The Letters Page

POSTED BY Alex Zalben, 28 November 2007

As we've mentioned before, there's way too much mail for us to answer in the shows, so we'll be answering some of it right here on the blog. As always, thanks for sending in your questions, and please keep shooting them over to tips@pulpsecret.com, call them in to 888-841-7549, or post a video response on YouTube!

---

Will from Montreal wishes:

This is a question which I really wish someone could answer me and I'm hoping you will be the answer to my prayers. Remember Morrison's run on X-Men ending with Xorn's death? It was revealed later that he was not Magneto but rather simply Xorn. Now during the post House of M New Avengers arc, called the Collective, a collection of sentient mutant power finds Magneto and declares itself as Xorn, the same Xorn that copied Magneto (since there are actually two). My question is how could Xorn be with this sentient mutant power if he died a while back?

Oh man, you're killing me. Xorn was a complicated, brilliant plot device created by Morrison that got infected with Morrison-itis. I've talked about this before, but I feel like Morrison comes out with a ton of ideas, and then, as soon as another author comes on his title, they jettison everything. Everybody in the industry recognizes that Morrison is an idea factory, and most of the time they use him that way. Not to say every idea he has is golden, but why, if you're going to let him reinvent your properties, does everybody then un-invent them? It's infinitely frustrating. So back to Xorn... Xorn's whole purpose was to be Magneto. That was it. Every plot point involving Xorn was to mislead you into thinking he was an actual character, while secretly seeding clues to Magneto's return. Too often, Magneto has been used as a repetitive arch-baddie, and this was Morrison's way of giving Magneto an entirely new, original, and complex plan that led up to a fabulous reveal. And then, everybody else f-ed it up. Bendis, as Bendis usually does, tried to fix the continuity errors of having a character that doesn't actually exist, exist, by explaining that Xorn was an body-less entity that copied the image of Magneto. So that's how he died, and then come back. Then, The Sentry threw him into the sun (which is kind of The Sentry's default, huh?) so no more Xorn, right? That's the idea. Except. The Collective, which housed Xorn, still lives on in Michael Pointer, over in Omega Flight. I THINK Marvel has learned their lesson, and won't ever mention Xorn again. But you just know somebody is going to. Wow, this question gave me a headache.

---

Dave debates:

What do you think of the way some covers are in no way representative of what’s actually happening in the issue and/or plot. I really began to notice this problem when the New Avengers covers kept featuring Sentry and Ronin with the other Avengers even though they weren’t in the issue. It was bad enough the new team as a whole didn’t make it past a few issues but to be inaccurate about the covers just pushed it over the edge. I don’t believe it is necessary for Marvel to conduct business in this sort of dishonest manner. Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about:

New Avengers #35: This one is just the pits because I thought it is a really cool cover design, I even had the wallpaper on my desktop for about month. Well not only is Wolverine (taken over by a symbiote) not in this issue he’s not even in that tiny half page picture at the end.

Punisher: War Journal # 12: The Hulk is not even in the issue, let alone fights the Punisher. Just another way for Marvel to get people to by associate comics to big events

Ultimate Power # 6: I like hot chicks as much as the next guy but when they’re being used to sell me something I feel like my intelligence is being insulted. Like those technology magazines that have models holding an mp3 player that’s no bigger then a credit card. This is why I never by comics like Red Sonja and Witchblade. All it does is degrade the value of a decent plot.

Amazing Spiderman #543: Based on spidermans body language what does this cover tell you ? Aunt May is dead. Is that the case, of course not. Peter is wearing doctors clothes covering up an alive May to get her out of the hospital without being noticed.

Amazing Spiderman #511: An old one, but one that stuck in mind for a while. Up to part three Sins Past was shaping up to be a pretty good story before the whole thing went south, but that’s neither here nor there. First of all why would the daughter of Gwen look exactly like her mother and be wearing the exact style of head band, she wouldn’t because that just doesn’t happen. Second, the color scheme of the front cover is totally misleading. The red head band and green jacket indicates that this is actually Gwen Stacy. Wrong, she’s wearing a black jump suit and black head band, hell even the mask is the wrong color. You could use the argument that that is precisely what Peter thought, well that’s just a cop out. It wasn’t Gwen and it shouldn’t been made to look like that.

