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Post by Doctor Doom on Aug 14, 2006 6:30:17 GMT -5
Now obvious, my fellow comic book afficiendos,most Avengers fans despise Disassembled. They hate it because it was cheap, horribly written, hideously mischaracterized, killed characters just for shock value, had a rubbish ending, and was just done so Brian Michael Bendis could have his dream team. But... when I first heard about Disassembled, I grew quite excited. Okay, none of us want to see our favourite group disassembled. But let's get past that for a moment. Here are two pitches:
1. A well-written and moving story. For many months- maybe up to a year, an unknown foe is plaguing the Avengers, and many of them are experiencing great challenges. Then, at the end, they are all pushed to their limits as they are assaulted mentally and physically. Ant-Man is killed in the chaos, as Avengers Mansion is sealed away from all help and then obliterated. The Vision and Hawkeye both sacrifice themselves to save the rest of the team in a genuinely tragic sequence. Bitter and angered, driven almost to drink again by the loss of so many friends, Toyn Stark rails out in the UN and is fired. The enemy is revealed to be someone nobody expected, and at last the Avengers triumph. Their mansion is in ruins, three of their number dead, those who remain battered and broken either mentally or phsyically. There is a fantastically written finale, where they finally decide that the Avengers must disband, and they commemorate the memory of their departed friends. For months, the world must cope with no Avengers, before almost a year later, Iron Man and Captain America gather their old friends, because the world needs Avengers. They have large memorials constructed in memory of their old friends.
Option 2: From absoloutely nowhere, random chaotic attacks strike the mansion. Ant-Man is killed in a spectacular fashion for no real reason, with no build-up. Half the mansion is destroyed. Iron Man gets rather pointlessly fired from his UN job. Vision is killed horifically for no reason except shock value, then Hawkeye pointlessly dies when he could easily have survived. The whole thing is revealed to be the doing of a totally implauysible member which makes no sense, utilising a RESOLVED story plot from years ago. They then decide to disband, for reasons not made fully clear. The next month, a new book starts out with a totally different random team who like to reference the old one as little as possible. The whole thing is horribly written.
Of course we GOT Option 2. But what if we had gotten option 1? Sticking to the same basic premise as Disassembled... but better written, with deaths genuinely moving rather than angered and shocking. Would it have been bad anyway? Of course option 1 would have meant no Avengers at all for some time.
Was Disassembled doomed from the start, from the very moment they decided to disband the Avengers? Or was it doomed once you noticed that it was just being done so bendis could have a new book?
Was the idea flawed... or the implementation... or both?
What are your thoughts?
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steed
Reservist Avenger
Posts: 215
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Post by steed on Aug 14, 2006 10:08:10 GMT -5
A good editor would have done what you did in option 1. Good job.
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Post by dlw66 on Aug 14, 2006 10:14:46 GMT -5
I agree.
Steed, they have to airlift you comics in the "deep dark woods of Maine"? They don't have guys running around up there like those cats in "Deliverance", do they??
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Post by Black Knight on Aug 14, 2006 10:23:01 GMT -5
I was so hoping that option 1 was what was going to happen instead we got option 2, and it seems we have been getting option 2 since then. Basically meaning that if you took the name Avengers off this title and called it CHampions or Defenders, the stories would be just the same... There is no feel of the Avengers in this comic... It is a sad time when marvel flushes 40 years of comics down the toliet for the ego of one man.
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Post by redstatecap on Aug 14, 2006 11:16:42 GMT -5
Of course option 1 would have been preferrable. It might even be a fantastic story. But consider the source. It's as if you sat a chimp down at a typewriter and expected one of two outcomes: 1) "War and Peace," and 2) gibberish. Option 1 would be preferrable, but option 2 is most likely. And is Option 1 really an option? The point I'm making in a sarcastic way, is that Bendis has shown that he is simply not capable of anything substantially better than AD, as regards the Avengers title. AD was gibberish and the 22 issues of NA since have been almost entirely gibberish. They are perfectly in line with the quality one would expect from the person that wrote AD. Bendis is a writer of limited talents that work best (and apparently only) in solo books. Writing a team of characters seems to be beyond his skills, and that is not going to change next issue, 10 issues from now, or 5 years from now. I'm going to go way out on a limb with some predictions. There will never be a "Korvac saga," or an "Under Siege" under Bendis' tenure. New Avengers will continue to be gibberish with at best moments of readability. Mighty Avengers will also be likewise. Prepare to hunker down with a few long-boxes of back-issues.
