#and then like 'um no I don't want a 4/10 to interfere with our time together <3'< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[llycaons]

saw a fic like 'xie lian is watching hua cheng tie up he xuan...as an art piece just for him'. and I was like dying laughing. why the hell is he xuan in the middle of hl's sex antics. does he owe hc THAT much money? I was just imagining him like hanging there completely dead-eyed listening to them being completely insufferable and zoning out 😭 god I hope they didn't keep him too long

[davidmann95]

So. Secret Empire. I read it and it's just a sickening mess. Everything happening is just in service of making the Big Event Happen (like civil war 2, bluh) and the only reason I'm really excited for this is so that we can just purge nazi-cap from our collective consciousness once this is over. I don't even have a question! I'm just venting about this shitty event! Fuck nick spencer, that guy is a moron with no respect for where cap CAME from. "Oh he was a nazi the whole time" eat SHIT SPENCER

poorsimon said:Do you think there is a slight possibility that we’ll get a fantastic four book in 2017 to celebrate jack kirbys centenary? Marvel is a hot mess right now with that boring fascist captain America and every series that I was enjoying is either ending in the next couple of months or crossover events are ruining them, looks like marvel is in the same place dc was during the new 52 era

Anonymous said:Thoughts on Dark Matter/Generations/Secret Empire? Specifically for secret Empire, Cap is on of my favorite heroes and I feel like this fundamentally breaks him in a really shitty way. Not to say we won’t get good stories with him in the future, but it’s sort of like Dr. Light where every time he shows up you can’t help but think of identity crisis.

There’s been a bit of a theme to my asks the last couple days.

So yeah. Spoilers ahead, obviously: in the midst of an all-out assault on the nation and world, just as it seemed everyone would make it through like always to see another day, America was betrayed by its systems and subverted from within, culminating in an overt fascist seizing of the White House. Don’t worry though, this week Marvel’s saying it isn’t political.

The cake-topper being that as it turns out via flashback, Nazi Cap (and in response to the inevitable um, actually’s: Hydra’s seminal story under Steranko showed their leader as a character created by Stan and Jack as a Nazi, pretty much all explicit Hydra-isn’t-Nazis material are retcons by Spencer for this arc, “Hail Hydra” is an obvious analogue for another fascist chant, the ‘real Hydra’ inner circle includes Nazis and Neo-Nazis, and this Cap’s vision for America includes white children hunting black children in the street. He’s a fuckin’ Nazi) isn’t a construct of the cosmic cube, but in fact the real Steve Rogers: the Axis won World War II, but the Allies used a cosmic cube to create a fake history where Rogers was on their side and they won the war - gotta ask why they didn’t deal with the Holocaust too - with the real guy now reactivated and fulfilling his true mission. Obviously, this not only delegitimizes every story of a character created by a pair of Jewish-Americans specifically to punch Hitler right in the fucking face, but does it by stating that in the natural course of things, the Master Race of course overtakes the Earth with their sheer superiority, with the very concept of the people they would annihilate having a chance at hope or justice or freedom being a lie currently in the process of getting torn down.

This is a little bit touchy.

There’s obvious franchising reasons for this: Chris Evans has made clear he isn’t sticking around for long if at all after Avengers 4, while as of that movie Anthony Mackie will still have at least 3 films in his contract, so it’s in their interests to set Sam Wilson up in the comics as Captain America to match. Problem is, they started the process before a movie about Steve Rogers, so they had to bring him back, and now have to figure out a way to get him out of the picture for a longer period than simply old age or death. And if you want to get him out of the running for the title of One True Captain America, not only making him a Nazi, and retroactively always a Nazi at that, but classifying literally every non-Nazi Captain America story essentially in-universe fanfic? That’ll get him off the board for awhile. It’s ruinously terrible, but also quick and easy, same as it was quick and easy to move Captain Marvel and once upon a time Iron Man into the spotlight in time for their movies by making them fascists. You’ll have to ask Marvel why fascism is their go-to shocking character twist, though.

I think the source point of the issues here stems from something simple I mentioned recently: I don’t think either of the Big Two necessarily believe there’s going to be a comic book industry in 20 years, or even necessarily 10, so there’s no realreason to attempt anything other than drawing as much blood from the stone asthey possibly can. Clearly the creators are trying their best,middle-management I’m sure have long-term plans, and I doubt the powers-that-bewant it to fail. But sales have beendropping for years, and neither of them have demonstrated any plan of substancewhatsoever to reverse that trend. They both had their moments of attempting toright the ship, and both fell through – the original Marvel NOW! and itsimmediate follow-ups were major successes, but half their biggest writers leftin the wake of Secret Wars and sothey reverted to type with endless editorial interference and bullshitcrossovers, while DC’s attempt at innovation with DCYou was scattershot at best,clearly born less of a philosophy of “let’s let our best talents try bold newthings!” nearly so much as “let’s do weird new things that might grab headlines”. 

Viewed in that light, many of their recent decisions startto make sense; after the New 52 trying to draw in 90s fanboys and maybe a couple teenagers fell through, DC’s explicitly banking on rolling back the clock and appealingto the core fanbase with Rebirthwhile simultaneously betting everything on the shock value of incorporating Watchmen, while Marvel has fallen backon its regular event-and-relaunch tactics, and if the “Make Mine Marvel” rumorsare true, they’ll soon be returning to a predominately white and male cast of headlinerswith a handful of exceptions (hence why escape hatches were built into almostall of their recent successor characters – Mjolner was prophesied to return tothe Odinson before the first issue of Jane Foster’s book, Tony Stark is only instasis, the Ultimate Universe may or may not be waiting out there for Miles andhis cast to return, etc.) They don’t think there’s a new audience to be won, orat minimum they clearly haven’t given any thought to the kind of formatting,publication, narrative or marketing breakthroughs that might let them reachthat wider audience (probably part of why they’re so petrified of staying inretailers’ good graces – digital of the way of the future, but they don’tbelieve they’re going to see that future, therefore they’re sticking toappealing to the base while they can), and so naturally they’re going to thetried-and-true methods of drawing cash out of the existing audience until itall falls apart, by which time everyone currently at the top will have new jobsor be retired.

So that Marvel in particular has been overly contemptuous ofprogressive elements of their fanbase isn’t shocking. I doubt their leadershipof middle-aged guys have any particular sympathy for their viewpoint, and if they don’tsee them as a potential pathway to saving the industry either, then it’s not asurprise they clearly see them as a gaggle of mercurial, industry-ignorantwhiners, to be discarded once the half-hearted measures at winning them overaren’t enough. And if they’ve decided they don’t give a shit about progressiveideals in the slightest beyond what’s necessary to avoid mainstream attentionon their fuck-ups, and they don’t seem to be trying to bring about a workablemodel for the industry – especially given that they’re at this pointunquestionably the secondary caretakers of these characters compared to TV andmovies, so these franchises can go on without them – and they’re convinced shock value stunts andevents are the only way to draw in dollars while they can, then yeah. Sure. Whywouldn’t they make Captain America a Nazi? To think that’s a bad idea wouldrequire meaningfully giving a shit about their own product, or at least thinking thatanyone else will in a few years.

As for the Fantastic Four, that’s probably still in Fox’s hands, but I really do hope Al Ewing gets a crack at them someday.