Honesty In Comic Book Covers, #4 (The Bitter Edition)

This is the most depressingly accurate one yet.

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Sad but true. I swear, Marvel is trying to drive me away by canceling all the books I read. First Irredeemable Ant-Man, then Cable/Deadpool, and now The Order. At least I still have Criminal and Avengers: Initiative.

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I wholeheartedly agree – but judging by the most recent issue – Fraction should be on a Namor book, TOMORROW

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*single tear*

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Eh. I like new characters, I just wasn’t interesting in reading poster boys and girls for Tony Stark and the SHRA, no matter how well written.

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While I disagree with Tavella that they are posterboys for the SHRA (Hellrung, despite being friends with Stark is almost constantly irritated with him poking his nose into the team’s business, as an example), I do think that a semi-original idea (normals are given superpowers for a year at a time in order to perform civic duties and not dying at the end, unlike Strikeforce: Morituri) with some great writing and characterization was badly hamstrung by several problems. First, and this is easily the biggest problem, it was tied to the mostly fan-hated Civil War, in particular the dislike of the winning side. Second, it had a name change after the book was announced because Marvel’s IP lawyers and/or editorial staff are apparently morons that don’t cross their t’s and dot their i’s before making announcements. Third, it made some smart writing choices that fly in the face of what fans like; one example is that the most rebellious character on the team also being the most ineffective, instead of the Wolverine-style badass. Another is that the most popular girl on the team is also the sweet one, instead of being the closet bitch. Anything that goes away from those high school stereotypes that the average comic book fan loves can work to doom a book, even if it is better written than just about anything else on the stands, which this one is.

Take all of that together, and it’s sadly not much of a surprise that it had a short life. Maybe when if we’re lucky, after all the CW fallout crap is over, they’ll take another stab at the book, but I’m not holding my breath. Marvel’s editorial staff lacks a certain far-sightedness these days.

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What’s sad is this book was #78 on the charts. … #78. selling over 25K copies a month. I swear I recall other Marvel books lower than this that are continuing, but I can’t recall them at the moment.

This makes me worry for my precious Blue Beetle which is much much lower. Different company, but similar mentality.

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I’ll miss The Order, though I have to wonder how much that title was a factor in the book’s fate. The quasi-fascist tone of a team name like The Order worked for the original “evil Defenders” comic (which was also great,) but between that name and the fact that the new team was by its nature on Iron Man’s side, some people may have thought the tone was more “fall in line” and less “good people doing the right thing.”

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@ Sam Rauch: I sincerely hope that’s not the case, because it’s especially fucking moronic. In this information rich age of previews easily available on all kinds of news sites, wikipedia, and torrents, there’s -no- valid reason for that kind of ass-grabbing fucktardery.

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Now “Ass-Grabbing Fucktard Quarterly”: THAT’S a title I can get into!

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I never picked up the book because to this point, Matt Fraction was far too “hit and miss” for my taste. When other readers ask my opinion of the man’s work, I tell them “Matt Fraction owes me twenty bucks.”

This is mostly because of Five Fists of Science, a work that I felt was ultimately mediocre and the five or six issues of Punisher: War Journal I picked up, which showed me the fun, playful side of Frank Castle. Maybe it’s just me, but while there are certainly psychopaths out there who quip like Spider-Man in their manifestos, The Punisher probably shouldn’t be one of them.

Casanova was alright, but there’s always been something about the book that just doesn’t click for me… Absolutely love Gabriel Ba’s artwork though.

Anyway, maybe his writing style fits well with this group of all original characters, so I’d be willing to check it out, but I’m VERY hesitant to ever purchase the man’s work again without giving it a full read first. Yet another example of why I should start bit torrenting comics and only buy the ones I really dig.

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This book did have a messy development history. As I understand it, this mutated from a Mark Millar pitch for the Champions as an all-god team of superheroes, which would certainly explain the redundant pantheon concept. Going for a while as Title To Be Determined wasn’t much help either.

Which is not to say that people shouldn’t have *checked it out*. Good lord, what the hell is friggin’ New Warriors doing still around when this book accomplished more in a single issue than that comic has in its whole run so far?

The Order has giant turtles! Lesbians! Zombies! Bears! Russian midgets! Lesbians! The Nintendo Wii! A blonde pop princess who is actually likable! Government conspiracies! Talking swords! An entire gang of lesbians! What more do you people want?

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[…] [Snark] Honesty in comic-book covers. […]

[…] UPDATE: This parody cover pretty much says it all. […]

I read it, expecting for something fresh and new. And I didn’t like it, unafortunately. A bit of superheroics on this title could make very good for this title. Do you remember? Villains, combat, adventure…

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