I can understand covers being an illustrative way of showing what’s going happen in an issue, but to go so far as to be misleading to just basically lying about what will be featured in the comic is just wrong. And now we’re having these all of these zombie covers because they “look cool”, which is beside the point. But obviously that seems to be the priority, to make cool looking covers to get people to by comics. However I don’t understand why Marvel seems to think that coolness and relevance are mutually exclusive. They can be both and as a result are not irritating. People argue that comics have always been like that but I disagree, its never been as bad as its starting to get in recent years.

It's an interesting question, and for me at least, comes down to individual issues and covers. For example, I think it makes sense to have general pose covers on all the Ultimate line of books. These are supposed to be accessible no matter what (we won't debate whether that's true anymore), so make 'em generic. For individual titles, if there's a really good piece of art (think of Wolverine #1, for example), awesome, if not, I could take it or leave it. Now, as for the issue of things on the front not describing what's inside... I'd rather have less than more. Couple of examples: Wolverine #50, with Wolvie holding Sabretooth's severed head. Which was, you know, the climax of the book. Or the most recent issue of Thor, which featured the silhouettes of the Warriors Three (again, a climax of the book). I'd rather not know that from the cover. The other thing I'd say, looking over your examples is, no offense, I think you're getting picky. I agree with you about the New Avengers cover, but I would bet that was the original story, and then based on the Mighty Avengers shipping schedule, the main story was changed. For Punisher: War Journal, it was the Hulk shadowing over the whole thing, so that kind of makes sense... His influence is felt throughout the book. Ultimate Power... I mean, it's Greg Land. What did you expect? Amazing, they're, of course, trying to fake you out. They've been doing that with all these covers. And the last one, I will totally agree with you that there's no reason Gwen's daughter would wear the same exact head-band, but again... They're trying to get you to buy the comic. Hence the fake-out.

---

Alex from Chicago asks:

So... Finding out that Black Bolt is a skrull; do you think he is alive, dead, or held is a prisoner of the Skrulls? Also back in Issue #2 of Illuminati every one was given a gauntlet gem to have. Do the Skrulls have Black Bolt's gem, and do you think the Skrulls will try to get all the other gems too?

1) I absolutely do think Black Bolt is alive, and held prisoner by the Skrulls since issue #2. However, we're not gonna find that out until issue #6 of Secret Invasion or so (this is a fact, not a guess); 2) If they do play out the gem thing, I absolutely think the Skrulls have Black Bolts gem, which, as a reminder, was the Space Gem. Although... Wouldn't it be interesting if the Black Bolt Skrull had switched his Space Gem for Iron Man's Reality Gem? You know, the one that can change reality? Hey, you guys remember in House of M how the Scarlet Witch suddenly had the power to transform reality, which she'd never had before? Weird, right? Anyway, probably unrelated.

---

Damian deliberates:

Pete is totally the best member of your little crew. More Pete, less nerds.

Yup, that's what our comic book review show needs. More jocks. Not that Pete is a jock. Anyway, I assume you're talking about Justin, he's a TOTAL nerd.

---

Eric from Emporia, Kansas elucidates:

Long time listener, first time caller. I was just wondering what online comics you guys read (if any) and what do you think about DC's Zudacomics and Marvel's recent announcement of putting tons of back issues online.

For our opinion on Marvel's DCU (hilarious), check out this episode of The Stack. As for online comics, we don't read a whole lot... I check out PvP, xkcd, and Penny Arcade pretty regularly. What about you guys... Any web comics you check out regularly that I should be reading?

---

Matt muses:

Wanted to know what you guys thought of the whole Planet Hulk saga. I read World War Hulk and was wondering if the prequel is worth picking up. It is packaged in a nice hard cover. What did you think of the series?

Awesome. This is the series that reminded me why I love the Hulk. Pak knocked the whole thing out of the park, and while it did LePage out a bit at the end (just felt rushed as they set up World War Hulk), this is a solid run that is well worth adding to your collection.

letters, page, The