Champions #2

[lordultimus]

Comments

[thanekos]

Ah, Sam Alexander - doomed to be forever written as the one who doesn't get it, because he's in a demographic that gets appealed to without even having to ask for it.

[longboxingwhileblack]

What demographic is that? Looks that everybody in the group is from a marginalized community.

[lordultimus]

Sam is Latino.

[zachbeacon]

Putting aside that the kid is Hispanic...

At this point I just think being insufferable is Sam's defining character trait.

Granted Riri doesn't come off much better most of the time.

[dan_ingram]

Damn, I'm having a hard time caring about this Civil War, given that its not all that unreasonable.

Also, why is Snowguard there? Isn't she Canadian? You'd think that they'd just deport her

[reveen]

I just assume that Canada fell into a civil war between shadowy and psychotic state departments and ended up a failed state until it was annexed by the US. That just sounds like the most likely path for Marvel Canada.

[t209]

I swear that you just made Fallout and Marvel universe, which had cartoonishly evil US annexing Canada in their reverse Iraq War where they try to stop China from taking their oil.
Except Marvel Canada seems to be evil, like unethical experiments, and even had a page where people were lined up to be executed in front of a body-filled trench.
Also civilians dumb enough that if Zeta Gundam's Titans gassed an entire colony full of innocent people, they would be cheered as heroes.

[t209]

I think I am starting to get people complaint about Marvel trying to push agenda in comics and alienating audience even said people only take the surface level (also seen a dumb complaint of "female Hulk" even she was part of Marvel since 70's).
I mean the author is good at writing social issues, but bad at implementing it in comics (Even tweeted her about how she demonized police accountability unintentionally, no response so probably too stubborn to accept criticism but not enough to get blocked).
Not sure if it's worse since Mark Millar also had non-American characters getting arrested in US despite being outside of Registration Act and MM writing Marvel for a long time.

[starwolf_oakley]

Are we supposed to see "Riri Williams never caught on the way Miles Morales and Kamala Khan did" here? Which isn't a bad thing. That's the way the "sensational character find of the year" goes sometimes.

[zachbeacon]

Marvel tries to recreate Spider-Man every decade or so. They've really thrown a LOT of characters at the wall in the past 20 years.

Most of them fall flat (what's Gravity up to these days?).

Honestly, Kamala and Miles are probably the only truly successful attempts.

I mean, Rich Rider was the 70s "Spider-Man" and he's been repeatedly pushed aside by Sam.

Most "hot new characters" are lucky not to be brutally killed in an event comic right after their comic is canceled.

[scorntx]

Frankly amazed Sam hasn't been brutally killed yet.
He's been around, what, eight to nine years?
(The benefits of being named after someone's son, I guess.)

[zachbeacon]

Yeah, killing child characters is ghoulish but there's a whole other layer when they're created in memory of a real person. I have to figure Star Girl would be safe over at DC even if she didn't have a TV show.

Yup, since Marvel Point One in 2011

[chortles81]

On the other hand, instead of getting killed Sam has not had a solo book since 2017 and almost exclusively appeared in Champions, which does make me feel something about a certain line in #3.

Re: Yup, since Marvel Point One in 2011

[scorntx]

It's the peril of being a character in a round robin setting.
They can't get away with killing him, but they can write him like a doofus or ignore him 'till everyone forgets / is sick of him.

(Probably the same deal with Carol Danvers.)

On the other hand she's kept getting solo books while he's relegated to the team book and events

[chortles81]

That said, it does seem as Sam has gotten some character development over the years within Champions, from both the evolution of his friendship with Kamala (which in particular extends from their... beginnings in Waid's ANAD Avengers) to Zub seemingly trying to give him a 'who am I without the powers' storyline by having the Nova Corps confiscate his helmet... it continued into his relaunch but unfortunately wore out readers' patience (at least that of the Sam fans I've read on Twitter), whereas they're liking what Sam's gotten to do in this run so far.

That said, I feel like Sam's "You don't need us. You don't need to be a Champion. But some of us do. I don't know who I am if I'm not Nova. If I'm not a Champion." is really leaning on the fourth wall here...

[zachbeacon]

Timeslip? Really?

I guess it just goes to show, you either die a New Warrior or you live long enough to see yourself become a narc.



Bombshell seems less sweary than I remember her.

[t209]

Yeah, kinda suck that newer writers doesn't bother to read comics.
Also New Warriors being punching bag too, like Civil War had them all but Speedball dying from Nitro in canon-breaking power of taking an entire school with it before handwaved as "mutant steroid".
And Gage's New Warriors being cancelled.
Before slowly healing the group (even had Nightthrasher coming back) and dump it all in garbage (It will be fricking hilarious when they released pandering New Warriors and had the common syndrome called "inconsistent characterization" if everyone turned out to be level headed).
Remember American comic by a Lesbian Latina who can't read or speak Spanish writing her yet spitting around Latinx, even ignoring common sense of dumping her girlfriend due to being distant...AFTER TELEPORTING TO HER!
Part of me want to side with anti-SJW people if not for how full of poop they are. I joined up here since Scans-Daily is a rare sort who are socially progressive yet know enough comics to point out errors in comics like this.
or Marvel trying to be "safe" by making (rather poor) allegorical stories than actually face on portraying actual issues, which only work in 1970's and the audience are rather younger than our current crop right now. I swear that fricking Zeta Gundam did such storyline better.

