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shitty ass costume. fucking competitive roller skater headass

Future State: Nightwing #002 (2021) art by Nicola Scott

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Daredevil

my dick game is awful. its killing people.

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Marvel house ad for its solo titles, including Captain Marvel, Daredevil, The Incredible Hulk, Master of Kung Fu and Nova (1977)

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a little autobiographical piece about the internet

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Avengers #81 - “When Dies a Legend!” (1970)

written by Roy Thomas art by John Buscema & Tom Palmer

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larroca deserves the electric chair for this and for his star wars

Arms?

Invincible Iron Man Vol. 2 #27 art by Salvador Larroca

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I definitely agree about the … odd? and annoying ways fandom talks about Bucky, and the way 616-Bucky and 616fanon-Bucky and movie-Bucky and moviefanon-Bucky get overlapped in really bewildering ways.

But I totally thought being anal about having a specific timeline and with dates and places was the biggest strength of Brubaker’s retcon. The assassin years are a little vague, but just vague enough IMO? I think it does a good job of making it work so that Winter Soldier was only active for a certain number of years doing a certain number of things.

The biggest indicator of how specific Brubaker was with his timeline is the fact that nearly every writer to even casually handle Winter Soldier since him always ends up doing something totally inconsistent with what Brubaker set down. Remender, Waid, and Higgins have all had major continuity errors in their work with Winter Soldier and basically nobody is anal enough to really notice.

I would also say that fandom is a lot more interested in Bucky-as-Winter-Soldier than Brubaker ever was. Like, Brubaker had that enormous mancrush/self-projection-complex on Bucky Barnes, and was more interested in the story of him building a new life, not specifically in the story of a badass amnesiac cyborg assassin. I think someone said once that Brubaker formed him in the mold of a cliche edgy 90s Liefeld character just so he could subvert it by juxtaposing it against his child sidekick past. To Brubaker, the assassin years are mostly flavor and the meat of the character is still the sidekick.

Something I really don’t like about Brubaker’s run is how some of the most important or most character-heavy issues aren’t part of his run proper, but shunted off to one-shots and minis and “Fear Itself #7.1″s (which is not something that issue should have been titled). 

Also, Cap fans don’t really talk about the fact that his take on Steve is honestly pretty bland. That’s partially because his run was mostly designed as Bucky-wank, but he really doesn’t do much in terms of getting inside Steve’s head, especially after Bucky’s “death” and the renumbering.

Oooh oooh oooh pleeeeeeease talk about Ed Brubakers cap run

It’s full of plot holes.

I know we’re not “supposed” to care about plot holes. The great internet film critic/youtube person circle got together and decided that Serious People™ don’t talk about plot holes, and actually, they rewrote the definition so that nothing is a plot hole anymore. Some people take it too far and don’t pay attention and then complain about things that were explained, and I get the frustration. But everyone cares when important things are confusing or don’t work the way they should or don’t get explained. We all do, and saying, “I am superior because I only care about theeeeeeemes” is a crock of bull.

So, I have some questions, such as: Why were Fury and Sharon trying to free Steve when he turned himself in? How did no one in that huge crowd notice that Sharon shot Steve? How did the coroner not notice that Steve was also shot up close from straight on? Do coroners in the Marvel Universe not know how angles work? Or the difference between different bullet wounds? I guess you could say that the coroner was a plant by Red Skull, but Tony also examined the body. Does Tony not know how angles work?

That’s just a few of the questions I had from one story arc. I could keep going. It’s not about the specific things that don’t work. It’s about how lazy everything feels. It’s about how there is a technological fix-it to every plot problem that arises. Gadgets appear out of nowhere to solve problems, and then are never mentioned again. I can understand cutting corners if you’re writing a miniseries or a book that could be cancelled at any point, but this book went on forever. It had way too many filler issues and unnecessary World War II flashbacks, and that time could have been spent making the plot more natural or, idk, exploring Bucky’s mental state,* beyond “man is sad because he did a bad thing.”

Or exploring Steve’s mental state, for that matter. Brubaker wrote that book during Civil War, and instead of trying to explore Steve’s motivations and feelings, he had one dialogue exchange between Steve and Sharon about the SHRA and then the rest of the tie-ins were about random shit and other characters.

