Re: New Avengers #21: I Hate You Marvel. And Your Little Dog Too.

Eminence wrote:
On 13 Jul 2006 11:46:43 -0700, "Steven R. Stahl"
<synsidar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]

It really is amusing how some people will go from "If you don't
like it, don't read it" to "If you don't like it, don't say
you don't like it online." They seem truly unable to comprehend
that people can have varying reasons for reading material, and that
entertainment is not the *only* rational reason for reading fiction. Of
course, the readiest reason that comes to mind for demanding that
readers not comment negatively is that they hate being told that they
like trash, especially when the reasons that the fiction is trash are
detailed.

What about "I didn't know I didn't like it until I read it, and I
couldn't read it without buying it, so if wasn't until after I'd
bought it and read it that I realized that I didn't like it, so *now*
what do I do?", which seems to get overlooked all the time.

Then you don't know if that was a fluke experience until you've bought
and read the next issue. Sometimes you've got to go through a whole
story arc to figure it out.

Eminence

Note: This post has spoilers for Stephen King's CELL and IRON MAN
#10.

There are multiple reasons (?!) for Marvel's low editorial standards;
among them is the set of arguments that Quesada and others make: You
can't criticize a story in progress until it's done, since you
don't know how it'll turn out; after a story is done, there's no
point in criticizing it, since that's all in the past; and, of
course, you can't criticize a story you haven't read. To sum up:
They don't want to hear any criticism from readers. They only want
praise.

Another reason is, apparently, the Bendis factor. Whether he's
exerting some control over Marvel Editorial, or just has Quesada's
ear, he's bringing in terrible writers. On Ms. MARVEL, it's evident
that Brian Reed doesn't know the basics of storytelling. Ms. M.
encounters the Brood by accident. Cru doesn't have a stated reason
for channeling energy through cavorite (but Reed wants him to do it
because it makes a BOOM!) Warren Traveler doesn't have a solid reason
for anything he does or thinks; he hates Ms. M because he hates her,
and attacks her because he wants to attack her. The series actually has
less in the way of identifiable plots than YOUNG AVENGERS does, and
lacks YA's character sketches. Reed shouldn't be writing fiction.
The contrast between his material and the material from '70s and
'80s comics is so glaring that it appears Reed only got work because
Bendis wanted him to get it.

As I've stated before, one thing Bendis, Heinberg, and Reed (and
others?) have in common is their lack of concern about plot content.
One could write a good-sized paper contrasting their chosen style with
styles practiced from the '70s to 2003 or so, showing how much of the
current material is filler and how efficient narration is at providing
plot content.

It's not apparent until you've finished reading it, but the
material in Bendis's "Collective" storyline is almost entirely
filler, or wholly arbitrary plot developments. There was no particular
reason for the Collective to possess Pointer first, and Magneto later
(the possession of Magneto makes Pointer's mutant ability
irrelevant). The Collective, directed by Xorn, could have gone straight
to Genosha and possessed Magneto immediately. That would have wiped out
events in NA #16-#19 and led to an entirely different storyline: Xorn
versus the NAers, but that conflict was the only meaningful plot
content anyway. Everything else, including the other members (?) of the
Collective, merely filled space.

Plots can fail in other ways. In Stephen King's CELL, for instance,
the plot is junk-slick, yes, but. . It's superficially reasonable
to think "Cell phones are like PCs, the human brain is like a PC; a
worm could travel over wireless phone networks and reprogram human
brains," but the reasoning fails at the point where the human ear is
involved. Sound waves are pure analog; it's impossible to transmit
computerized data through the ear, as if it's a data input port. All
the unfortunate phone user would hear is ungodly loud white noise or
random screeches. So, CELL's plot fails, but King does a good job
initially at conveying horror (I read 100 pages or so).

In IRON MAN #10, the Knaufs apparently wanted to surprise the readers
by coming up with something other then Extremis for Stark's
vulnerability to manipulation, so they posited that, long ago, a device
was planted in his brain and sat there, undetected and unused, until
now. As plots go, that's obvious junk-the only way to rationalize
it is to posit that Kang put the device there, but that goes back to
"The Crossing"-and only slightly better than Heinberg's
nonexistent failsafe program in the Vision. It would have been better
to reason that, by "computerizing" and "digitizing" Stark's
body, Extremis made Stark more vulnerable to manipulation, but that
would have eliminated the Knaufs' surprise.

In terms of structure, there's really not much difference between
formula fiction, such as Fluke's, and serial comics. There are
subplots running through Fluke's novels, concerning Swensen, her
mother, sister, assistant, love life, etc. Chapter breaks are similar
to the end-of-issue breaks. A plot is resolved at the end of the novel,
as it is at the end of a story arc. The major difference now is the
amount of story content, since Fluke's novels have, figuratively,
tons more content relating to characterization and plots. If the art in
a Bendis-type comic corresponds to scene setting and descriptions, then
what the reader of a comic gets is a prose story without authorial
narrative, characterization, or thoughts. In short, the reader is
getting only a small percentage of the content in a normal story, and
is overpaying for that content.

SRS

.

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