I'm not sure the horse is dead yet, so let's beat it some more.
I am going to illustrate for you a nexus that brings together one of my new pet peeves and the jaw dropping suckitude that is Marvel Civil War. A nexus located in the first issue of Bendis' Avengers: Illuminati, which I flipped through in the comics shop the other day.
Join me on the other side of the break and be made wise (or something like that).
The new pet peeve is simply this: Marvel and DC writers (Bendis is by far the worst offender, although Geoff Johns and Mark Waid have an established track record in this field as well) who write stories set in the past as a very specific kind of retcon, one designed to somehow excuse or justify crappy stories they've written or are writing set in the present continuity.
And that's all this Avengers: Illuminati thing is, just blather and weak sauce designed to somehow explain or justify how, in particular, Tony and Reed Richards have been written of late (with a dash of the "Ugly Authority" complex thrown in for good measure).
Now here's where the nexus of suckitude with Civil War is created: Tony has this big speech where he says that the real genius of Reed Richards and Tony Stark (if he does say so himself) is that they are "futurists" -- they are so smart and insightful that they can figure out what people will want before they even know that they want it!
See, all this time I thought Reed Richards was a genius because of all of his research, scientific breakthroughs, discoveries, and inventions. The same with Tony to a certain degree. But it turns out their real genius was that they were 8th degree blackbelt trend spotters. Oh, what a crime against popular culture that they wasted their talents on this "science" crap when they could've been the greatest pop culture marketing force the world has ever known! We could have enjoyed stone washed blue jeans years earlier if only these guys hadn't been tinkering around with their silly gadgets.
So, uh, where was I? Oh yeah, the futurists. So Tony goes on to argue that if the superheroes of the Marvel Universe aren't brought together under one banner of leadership and organization, at some point in the future some group of well-meaning (but not as hip and uber competent as Tony) superheroes will make a mistake while trying to take down a supervillain, and a boatload of innocent bystanders will be horribly killed and the public will turn on the superheroes. (Wow, he saw this coming that clearly but didn't anticipate Armor Wars? Did he go the Yoda School of Inaccurate Prognostication or something?)
Now in fairness, maybe Bendis had a gun put to his head to write this thing, or maybe Millar has pictures of Bendis naked and in bed with the editors of Wizard magazine or something. But one gets the impression that the writer of this thing thinks that he is cleverly establishing through backstory "revelation" why Tony (and Reed) acted the way he acted in Civil War. But when you try something like this, nine times out of ten you just make things worse by exposing the Mo Stupid inherent in the concept. It's like in a sitcom where some character accidently gets part of one eyebrow shaved off right before prom. Her friend tries to "fix it," and the next thing you know the poor girl's face is painted with clown makeup and her head's shaved. Same thing.
The Mo Stupid this retcon exposes is this: If Tony's so god-awful smart and such a badass "futurist" that he could predict the events that trigger the whole registration fracas so accurately, how did he miss the impending trainwreck of the New Warriors (at least as they were written in the lead-in to Civil War)? Unless I missed something, the premise was that the New Warriors have been on this stupid reality TV show for well over a year -- it's in its second season and ratings are waning, which is why Speedball argues that they need to step things up, right?
So this crappy show, which may as well be called "Who Wants to See a Bunch of Superheroes Foolishly Cause the Deaths of a Bunch of Innocent Civilians?" is into its second season, but it never occurs to the high and omniscient Tony Stark that these guys are exactly what he predicted lo those many years ago? It nevers occurs to him to do anything to stop the problem ahead of time? Like these guys wouldn't have jumped at the chance to train with Cap and Iron Man a weekend or two a month or something? (Ignoring the fact that the New Warriors have long since been established as being competent enough that this whole thing should never have happened anyway -- I'm trying to play along with the most recent facts as presented.) I mean, thanks to Ellis, Tony is now some sort of God of Technology who is plugged into all electronic communications all the time (yeah, like he wouldn't just set his brain on the Spice Channel 18 hours a day). If he's as smart a "futurist" as he says he is (and hey, thanks to Bendis and Millar, Tony was right!), how could he have missed this, and why didn't he do anything, ever, at any point in his established continuity, to prevent it?
So there you have it, the nexus of writers retconning to excuse or justify current bad writing, and the suck that was and is Civil War. One final question: If Tony and Reed are so damn future smart, how come they didn't see this whole radioactive spider jizz thing coming (no pun intended)?
Posted by Chris M. at February 23, 2007 1:57 PM
Anytime anyone wants to call bullshit on the whole "futurist" thing, I'm in. Nicely said, here. Because, don't you just know that trendspotting is what Millar, Bendis etc. consider the chief marker of "smart"? I've said it before: that Ultimate Reed Richards spends his days making high-tech consumer products for the U.S. government betrays such a profound lack of understanding of how the real world works that there's almost nothing to say about it.
Actually, in his first FF, McDuffie actually justifies some of this really stupid futerist stuff, even explaining why they couldn't stop it first.
It's rather brillaint, actually. Doesn't make Bendis' crap any less...uhm..crappy, but it shows how awesome McDuffie is!
Don't you see, I had to kick you in the 'nads...because of SCIENCE!
No, admittedly, McDuffie had to try and make some sort of save, and really, what's left but this? I disagree with it being brilliant, but at least somebody, somewhere, saw the necessity of picking up the ball. And it could have been a lot worse. If it were me, I probably couldn't solve it short of a Massive Summer Crossover Event, so good for Dwayne to get it out of the way.
Pity the Marvel writers who must now be janitors to Civil War's projectile vomit on their carpet.
Well read the JMS final issue, then read the McDuffie first...you'll see it's brilliance:D
And yet, Reed can't seem to predict Hulk coming back to grind the planet to dust. I guess he forgot to carry a one somewhere when he was doing his calculations.
Blunt allegory that it is aren't we looking at the Futurists as those that called out the Islamist threat in the Intel/Nat. Security community (I'm looking at you Mr.. Clarke) yet found 9/11 a complete surprise. It one thing to note a trend but to get that down to an event is something else. Before I sound like a total apologist for CW I would say this still tampers with the deep allegory that is the genre. Note that for the sake of story can't give away the store here in the fallout New Avengers, Spiderman and g'awful New Warriors are still out there to "rebel" and take on the man or operate outside of the Law or whatever the heck it is that reality can't contain in the battle for truth, justice and the American way.
I agree with, uh, x-height. Knowing a trend is coming doesn't mean you'll know where the tipping point will be.
I don't mean this as a criticism or a defense of Civil War. I haven't read any of it.
I dig. But Tony (Stark, that is) claims that he and Reed's special gift is that they can figure out *what* will tip and the *near exact* circumstances that will cause the tipping.