Why The Human Torch Didn't Matter

By now, everyone and their ancient ancestor knows about the death of Johnny Storm, the member of the Fantastic Four known as The Human Torch. If not, you obviously have not read an online comicbook article since late last year. And if that's the case, boy did you pick the wrong blog to choose for your first read.

Personally, I feel his death was empty. Like they killed off that one Skrull on the left of that one panel in that comic. "So?"

Storm's connections within the Marvel U are only within the Fantastic Four. He's a brother, a brother-in-law, uncle and buddy. I suppose he has hung around with Spider-Man a few times, too. But what did his death change?

It changed the FF. It changed... Hmm... It changed that... The people it affected...

Nope, that's it. It changed the Fantastic Four. It affected the object of his taunts and jabs and the two people he relied upon the most.

What if Thing had died? There would have been fallout in a ton of books. New Avengers losing a teammate, the FF losing the brawn, a dozen assorted Marvel characters would have lost a poker buddy, Alicia Masters would have felt bad, Dr Doom would have respected the fact Thing had lived...

What if The Invisible Woman had died? The fallout would have been less noticible, but at least Sue appeared in more than one book over the past 24 months. Storylines revolved around her, she created a charity, she banded together with She-Hulk, Valkerie and others to help people, she's the heart of any team she's part of...

What if Mr Fantastic had died? The science community would have gone nuts. Reed's lab would have been raided. Dr Doom, The Wingless Wizard, The Mad Thinker and others would have gone to war for the chance to plunder Richard's hidden treasures, killing thousands in a battle over Manhattan...

So, as Johnny died? The Fantastic Four have become the Future Foundation and recruited Spider-Man. People were sad for an issue of The Fantastic Four. He had no connections outside of that book.

Lyja, his estranged Skrull wife was left in the Negative Zone I believe, thus unable to mourn him. Not that she would have done so in a non-FF comic. He had no other friends. He did have a child with a normal human, who jumped into the time-stream in a done-in-one story, but again that's a solely FF story.

It's not like Secret Avengers is going to pause for a moment so Steve Rogers can mention "I don't want to lose anyone like the FF lost Johnny Storm...". Storm didn't play poker with Rogers like Ben Grimm. Storm wasn't a big brain like Reed Richards. Storm didn't have empathy like Sue Richards.

When all is said and done - The Death Of The Human Torch may have ended a comic that was going almost-continuously since 1961, but it doesn't actually matter.

Cartoons

It may just be my imagination, but cartoons are not like the ones that were around when I was growing up.

I don't just mean the styles or the fact they're not ALL out to shill products to the masses.

Tom & Jerry, for instance.

What I grew up with: Tom constantly trying to eat or poison Jerry or another cute animal. Jerry constantly beating the crap out of Tom, getting him caught in presses/grills/waffle-irons.

Now: Tom and Jerry have more of a rivalry going. One-upmanship, chasing that's stopped by a third-party, no weapons or poisons involved.

The changes aren't major, but they're there. A better example though is...

Scooby-Doo

What I grew up with: Scooby and the gang finding people in masks or the odd actual monster (ignoring the movies which were crawling with Classic Monsters). Bank robbers, creepy old people, swamps...

Now: Scooby and the gang still encounter fake monsters and threats, but in just two episodes of Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc, they encountered Cthulu and a neighbourhood of parents willing to abandon their demoniacally-possessed children and move away from the town. Also, Velma has to contend with playing second-fiddle to Shaggy's friendship with Scooby and Daphne is constantly trying to get Freddy in secluded places akin to a sexual predator.

As an adult, Mystery Inc. is hilarious, but as a parent it makes me wonder what my kids think of it.

It's not like cartoons back in the 80's and 90's were more straightforward though.

The main good-guy in Transformers was beaten to death in a feature-length movie.

In Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles, they showed that the best way to deal with enemies is to throw them into a hellish dimensional limbo. And stupidity = evil.

