First of all, I would like to issue a very large public thank-you to webcartoonist David Willis for this particular Shortpacked! strip. I’ve not been a big fan of Marvel’s Civil War event, which has had the odd effect of making Marvel’s tragically hip, uber-cynical “Ultimate” universe seem like a happy, carefree place.
But the decision to make one of my favorite characters the bad guy, the front man for oppression – that has bugged me the most. I can even envision the story conference – “What do people hate more than Big Government?” “Big Business! Tony Stark! Of course!!!”
If anything makes DC’s earth-salting of long-standing characters like Barry Allen and Hal Jordan seem like small potatoes, it’s Marvel’s dynamiting of every interpersonal relationship in their stable. I’m going to admit that the very definition of drama is to maroon your main character at the top of a tall tree and then throw rocks at him… but the results of the rock-throwing have not yielded much in the way of actual entertainment. Most of my Marvel titles have become a joyless slog of late, and really, only a really crazy-ass ultra-complicated plot to take down the Red Skull, Hydra and AIM once and for all, or Franklin Richard’s warping reality once again is going to insure my continued readership.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, good for you. Continue living your life, blissfully unaware of the stripmining of a popular subculture. Well, unless you’re a fan of the original Star Wars trilogy, then you may understand what I’m grumbling about.
And I won’t be embedding that very popular Video of the Moment, the Dramatic Hamster. I have some standards. That, and it’s a prairie dog, dammit.
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