Couldn't Resist

I saw the preview art for the upcoming Iron Man #19, and I just had to make a slight alteration...

Tell me there aren't more people who feel like doing that!

Sorry -- I guess I'm still bitter about the, in my opinion, ugly direction the Marvel Universe has been going lately. I mean, you can argue that Marvel has always been about change and pushing the status quo. That guys like Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart and Marv Wolfman were shaking things up before I was even born. And you can argue that Marvel is just reflecting the sensibilities of the United States circa 2007.

You want to blow up Avengers Mansion? Fine. You want to depower most of the mutant population? Sure. You want to have all of your masked heroes reveal their secret identities to the world. I can live with that. You want to kill off Vision and Hawkeye? Okay. I've been fairly accepting of most of the changes that have occurred in the Marvel Universe the past few years, I think. I could point out problems with the execution of some stories here and there, but those are minor technical issues, really. But, conceptually, I didn't disagree with the overall direction per se.

I was even with them up through the early stages of the Civil War storyline. But since that story started, they've all but killed my interest in the Marvel Universe. I was looking at the titles coming out this week, making notes on what I wanted to be sure to pick up, and there was exactly one Marvel title in the list. And that, if I'm honest with myself, I've been buying more out of habit than enjoyment.

On my lunch hour today, I stopped by a local Books & Co. to see what they had. They had an excellent manga section, so I picked up iD_eNTITY volume 5. And I looked around thinking, "With my stripping nearly all the Marvel titles from my pull list, I should pick up something new. I wonder what other manga I'd enjoy?" Now, I could go off now about Tokyopop's poor cross-selling -- which I think I'll save for a later rant -- but the point is that I find myself actively trying to distance myself from the what-was-once-bright superhero world that I've spent the last quarter century enjoying.

Damn you, Q+M+B!