RSC
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Post by Doctor Doom on Aug 14, 2006 12:20:25 GMT -5
I mostly agree with the points redstatecap said above, however when I described option 1, I didn't mean Bendis. We've seen what Bendis does with the idea. I mean if Busiek or someone was writing Disassembled.... could it have been a truly awesome climax for the Avengers we know and love? The general opinion seems to be yes: The idea was solid enough if a really great writer had been given it. And, unpopular as this will make me (MORE unpopular... I'm like this site's Devil/Bendis's Advocate ) I am someone who hates retcons. If Busiek had kept working on Avengers, if he had written what I described in Option 1 and concluded so magnificently... I would want the Avengers to end there. Yes, yes, I know it is unthinkable to many, but all great things must come to an end, and if we really saw a massive and brilliant finish worthy of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, I would rather that we were left with that so it could never be ruined in the future. (IE: New Avengers).
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Post by Black Knight on Aug 14, 2006 12:28:46 GMT -5
I mostly agree with the points redstatecap said above, however when I described option 1, I didn't mean Bendis. We've seen what Bendis does with the idea. I mean if Busiek or someone was writing Disassembled.... could it have been a truly awesome climax for the Avengers we know and love? The general opinion seems to be yes: The idea was solid enough if a really great writer had been given it. And, unpopular as this will make me (MORE unpopular... I'm like this site's Devil/Bendis's Advocate ) I am someone who hates retcons. If Busiek had kept working on Avengers, if he had written what I described in Option 1 and concluded so magnificently... I would want the Avengers to end there. Yes, yes, I know it is unthinkable to many, but all great things must come to an end, and if we really saw a massive and brilliant finish worthy of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, I would rather that we were left with that so it could never be ruined in the future. (IE: New Avengers). Actually I think this would have been perfect way to show that the world still needed the avengers, not this Bendis dream team, that marvel are calling the Nu Avengers. It would have been a renewal of faith story.
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Post by redstatecap on Aug 14, 2006 12:56:29 GMT -5
And, unpopular as this will make me (MORE unpopular... I'm like this site's Devil/Bendis's Advocate ) I am someone who hates retcons. If Busiek had kept working on Avengers, if he had written what I described in Option 1 and concluded so magnificently... I would want the Avengers to end there. Yes, yes, I know it is unthinkable to many, but all great things must come to an end, and if we really saw a massive and brilliant finish worthy of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, I would rather that we were left with that so it could never be ruined in the future. (IE: New Avengers). As far as I'm concerned there is no story so brilliant that can rationalize ending the Avengers. Now, ending certain characters, fine. For example, though I'd be loathe to see it, if AD had been some spectacular story, then I could see leaving Hawkeye, Vision, and Ant-Man II dead -- permanently. On the other hand, Marvel has also proven beyond any doubt whatsoever that it is incapable of leaving stories alone that result in the death of a character. Bucky has been resurrected after 42 years. Phoenix, Korvac, Magneto, you name it. So I think you can appreciate that a permanent death isn't going to happen at Marvel. Back to my point, the Avengers as a team concept simply can't be killed off by the deaths of a few members. That would be like saying: "A policeman was killed in the line of duty today. Let's disband the police force." "The Avengers" is an idea, and it's impossible to kill an idea. The Avengers also have a huge pool of members with many talents and resources to offer. Even if you want to follow up Bendis' stated rationale (which he immediately ignored!) that Iron Man was broke and could no longer fund the team, there are many members for whom reasonable pretext could be found to fund the team -- Wasp, Black Panther, Namor, etc. There are also many members who (in character) would want to step up to the plate and lead if, say, Cap was killed -- Black Widow, Wasp, Hawkeye, Thor, etc. In contrast, for example, if you killed off 2 or 3 of the founding members of the Fantastic Four, then the FF would be finished as a concept. But the FF is a different animal from the Avengers. The Avengers simply wouldn't end even for a fantastic story. RSC
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Post by Doctor Doom on Aug 14, 2006 12:57:00 GMT -5
Well, as I said above (see Option 1) I would have really loved that too Depends how much the team got messed up.