In Gargoyles, the rich are so damned evil. Or aliens, as shown in Biker Mice From Mars.

In the 90's, superhero cartoons were full of lasers. Nobody owned metal ammunition. Cartoons made recently, there are totally guns. Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes has guns, for instance.

Taking another example from Avengers - in that, the evil organization HYDRA was behind World War 2. A group led by Germans and, at least in the present, populated by Americans amongst other nationalities.

What will Little Billy say when WW2 comes up in history class? He knows Captain America is fictional as he's a character in and on hundreds of things. There's no HYDRA lunchbox though. Will he think it strange that Teacher is saying the Nazi's started the war, so many decades ago, when his primary information source - television - showed that it was HYDRA?

I'm probably over-thinking it - any kid who believes HYDRA is real, will think Captain America is, too. Right?

How Frequent Should Comics Be?

52, Countdown, Trinity, Brightest Day, Amazing Spider-Man - over the past 5 years these titles have have all come out more than once a month.

The thing is do we want them so often? Sure, 52 was an 'exercise in seeing if it could be done', so they said. It would explain why Countdown (To Final Crisis) was so bad. They wanted to capitalise on the fact 52 was successful, by making another weekly story, but they didn't have a thorough idea of what it should entail. Trinity was better, but that's probably because they knew they had done such a poor job with Countdown.

Brightest Day is bi-weekly, probably thanks to the previous three years being drowned by weekly stories. I just remembered that I forgot to include Wednesday Comics in this - a newspaper-like comic that I didn't actually bother reading.

I'm certain that the fact DC had so much commercial success with their weekly comics, Marvel decided to try it out. Thankfully it's been limited to one title - Amazing Spider-Man. It ran at three issues per month until this past October, and is currently at 2 issues per month. It's had a longer run (101 issues) than the weekly comics had (they ran for 52 issues each), but it was more hit-or-miss as it had a rotating band of creators.

But do we want comics sooner? Is weekly too much? I used to always be chomping at the bit for a new issue of whatever was great (X-Factor), but now I wonder if I'd grow sick of it. Part of the fun of comics is wondering what will happen after the cliffhanger. Will the hero be injured? Will someone rescue them? Time portal? Dimensional rift? Alien cyborg? Einstein's brain in a chimp's body?

If it's a weekly fix, it removes some of the suspense. Unless you follow the solicits, each minor hero could be killed in their next appearance. Heck, Ms Marvel was appearing in New Avengers even though she'd been dead for three issues of her own title, so even that isn't set in stone.

So - do you prefer it all in one hit like a graphic novel? Or do you like the slow torment of a monthly/bi-monthly/yearly (Spawn) title?

New Host, Same Old Symbiote

So it was announced that the main symbiotes of Marvel would be getting new hosts - I can live with that. The new Carnage will be a woman and the new Venom will work for the Government.

This is the cover to Carnage #2 and he still looks pretty male... Perhaps that will change at the end of the mini - wouldn't want to give away too many details on a cover. Like boob-size - It might be Power Girl!

No, it wouldn't...

But I'm glad Carnage stayed away for a long time, but is now coming back with a new host. Sentry ripped him apart in space, in New Avengers Volume 1 #1 - New Avengers is now on Volume 2. So he's been gone for long enough, and Cletus' death has stuck - if Cletus was the host at the time... It was never discussed, though the symbiote did seem to have a host at the time.

As for Venom - Mac Gargan is being removed as the host and being returned to villain duty as Scorpion. Strange to make a step-back, but someone clearly has plans. And the fact Venom will be an ongoing written by Rick Remender is a good sign.

Venom as a government agent has been done before. A couple of times. But so has the fact 'the symbiote is bonded to the host at a cellular level - so they can NEVER BE SEPARATED AGAIN.' That's the trouble when your ongoing series is actually a load of miniseries run back-to-back over a period of several years... People don't bother to read them all.

Making him a government black-ops agent is fine with me. The host is usually unwilling and resentful - but if you're changing for someone who WANTS to work for the government...