[zachbeacon]

I mean, as a white guy I'm not sure I should really weight in on a lot of that. I will say I would never pull an "Akira Yoshida"...which is a very low bar to clear.

Ultimately I think different groups are entitled to dislike the same things for different reasons.

A lot of the content that the right dismisses as having an "SJW agenda" gets dismissed on the left as "cynical cooperate pandering".

I can think of a couple writers who are simultaneously hated for being TERFs and for just being Feminists.

Marvel has published a lot of comics that were automatically hated by ComicsGate-types because they weren't about/by/for straight white males...but they also happen to be objectively terrible.

[t209]

Agreed, but the thing is the people I hung out before I come to scans_daily are anti-PC types No alignment, Common Sense, Simple as.
Then reading you guys gave me a nuanced view.
Also said people don't know who New Warriors, Runaways, or even actually good minority heroes characters from Marvel and DC (because I discussed Iron Heart and brought up Cassandra Cain from Bat Family yet no one had a clue who she is) are.
Yeah, current Marvel seems to be even worse than Quesada's reign.

[zachbeacon]

"Iron Heart and ... Cassandra Cain"

I don't think it's all that surprising most people don't knowwho they are. Iron Heart hasn't gotten the push a lot of other new characters are getting (is she even in that Marvel Rising show?). DC pretty much just uses Babs as the only Batgirl outside of comics* and she's been Batgirl in the comics since the Nu52.

*I think technically Silverstone's character in Batman and Robin had a different name.

"current Marvel seems to be even worse than Quesada's reign."

Well, Marvel has a relatively new EIC but honestly I just see Alex and Akira as extentions of JoeQ. His stint as EIC was a massive departure from what came before. The next two guys? Not so much. Yeah, you can chart individual books or series that have changed in quality but overall things are pretty much the same.

They're still bringing in writers from outside of comics with various degrees of success.

Its easy to point to something like Runaways or Young Avengers as having more staying power than Iron Heart or the new Inhumans (who aren't Kamala) but it ignores that a lot of the early 2000s flops have been forgotten. I mean, Runaways launched as part of a new line that ALSO included a failed attempt to introduce a bunch of new Inhumans.

For all the complaints about Marvel's "agenda" or whatever it's worth noting that two of the best Marvel books in recent history (Unstoppable Wasp and the previous Marvel run) seem to really tick off a very vocal portion on the fandom...or at least people who claim to be fans.

Also, my second favorite current Marvel book is about the Hulks and a trans woman fighting the eldritch unspeakable horror of *checks notes* capitalism.

My favorite current Marvel book is DD and I guess you could argue a political agenda too.

[t209]

Yeah, I get you.
Just letting off my gripes and wondering why an anime space opera about robot toys (albeit Gundam have cynical tone and almost every series ended in tragedy even if many do have good ending) did a better job at rebellion and politics than Marvel.

[akodo_rokku]

Is CRADLE not supposed to seem blatantly super evil? Like super, SUPER evil. Way more evil than SHIELD was in Civil War.

[scorntx]

Pretty sure they'd be more subtle if they actually were blatantly super evil.

[deepspaceartist]

Yeah, CRADLE has to be blatantly evil otherwise this event just doesn't work at all. If CRADLE isn't evil, then Kamala, Miles, Sam and the rest of the Champions are just out and out wrong. A law requiring powered minors to either get trained and supervised by a trusted adult hero or not go out heroing is entirely reasonable. If the execution of that law isn't extremely evil, then the Champions are pretty much the same as teens complaining they can't drive, smoke or drink alcohol at 15.

[zachbeacon]

Yeah, it's "Civil War Jr" in every sense ... complete with one side raising valid points but being cartoonishly evil.

I am curious about the age restriction though. I assume it's either 18 or 21. If 21 then it does seem messed up that you can join the military but not beat up muggers.

[donnblake]

Well, the military, at least in theory, comes with supervision and a command structure.

There's real-world precedent for the age differentiation

[chortles81]

See 'adult/military/voting at 18, drinking at 21'; issue #1 has Lana (Bombshell) mention that Joaquín Torres (Falcon II) "signed up with Sam Wilson. So he won't jeopardize his DREAMer status". However, the next line is Tiana (Starling) pointing out that there's also an approved mentor list...

[scorntx]

In the real world, yeah.
As opposed to the Marvel universe, where the US military seems to exclusively promote generals who are obsessed with Hulk hunting.

[zachbeacon]

We can just close the thread now. That was the best possible response.

[donnblake]

True, although the RL military has not failed to promote a couple of real peaches either. (Looking at you, Michael Flynn).

[lordultimus]

Surprised more people aren't talking about Viv.