Aw, hell.

[neuhallidae]

So while looking through the April Solicits for Marvel again, I suddenly got hit with a stomach clench of dread...







CAPTAIN AMERICA/BLACK PANTHER:
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS #1 (of 4)
Written by REGINALD HUDLIN
Pencils & Cover by DENYS COWAN
For the first time ever, see the full story of the first meeting of Captain America and the Black Panther! It’s a World War Two adventure featuring a young Steve Rogers, the Black Panther and Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos in combat with the nastiest Nazi villains in the Marve Universe!



Just to clarify, this is the same first meeting that Hudlin's already rewritten twice now (once for comic, once for TV) to make Cap stupider, douchier, and more useless each time, right? And yet he's getting not only a third shot at it, but a miniseries for it?

...

::sigh::

I suppose it's too much to hope that we'll be retconning back to the Priest version of the story for this one.



tags: char: black panther/t'chaka, char: captain america/steve rogers, creator: denys cowan, creator: reginald hudlin, publisher: marvel comics

Comments

[darkblade]

WTF are those things Panther is holding supposed to be?

[jlbarnett]

scythes?

[darkblade]

Two doubled bladed scythes. That is a good way to cripple yourself.

[nezchan]

Not as good as swordchucks, though. Wakanda is lagging behind in self-maiming technology.

[zordboy]

Don't forget the double-bladed light-sabre-chucks. A weapon so freaking suicidal, it's actually kind of cool.

[jlbarnett]

well this is in the 1940's.

[crinos]

Klingon Can Openers?

[jlbarnett]

Marvel better have reined him in and pointed out that they've just brought Steve back so they want him treated with respect.

[zordboy]

... Bwahahaha!

Oh, sorry. You were being serious.

Never mind.

<_<

[kainnived.livejournal.com]

The hell is wrong with Cap's headwings? Really what the hell was he artist thinking?

[sarno001]

He looks like he's trying to fly away...

[tacobob]

They're like Namor's feet wings! Fly Cap Fly!

[joasakura]

Get out while you can, Cap!!!

Oh! I know!

[angel_negra]

*raises hand* I know what he was thinking! He was thinking: SHWINGGG!

:D

[sir_mikael]

It looks like he's in some kind of Opera, like that Valkyries thing what with the pose and one of those viking hats.

[thanekos]

maybe it'll turn out this is actually a house party sequel

[kingrockwell]

T'Chaka? So I guess this was his dad then?
And speaking of Priest, you know what was a cool comic with better art by Cowan? Steel, or at least the one issue I have. The quality of Cowan's art can really depend on his inker, I found. When he's got a good one, you get some great-looking comics, but when he's got a bad one, You get Lovers & Madmen. This looks somewhere between middle and bad (somebody call Sienkiewicz!).

[colonel_green]

Grandfather, I believe, is the current continuity.

[kusonaga]

Nah, T'Chaka should still be his pappy. He's quite young still during WWII.

[kingrockwell]

wait am i reading it wrong or does that say Janson as in Klaus?
so looking at it closer, it's really the coloring that troubles me here, Cowan has a much older style that just doesn't work with bright, ugly colors

[sun_man]

this will be awesome I love seeing Black Panther kick Caps butt

[punishermax]

I just imagine Panther and Steve meeting was pretty much the movie Lethal Weapon.

PANTHER'S GETTIN TO OLD FOR THIS SHIT

[adonca]

Oh *goody*. It seems that Marvel hasn't quite gotten the hint that Hudlin's retcon is something readers would just as well be quietly forgotten in favor of Priest's much better version.

Sadly, I suspect all this is BECAUSE Hudlin dropped the ball so badly, in him claiming "What do you MEAN it's not awesome? Here, I'll show you it's awesomer than anything!" All while utterly lacking in the ability to improve it, and a demonstrated ability to make it WORSE.

[box_in_the_box]

Marvel seems to have this pissy attitude toward its readers, when they reject certain pet writers and their projects, to the point that they're practically screaming THE MORE YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS WRITER, THE MORE BOOKS WE'LL PUT HIM ON JUST TO SPITE YOU. See also: Chuck Austen, for a while.

[joasakura]

I sort of BSOD every time I try to wrap my head around that mentality.

[koschei]

Actually, I think they're terrified exerting proper editorial control over Hudlin will result in them being made out as racist douches by the guy's (suitibly egged on) minions fans.

[kashmirkong]

At this point I'm willing to bet there's a big plaque in the Marvel offices that says "If people hate you, you must be doing something right".

