Sinister said:

It would have to be better than House of M, which was a steaming pile of turds. Worst Marvel series since Secret Wars II. A boring, unnecessary series that went nowhere.

Sinister said:

But keep in mind, Peter and MJ where on again, off again for many years. Who knows what has happened in the years between films?

JediMaster said:

On the contrary, I think it was very necessary to limit the amount of mutants in the Marvel U. It was getting out of hand.

JediMaster said:

Here's the thing. The Kevin Smith series of Spider-man/Black Cat makes her cooler than Catwoman and much sweeter and kinder, in addition to hot. If that's the Felicia they'd put on film, MJ would be no contest. She utterly sucks in comparison.

sextonseven said:

I don't disagree with that, but it was still a lame series. The whole thing of Scarlet Witch going nuts is so tired anyway. Just a rehash of the whole Dark Phoenix thing. The pacing of the series was sooooo drawn out, and could have been condensed into three issues. It certainly didn't merit the eight issues it had, plus all the ridiculous, lame-ass crossover issues.

I never felt anything was really at stake in House of M. In fact, I kept wondering why the X-Men were bothering to change things back. A world where mutants are respected, not feared? Why would they want to reverse things? It really didn't make sense. The ONLY things I found worthwhile were that A) it cut down on there being so many mutants and B) Logan had his memories restored.

Even the fact that the mutants were reduced was still handled haphazardly. Wanda tells Magneto "no more mutants", so she presumably plans on completely wiping out the mutant powers. However, when they heroes return to reality, only certain, convenient mutants have lost their abilities. Wanda was able to alter all of reality, but she can only take out a bunch of b-level characters? Makes no sense whatsoever.

Normally, I like Brian Michael Bendis, but I didn't like this story, or the whole Avengers Disassembled arc that it sprang from. He just reprised a lame-o John Byrne arc from West Coast Avengers in the 80s, that was, in itself a re-hash of the Dark Phoenix Saga. He has done VERY little research as far as the characters go (either that, or he has completely ignored important facts about them). The way he has shit on Wanda is completely unforgivable.

JediMaster said:

Here is my thing about the House storyline....We all know it was an excuse to curb the whole mutant thing. (wish they could curb the damn second and third mutation crap too) The thing that marvel in their "infinte" wisdom did not consider is the whole Astonishing X-men storylines up to that point are now rendered useless. The cure...whats the point now? None of the stories matter now...And they use storylines like this to tie up loose ends to other crap they started and moved on from...I swear someone there has ADD cause they never tie up any damn loose ends! But this is a spring board to the "Next great threat" that is the other reason why the House of M story was made. In some lame attempt to create a big threat for later. I agree in theory it was a lame arc but to compare it to Secret Wars 2 is blasphamy!

Your telling me you didn't miss Beyonders Jerri Curl!?! Or the single worst and most useless god like character of all Molecule man? It was sheer comedy...They don't make jerri curls like that anymore...

Grrr.

What I meant to say was:

Sinister said:

I think 'The Cure' storyline is still valid. There are still some mutants out there that wished their powers were gone. If you read New X-Men, Academy X, you'll see two of them, Wither and Mercury who were very disappointed they weren't cured. If a mutant cure were to present itself, I'm sure they would be very tempted to take it.

sextonseven said:

Yeah but since the population is so dwindled it loses its hysteria that it had before. And you know marvel isn't going to give it a real second thought...that is why they passed it along to the lesser books. Im more bothered by all the freaking second mutations...enough already...it's not "rare" if everyone and their mama is mutating 5 times.

Didn't Gwen die before she hit the ground - even though spidey caught her she still died? I had that comic, I was only little and it made me very upset

charlottegelin said:

yeah when he grabbed her with the web her neck broke from the sudden stop....it was pretty intense for the time it was written

Sinister said:

Oh God! that was so awful! I remember now

Sinister said:

Well, I still don't think that the consequences from House Of M take anything away from the Astonishing X-Men story arcs. It was a good story then and it remains a good story now. I'd be more upset about those X-Men: The End mini-series. Those things are completely irrelevant now.

sextonseven said:

I assume the End books are just long what if's....I am hoping this new cosmic mini series they have planned with my boy Thanos lives up to the potential of the preview....it looks awesome!

Sinister said:

Sinister said:

Yes, The End books are just What Ifs. They were intended to be the Marvel equivilant of Kingdom Come or The Dark Knight Returns: possible future stories for these heroes.

As for the Cosmic books, they look like they could very well have potential. Marvel seems VERY fragmented these days, and the quality of books is really all over the place. Anything is possible.

JediMaster said:

I looked at the End books as a possible future scenario, but with Northstar still teaching at the school and other bits that have since been negated, it's now an impossible future scenario.

sextonseven said:

That's pretty much the case with ALL "possible" future stories. At some point, the writers will either deliberately take them down a path that leads up to that point (which can make things rather predictable) or they wind up going in a direction that makes the "possible" future completely IMpossible. More often than not, the latter is the case.

JediMaster said:

That's all fine, but at least wait until the series is over before you make it irrelevant!

sextonseven said:

True. Of course, this is one of my big gripes about Marvel these days. There isn't any sense that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.

Back in the day, Marvel continuity was incredibly close-knit, and characters frequently showed up in each other's books. There was a sense of one big, huge universe. What happened in one book had ramifications in others, yet you didn't have to pick them all up to figure out what was going on.

Nowadays, it's the polar oppossite. One book may have The Hellfire Club doing one thing, while another has a completely different version of the Club showing up. Both books truck along, ignoring each other. Of course, neither story matters, because the next creative teams on BOTH books will just completely ignore everything that has gone before. Sad.