Goodbye, so long, fair well, and Amen

[dorksidefiker.insanejournal.com]

Paul Cornell recently announced on his Livejournal (and his blog, aparently, but I stalk his LJ) that Captain Britain and MI-13 is coming to an end.

So, to me this sounds like the perfect excuse to post a few pages from the Wisdom mini he did, featuring everyone's favorite Skrull Beatle.

Personally, I call for a Paul Cornell week. Just because.

Comments

[espanolbot.insanejournal.com]

Aw :(

[newnumber6.insanejournal.com]

Looks like I'm back down to two Marvel books. :P.

[goblinthebamf.insanejournal.com]

well, *skullskullskullskull*.

at least this sounds more like an ending and less of a cancellation. I can deal with ending a series before the team burns out, but I hope Cornell and Kirk will be back in a short time with more stories.

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, I was thinking recently that at least the series so far is good enough that if it were cancelled, it'd still last.

But darn it, I didn't mean that meant it should go! Who down there was listening? I take it baaack!

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

Well shit.

[neuhallidae.insanejournal.com]

Noooooo! Oh, God, I hope they're at least putting him on another series.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Well, craparama :(

[ghosty732.insanejournal.com]

.... This means he's just going to write the same book under the title "Excalibur", right?

[jarodrussell.insanejournal.com]

...Captain Britain and MI-13 is coming to an end.

Crap. That increases the odds significantly that he'll be transitioned to GotG or Nova if/when D&A leave. Crap.

Hear That Tinkling Sound, Marvel?

[stig.insanejournal.com]

No, no - it's not the sound of change jingling in my pocket. No need to start salivating, you cash-bitches, there'll be no doggy dinner today.

That tinkling sound is, in fact, the sound of my soul, pissing. Pissing on any interest I ever had in any of your comic books. I took BND; I took the dismantling of the Ultimate line by a toddler exposed to Pym Particles; I took the gratuitous plastering of "Noir" and "Dark" on 75% of your titles. THIS is where I draw the line.

Jason Aaron off Ghost Rider + CB&MI:13 Cancelled, x THE SAME MONTH = the loss of my interest. After the trades of those runs come out - along with, Heaven Help Us, "Old Man Logan", if it even has an ending - I will never, ever, buy anything from Marvel Comics ever again.

EVER AGAIN.

Re: Hear That Tinkling Sound, Marvel?

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

The thought of a soul pissing is kinda delightful.

Re: Hear That Tinkling Sound, Marvel?

[angelophile.insanejournal.com]

In a way that sounds like cutting off your nose to spite your face - Cap was cancelled simply for one reason - sales. It just isn't shifting enough units to justify its continuation. In fact Marvel have done pretty well by the book, pushing and promoting the Vampire State arc and that did cause a blip in sales, which unfortunately didn't last long. In actual fact, they'd have been justified pulling it after the Hell Comes To Birmingham arc, but they gave it a good crack of the whip.

You can't really blame Marvel for this - they gave it a good shot. I think it's a matter of sadness that well liked, critically acclaimed books like this can't sell enough to continue while critically panned stuff flied off the shelves. Why is that?

Certainly I can't get behind the idea that boycotting Marvel helps. All it means is fewer people picking up books like thise whereas the opposite should be true - buying up all the books you love is the only way to ensure their continuation and success.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

At the risk of harshing your rant, no corporate entity can be begrudged a decision like this one. The book wasn't selling, so they gave it a fair shot before finally canning it. Marvel took a chance publishing something like it in the first place, and should be lauded for that, not punished.

If you really want to get angry over this, I'm afraid the blame lies with the same people it always lies with: comic book readers. As vocal as Internet fans can be, they still remain a relatively small part of the market. They're the ones who guarantee that the only books that sell are the ones that have always sold.

[roily_rogue.insanejournal.com]

Noooooooooo! I just got into it! :(

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

I hope he's able to bring Meggan back first.

[angelophile.insanejournal.com]

Check out the Annual.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

when's it out?

Because I know there was a thing where it's confirmed she's alive. And she's even out of her post House of M status quo. But she's not back back.

[angelophile.insanejournal.com]

She was back, kinda, in the Hell Comes To Birmingham arc, but she's got a starring role in the Annual which, as the link says, is out June 3rd.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Too bad, but bad sales are what they are. Nobody to blame but the audience (which, contrary to what many comics readers think, is not something distinct to comics; good TV shows, books and movies often don't find success either).

[leikomgwtfbbq.insanejournal.com]

I love John the Skrull so much! ♥ And the rest of the Skrull Beatles, too.

I wish they had a whole series to themselves, really, but I think that merseybeatler and I would be one of the very few reading it.

[besamim.insanejournal.com]

I really want to hear Captain Boko do "Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)," with John the Skrull on guitar.

[leikomgwtfbbq.insanejournal.com]

That'd be awesome.

And then there could be a three-way battle of the bands between the Skrull Beatles and the Skrull Who and Gerry and the Fucking Skrull Pacemakers.

[besamim.insanejournal.com]

With plenty of Skrull Keith Moon antics!