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Post by dlw66 on Aug 14, 2006 12:57:16 GMT -5
I'm not sure why writers in general could not have just taken the model that Roy Thomas began those many years ago, and that has also worked so well with the JLA and JSA (and we even see it now with Teen Titans) -- that is, establish the book's heavy hitters, then use them to lead/mentor new recruits, keeping the line-up fluid yet identifiable. Call it a formula if you will, but the possibility for evolution is inherent in the scheme.
For example, the Avengers major players were obviously established in the first 16 issues. With the first line-up change we saw Cap stay and lead Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch. Hank and Jan returned, then Hercules came with the Black Panther shortly thereafter. We didn't see Thor and Iron Man again until around issue #51. We knew they were out there, but the team was basically left in the care of Cap, then Goliath and the Wasp. And on and on the line-up was tweaked, with even recruits becoming "old guard" (Hawkeye, Vision, etc.). While there was always flux, we readers recognized this team and knew what it stood for.
You could argue that Dr. Druid's chairmanship, while a definite low-point in Avenging history served the purpose to show that leaving the team in malevolent hands (Cap was onboard that team, was he not??) was not a real good idea. Decent plot vehicle although those are issues not fondly remembered by me overall...
So as the Golden Age JSA and their descendants lead newer heroes, and as Starfire, Cyborg, and Changeling lead the younger Titans, why couldn't writers have simply kept a rotation (if you will) of older characters with newer ones? While I don't overall care for the Justice and Firestar years (in terms solely of their development -- there were many other positive things about that era), they could have been kept around longer and carried forward.
I hope I've made my point clearly -- there really is no reason to end the Avengers simply because with so many characters in their history and even as potential recruits (if they work well in a team book!!!) the possibilities remain endless. And endless even without sales gimmicks, senseless deaths, multiple covers, etc. Just tell us good stories!
And Doomsie -- lighten up on the hate-complex! Are you getting nasty PM's? Just tell us your deal. Who cares if other people agree/disagree? I assume you wouldn't say it if you didn't want feedback or hope to elicit a thought in someone else's head.
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Post by redstatecap on Aug 14, 2006 13:14:45 GMT -5
One could even argue that Bendis himself was trying to follow that formula in New Avengers, the problem once again being poor execution. The problem (and I don't think Bendis sees it as such) is that while Cap and IM have been kept around ostensibly provide leadership and continuity to the newbies, they haven't actually been portrayed as doing so. IM has gotten a bit of panel-time, but Cap, who of all people should be taking an active role in training and leading new Avengers, has been a seldom-heard figurehead. What we're left with is Bendis' favorites pretty much getting free rein and not being "assimilated" (for lack of a better word) into the Avengers team concept. So, while the formula is there in theory, it isn't being executed.
RSC
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Post by Doctor Doom on Aug 14, 2006 13:28:57 GMT -5
Ah, sorry if I am being heavy on it. I'll try not to mention it again. Naa, the real thing is that I pride myself on being a mature and reasonable forummer and yet I am already on -2 karma. That really bugs me, because as far as I can tell I have done nothing antisocial or anything, and I am strongly against people lowering other's karma just becuase their views are different. Plus I really like this forum and it kills me that if a new user is scrolling down they will see '-2 karma' and think I'm a bad forummer when I really don't think I am that bad. Maybe it's just ego. Anyway, I'll try to lighten it up- but you were right, I did want a bit of feedback.
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Post by dlw66 on Aug 14, 2006 13:30:12 GMT -5
Excellent points, RSC. Cap has been more of a listener (to Spider-Woman) and general stand-around guy than the born leader we all know him as. Even in his lowest points idealistically (Nomad, the Captain) he was still bleeding leadership.
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Post by dlw66 on Aug 14, 2006 13:31:12 GMT -5
There, dude -- you're now -1. I like you...
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Post by Doctor Doom on Aug 14, 2006 13:39:20 GMT -5
Awwww thanks guys Makes me feel much better. Seriously, thanks. Anyway, to reiterate... there havesome excellent points there, about why the team doesn't need to go down at all. Loved that point in particular. It's worth noting that resurrections done well/brilliantly- a la Bucky and possibly Thor, are always spectacular. The B and c list characters stay dead, but it would be nice to get some permanent deaths. I know what you mean about the Avengers as a concept though, and I hadn;t thought about it like that. So what Avengers are/have stayed dead anyway? Ant-Man II, Jack of Hearts, Vision (The vision I knew anyway ) Who else?
