Well, maybe cancellation isn’t the right word. Marvel’s Siege miniseries ended this month and has ushered in the new Heroic Age for the company. As a result, the current line of Avengers books: New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Dark Avengers, Avengers Initiative, are all ending. All four are being replaced with: Avengers, Secret Avengers, a relaunched New Avengers, and Avengers Academy. While the sum total of Avengers books is remaining the same, it’s strange to see all of these high selling books stop publication. I suppose after all the events they’ve spawned or been spawned by, they’ve run their course.

In the cosmic corner of the Marvel Universe, the ends of Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy weren’t even announced.  These books lead directly into the upcoming Thanos Imperative mini-series and there’s no word on whether they’ll return in some form or another once that series wraps up. In a way, I’m kind of glad they ended, as I was thinking of not continuing with each of them anyway.

It’s odd for so many books to end in the same month, but the endings are not limited to comics. The last few weeks saw the cancellation of a number of television shows including Scrubs, Better Off Ted, Flash Forward, Law and Order, and Heroes. Combined with the ends of 24 and Lost, the line ups this Fall look to be changing quite a bit. While I understand that they couldn’t last forever, it is both disappointing and somehow comforting that 24 and Law and Order were having their strongest seasons yet. It’s not all cancellations though as Chuck, Human Target, and Lie to Me (all shows I enjoy) have all been picked up for another season.

The last few years have produced a lot of TV and comics that I’ve really enjoyed. I can’t help but think that what takes its place just won’t hold my attention at all. It was kind of an aberration that there was so much going on that I followed to begin with.

Another great issue in the X-Men: Second Coming crossover was released this week as we reach Chapter ø8 and officially pass the half-way mark. I’m sure I’ll spoil some things going forward.

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DC Comics‘ Brightest Day #2 hits stores today, ptb and I have taken some time over the past two weeks to share our thoughts on issue #1.

KevinMLD: So what did you think of Brightest Day #1?

I enjoyed it more than I expected to. The Aquaman stuff is a great twist. Clearly the resurrection of these characters isn’t as simple as it originally appeared. I like that he’s off fighting Somali pirates, though that risks becoming too topical down the line… But that he now controls dead sea life is a really interesting change. I wonder if it’s just freshly dead creatures or if he’ll be calling on like dinosaurs at some point.

I’m not sold on Deadman’s role yet and, as I’ve said before, his story is what I’m most interested in.

ptb: This was a major improvement over #0 for me. The appearance of Green Lantern, Star Sapphire and Sinestro at the opening really helped since I wasn’t sure the resurrected characters were going to hold my attention. Although I agree completely that the twists surrounding their returns are intriguing.

Savage undead giant squids are a good way to keep Aquaman interesting (the two page spread as it rose up to attack the pirates was amazing) and the reveal with the guy gutting fish (and people) was a real surprise.

I like that Deadman is central to the story since he’s a character I’d like to know more about.

I’m not into this new Firestorm at all, but Martian Manhunter and the Hawks’ stories have caught my interest even though I know nothing about Manhunter’s flashback or who Hath-Set is.

The connection between the White Power Battery and Excalibur could be cool or completely awful.

KevinMLD: The weird thing about the Martian Manhunter flashback is why hasn’t he tried to bring Mars back to life in the past? Is he demonstrating some new abilities tied to his resurrection like Aquaman? Also, what about the other Martians we’ve seen like the white Martians from JLA (unless they’ve all been killed at some point and I missed it) or the Teen Titans’ Miss Martian? He isn’t the only living Martian as far as I know.

I’m not sure about who Hath-Set is. I recognize the name but can’t remember if he’s tied to the Hawks or Black Adam.

I’m hoping the sword in the stone thing remains just an a metaphor. If it doesn’t they’ll probably go the obvious route and make Aquaman the White Lantern. His name is Arthur and they’ve gone with the once and future king motif for him in the past.

My prediction for who the White Lantern will be is either Aliveman or Dove of Hawk and Dove… Though I guess it’s probably more likely it will be someone entirely new.

I guess we’ll see sooner than later.

Also read our thoughts on:
Brightest Day #2

More on the series can be found at our Brightest Day hub.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while now, but put it off until I had a chance to use all of the digital reading options Marvel has out there. Thanks to Dave Z for the loaner iPad.

The launch of the iPad brought with it a new comic book reader app from Marvel Comics. The app is actually available for both the iPhone/iPod Touch and the iPad, and is designed slightly differently for each platform. Free issues are offered and have been updated a few times since launch, but all other issues offered are sold at $1.99 each. Marvel has also offered a subscription service called Digital Comics Unlimited for a few years now that allows you to read books on a computer using a Flash reader through a web browser. I am a current subscriber, but haven’t really used the service extensively. A much larger selection is available through the subscription and you can read as much as you want for $4.95/month. Digital books are generally released digitally at least six months after they are released in print.

In honor of the release of Iron Man 2, I compared all the platforms using Matt Fraction and Salvador Laroca’s Invincible Iron Man #1, which is a current free download from the Marvel app and one of the thousands of books available by subscription.

The book downloaded a lot faster on the iPad than my first generation iPhone over WiFi. I could easily read the full page on the iPad without zooming in or using the Smart Panel feature that takes you through the panels with each swipe. The iPhone automatically goes into Smart Panel mode and that’s probably a necessity given the smaller screen size. Even though you can change the settings to show the full pages on entry or exit, this takes a lot away from reading the book for me since the full page doesn’t really lend itself to being readable in most instances. There also didn’t seem to be a way select a page on the phone.

Reading using the Digital Comics subscription is a lot different from the app. The Smart Panel feature doesn’t actually go to the panels so much as quarter pages for the most part. There’s also no rotation on a computer monitor, so any portrait image is constrained to the height of the screen. This isn’t so bad on a desktop machine, but on the laptop things are pretty underwhelming. Also as you might expect, the reader can run much faster on a desktop than a laptop, to the point where reading my laptop seemed to be a fairly cumbersome experience.

In this particular issue, there’s a two page spread of Tony Stark monitoring everyone in the Marvel Universe that pilots a suit similar to his Iron Man armor. I used this as a sort of benchmark of what made for the most dramatic experience. This image seemed to look best on the iPad. It could be that the reading software has been better optimized or it could be that the dimensions of my laptop screen just aren’t ideal for comic viewing. Even on my desktop, the reader just had a lot of negative space around the pages, where the iPad zoomed in a used every bit of real estate to present the image.

While the iPad is a great portable way to deliver comics content, I may not be the typical target customer for this. It has great presentation, offers the flexibility of reading away from my desk, and is easier than using my laptop, but the price structure is the worst. I’m going to continue to buy hard copies of the things I want to own. Given that they’re $3 for something I can hold in my hands, I don’t want to pay $2 for an electronic copy (I still buy CDs too). Combine this with the fact that what I’ve read through my subscription so far has been limited to things I didn’t want to buy when they were new, and there’s no way I want to pay $2 an issue for them. Ideally, I would be able to use my subscription to read content I’m already paying for on the iPad, but that’s not the arrangement right now as Marvel considers them two separate services.

Digital comics could be a way to get me away from buying books that I want to read but don’t need to own a hard copy of and resent for taking up too much of my space. I’d rather read those things at the subscription rate than pay per issue, so as nice as the iPad app is, it’s just not a better solution at the moment.

Things appear to be back on track with X-Men: Second Coming Chapter ø7 after the frustrations of last issue. After some time away, I can say that Chapter ø6 was decent despite its imperfections but this week’s installment is solid. Spoilers next.

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