They've probably made it their mission statement now.

[box_in_the_box]

The sad thing is, you think you're kidding, but Joe Quesada has already stated that it is his primary guiding goal in everything that he does:

"I learned very quickly that the dumber the thing I said online, the more hits we got, and ultimately, the viral message will get carried by the fans who're irate about it. So if someone is pissed off at me because I said something ridiculously stupid about a character, they would then go to Bendis' board, or John Byrne's board, or all these other message boards, and say 'Do you believe what this jack-ass just said?' Now, all of a sudden, something dumb that I've said [...] is everywhere. It's not necessarily the quote, but it's everywhere. I'll take it, you're promoting my name, you're promoting our policies, you're promoting Marvel. So, I did learn to play with the internet in that fashion. And that's always fun to do, to say, 'Okay, what can I say today that will piss people off?'"

You're just poking people with the internet as your stick.

"It's fun."

[sarno001]

you're promoting our policies

YOUR POLICIES EFFING SUCK.

[bensanaz]

To be fair, comics fans will facilitate this pretty handily, raging online and then wrapping it up with "I'll give this six more issues to shape up and then it's off my pull list". Or, even better, "I hate this so much but I'll keep buying it to see where it goes". When you do that, guess what: your rage really is just free advertising because it's not actually costing the your sale.

[box_in_the_box]

Except that your assertion is based on a patently untrue premise, because Marvel sales under Joe Quesada have sunk even lower than they did under Bob Harras, when Harras got fired from a teetering-on-bankruptcy Marvel for not selling enough books.

[bensanaz]

My premise isn't that Marvel's sales are doing well. My premise is that the fanboys who rage loudly online frequently do so instead of actually not buying the book, and that this is at best ineffective and at worst free advertising for the thing they hate.

[box_in_the_box]

And my premise is that more and more of the fanboys who rage online, who might have kept on buying the books in the past when they raged, are finally dropping the books, in greater and greater numbers, so for once, Marvel DOES need to pay attention to them, because the usual assumptions of "Oh, they'll complain, but they'll still buy the books" are being PROVEN false by those sales numbers. The Spider-Man and Iron Man titles are now selling TENS OF THOUSANDS LESS copies per issue NOW than they were BEFORE both characters became the subjects of some of the most financially successful and popular films OF ALL TIME. There simply is no way to argue, given that fact, that the fanboys who bitch AREN'T finally quitting the books in massive numbers.

[bensanaz]

I believe you are also arguing from an unproven assertion - specifically, that the sales drop is caused by angry fanboys leaving the book. I don't claim that my assertion is provable beyond anecdotal evidence (in this case, having seen on numerous message boards the laughable "four/six/whatever more issue to improve or it's off my pull list" threat), but your numbers also do not establish "fanboys who bitch quitting the books in massive numbers" as the cause rather than, for example, inevitable shrinkage from the major companies continuing to fixate on "the base" rather than attempting to spread their primary product to a wider market, or a general decline of the economy between 1999 and 2009 (your years for data points).

[v_various]

"he Spider-Man and Iron Man titles are now selling TENS OF THOUSANDS LESS copies per issue NOW than they were BEFORE both characters became the subjects of some of the most financially successful and popular films OF ALL TIME. There simply is no way to argue, given that fact, that the fanboys who bitch AREN'T finally quitting the books in massive numbers."

you're wrong, it's because scans_daily lets people read comics for free, silly.
/sarcasam

[foxhack]

GODFUCKINGDAMMIT.

[proteus_lives]

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Not him.

This is going to be bad.

[salamangkiero]

Marvel seems to be on a quest to find out what people's breaking points are when it comes to buying their books.

And, as an observation on BP's weapons, all I can say is that he better make sure he's not digging out the blades from his ribs.

[okkult3000]

Breaking News - Christopher Priest remains unemployed in the comic book industry. Western civilization expected to fall next week.

[valtyr]

Yeah, I noticed that. *sigh*

But let's be fair; he also makes the Black Panther appear douchier. I don't think he means to, but he does.

Sooo I'm just filing this under 'not even if it was free'. Because I actually want to keep liking these characters, which means I will be sticking with the account where a monarch and a general actually, you know, tried diplomacy.

[leikomgwtfbbq]

Did Black Panther always wear a cape? I don't remember him with a cape before.

Also, his weapons look awful impractical. Like giant double-ended can openers. Perhaps he is feeding his panther friends some din-dins.

Also also, I like the Black Panther, but some of Mr Hudlin's retcons and fiddlings-about bug me immensely.