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Post by dlw66 on Aug 14, 2006 13:41:04 GMT -5
In answer to your last question, I guess we'll never know -- they brought Bucky back...
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Post by redstatecap on Aug 14, 2006 15:00:00 GMT -5
Loved that point in particular. It's worth noting that resurrections done well/brilliantly- a la Bucky and possibly Thor, are always spectacular. The B and c list characters stay dead, but it would be nice to get some permanent deaths. I know what you mean about the Avengers as a concept though, and I hadn;t thought about it like that. So what Avengers are/have stayed dead anyway? Ant-Man II, Jack of Hearts, Vision (The vision I knew anyway ) Who else? I don't intend to turn this into a full-blown discussion, but I have to say that I am absolutely opposed to Bucky being resurrected. I was forced to drop Captain America permanently as a result, despite the fact that I think Mr. Brubaker's done a decent job otherwise. I don't consider it a brilliant decision at all; I consider it a well-packaged gimmick. But anyways...Avengers that have stayed dead: Hawkeye--Probably no longer dead, although it has yet to be explained. And worse, he's apparently lost his name to one of the Young Avengers. Ant-Man II--Probably a decent chance of remaining dead. No real fanbase, no personal/character reason for Wanda to bring him back. Jack-of-Hearts--same. Vision--already back in a different format. Thor--May be back; not explained yet. Swordsman--Reanimated as a plant. Of course, almost the entire roster has been "dead" short periods of time, one time or another. RSC
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Post by dlw66 on Aug 14, 2006 15:04:10 GMT -5
I haven't been a Cap solo reader in a loonnnnnnnnngggggggg time. What is the scoop with Bucky? Is it "supposed" to be him? Is there some shady figure lurking somewhat off-panel who is behind a Bucky LMD? If it truly is Bucky Barnes, then that is a shame. The drone blew up with him on it. Ka-plooey! Body parts.
Unless, of course, the phoenix force came and rescued him...
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Post by Doctor Doom on Aug 14, 2006 17:04:33 GMT -5
Let me say this; I am totally opposed to bringing people back. I like dead is dead and when characters I LOVE do die... I want them to stay dead anyway, because I love stories to move on. Bringing Bucky back - the ORIGINAL Bucky- is one of the most ridiculous and implausible ideas in comicdom.
But Brubaker does it SO well... so UTTERLY FANTASTICALLY, with such incredible skill that he makes it not only plausible, but genius- along with Waid and Millar, he is one of the people I personally view as the Big Three in comics writing. Pity Waid is off with DC right now.
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Post by redstatecap on Aug 14, 2006 17:22:10 GMT -5
I haven't been a Cap solo reader in a loonnnnnnnnngggggggg time. What is the scoop with Bucky? Is it "supposed" to be him? Is there some shady figure lurking somewhat off-panel who is behind a Bucky LMD? If it truly is Bucky Barnes, then that is a shame. The drone blew up with him on it. Ka-plooey! Body parts. Unless, of course, the phoenix force came and rescued him... Here is the deal on "Bucky." Mr. Brubaker "revealed" that Bucky had actually let go of the drone just before it exploded. Thus he just had an arm blown off. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, a "super-secret Russian submarine" was lurking in the English Channel and heard Baron Zemo bragging on the radio that he'd just blown up Captain America. (Apparently this submarine also has the magical abilities of knowing just where to look for the body and avoiding all the allied ships also looking for the body.) The Russian sub investigates and miraculously finds Bucky's body, but not Cap's. They bring him on board, where he is stone dead, but somehow miraculously preserved until they reach port days later. Back in Russia, the commies utilize "secret techniques captured from the Germans" to literally bring him back to life. (Makes one wonder why they didn't use that more often!) Bucky doesn't remember much of anything, and the Russians brainwash him into being their agent. Eventually they fit him with a mechanical arm they stole from the Brits. Now, despite the fact that his memory is unreliable and his loyalty is suspect because he has relapses, the Soviets periodically use him as an assassain in the west during the Cold War, thus the new codename "Winter Soldier." He spends most of the time between missions in suspended animation. Eventually he goes haywire enough that the commies leave him in storage until after the fall of the USSR. Finally, Gen. Lukin pulls him out of storage to obtain the Cosmic Cube from the Red Skull. As a result of that storyline, Cap gets his hands on the Cube and restores Bucky's full memories. So at this point, we've got Bucky with all his memories (but still one arm) who is bent on vengeance against Lukin for misusing him during the Cold War. And if it seems to you that I am more than a little pissed off with this course of events, you're right. RSC
