Spoiler Sunday--Namor Crosses A Line!

Friends, I come to bury last week's Avengers #9, not praise it.

But that involves spoiling the hell out of the issue, so if you haven't read it yet, come back later. The post will still be here.

Spoilers commence after the 5 images of Stingray...

SPOILERS commence now.

Last Wednesday. Jason Aaron tweeted how much he'd wanted to write Namor...

Been wanting to write this dude for a looong time. And this issue is just the beginning of the trouble that'll be raging beneath the waves. pic.twitter.com/YEbJ4NVgKu

— Jason Aaron (@jasonaaron) October 10, 2018

Well, that's nice. And, aside from making him all broody/sexy-Kylo Ren-look-at-my-crotch-area Namor, what did he have in mind for the character?

How about making him a psycho killer?

Sure, Namor's always been a jerk, an ass. Even back in the Golden Age, he couldn't make up his mind between conquering the surface world and just beating up Nazis. That's just a basic part of the character--arrogant prick.

But Aaron has him cross a line.

See, Stingray is fighting Tiger Shark, as brothers-in-law are wont to do. When black leather fetish Namor shows up...

Stingray, fellow Avenger and long-time ally of Namor, tries to talk it out.

 [NOTE: calling out that you're doing the 100th rerun of Namor vs. the surface world doesn't make it any less of a tired cliche. it just makes it a tired self-aware cliche.]

Namor beats the shit out of him. Fine, as we say, Namor is king of the dicks.

But then...

So, yeah, Namor straight up murders Stingray.

Now, you can say that Namor is being controlled, or had too much Ambien, or some such. No evidence of it yet, but as Aaron tweeted, there's a lot of story left to tell here.

And sure, it's possible that Stingray isn't really dead. Maybe the "war sharks" only ate him a little bit, and that "born from the blood of the old" is only metaphorical, despite all the damned real blood we see, and despite the shattered suit, Walt Newell doesn't drown when Namor leaves him bleeding out helplessly deep beneath the waves. But not likely.

Of course, it gets tougher to defend when you see that the "Defenders Of The Deep" that Namor puts together...

...is 100% villains, murderers all.

Why was it necessary to kill Stingray? He was an Avenger. He was often an ally of Namor. Why wasn't kicking the crap out of him enough? Was Namor as asshole not cool enough? Did you have to go full Anakin-killing-the-younglings to make him a credible threat? Because you made him look like Kylo Ren, did you think he had to do something as heinous as killing Han? Was "anti-hero" not trendy enough, so you crossed the line to make him a full on super-villain who feeds former friends to the sharks?

Plus, Stingray had a really cool costume. What the hell, man??

Just watch--at some point in the distant future (because Aaron can't write briefer stories--the "War of the Realms" in Thor is entering it's 6th year!) they'll try to walk it back and have Namor "redeem" himself somehow and all will be forgiven and everyone will be friends again and dance around with Ewoks--and Stingray's murder, like Alderaan, will never be mentioned once.

Hmm, went further than I planned with my Star Wars analogies there...

Spoiler Sunday--Lois, The Pulitzer Committee Wants Their Prizes Back...

Lois is having a reunion with her father, General Sam Lane--who in the Rebirth universe seems just to be a jerkwad, and not a sociopathic madman.

Of course arguments ensue, and we quickly get to the source of the friction between them:

Let's assume that no one was immediately endangered by Lois' piece exposing the operation.

But good gosh, Daily Planet--in what way is it remotely acceptable to let a reporter write about her own father?!? There are so many potential conflicts of interest, it doesn't matter how "well" the reporting was done--the very credibility of the piece, and the paper, is flushed away. How in the world could Perry White let that happen? No wonder no one trusts the media...

Of course, the argument circles around and around...until we get to the fact that Lois' "everyone answers to someone" conveniently doesn't apply to the Big S:

And he doesn't know the half of it--he doesn't know they've married.

Look, I know that, as the audience, we KNOW that Superman is a trustworthy dude (except for the times he's been controlled, or possessed, or transformed, or whatever). So we reflexively reject any character who says "But we shouldn't necessarily trust him." But such dramatic deck-stacking doesn't excuse a reporter blindly spewing it. For Lois Lane to make the argument that her values for press coverage magically don't apply to Kal-El--and conditioned solely on the fact that she knows him personally--is hypocrisy of the highest level. And honestly, it makes Lois look kind of stupid--can't she even come up with a better rationalization? Does she not realize that his first argument completely defeats her second argument?

And thee fact that they're married? Leave aside the issue of whether she should reveal his identity. The insane, unforgivable conflict of interest totally destroys any pretense of journalistic integrity.

What if we found out that a New York Times reporter were secretly married to a figure in the administration? What if she were secretly married to the Secretary of State, but still covered the Secretary of State for the paper? And she only gave him only good coverage, and explicitly argued to everyone that he didn't deserve scrutiny because he was just so awesome?!? Isn't that unethical on every possible level?!?Wouldn't such a reporter be exiled from the profession, not rewarded with prizes?

