Like yesterday, there were many interesting political stories worthy of separate round-up. But first the other stuff.
There’s new speculation about Shailene Woodley’s absence from Amazing Spider-Man 2, which doesn’t involve the actress being replaced, either because idiots online were idiots online, or they’re worried that she has too many conflicting projects. Maybe it is just a matter of what’s best for the story. This could include some spoilers.
The Venn Pie-agram made me chuckle.
The King’s English considers the metaphor of turning water into wine.
Least I Could Do pokes fun at Doctor Who.
Yahoo has an interesting photo gallery: Women blacklisted from bars for drinking too much circa 1902. This was found by researchers for ancestry.com, so in many cases it may be the only photographs available of someone’s great great grandmothers.
Carla Hoffman considers Bendis to be the writer of never-ending Event comics.
The more I think about it, the more surgeon-like Bendis becomes in writing this long, eventful tentpole stories that grace us every summer. From his first one to today, he will be quick and sharp with his words to locate the problem, remove or change said problem, seal it up and then bail to play a round of golf (or simply move on to the next patient, let’s be fair). In Avengers Disassembled, we had a problem of a stagnant Avengers comic; the book wasn’t selling well, it had fallen into something of a rut creatively and couldn’t compete with the Distinguished Competition’s Justice League. Bendis grabbed a pen and introduced a major shake-up to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the repercussions of which still last to this day. Too many mutants around thanks to Grant Morrison’s wild ride? Bendis surgically struck with House of M, and “No more mutants” continues to anger our heroes (despite that edict being rewritten in a semi-Bendis-directed AvX). We needed a common enemy, old characters back on the playing field and another big shake-up to the Marvel Universe. Bam, Secret Invasion, which led to Dark Reign and beyond. Each time there’s a problem, Bendis will solve it in an eight- to 10-issue story arc, and then he’s out of there.
Rarely has an event book under his steady hand had a clear, definitive ending. The Avengers disassembled because the Scarlet Witch went crazy. Why? That was left for nurse Allan Heinberg to flesh out more in Avengers: Children’s Crusade. Now that there’s no more mutants, what happens to the X-Men? Welcome to the entire direction of the X-titles handled by everyone but Bendis at the time. Secret Invasion just ended with Norman Osborn slaying the Skrull Queen. What’s after that? Dark Reign, where more characters were just pushed into place until Siege, where they were pushed back out of place and Heroic Age could begin. It’s like there’s no period at the end of Bendis’ event sentences; they just keep going and going, running one into the other until someone else gets their hands in there and puts in that full stop.
I’m not sure this is is a problem. At least these are Event stories that have serious ramfiications for the characters. Maybe I’ll do another Marvel VS DC, considering their event stories. DC does tend to tie up theirs more, although they’re also likely to ignore the consequences.
On a related note, Mark Waid and Andre Lima Araujo’s Age of Ultron #10AI may have a take on Hank Pym that could turn him into a top-tier hero.
For the last few weeks, I’ve been watching the first two season of Justified. Season One was an above-average cop drama with an interesting setting. Season Two—just watched the Finale today—had one of the best Big Bads in television. So good.
What Would Spidey Do? 