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Post by redstatecap on Aug 14, 2006 17:41:20 GMT -5
Let me say this; I am totally opposed to bringing people back. I like dead is dead and when characters I LOVE do die... I want them to stay dead anyway, because I love stories to move on. Bringing Bucky back - the ORIGINAL Bucky- is one of the most ridiculous and implausible ideas in comicdom. But Brubaker does it SO well... so UTTERLY FANTASTICALLY, with such incredible skill that he makes it not only plausible, but genius- along with Waid and Millar, he is one of the people I personally view as the Big Three in comics writing. Pity Waid is off with DC right now. Here I have to disagree strongly. There are plot holes in this story -- HUGE plot holes -- that people just choose to ignore because they're all about Mr. Brubaker. For example: --This story ignores previous continuity that categorically states and or shows that Bucky did not fall off the drone. So yes, it should have been a case of finding bits of Bucky. --What is a lone Russian diesel sub doing lurking around the heavily mined and patrolled English Channel? --How did the sub know where in the Channel to look? --Even if they knew, how did they find a single human body floating? --How did the (no doubt) dozens if not more US/UK ships and planes on and over the English Channel NOT find the body, and also not find the Russian sub? --How did Namor with his super-plane/sub not manage to find the body? --How did the Russians miraculously re-animate the body which was admitted to be dead? *cough*deus ex machina*cough* --Why would the Russians waste the time and resources repairing and brainwashing someone who was just a commando, plain and simple? And more importantly, someone with no valuable information due to his amnesia? --Why would the Russians trust him to carry out missions in the west when they knew his reliability was in question? --How the heck does an amnesiac with a metal arm hanging off him make a good infiltrator? --How can one argue that the resurrection is "brilliant," when bringing him back required a string of what amounts to bald-faced writer decrees? The bottom line, IMO, is that Cap fans have just been starving for talent for 20 years, basically since Gruenwald/Lim. Now Marvel sticks a pretty good writer and an excellent artist on the book, and people go ga-ga. This should never have happened. Editorial should never have allowed this to happen. Having to drop Captain America was much harder for me than dropping the Avengers. Heck, historically I bought the Avengers because Cap was usually in it. I just can't tell you how disappointed I am in the poor judgment that resulted in Bucky being resurrected after 42 years. RSC
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Post by Doctor Bong on Aug 14, 2006 18:17:34 GMT -5
Blackknight, you've got it right: NA feels much more like a gathering of Champions or Defenders than a real Avengers team, character-wise, that is, because if we're talking style, I would be afraid of being sued for slander by the writers of the Defenders if I would dare make such a statement...! Regarding the deaths & resurections, didn't they use to say that only 2 people were dead for certain, uncle Ben & Bucky...? Well, now Bucky's back & they have even brought uncle Ben (after a fashion) over one of the other Spider-Man mags, I forget which one. I was dissapointed as well when they brought back the original Green Goblin. I heard D.C. resurrected the second Robin; does anyone knows if this happened before or after Bucky's comeback...?
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Post by dlw66 on Aug 14, 2006 20:39:32 GMT -5
I'm not presently reading Batman books, but I think Jason Todd is back but maybe not the real Jason Todd (?? - help). They brought back Uncle Ben? I, too, was appalled when Norman Osborn came back. It just shows that creating a villain of his caliber was too much work, so just dig up the old guy and whammo -- everyone will accept it! Not me -- I dropped Spidey back then. Of course, that whole clone mess sure made it easier...
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Post by The Night Phantom on Aug 14, 2006 21:24:53 GMT -5
They brought back Uncle Ben? In recent issues of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. But it’s not “our” Uncle Ben; it’s a counterpart from an alternate timeline in which May had died instead.
