me at least, and that's really all I want.) my impression of the book really hasn’t changed since the first arc. Whedon might be a great television writer but he doesn’t really seem to get comics. The whole affair is just a little too padded for my tastes. Even in trade which is where I read it. Especially compared to the Morrison run – which, by co-opting Cassandra Nova (One of, I feel, the weakest aspects of the early part of those issues – being a poorly explained concept and serving little purpose other than to set up the more interesting elements. The heart of that run, to me, was really to catapult the X-Men out of the superhero rut they’d been stuck in and it’s things like Cassandra Nova and the U-Men that drag it down. It would just take me a while to explain why) Whedon has opened the door to, if only unintentionally – it just seems like the series is spinning its wheels. Coasting on the strength of a few half-way decent ideas and some nostalgia, it relies on slight-of-hand and misdirection to create any real sort of momentum. Back during the first arc I was told that I was more than a little wrong for seeing things that way but, well, it’s my money and I dropped the book because I thought it would only get worse instead of better – there were serious problems just with the conception, for me. In short, I stopped reading Astonishing a while ago and it sounds like I’m glad I did. Other people might be enjoying the book but I’m not sure I would. I’m probably going to have to read it at this point, though, if only to understand just why I don’t like it. I’m not sure exactly how to put it – which only means that I probably should sit down and try, I guess – except to say it doesn’t feel earned.