tectonic_prose

@k4tzm4n: Also, thank you for your comment. It was encouraging. I look forward to seeing what you can do to improve the reviews because I believe it needs serious improvement. I'm not saying every review should be 2 stars, but this is like giving 70% of the class As, 20% Bs, 5% Cs, and 5%Ds. I hope you can follow my logic here. That may work in a Psych 101 class, but when I'm trying to figure out what the best comic books coming out are, I don't want to hear that 70% of them are great. That doesn't do me as an audience any favors.

I think most of you are missing my point. I'm not complaining about the reviewers opinions of the book, I'm upset with the criterion the community is using to dictate ratings. How many books that come out in a month are really 5 star books? As someone who doesn't want to go grab every comic in a store because, well, they're not all going to be good (or worthy of 5 stars), how can I determine what the best books are that are coming out this month? Shouldn't this be a website that can help me discern what books are really worth my time and money? Shouldn't that be the point of reviews?

I'm not a 'superman' fan or a 'wolverine' fan, and I really appreciate it when someone does give a serious or negative review of a book. It helps me avoid the titles that are clearly low quality. The actual written reviews are hot/cold, some are great, others can't justify their opinions or the ratings they give the books. It's like that guy that you asked about the Green Lantern movie who said "OH MAN, it was awesome! There was a bunch of space aliens and some guy with a giant babyhead and some sweet action!" That doesn't make Green Lantern a good movie... Comic books have improved since the late 90s exponentially but they've recently taken a turn for the worse. I'll even concede that the New 52 opened some interesting space for the writers to play with and really help invigorate monthly publications, but Marvel is producing mostly trash. Every time I pick up a new Marvel book to read through it I can barely finish it. As the webs premier comic book site, should there be a way to gauge what the best books of the month are? Is this available in the forums and I'm not finding it?

Shouldn't this be a site for the people looking to hold the publishers accountable for the trash they peddle? I'd simply like to see a legitimate weight by which these books are measured against each other. This isn't simply about the subjectivity of the reviewer, it is about reviewers who have more than 3 opinions on the books (good, better, bestestest). I understand writing about these comics without spoiling the issue is hard, but before I go plop 3 or 4 bucks on a title I haven't been reading I'd like to know there was a reviewer who actually really wanted me to pick out this title because it IS unique and because it is well written. I don't think that's much to ask.

Sorry for lighting this fire, but I think the community of comic book fans should do a bit more questioning instead of simply grabbing whatever new issue of _____ is out regardless of quality and touting it as 'good' when clearly (at least to me) MOST comics in shops these days are not 'good'.

Go ahead and ask your local comic shop owner how many great books came out last month. I bet you he'll give you 3 maybe 4 titles, not 20, and he has a vested interest in convincing you to buy more books. Why should comicvine be trying to sell me on 20 titles a month? If anyone has another site that actually performs this task please let me know because I want to actually know when something makes an impact and goes above and beyond the monthly publication. I'm tired of reading reviews by fans that pander only to other fans. That is not how criticism works. That's not the point of a review.

Has anyone been reading comic books lately at Comicvine? How is it that ALL of these books are 4 and 5 star rated books? They are not that good. Shouldn't a 5 star comic represent the greater works in comic fiction? Say stories like Superman Red Son or even Claremont era X-Men? This doesn't even touch upon books that are iconic or actually represent the greatest works in comic fiction like, well, almost anything Alan Moore or The Dark Knight Returns which are certainly twice, no ten times as good as the muck that gets 5 star ratings on this site. Who are these comic reviewers? How am I supposed to trust these star ratings when they pretty much read 'If this is a new DC book it's definitely the best book right now as well as the rest of these 10+ 5-star rated DC books'. They are not THAT good. Some of them, sure, new Justice League gets a 5 star on it's good issues. Hell, even Aquaman was good enough to warrant a few 5-star reviews during the first run, other than that the website sets no real criterion for their rating system, that or they REALLY need people who are a bit more well read to be reviewing these books.

The issue I raise with it is that the comic review aspect of the site is great, in theory, but in practice it falls flat when every single book is 'the book to get'. Does anyone out there feel my discontent? Come on angry comic book nerds! Demand more honesty or better reviewers!

@wdchefdave: And props on the idea of a Black Panther/Storm crossover book. I'll probably just get the main arc but I would pick that up.

I change my mind. As far as major marvel events go, the last two were quite awful. Siege was a mess and Fear Itself was almost as bad, and maybe the corniest set of comics ever 'assembled' (The X-Force spin off aside) HOWEVER, this most recent event has the potential to really push Marvel forward. I know, we've seen all this hero on hero stuff a million times, but the things that remain good about the marvel universe, the character, are set to all be very dynamic in this next arc. This could really get down to the nitty-gritty drama that Marvel does when it's working at full speed. I can see the moral conflict, self-preservation vs. the greater good setting up some amazing moral dilemmas. I'd like to see Cyke become almost Magneto like in ideology. Imagine, he's approved the killing of people for the greater good of mutant kind, but won't take out one of their own for the sake of all mankind. That's some bankrupt logic right there. All in all, I really hope Marvel pulls their heads out of their creative funk and get back to delivering good comics with depth. CALL Chris Clairemont! Catch my drift?

BOOO RULK SUCKS!

@Crimson Eagle: It absolutely is. After they messed up last time with Wanda they're going to come down hard on Hope, which is surely a threat, and the other X-Men arn't going to stand for it. That's gotta be it. What else could it be?

I'm with you on that. Emma Frost was hands down the biggest disappointment in this otherwise refreshing prequel. The other characters should all make returns, no need to see Shaw and his cronies again. It's exciting to hear they have the same people on bored to work on the project again. Immediately that makes me think the sequel may surpass the original. Getting the same people excited to return to the idea tweak it and make it better is great. Look at what happened with X2 and Spider Man 2, both surpassed their predecessors. Dark Night? Anyways...

If Marvel is going to go back into the studio and try to make some more movies why not go for a franchise that can be taken in a more literate direction? DC has plenty in it's arsenal to use on screen in very serious ways. The first half of Captain America was great, when they were building the character of Steve Rodgers and the people around him. The second half was a little too flashy for its own good. I'm not saying I don't like action sequences, but when you feel the dramatic action get swept under a carpet of corny special effects it ruins the movie. I'd love to see LOVE to see Liam Neesan as Doctor Strange. Imagine how good that could turn out... Or maybe big budget Silver Surfer flick? Depicting his origin on Zen La and his relationship with Shalla-Bal and how he is torn from dreams by duty. I could be taken in fantastic directions, I think, and made into an interesting fantasy franchise. Honestly... Don Cheadle would be a great Norrin Rad. He's a fantastic talent and I think I could HEAR him as the surfer.

Typically, biologically species are indicated by a genetic lock and key, that is to say, mutants are not humans if that do not have regular reproductive capacity with humans, and rather have that only with other mutants. So, I believe mutants appear to be humans who have a genetic anomaly.

This is actually a very serious science discussion which involves both a re-clarifying of technical speciation and a recap of the genetic history of the X-Family. I'm trying to think of mutants who have had genetically human offspring, but can't. Humans have mutants, but do mutants have non-mutant human offspring. Can anyone help me out here?

@DarthShap: You're right. The bible is boring.