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Post by Doctor Bong on Aug 14, 2006 21:31:01 GMT -5
dlw66: I said "after a fashion"... An alternate future Hogoblin came to mainstream Earth & brought with him an alternate uncle Ben from a reality where May died & Ben lived and, afterwards, when the future Hogoblin was defeated, this other uncle Ben was left stranded on mainstream Earth, although Spider-Man's unaware of the fact... I forget which mag, 'cause sometimes it's hard to keep track of them... Something else I wanted to comment on: I had hoped, once the saga of teen Iron Man (which I loathed) was over, they would have gotten over at Marvel the idea of making their superheroes younger to appeal to that mythical creature, the new younger reader, but I guess I was wrong... what other rationale could there be behind the twin travesties of eliminating Hawkeye & the Vision and replacing them with the new, teen, female Hawkeye & this decidedly less interesting version of the Vision...? Some decisions at Marvel these days, I swear I can't fathom where are they coming from. Has the House of Ideas become the House of Idiots...
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Post by Doctor Bong on Aug 14, 2006 21:32:26 GMT -5
Ooops! Didn't want to get in your way, Night Phantom... we must have been writting at the same time...!
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Post by Doctor Doom on Aug 15, 2006 6:36:14 GMT -5
Firstly, there was, as far as I know, nothing which actually showed at the last minute Bucky dying with the drone. And if there was, which there may have been, something, then Brubaker simply retconned it. It's been done so many thousands of times that this one scarcely stands out.
Actually, it tells you right on the page. Experimental Soviet Spy Submarine headed for German waters.
Because it was specifically stated that he was blown up OVER THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.
I don't understand the question.... is it really that hard?
Why would there be dozens if not more of US UK ships and planes there? This is after D-Day, most of their forces are in Germany, while there are forces there they won't be that numerous. They didn't find the Russian SPY sub for obvious reasons, and there is no way a plane would spot it- and as you said earlier, a ship wouldn't find it unless it knew where to look.
...Because the Russians were closer and found it first?
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Post by redstatecap on Aug 15, 2006 11:39:29 GMT -5
--That would be What if #4, which states: "RAF personnnel witnessed the explosion. Bucky was still on the plane. Cap fell off before the explosion and did not resurface." And before you ask, What If #4 is in continuity, it is not a "What If?" in the traditional sense. There is also on-panel confirmation in -- what was it, #255, 297, and probably others -- that Bucky was still on the plane. Therefore there is not only confirmation, there is confirmation that the Allies knew where to look.
The difference being that this was (repeat, was) one of two stories possibly in all of comics that hadn't been subjected to a retcon in 42 years.
Here is where Mr. Brubaker (and you) start running into the problem of "didn't bother to do 5 minutes of research online." German waters in April 1945? That would be parts of the Baltic, maybe. German subs had been driven almost entirely out of the Atlantic, and there was certainly no portion of "German waters" left that would require passing through or even close to the English Channel to reach.
Oh really? Which Channel Islands? And if the Russians picked it up, then so did the Brits and Americans. And if the only info was "over the Channel Islands," that's a little thin to put it mildly. Imagine trying to search for a single person when your best information is "somewhere in New York City" and you'll have an idea of the level of difficulty here for the "Russian Spy Sub." And something that seems to have escaped Mr. Brubaker (and you) is that if it happened in the English Channel, it's bloody swarming with Allied traffic.
Yes. Sonar cannot detect a single floating body. Therefore the sub could only look using its periscope. First, the search radius looking for a human body through a periscope would be measured in yards. It would be basically impossible. Second, sticking a periscope up (while there are dozens of planes and ships searching the area!) in the middle of the English Channel would be tantamount to suicide. Heck, it would be tantamount to suicide for an unknown sub to even be IN the English Channel. Third, the dozens of ships and most importantly aircraft looking for the bodies/wreckage have huge advantages in numbers and favorable position to find the bodies before some farcical Soviet Submarine.
