But to call the resolution a deus ex machina is not quite accurate, considering Captain Universe’s authority in this particular situation is based on a yet-to-be-fully revealed mystery about her origins. Plus, to have the crisis mostly resolved in 3 issues, but with certain story threads having long= term, yet-to-be-seen effects is basically the kind of comics storytelling we should be lauding. It’s not decompressed, but it’s still taking advantage of the long form possibilities of serialized comics.

You can’t keep half your books constantly hamming recaps and a who’s who , and sometimes trust that your readership might be smart enough to wait patiently for reveals or dig backstories .
It has been a big deterrent , at least for my friends , to be spoonfed those horrible recap habits and “thoughts or exposure bubbles” , that once served their purpose back in the era it was abused and introduced , but feel so annoying now .

They aint looking forward to ” hey my name is Golden wonder XX , this is what i do , this is what i’ve been up to last issue and the 4 issues before , this is what i think today , and here in this issue we have soldier marshmallow who once did that in that XX story i can’t properly recap in two sentences” , especially every frickin’ issue of a serial book over multiple pages .

I’ve used actully most of Marvel Now as an introduction to regular Marvel series for a few friends actually (along with Avengers vs Xmen , prologues to Superior Spidey , as it does establish the new status quo , and while giving them a a backlog and list of good stuff from the decade like avengers/new avengers , hickman’s FF etc) and they have been less nerveous and miffed so far by the serialized nature of boks like Avengers and New avengers , than nrama folks around here .

Not necessarily a general thing or a significative study sample , but that’s my experience thus far .

I didn’t feel the first two issues were. It’s that simple. I tried. I paid for it. By the time issue #3 came out, I was already disinterested. Trying to win me over at issue #4 on isn’t going to play when I’ve paid $8-12 just to get there with no return.

For those of you enjoying it… excellent. Please do. But my biggest complaint is how I think a new reader would react to it. I can handle this not being my cup of tea. I’ve got plenty of other comics that suit me fine. But this should be THE BOOK that new readers are coming in for, and maybe I’ll be able to recommend the trade to them somewhere down the road, but I can’t put issue’s #1-3 in their hands and expect them to come back into the store for it next week. I just can’t.

Is is any wonder many just ignore their opinions and just feed themselves with the news and spoilers ?

I really don’t know when so much hand holding was required in comics.

Avengers is an on-going story and you need to keep reading (which as said a lot of people simply can’t do these days) to find out everything.

It’s not the same, really. This article is a legitimate critcism of the percieved use of deus ex machina. Siegel’s piece was adressing a bunch of idiotic, trolling ragemonkeys who started frothing at the mouth over some imagined depiction of rape that was never written or published and exists only inside their own twisted imaginations.

Check this out. The three “mystery characters” (Smasher, Hyperion, and Captain Universe) all show up on the last page of #1. We call that “a tease”.

In issue 2, they are identified by name on the screens as Cap and Tony recruit the team. No more is divulged there; they’re supposed to be mysterious. If you have the background and know a bit about them, great; if not, it’s coming. But they WERE labelled, at least.

In #3, there’s that first bit of resolution. This is an ONGOING story. Why do people wet their pants if they don’t get the answer in the first issue? Didn’t your editor just opine about this kind of bellyaching yesterday?

But three issues of a huge cast and brand new villains with mysterious origins had no emotional context at all. The greatest moments were the recruiting scenes, which made up less than 5% of the entire story.

Really, not knowing who these characters are is secondary to having a reason to care about them.

-BCM

It’s easy to re-read Hickman’s FF and say how brilliant it is but a lot of the concepts he introduced there were handled the same way. And it all turned out ok, right?

Ironically, the previously incomprehensible X-Men books have gotten easier to follow and enjoy lately. Bendis is right at home here with heroes that already do sit around a table a chat all day. I loved Jason Aaron’s Thor (a character I never really cared for before even under Simonson) so I picked up Wolverine and the X-Men as well. Easy to follow. Extremely entertaining. Even the AvsX tie ins were easy enough to follow without my needing to actually read that book. Just knowing the basics was enough.

Kudos for the books that Marvel is getting right. Shame that the Avengers aren’t on that list.

Also, cosmic, universe-powered characters don’t work in these team books. How well did The Sentry work? You have Captain Universe walk around and say “stop it” and the villains do, how is that interesting?

I personally think the story being told is interesting, but the nuts and bolts, the language, pacing, the device used for the resolution of this brief arc, all of that is off-putting and hindering my reading experience.