The way the media functions in a super-hero universe probably shouldn't be looked at too closely from a "realistic" viewpoint--like a lot of such conceits, it can't bear the weight. But when the comic itself invites it--when it explicitly posits a particular reporter as a bastion of journalistic virtue, as a rock star in the press, as an admired and much-awarded figure, as "the most important character in the DC Universe" (as some have opined)--then you can't just cough and politely look away when that character violates every journalistic principle there is, and actually boasts about it.

Of course, DC comics & movies have a long history of not understanding journalistic ethics, or how the press works. So, you know, this is really nothing new. But until someone does something about this--a new job for Lois? Have her restrict herself from covering Superman?--please, no more of this "she's the greatest reporter since sliced bread" nonsense.

From Action Comics #999 (2018)

Spoiler Sunday--Why All Of The [REDACTED] Hatred, DC?!?

You've almost certainly heard by now, or at least heard the theories, about the identity of the mysterious "Mr. Oz," who has been manipulating events in the nu52/Rebirth DC Universe.

Well, surprise, surprise: I have some things to say about that revelation.

So, if you don't want to be spoiled, well, come back later.

SPOILERS begin of the 5 pictures of Oz...

Still there?

Well, there is no sense beating around the bush, is there? This week's Action Comics #987 reveals that Mr. Oz is:

OK, then.

Now, I'll grant any caveats you like: this is just the beginning of a 4-part story; it could easily turn out not to really be Jor-El; it could be a dude from an alternate universe or such; he could be a Dr. Manhattan experiment gone awry; yada yada.

Still, this seems likely to be one more example of DC's growing hatred of Krypton.

Look, I know there have always been Kryptonian bad guys. That's what the Phantom Zone is for. Every society has it's bad apples.

And Krypton was certainly not perfect--the stupid science council ignored Jor-El's warnings, for one thing.

But still, Krypton was always presented as, if not necessarily a utopia, at least a decent place. They were pretty much like us, just more advanced. Humans could travel to Krypton (via time travel) or to Kandor, and fit right in, and be accepted. It was a good place, that had a tragic ending.

But let's look at what DC has told us in the last few years:

**The first Rebirth arc of Justice League had the Kryptonian god Rao--yup, the actual Rao--as a villain. It's turns out Rao was a parasite, a demon who tried to turn everyone on Earth into a Kryptonian so he could absorb their energy.

**The Cyborg Superman--OK, look, there are two separate Cyborg Supermen running around the Rebirth universe right now, because DC is bereft of ideas. Anyway, the Cyborg Superman I'm talking about, who wants to destroy Earth (and pretty much anything not Kryptonian) is Zor-El, Supergirl's father (and Kal-El's uncle).

**The villains of DKIII? The Master Race? Kandorians. When their enlarged, they turn out to be evil dickweeds who want to take over Earth, or, failing that, blow it up.

**Prior to the nu52, of course, Kandor was also enlarged, and, surprise, they were dickweeds. Not evil per se, but arrogant pricks who pretty much hate humans and allow themselves to goaded into the "War Of The Supermen."

**H'el, a Kryptonian (of some sort), who was going to destroy the Earth in order to make a time warp that would allow him to keep Krypton from exploding in the first place.

**The Eradicator is back, and is a nationalist/racist asshole, wanting to destroy everything non-Kryptonian and recreate Krypton on Earth.

**The asteroid that made Vandal Savage immortal? It was from Krypton.

There are more examples, but I'm too lazy to look them up right now.

And so things have reached the point where it's plausible that Jor-El--JOR-EL!!--is a genocidal madman, essentially Eradicator 2.0, willing to bend time and space and destroy millions because...well, because humans suck:

We've seen him straight-up murder people, and imprison others who might interfere with his plans. And here's the half of the issues lenticular cover that represents him:

The House Of El symbol made up of corpses. How. Nice.

This is the state of Krypton in today's DC Universe--that, without too much cognitive dissonance, we can believe that Superman's dad is Darkseid Jr.

We are apparently supposed to seriously believe that Kal-El and Kara are the only good people from Krypton. That everyone else--including their parents!!--was xenophobic, genocidal maniacs who held any other life-form in contempt. That Krypton was a hellhole filled with assholes who would as soon wipe us out as look at us.

The question, of course, is why in the world DC has chosen this direction. Why make Krypton nothing but a source of evil, constantly bedeviling Earth? Why make half of Superman's heritage Kryptonian supremacists whose only function is to torment Kal-El and company? Why moot the tragedy of Krypton's destruction by positing that, well, they kind of deserved it?

What dramatic purpose is served by treating krypton this way? Is it just another manifestation of the misguided "heroes must suffer" mantra--just Superman's version of Flash's mother having to die for him to be a hero? Are the current creators so insecure that Kal-El would choose to defend Earth that they have to make his other home look indefensible in contrast?!?