Again, Mr. Brubaker (and you) failed to do even the barest amount of research which would instantly point to the ridiculousness of this assertion. The English Channel was literally swarming with sea and air traffic. It HAD to be, because that's how supplies got from England to the forces in Europe. Not only would there be a swarm of routine trafffic, there were numerous Air/Sea rescue units emplaced to rescue flight crews that went down over the channel. Not to even mention the regular patrol units. As mentioned before, if the Soviet sub picked up the signal, then the US/UK picked it up too, so they DID know where to look. And again, your statement that "there is no way a plane could spot it" betrays the fact that you simply don't know what you're talking about. A plane would be the most likely and probably the ONLY way to spot a floating body in those circumstances.
Closer than which of the scores of allied ships and aircraft on and over the English Channel at any one time?
The Soviets had their own excellent commandos and a spy network unmatched in the world, as the Cold War demonstrated. Their own personnel's political reliability was unquestioned. Bucky, on the other hand, was by definition a political liability and had already proven to be problematic.
If they didn't fully trust him they would have put a bullet in his head and been done with it. They never would have sent him back into the west, where by definition there is the strong possibility of getting caught with a nice shiny top-secret metal arm.
So Cap trained Bucky to be able to conceal a metal arm? What about when every other soldier is wearing short sleeves and the WS is wearing long sleeves and gloves? And those metal arms are hard to get through airport security.
Cap was never killed or resurrected, even in a retcon. Cap as a character was simply disused since the 40s and a few 50s issues. The 1964 story that brought Cap into the modern age did retcon an end to his WWII service and also killed Bucky. However, that story now has (had) 42 years of solid continuity behind it. It is the foundation of Cap's modern story, and now it's been tossed in the trash can.
You're certainly free to think Mr. Brubaker is an "excellent" writer. I don't. I'd call him good, but nowhere near great. Still for competency he's a large improvement on the vast majority of the last 20 years of the Cap book, which is why people are so excited.
Is Uncle Ben fair game now?
And that's your choice to get behind it. My choice, however, is to vote with my wallet and cost Marvel $3 a month for the foreseeable future. And I'll also drop permanently any book the WS appears in. I will purchase another Captain America comic the day this story gets expunged and not before. The book isn't fantastic, merely good -- and even occasionally very good -- but not fantastic. Mr. Brubaker tends to be predictable, prone to decompression, and leaves some large plot holes through lack of development. That he's better than many writers working is only an indictment of the quality of comic book writing in general.
RSC
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Post by Doctor Doom on Aug 15, 2006 16:32:08 GMT -5
RSC, while that was an excellent post it seemed very much like you just launched into an attack on me which, as far as I can see, was pretty much unprovoked. It should also be noted that I do happen to know a consideable amount about the Second World War, though not as much as you. I note how so many American accounts love to make it seem as though you single-handedly won a war which, quite frankly, the Germans would have lost without American intervention. Oh there would have been much more loss of life, it would have been far worse for everyone concerned, but the fact remains that with America and without Russia, the Allies were doomed. Without America and with Russia, they had at the very least a fighting chance. Now, to comics... Okay, firstly I just want to make one point very, extremely, amazingly clear. World War II in OUR world and World War II in the MARVEL world, were extremely different. Yes, many things were the same. But the fact remains that in Marvel, Hitler was incinerated by a flying robot who can burst into flame, World War II was won largely because of a team called the Invaders, Captain America existed AT ALL, and there was a leading German whose face was a red skull. Therefore, it is completely baseless to speak about things like how much water Germany controlled in 1945, etc, etc, because there is absoloutely no way of establishing that this was true in the Marvel Universe. For all we know, the Axis controlled Spain for goodness sake. Alright, that is fine. I congratulate you on your research, it is rare to see someone take such care. That might be a tad inaccurate. I think there's a lot more than two. And I'm fairly sure someone has probably retconned the Eskimos out of Cap's origin by now Nevertheless I'm willing to bet parts of Avengers '4 are already in retconville. In any case, the issue shouldn't be IF it was retconned, it should be IF it was retconned WELL. See, it's these 'and you' things that sound like personal attacks. I'm sorry, but I didn't think I had to do a large amount of research to answer a question on a forum. The problem is, this entire point is destroyed by my earlier statement that WWII in Marvelville was very different to the real world war II. Well firstly there wouldn't be likely to be as much American traffic in the isles as there would be British. Secondly, I