Originally I thought the new host would be Mr Negative. I still think there's a chance of that. Most people's money is on Flash Thompson though. He's an army-man, so the chance to work for his country - whilst kitted out like his favourite superhero - will appeal and make him want to stick at it, no matter what the symbiote says. And if Mac Gargan is any indication, the symbiote talks incessantly. Probably a habit it picked up from Peter Parker...

More On Character Deaths

After my post yesterday, I was asked in the comments about the death of Cable, which also made me remember that another Marvel character was killed off recently.

So, Loki and Cable have both kicked it recently. Both in crossovers, in fact.

The thing is, neither of them are dead.

Loki had a Siege one-shot where he bought off Hela so he would never die - the next month he 'died' in a tearful scene with his step brother Thor. Also, it seems people didn't read that one-shot, as more than one person thinks Loki is dead.

Cable 'died' in the finale of Second Coming whilst holding a time-portal open, covered in the Techno-Organic virus which had threatened to consume him since birth. When the portal snapped shut, his arm was left out of the portal, severing it and giving Hope a great trophy for her wall.

The problem with this is the fact that Cable is a time traveller. If he can't survive being thrown willy-nilly through time via an out of control time portal, nobody can. Sure, he's approaching (if not over) 60 years old by now, but he's a a slippery one. If X-Force don't find him before 2012, I'll be very surprised - he banded the original X-Force together, which is why he joined forces with the most recent iteration twice.

"But Ace, what about the T.O. virus you mentioned?" you may ask! It was probably all contained in his arm. You know, despite it being a different arm from his original, and actually bereft of the T.O. virus, as per Cable & Deadpool... I forget the issue number, but it was after Deadpool had lobotomised him and found a techno-organic alien lifeform that he used to restart Cable's brain.

I'll look it up.

Character Deaths

I've been having a lot of thoughts about comicbook character deaths recently. There shouldn't be any spoilers as all of the comics I'll be talking about are at least 3 months old - these things are in the Back Issue Bins.

Also, I want to get the year started how I mean to go on.

But on this topic, it seems Marvel is going to start the year as they mean to go on, too!

The Fantastic Four will lose a member in the first issue of Fantastic Four of 2011. Which will also be the FINAL issue of Fantastic Four. Ever. A perfect finish to it's 50-year run.

It's unknown (until the moment a nerd reads the issue and gets online) who will die and how, but one thing is for certain:

They will be dead for at least a couple of years. They're cancelling the book - bringing them back before that would make Marvel look predictable and boring.

Personally, I think it will be Johnny Storm - the Human Torch. He hasn't had a death that I know about, even in most alternate dimensions. He just gets upgraded in power level... Apart from the fake-out Death Of The Invisible Woman from the previous creative team, the last character to die was Ben Grimm - The Thing. He was brought back by the same creative team, a handful of issues later, so his death and resurrection were obviously planned from the get go. Reed Richards has 'died' several times, as has Sue Richards, but not Johnny! Why the massive love? He does nothing!

Apart from the final 'Three' arc, I highly recommend the entire of Hickman's run as it really is fantastic.

After that, over in the Ultimate Universe, Spider-Man is going to die!

Apparently.

I find it hard to believe that this storyline (going in issue 153 of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man and following on into the next issue and Ultimate Avengers vs New Ultimates) will end in Spider-Man's death. The book began in 2000 (then named only Ultimate Spider-Man) and launched the entire Ultimate line!

Of course, the main thing everyone knows about the Ultimate line is the amount of delay's it's been subject to over the years... Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk took a long time to come out, Ultimates volume 1 & 2 were subject to delays...

So perhaps the 'Biggest shake-up to ever hit the Ultimate U' will be a new Senior Editor, who demands books hit their shelf date... If we've learnt anything from Marvel-616 (main universe), it's that main characters don't die less than 200 issues in. So it might be Chameleon, Kaine (did he survive the Clone Saga...?), Kitty, Gwen (again)... Or he'll just hang up his costume - or dump it in that trash can in that alleyway like Amazing Spider-Man did so many decades ago. They say "We want to do something different", but that's not what they give us... How many Original Characters are there in Ultimate Marvel?

