Episode 322

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As characters become more and more popular, it only makes sense for publishers to feature them in more and more comic books. However, sometimes a character can become too popular and used too much. In this episode of Earth-2.net: The Show, Des and Mike discuss those characters that are overexposed! [ 1:04:34 || 29.9 MB ]

The above is from: http://www.earth-2.net/theshow/episodes/e2ts_322.mp3

[Missy]

When it comes to the album artwork for this episode, those 20 images of Wolverine are all from covers he'll appear on in September. As you listen to this episode, you'll learn that's only a fraction of the books he actually appears in during the same month.

[SuaveStar]

Posting as I listen.

Interesting, hope you mention the end of the bat family books, which made my wallet breathe a sigh of relief, then they got tripled. I enjoy the bat family books, in that he is my favourite hero, and I am an idiot.

Mike you saying you don't have any DC doesn't really shock me, as you are a self proclaimed Marvel Zombie, so your going to have a better viewpoint of Marvel characters than you would DC ones. Except Guy Gardner, who everyone knows how you love him.

I don't mean that in a bad way.

Also I do feel the Punisher should be used for mini series as even though I love the character, but not only is his character better suited to minis, but his storys always read better in trade and Garth Ennis Punisher Max, when he called back to things he set up in earlier storys for the big fight with Barracuda, I couldn't give a shit about the stuff set up earlier, like what happened three volumes earlier.

Also him meeting up with the Rhino and not killing him in War Journal, or facing the Skrull, I just didn't care about.

Des, Tomasi stepped down as editor of Green Lantern and started writing issues during the Sinestro Corps war.

Also, this.

Captain Atom is making a comeback as a back up in Action.

DC is trying to get characters back into peoples minds now with the co-features, to some extent, the fact they can make another $1 from it and throw it in the face of Marvel is just plain coincidence.

At the end of the day, for each person who says "That's a nice Batman/Spider-Man/Hulk/Wolverine story, I'll wait for the trade" or say "Right, that's one too many ooks of him, I need something else" their is one person who says "New Spider-man book! I'm there"

Remeber that instead of having the Superman dealing with living in New Krypton in Superman/Action they decided to make it a maxi series.

I'm trying new stuff as I am sick of having so many comics in my collection and am trying to slowly switch to trade, but till I fully do that, I am trying to get stuff that interests me, and not just "Well, it's from an indy publisher, I have to show love to the indys" if it's shit, it's shit, which is why I'm glad I've moved to DCBS which gives me the chance to check out new things and not feel like I've been conned. For instance, I am trying out Vertigo-Greek Street, and Filler bunny, hell I'm getting a superhero resources trade in August.

[MatthewMG]

The Legion actually had four books in the 90s:

Legion of Superheros - starring the original legion

Legionnaires - starring the teenaged clones of the original legion

L.E.G.I.O.N. - a prequel series featuring a mix of former and future Legionnaires, their ancestors and newer characters like Lobo and Garv

and Valor - another prequel starring Mon-El before he was trapped in the phantom zone

After Zero Hour Valor was cancelled and L.E.G.I.O.N. was relaunched as R.E.B.E.L.S., although you could still say the LSH had 4 books because Lobo was a L.E.G.I.O.N. spin-off (although by that logic the LSH had no titles, Superman had 12, 14 if you count New Gods and Mr. Miracle).

Re: Guy Gardner; Beau Smith was responsible for "toning down" Guy's personality. He also hated the morphing powers as much as Mike does. He wanted Guy to be a two fisted Doc Savage/Indiana Jones type character but his editors forced him to introduce those powers because the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers were popular.

[Koete]

If Captain Britain and MI13 had been titled "British Avengers," it wouldn't be cancelled right now,

[Missy]

Love the book as I do, yeah, the title didn't help things along.

First of all, I have to imagine that most Americans just don't care about Captain Britain, so his name being in the title was a misstep. Then they tossed in a (fictional) branch of the British Secret Service. Fans of James Bond, British TV shows or history know of MI-5 and 6, but everyone else is left wondering what MI-13 is.

So though I commend Marvel for trying something new and going with an unconventional title, really, it should have been called Excalibur.

[Stavros]

I'll just say that I think a characters exposure is justified by need. Norman Osbourne does need to be in a lot of places right now since he's the driving force behind a lot of change going on in the Marvel U. His face (or Iron Patriot) on covers doesn't just issues, it's justified in the narrative. For Dark Reign's poster boy for overexposure you have to look at Bullseye/Hawkeye. That guy is on cover after cover constantly, popping up in Deadpool or in his own mini or wherever. When a book advertises the Dark Avengers as guest stars he's there, but he's possibly the only Dark Avenger who can appear as a lone special guest on a book. You could make a case for Venom too, but lo and behold Venom's primary opponant and antagonist on that team is always Bullseye. Upcoming previews herald the start of the new Daredevil run with Andy Diggle, and the first person old hornhead is going to fight in Dark Reign is going to be Bullseye. He's always been that tough assassin opponant for Murdock but now it looks like inbetween casual murder-sprees he's also Norman Osbourne's personal hitman.