am and was fully aware of how difficult it is to find something in an area that size. I think all that is required is that you suspend your disbelief a little and remember that this is a story which is frankly rather obscenely hard to believe in the first place, considering the foundation was a man being frozen in ice for what- 40-50 years? and emerging like it was yesterday. I don't find it that difficult to believe that they got extremely lucky and found the body fairly close to their location, or that they did it before any Allied traffic could. Against the odds certainly, but not impossible. I don't believe Mr Brubaker (or I) overlooked that fact at all. Please don't respond with some "you are asking me to accept that a lone russian sub found..." etc, because to be frank if you can't swallow this then I genuinely don't understand how you can read comics- need I pick out the enormous plot holes and INSANE suspension of disbelief in the Kree/Skrull war? A story as a whole rises to overcome all plot holes. Indeed they do have favourable -position, which is why the aforementioned suspension of disbelief was mentioned. I don't understand why you can refuse to suspend disbelief even a little in this case and accept stories like the Kree/Skrull War, the Korvac Saga, Ultron Unlimited, etc. What about Spider-Man,- have you any idea how incredibly unlikely it is that a college student will come up with an organic compound that allowed him to swing through the city- which means it is extremely strong- and also to use as a fluid to attack others with, and that after maybe 12 years no-one else has fully cracked the secret of this? And the kid did it on his own? Also, since this is indeed a Spy Submarine, I'm going to assume they have more advanced methods than sticking up a periscope besides sonar. Well I am 100% certain that I do in fact know what I am talking about. Firstly, let's establish that all these allied craft... the majority were either on missions or unarmed. It's not like they are going to all be actively monitoring these german transmissions etc, the number who would respond to it is considerably smaller. Firstly, you do help to confound your own point. It is a massive area to search, the difference is that we can assume the Russian sub was much closer to the site, which isn't anywhere near as hard to believe as you make it out to be. I also genuinely do not believe that many of the planes would be able to sight a particular body etc, but I can easily be wrong about this so I will concede to you there. Hell, for all we know there was a fog that day. On the other hand, Bucky was a better operative than any of the Soviet's commandos or spies, and in the marvel universe there was SHIELD etc so we can't say that the soviet netowkr was, in the marvel universe, unmatched. Bucky was, by his very nature, better than ANY of those Soviet special forces. Why would they want to put a bullet in his head when they have turned him into a massively effective spy and operative who would take another decade to train if they wanted to make one of their own? He's the best by far at what he does, and if he gets caught they KNOW he's not going to talk, courtesy of amnesia. Hang on- firstly the short sleeves thing is kinda pointless. Secondly, it's not like people are going to say "Hey! He has a metal arm- must be that Russian spy fellow!" Yes, it makes him distinctive, but if technology in the marvel universe allowed the russians to make that metal arm we can assume there were literally hundreds of thousands of war veterans with prosthetic limbs. Not only does that account for airport security, but let's not forget... Wolverine has apparantly been travelling the globe for decades since he got his adamantium. I did not say Cap was resurrected -though I did imply it, for which I apologize. Yes, it retconned an end to his service. Are you saying that in 40 years, when Winter Soldier has been built into Marvel history, it will automatically be acceptable? Very little about Avengers 4 has been tossed in the trashcan at all- in fact it is almost entirely accepted as what happened. Well, here we must politely agree to disagree. Do I want to see Uncle Ben come back? Of course not- not in any way, shape or form. Because his death isn't like Bucky's though I know you disagree with me here intensely, Bucky's death does leave a vague possibility of survival. Uncle Ben's doesn't. And even IF, even IF in some way he did come back- if it was an astonishingly AMAZING story... I'd accept it. I might not like the concept, like I don't with Bucky, but I could forgive it. Alright, and that's your choice. To be quite honest, I don't think the story will be expunged and I think your 'statement' is quite pointless. I think it is fantastic, you don't. And that's okay, because that's what comics are all about. Everyone has different pinions, and I fully respect yours. The final thing I want to say; if we were reading a story set in our world, where some guy had survived what Bucky had, I'd ridicule the very idea and agree with everything you said. But we are dealing with Marvel Comics, and so I can't agree with you.
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Post by The Night Phantom on Aug 15, 2006 16:56:11 GMT -5
Ooops! Didn't want to get in your way, Night Phantom... we must have been writting at the same time...! Don’t worry about it—I’m pleased to be part of such a friendly, helpful online community. Well, I was…
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