But that's a subject for another post.

Back on the subject of character deaths.

There were a few deaths during the X-Men crossover Second Coming. Kurt Wagner, Nightcrawler, was the only major one - faceless Atlanteans and mutants who had only ever been in 6 comics didn't even get a decent death scene. It seems that Nightcrawler is staying dead, but it also seemed like Collosus would stay dead too. Both deaths had meaning in the context of the story - both were from non-English speaking countries. When's the last time an American or British character's death had a decent cause behind it? Foreigners are great, simply.

But with Collosus, of course he didn't stay dead. He was brought back when shock level would be high enough. This up-coming Age Of X cross-over could be an excuse to bring back Kurt, I suppose... It would be a shock. In so much as Hawkeye's resurrection at the hands of Scarlet Witch post-House Of M was a shock.

Captain America and Batman both 'died' about the same time, back in 2009. They were both brought back in a mini-series (one with tie-ins galore, one without) to find someone else in their place - only to decide to take their job up to the next level. These were, if you forgive the videogame lingo, scripted deaths. They had to die at a certain point in a certain story. It wasn't something that came out of the blue, it wasn't something they just decided to do for a sales boost. It was a part of a bigger storyline crafted to tell the tale of a character.

Are these better than being killed off and brought back a few months later? Does it make a difference if it's a major character? Judging by the press on the upcoming Fantastic Four death, it matters a lot.

If the death cancels the book, it's pretty major. Superman, Batman, Fantastic Four - death cancels the book. Well, in the first two cases it was short-term pauses... But all three were reported by the news media.

The only proviso is if the character is too minor. Not something that can be classed as a national institution? No press coverage. Even characters who have been around for decades don't always get press when they die. Thor, for instance, died and took his comic with him for something like 4 years! That's a lasting death. Of course he had to come back, if only to wash out the acrid taste of Clor from fan's mouths...

Another death that lasted, meant something and almost took a book with it, was Hal Jordan. Back when he was Parallax. If he had been the star of Green Lantern, the book may have ended. He was dead for a good long time, before being brought back for no reason...

So - should characters die and stay dead? Wait a while before coming back (like villains are kind enough to do)? If characters stay dead - how will it affect shipping times? Thinking up new characters every single arc will cause hassle.

X-Force Special: Ain't No Dog

What's cool about X-Force Special: Aint No Dog?



A fly flying upwards?


It soon becomes apparent that this is a Wolverine story currently in progress, so to speak. A guy hanging from a chain with dead people around. Fairly normal for a Wolverine story...


I like how Logan is portrayed as quite, quite mad. The lengths he'll go to just to get his kicks... Cooler than the kids at school with their smoking.


The next cool bit is in the 'flashback' where Cyclops and Wolverine have a name-calling match. Despite Jean Grey being dead currently, they still dislike each other.


Next comes the sudden Mob, all baying for blood and quite possibly every other bodily fluid. Mobs are always cool.


Then, Wolverine is just hanging around quite unbothered by the masses of people below him. Because he's Wolverine.


And mobs are solved by doing something cool, for instance:


As so:


That's it for story one of the "Special", next up is a solo Warpath story. It's set-up nicely showing him having just mutilated a bunch of Purifiers, as seems to be X-Force's MO currently.


For some reason Warpath then goes hunting for a bear. He even states he can't be bothered to cook it and no mention is made of it causing anyone trouble. It's cool though, because he's fighting a BEAR!


But what is the coolest part of this comicbook?


The promise of more gory issues of X-Force, of course!

Though my main problem with this comic is the fact it actually did nothing more than give Warpath a tiny bit more character. And show that there are 5,000 Purifiers to every 3 Roman Catholics...