Also overexposed right now is Deadpool. Since Cable/Deadpool ended we've had storyline-long crossovers with Tbolts, Cable, X Force and Wolverine Origins. In addition to this he's got his own ongoing plus a third recent miniseries coming out in Merc With A Mouth following on from Suicide Kings and Games of Death. In addition he's now getting a second ongoing plus I spotted a couple more guest star appearances in other peoples books in the new Previews. I like Deadpool, I like him a lot, but I'm not buying all those miniseries and I'm definitly not buying two ongoings. Its cool that he's popular right now and I really like seeing Deadpool run rampant through the Marvel universe but no way can this character justify so many stories at once. I'll grab Merc with a mouth because Deadpool teaming up with his own Zombie head should be a laugh but I think this sort of cashing in will only hurt the uniqueness of 'Pool, especially if he's watered down by a lot of different writers.

With Batman it comes down to a couple of things. Firstly for as long as more people have been reading there have been a lot of Batman books. He's always had the two ongoings in Detective and Batman, and he's always been in a team book be it JLA or Outsiders or whatever. The important thing to note is that all the rest of it has always been optional. Nothing in Gotham County Line is going to make a dent in the ongoing Batman continuity. Trinity doesn't matter a jot in the long or short term. Everyone knows which books are important. Right now we have Dick Grayson as Batman in two ongoings, Batman and Batman & Robin. Detective has been turned over to Batwoman (watch those sales plummet to all time lows) and he's not on any teams at all right now, although I imagine that witin a year or so he'll be Justice Leaguing it up. There is obviously also the event mini to do with Blackest night but thats just part and parcel of what modern comics are. So the modern Batman is in two books and makes occasional guest appearances elsewhere, he's far from overexposed right now. The Kevin Smith miniseries, Confidential and Streets of Gotham are just peripheral titles, you can take them or leave them and they don't feel like Batman is being shoved down your throat.

[SuaveStar]

With Batman it comes down to a couple of things. Firstly for as long as more people have been reading there have been a lot of Batman books. He's always had the two ongoings in Detective and Batman, and he's always been in a team book be it JLA or Outsiders or whatever. The important thing to note is that all the rest of it has always been optional. Nothing in Gotham County Line is going to make a dent in the ongoing Batman continuity. Trinity doesn't matter a jot in the long or short term. Everyone knows which books are important. Right now we have Dick Grayson as Batman in two ongoings, Batman and Batman & Robin. Detective has been turned over to Batwoman (watch those sales plummet to all time lows) and he's not on any teams at all right now, although I imagine that witin a year or so he'll be Justice Leaguing it up. There is obviously also the event mini to do with Blackest night but thats just part and parcel of what modern comics are. So the modern Batman is in two books and makes occasional guest appearances elsewhere, he's far from overexposed right now. The Kevin Smith miniseries, Confidential and Streets of Gotham are just peripheral titles, you can take them or leave them and they don't feel like Batman is being shoved down your throat.

I totally agree with you Stavros.

Detective will probably bomb, because people will just look at the first issue and say "Is it Batman?" "No, it's Batwoman!" "Oh, I just wanted to read Batman, I'll get Batman and Robin then" Batman and Robin is also at the moment a twelve issue Maxi-Series, with an end to Morrisons run, but if the sales are good, DC can always change that. Confidential is not going to affect anything going on in Batman, Blackest night batman, will have little effect to Batman, he will end the same way he was before, except maybe Damian will respect him more.

Also, Stavros, no real long wait Suavestar provides links too much!

But I agree, that he isn't rammed down your throat, if you want to read Batman, you can, but you usually except for big storylines(The ressurection of Ra's Al Ghul) you have to buy stuff outside your usual list, or wait for the trade.

[Molly]

Stav is totally right about Deadpool, too. And I only fear it will get worse.

[Venneh]

...Wait. When did Deadpool get a second ongoing?

Agree with all of you, though. Marvel tends to overuse characters when they get popular.

[Stavros]

...Wait. When did Deadpool get a second ongoing?

The second they realised his miniseries were selling well. Of course that doesn't mean they are stopping the miniseries at all, they're just adding the second ongoing too.

[Guest]

My take on some of the questions raised.

In reference to why Spider-man, Superman, Batman don't have the same tired feeling as Wolverine, I think it really comes down to how the characters are written.