There are character and story consequences to all of this corner cutting. If magic technology can get you out of any scrape, it gives you less opportunities to show the characters being creative and resourceful, to put them in tight spots and actually force them (and you) to think of a way out of it. It’s not just about “realism.” It chips away at the suspense. That’s why I’m always harping on how Wanda’s powers should be based around quick thinking and inventiveness, not untouchable godhood.

And okay, I’m gonna be honest and admit that I don’t understand the Winter Soldier as a character (specifically the assassin years, not Bucky in general). I found the canon too vague and seemingly self-contradictory, and then the fandom made me more confused because people talk about him in ways that I don’t… think are supported by the canon. The movies made everything worse because he’s handled very differently there, but people talk about it like it’s the same thing.

The movies do a better job of making it cohesive, but it still doesn’t work 100% there. I feel guilty saying this because he’s my favorite character in the MCU,** but if I think about the details for too long, my head starts to hurt. Even putting aside the baffling specifics, I get the feeling Bucky would be better off being written by women. Not that I could test this idea since the stories that deal with the Winter Soldier stuff are written by men. I guess there’s fanfiction, but I don’t read fanfiction, so…

ANYWAY, last thing: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that all that stuff Brubaker did to Sharon Carter was bad and made me uncomfortable. Lots of people have talked about that, and I don’t have anything to add. It’s just… man, that was really gross.

*Do you ever think about the fact that there was a whole issue about Sin’s deprogramming, but Bucky was fixed with a Cosmic Cube? That was weird.

**I say this, yet I’m fascinated by the intense fanboy hatred towards MCU Bucky. I mean that in a neutral, unironic way. I think it’s interesting. I even agree with Film Crit Hulk’s criticism of the way he’s written, though I’d say there’s more to the negative reaction than writing flaws. There is something about this version of this character (as opposed to the 616 version) that a lot of people (it’s more often men, but other people feel the same way) really don’t respond to. Which is made more fascinating by how strong the opposite reaction is in others.

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avengers: no road home 002

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Natasha: There’s a lot of people to whom I have done wrong in my life. This, I will admit. I very well may have— whatever this is— I very well may have it coming. But I do not care. I have done bad things, but I have done much good, too. Real good. I will not go out quietly. And I will not go out this way. I will go when I want to go. When I want to. I hope this you can understand. Matt: A little bit. Yes. Natasha: I am glad I’m here. Matthew— I do miss you. And I do love you. You know that. I miss us. I do. But I’m sorry, that’s not why I came.

I’ve posted this before, but it’s my favorite Natasha scene from Bendis’s Daredevil. I love Natasha’s simple non-apology for her past actions, and the counterpoint to Matt’s semi-assumption that she’s here because of him, because of them, because of what they used to be. The Widow is a four-issue arc fundamentally about the dangers of not moving on, which plays into Bendis’s larger narrative regarding Milla and Karen Page, the women and guilt Matt cannot let go. Natasha is offered as a contrast to this, the old girlfriend who won’t let an old relationship define her, who refuses to let her past be the sole arbiter of her future. And in doing that, in honestly moving on, she can revisit the past without it gnawing her up.

From Daredevil #63, by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev.

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This is page 3 from the first issue of season 2 of Jessica Jones. Jessica and Carol.

Jessica Jones Season 2 begins 1/16/19!

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yikes those new colors are bad

Dakota North by Tony Salmons from the cover of Dakota North #1 (1986) remastered by Marvel as the cover for the Dakota North: Design For Dying Trade Paperback.

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“Gilbert Sees The Future From 1986!”

Love & Rockets #17 (June 1986)

Gilbert Hernandez

Fantagraphics Books

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why his mouth doing that

Wolverine by Todd McFarlane from Spider-Man #8 (1990) remastered by Marvel as a variant cover for Return of Wolverine #1 (2018)

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Spider-Woman v1 #2 cover detail

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My variant cover for the new WEST COAST AVENGERS #1 (go grab it!!) + sketch +original cover from Hall and Breeding

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Phil Noto’s recreations of Gene Colan’s work in Daredevil vol. 5 #607.