The Bendis Board knows who Marvel’s new mystery character, Penance, is (No, I’m not telling you. Click on the link if you really want to know). And the reaction… mixed:
“Just awesome. Flat-out awesome. [Spoiler removed, but click on the link to find out] goes from being a joke in [book removed because I'm not making it obvious] to one of the hottest characters in the Marvel universe.”
“Sorry, still think the character is lame. Hopefully Ellis can do something with him.”
“Screw you, fun!”
“Who knows, could be great. But it seems cold and needlessly perverse. Anti-fun.”
Sadly, I’m with the last two above; it’s the character everyone expected it to be, and… well, kind of pointlessly and self-consciously “grim”. But then, I hardly speak for the thousands of fans who currently think that Civil War is the greatest comic ever…
January 4th, 2007 at 9:31 am
WHYYYYYY????
January 4th, 2007 at 10:10 am
They named a character “Penance”? Why not cut to the chase and just call them “Guilt” or “Anguish” or “/Wristman?”
January 4th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Matt, if you haven’t seen it yet, try and find the most recent (I think) issue of CW: Frontline, where Speedball is assaulted and says (with a smile) that he likes the pain…
January 4th, 2007 at 10:37 am
What hath Frank Miller wrought?
January 4th, 2007 at 10:46 am
What hath Frank Miller wrought?
Kaare Andrews, apparently.
January 4th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Wait, wasn’t Penance a character in Generation X? I’m guessing this new one is not related.
January 4th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Yeah this is about the opposite of what I want out of my comics.
January 4th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
So the whole point of Civil War was to get Speedball on the Thunderbolts?!
(And some angst and actions that wont matter in by the next two reboots)
January 4th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
So reoutfitting a character in spikey armor and a generic sounding name in order to make him edgier? Oh 1994, it’s like you never left us.
Though really Marvel, Penance was the best you could do? Surely you could’ve given us something more cutting edge like BloodSulk or DeathGuilt or BallBlades or something.
January 4th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
It’s the equivelent of former Impulse, Bart Allen!
January 4th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Well put JR. Endless crossovers, variant covers, and new “edgier” heroes… YAWN
January 4th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Really if you read Frontline it’s actually alright. I mean it makes sense according to the character arc unlike most of the stuff in CW. Also it’s kinda hardcore. I know it’s all “grim and gritty” but there’s some powerful stuff in watching a character lose his innocence and go dark. I think I’m going to like the “new” DC better than the “new” marvel though.
January 5th, 2007 at 7:52 am
After just watching the Dark Season Six of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, yes it is powerful to watch a hero(ine) go dark because of something bad happening in their life, but at the end of the day, Redemption is more interesting.
Write more stories for the characters and stop writing characters into stories.
January 5th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Marvel: Where fun characters are tortured with hundreds of tiny symbolic spikes.
You have to wonder what Steve Ditko thinks.
January 5th, 2007 at 8:53 am
I reserved judgment until I read the issue.
I think it would have been more interesting for Speedball to join up with the Thunderbolts instead of making him dark and masochistic cause he spent a few weeks in jail and someone shot him in the belly.
January 5th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Jim Shooter on the New Universe: “Later, Tom DeFalco asked me if he could be in charge of the project. I agreed. Months passed. Tom made little progress. The only idea I can remember that he developed in that time was Speedball, the less said of which, the better.”
Warren Ellis on Carlos Pacheco on the FF: “I wouldn’t want something that’s been in Tom DeFalco’s mouth.”