Wolverine is completely and utterly immortal. You can rip out his heart, brain, spine, and testicles at the same time. In five seconds, he's going to grow it all back and slash you in the face. He has no weakness, no emotional vulnerabilities, and at no point do you ever think he won't win. It's the same reason I abhor the character of James Bond. He's going to fuck the girl, shrug off any and all attempts to kill him, and get in a witty one liner before he walks away to do it again. He's not a character, he's a male power fantasy. The only character he ever had disappeared when Jean Grey died.

As for why Marvel overexposes characters more often, yes, they have a smaller selection of people to work with, but I actually like that. DC has too goddamn many. Pick up any mainstream DC book, and you are guaranteed to see at least a dozen random jobbers in costumes. Superheroes become a lot less special when there are a half million of them. It makes you wonder how the hell crime exists at all in the DCU, since they have enough guys to patrol just about every square mile of the country.

Where Marvel gets is wrong though, is that they always allow the big events to dictate nearly their entire catalogue. When Secret Invasion was going on, everyone except for Daredevil, Punisher, and Moon Knight were fighting Skrulls (which is part of the reason those were the only books I bought at the time). Now, everyone in every book has to talk about Norman Osbourne, just like Iron Man before him. Everyone in Marvel has to tell the same story, so it gets stale a lot faster. DC on the other hand, you had Final Crisis, but if you didn't want to see Darkseid and Mohawk Mary, you could pick up Superman to read a Brainiac story, or Batman to read R.I.P. If I want to read about Dark Reign, I'll pick up a Dark Reign tie-in, but if I buy an issue of, say, Black Panther, it's because I want to read a Black Panther story.

[SuaveStar]

Though I agree with you Dubs, the Punisher did fight the Skrulls.

He did it in War Journal. Which is collected in Punisher War Journal Vol 5: Secret Invasion. Don't buy it, it's shit.

DC does have too many characters, and that's a great thing about Marvel, but Marvel is a universe where what happens in New York to Iron-Man may effect Peter Parker, but with DC, you can have Black Lightning fight crime in Metropolis and Superman wouldn't notice.

[Guest]

War Journal sucked through about 80% of its run, so I never bought it.

[SuaveStar]

War Journal sucked through about 80% of its run, so I never bought it.

I wished I'd done the same.

[Koete]

I only read the first six issues, but issue 4 was fantastic.

[Sn4tcH]

Kinda off topic, what did you guys think of the Bruce Jones run on Hulk? That happened after The End I believe, and I think it's really the best way to finish off the Jekyll and Hyde attributes of Hulk.

Otherwise Hulk has turned into Conan the Barbarian, which is ironic because all the Hulk fans I know were also Conan fans in the past...

[Molly]

I like Conan/Space Badass Hulk. Planet Hulk was the best use of him in YEARS.

[Stavros]

I like Conan/Space Badass Hulk. Planet Hulk was the best use of him in YEARS.

Yeah, I was really annoyed when the Loeb run completely ruined everything Planet Hulk achieved in developing the character of the Hulk.

[Koete]

Yeah, I was really annoyed when the Loeb run completely ruined the Hulk, Ultimates, and Wolverine.

Fixed.

[Stavros]

Yeah, I was really annoyed when the Loeb run completely ruined the Hulk, Ultimates, and Wolverine.

Fixed.

Tru dat.

I've just finished reading Paradise X which the Wolverine run was based on (the idea that all dog/cat/bear type heroes are actually descendants of ancient races and not mutants or humans) and so whilst I can't blame Loeb for the initial idea I can piss all over him for introducing such a f'n STUPID concept into Marvel continuity. You can't say Wolverine isn't a mutant! There are a million examples of him being confirmed as one throughout his history, it violates so much continuity in the name of a really really STUPID plot twist.

Loeb needs to go back to what he was doing ten years ago. I mean, I get that he likes a high character count to boost sales and everything but the last time that genuinely worked out for him was Hush, and that was because it was a 12 issue coherent detective story that needed a lot of suspects and red herrings. I can scarcely believe its the same guy doing all this modern shite.

I don't even know what the event that killed Ultimate Spidey was. I tried reading it and gave up, I didn't care. Its almost better this way, the mystery of it seen from the common man's perspective makes it better, since Peter and Co wouldn't know what was really going on anyway.

[Koete]

Loeb needs to go back to what he was doing ten years ago. I mean, I get that he likes to get paired with popular artists that are most likely responsible for the high sales of his books, but the last time that genuinely worked out for him was Ultimatum.

Fixed.

I like this game.

[Dread]

Me too. And I'm just a spectator!

[Stavros]

Loeb needs to go back to what he was doing ten years ago. I mean, I get that he likes to get paired with popular artists that are most likely responsible for the high sales of his books, but the last time that genuinely worked out for him was Hush.

Fixed.

I like this game.

Refixed. Seriously, thats the last thing I read by Loeb I consider to be any good.

[Koete]

I think there's only one thing left to say on the subject of Jeph Loeb.