I should really do a blog update.

But I'm not gonna. This last couple of weeks have left me drained and fragile. I am a delicate, five hundred and seventy pound flower.




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OK, maybe a quick note on a comic thing...

"Only one resurrection ever impressed anyone."

So said Happy Harbor's Jay Bardyla, in response to the revelation that the Major Announcement Marvel'd promised regarding the mysterious miniseries REBORN was that it would feature the return of Steve Rogers.

I'm sure the story will be good. Brubaker's the guy who "killed" Captain America, and he's the guy who's bringing him back, and I'm assuming he's not having his arm twisted too hard to do so Brubaker brought Bucky back and made it work; Captain America's been easily the most consistent quality read produced by either of the Big Two for ages now. The writer obviously has a strong vision for the story he wants to tell and the art teams, aided by some skillful (if subdued) colouring, have provided a pretty much seamless story on the visual end of things. It's reasonable to expect more of the same with Reborn, and that's not a bad thing at all in this case.

Personally, I think Marvel would be better served by preserving their first really successful legacy superhero story rather than restoring the 70-year old status quo, but that's me--I don't have an upcoming movie to promote. And I'm kind of scratching my head as to how they ever thought bringing back a character killed a couple years ago would make any kind of major media splash. But never mind that.

The biggest problem with the return of Steve Rogers, I mean, the one massive issue, the elephant in the room that I'm sure keeps Joe Quesada awake at night is that, when push comes to shove, I prefer the Fantastic Four to Captain America. There are all sorts of reasons for that--my not being American is certainly a factor--but I don't really feel like going into them. Suffice it to say that, after Doctor Strange, my next favourite Marvel property is the FF.

So I was actually quite happy a year or three ago when the new creative team of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch was announced for the title. Not because I'm a huge fan of the creative team, but because I figured having the guys who did the first two Ultimates series was a surefire way to raise the profile of The World's Greatest Comic Magazine. I haven't really looked at the sales numbers, but I gather from skimming Paul O'Brien's comments at Publisher Weekly's The Beat that, for whatever reason, they haven't been as awesome as one might have expected/hoped.

Which will happen from time to time. It may be that the FF is a concept whose time is past, that the people who aren't reading it are disinclined to do so for pretty much the same reasons I like the concept. What struck me as odd, though, was this comment from Joe Quesada:

"You try to use (Bryan Hitch) for the biggest projects possible. We try to do that with our very best talents. So when Ed had the idea of "Reborn" and we knew it was going to be a big deal and wanted to get the most out of it, we wanted to use ... Hitch. So it was literally that simple. You want to bring your A-Team for your A-Story and have them bring their A-Game."

Which is well and good for Reborn, but when that statement is made in response to a question that at least in part was made regarding pulling Hitch off the end of Millar's Fantastic Four run...well, maybe it's just me, but couldn't that be read to imply that The Fantastic Four, the book that started the Marvel Age of Comics, either isn't considered a priority for the company, or that Millar and Hitch are delivering less than their best work on the project?

I dunno. Just struck me as weird comment coming from the Editor in Chief.

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