[batcookies.insanejournal.com]

Feh. Just the other day I was telling someone that none of my favorite Marvel comics fit the "popular" mold.

But hey, maybe Captain Britain, Nova, and the GotG should all move to New York and be written more like Spiderman. Sure they'd become soulless husks, but they wouldn't get canceled so easily!

[kitty_tc_69.insanejournal.com]

That was me, and I was thinking of that conversation as well. It's kinda sad to be proven right in this way, but it's true. Comics are a business, and what sells stays and what doesn't sell goes. Periphery books that don't have a high enough profile or enough involvement with the metaplot of the Marvel Universe are always going to struggle. Fanbases don't just materialize out of nowhere, they have to be built up.

You can't just take a good idea or character and throw them out there in an ongoing title and expect it to work. You have to establish them first in a book that gets a lot of readers, build them up so that they gain fans, and then when they reach a certain level of support then you can do miniseries with them. If those go over well, eventually they might have the fanbase needed to support an ongoing. Maybe. If not, all you can do is promote and feature them where you can until they are strong enough, and hope they reach that point. You can't just throw a title out there and hope for the best, but sadly that's what Marvel does far too often.

What Marvel really needs is a "jump" sort of title. They've tried it before with Marvel Comics Presents, but they failed to make it last. To me that's because they failed to remember what made the first one work --the book was led by a feature story that had a hot character (often Wolverine, but in that day also Cable, Venom, Ghost Rider, etc) to anchor the book and make sure it would sell while the rest of the book was interesting stories with lower-tier characters. If Marvel was smart, they'd go that route again, making the lead feature "Tales of the Wolverine" or some such and sell that instead of a second (or maybe even a first) Wolverine ongoing. The Wolvie-heads will buy it, keeping it out of cancellation, and Marvel will have a place to introduce and showcase the smaller stories that creators want to tell and fans want to read but that aren't strong enough to support an ongoing. It could not only be a launching point for new concepts and a home for weaker-selling but still interesting material, it could also be a great tool to help Marvel maintain and foster a sense of a living, breathing shared universe. A place where there's more going on than just what we get to see in the lead titles with the established names. A place where you might get the first glimpse of tomorrow's hot titles, or get to see stories you otherwise wouldn't.

It sure as hell makes more sense than just throwing new titles out there to drown.

[unknownscribler.insanejournal.com]

I'm bummed about the series ending, but, well...

The book's main problem is that it wasn't Excalibur, which I think is what people really wanted. It didn't help that it wasn't a book that made Brian feel like anything other than a supporting character despire having half the title.

I don't like Cornell's take on Wisdom. He just feels wrong. He's not the character I remember from 1st volume of Excalibur or even his stint on X-Force. He doesn't even feel like someone who once was that character but has grown. He's more like a Remembered version of the character.

Giving Faiza the codename Excalibur was a mistake (as was her sudden power up). You do not give a team name with a long and cherished history to a complete noob.

Getting Meggan back should have been one of the first priorities of the book. Leaving it this long (and I am grateful that at least she may make it back before the end) I think left a lot of Excalibur fans disappointed/irritated. Abandoning her to the dream corridor on top of deep-sixing Midlands in such an ignominious fashion almost had me dropping the book, and it was was only the promise of Dracula that's kept me interested.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

It didn't help that it wasn't a book that made Brian feel like anything other than a supporting character despire having half the title.

I don't see that, personally. He's part of the ensemble cast, sure, but both of the completed arcs are heavily about his hero's journey and both end with him saving the day.

What 'power up' for Faiza?

[unknownscribler.insanejournal.com]

While that's true, that's not the feeling I was left with afterwards.

[unknownscribler.insanejournal.com]

She's all fangirly and mundane in issue 1, she gets hit by a convenient skrull energy weapon then low and behold manifests her ability to pull people apart to look inside them. This either makes her a newly manifested mutant (in which case the X-Men should have been knocking on the door by now) or we should have seen countless newly created mutates taking up the fight against the skrulls.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

well, she's in England and the book is primarily about magic, so maybe she's magic?

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Er, why is that a mistake? That's her origin story; it was a fluke. Why was creating a new character a bad idea? She was one of the best parts of the series.

[kali921.insanejournal.com]

I agree with you about Faiza. Her change from wonderful fangirly doctor (and she was AWESOME in those first scenes) to being powered up should have resulted in an arc where she's training and learning how to use her new powers. Her change was far too abrupt.

[moneyless_jew.insanejournal.com]

NOOOOOO

And BTW, this WAS the Excalibur revamp. Originally when he took over the title it was to be called "Excalibur," but he requested the name change. This was the best Excalibur book we were going to get - and it was great. Better than anything with the name since Ellis.

[kali921.insanejournal.com]

It's so depressing to see this book go the way of She-Hulk. I hope that Cornell continues to write for Marvel in some capacity. I don't always like the direction that he takes some characters in, and I don't always like the way he surgically inserts angst and pathos into his stories because he likes to beat up the characters that he loves, but for the most part he's incredibly erudite and a fantastic writer who adores comics