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Thursday, April 24, 2008

"I'm The Goddamn Mary Marvel"


I think this scene would have been perfect if she had a bottle of vermouth in her hand.

Remembering the old days:

14 comments:

  1. I somewhat ran out of things to say about Countdown. It was awful, and that is the best I can say of CDtFC.

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  2. what the hell. oh i am so far away from reading that comic it isn't even funny. in fact, all i do is squint my eyes & cover my ears & go LA LA LA LA LA whenever anyone mentions the Marvels because STOP BREAKING THE MARVELS. He's...white! White hair, too! &...um, no, he's called Shazam! No wait, Freddy is...Called...Marvel? We can't even put that on the cover! Wait, what is going on. Wasn't like, Atlas in jail or something? The hell? Mary Marvel is...Evil? No, she's better! No, she's twins! Or...Um....

    SHUT UP.

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  3. i like what's going on with the marvels and i wanna see freddy and mary have a showdown.

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  4. Anonymous11:36 AM

    Well that is Fan-Damn-Tastic!

    I realize that panel is out of context, but who swears like that? It sounds so weird, you need to stick in an actual swear word in there or a #$%@!! or something.

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  5. I don't even understand the thinking behind evil Mary Marvel. They did a whole corruption arc, then a redemption arc, then just reverted her back to the evil version.

    Presumably the same events will play out again, only with the rest of the Marvels involved this time...it's like they were unhappy wasting the redemption in this book.

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  6. ....the moment everyone been waiting for...

    Unless DC Universe 0 is the single best written comic I have read in the past 8 years (arbitrarily picking out 8 years; no real reason.) I will join the legion of Countdown critics. It had to be said.

    Issue 2 was good. Issue 1? Makes me wanna apologize for defending the book. :-( No comic should make you feel this way.

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  7. Anonymous1:14 PM

    If she said Goddamn, it would at least sort of flow. Now it's not just stupid, it's awkward too.

    It irritates me beyond belief what DC is doing to the Marvel Family.

    The Jeff Smith series was a perfect take on the Marvel Family. It updated elements, but it captured the essence of the Big Red Cheese and his pals. If they market the trade/hardcover to the right age bracket, I think that series would sell very well.

    But having evil Mary Micro-Mini-Skirt, long-haired Marvel and Freddy Shazam ... why confuse the franchise with these takes that alienate younger readers?

    Allen

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  8. MMMmm...the old is up, the new version of Jeff Smith is down.

    Correct?

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  9. Anonymous2:41 PM

    The child Mary is Jeff Smith's. He portrayed her as being years younger than usual, but I think it worked very well. The panel that Val posted captures the real charm of Smith's take.

    In the Golden Age, I don't think the lightning aged Mary, but she wasn't that young. In modern DC continuity, the magic would age Mary closer to adulthood.

    Allen

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  10. Epic, epic failure all around in Countdown, but nowhere is this more evident than in Mary's storyline. A chance for her to really come into her own as a superheroine in the DC Universe, and instead they turn her into a charmless version of Faith from BtVS. It was a waste of creator time and reader money that leaves everyone cold.

    I think there's a fundamental lack of vision on what to do with the Marvels in the contemporary DCU. Personally, I think the Marvels should be in their own, self-contained universe (it was one of my favorite bits of business from 52 to see Earth-5/Fawcett Earth) wherein they can be the sole focus. In the contemporary DCU it's far too easy to fall into the trap of making them the Diet Superman Family.

    The idea of Mary undergoing a fall from grace and eventual redemption just doesn't really fit the portrayal of the character, either from the classic stories or from Ordway's work on Power of Shazam. If anything, Freddy should have been the one to turn to evil, having a history of being the rash and impetuous one. The only reason I can think that Mary wasn't tapped to become the new Captain Marvel while Billy became the new Wizard is a combination of writer fiat and a need to retain a hold on the copyright by having a Cap-like character to appear on covers and the like.

    But eh, what do I know. This is just me from the cheap seats.

    Stacy

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  11. She needs to eat something. Food, I think.

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  12. So, in Countdown #0,on the Moon, Ion will battle Sinestro while the Monitor watches, Dark Mary Marvel will die during a battle between the Teen Titans and L.E.G.I.O.N., but we later learn that this isn't the REAL Mary Marvel, who, is in fact, in stasis in the Superboy pocket universe, a prisoner of the Time Trapper, who we will learn MIGHT be an elder/alternate version of Booster Gold, or maybe one of his descendants.

    Omniverse. It all connects to everything else. Jerry Lewis to Don Rickles to Superman to Muhammad Ali to Spider-Man to Archie to ... Call it Gruenwald's Legacy.

    Or to quote Dr. Manhattan, "nothing ever ends".

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  13. At this point, I can only assume that Countdown went through some drastic retooling once it became clear that it wasn't popular, either commercially or creatively. I can't imagine anyone voluntarily ending the series the way that issues #4-1 turned out, and I think it's pretty clear that they looked at the buzz surrounding 'Final Crisis', the critical savaging of 'Countdown', and decided to quietly decouple the two by tying up the threads as best they could in the last few issues.

    Mary Marvel's sudden down-up-down-over characterization, the death of Darkseid when he's clearly going to be a major player in FC, the last issue that really did nothing...it all points, to me, to an editorial retooling. I'd need to see Dini's original pitch to be sure, of course, and I'm guessing that won't happen soon (if ever). But my gut says they got cold feet when they saw Countdown's sales.

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  14. Anonymous8:17 PM

    *sigh*

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