I just don't get it.

Spoiler Sunday--Thought Balloons? THOUGHT BALLOONS!!!

Will miracles never cease?

In this week's Generations: Hawkeye & Hawkeye #1, Kate Bishop is sent through time and space to have an adventure with a young Clint Barton. Good fun.

As the two split up to pursue separate missions, we get a double-page spread. On the left, we have Kate...
 

And on the right we have Clint:

Do you see? Do you see?!?!?!?!? My gosh, that's got to be those first time I've seen actual thought balloons in a Big Two comic in years!

It's a clever conceit--the character from the present using narrative captions, the dude from the past using "old-fashioned" and currently verboten thought balloons!! Good on you, Kelly Thompson!

And, of course Clint Barton isn't going to self-narrate his life like a junior high student filling a journal with portentous self-analytical musings. He's just going to be thinking to himself, dammit!!

Again, not every character or story is ill-served by narrative captions. Hell, lots of the time they work beautifully, and are the preferable mode.

But by that same token, the arbitrary industry diktat that all comics must now use captions makes no more sense than declaring that everyone must use thought balloons. Not every character "thinks" in literary-sounding essays, playing the Watcher in their own life, spewing out Rod-Serling-end-of-the-episode lessons while they're fighting.

So I hope that, rather than a cute one-off device, this signals a softening of the industry fatwa against our friend, the thought balloon. Probably not, but a man can dream.

Next, we can work on getting rid of that damned Asgardian font...

Spoiler Sunday--Whither Kon-El?!?

WARNING: this post contains SPOILERS for this week's Flash #21 and Action Comics #978. If you haven't read 'em yet, come on back later!!

Poor DC. They never, ever know how to pull the band-aid off quickly.

It's been 11 months since the Rebirth special, and almost everywhere we're still treading water, as if they're waiting for some more cocktail napkin scribblings from Geoff Johns before they dare proceed because they really have no idea what's actually happening in this "story." Even double-publishing their big titles every month, a year later we're no closer to understanding what the hell is going on

Hell, we haven't even had the reveal of who our "villains" are yet, which makes this even more dragged out than the pre-Crisis Monitor cameos. Yes, yes, we know who they are...which makes the whole "gee, who is behind all this" even more frustrating.

At this rate, this whole Rebirth project--whose sole purpose is to (re)(de)(un)boot the fiasco of Flushpoint/nu52--is going to take 3 years. Check back in 2020 to see if I'm wrong.

Still, this last week's comics have made clear that the prime motivation of DC is indeed to largely reinstall the continuity of post-Crisis DC...yet somehow keep the stuff they like about the nu52.

Man, that's going to be messy and awful.

Flash #21, for example, pretty firmly reestablishes that the Justice League was formed in the way we had always known, and that you wasted your time and money reading the Geoff Johns/Jim Lee version:

Oh, and that also told us that Identity Crisis is back in continuity, because who didn't miss that charming tale of rape, brainwashing, jealous ex-spouses walking in people's brains, and heroes no longer being heroic?

But the biggest actual confirmed changes are in Superman's life story, as Action Comics very firmly says that the five year timeline of the nu52 is to be forgotten, and that virtually everything post Byrne-reboot is back as official history. But most (some?) of the nu52 happened, too!

His first meeting with Lois, for example:

Note that this confirms that Kal-El did, at one point, wear the red trunks!! So there's really no reason they can't go back to it...

But note--this also means that the Grant Morrison/young Superman in blue jeans and a home-made cape stories from nu52 Action never happened!! Poor Grant--flushed from continuity again!

And Superman's own memories--and the data crystals at the Fortress of Solitude--confirm that pretty much everything post-Crisis did indeed happen in the current Superman's history:

But he still adopted the terrible nu52 costume at some point...

And all of the nu52 stories happened--except for the ones that didn't, like the dalliance with Wonder Woman, or Clark quitting the Daily Planet to be a blogger, or....well, hold on, we'll have to wait for Geoff Johns to tell us what's what.

Oh, but not everything post-Crisis is back on the table. Take this discussion of the Death Of Superman (which definitely occurred):

Wait...one, two, three...somebody's missing...

Oh, yeah, that guy!!

So, really...Conner Kent/Kon-El Kent, clone created from DNA of both Superman and Lex Luthor, the best incarnation of Superboy, isn't coming back with everyone else??

Others have pointed out, they didn't definitively say he wasn't part of the new history--they just didn't list him. Even though they had plenty of room. Maybe. But dude, they made room to show Space Gladiator Kal-El, so you'd think they squeeze in a guy whose own series lasted 102 issues and was a member of Titans and the Legion, if they wanted to,

And as still others have noted, DC is releasing reprint trades of Superboy's series later this year, and that must mean they have plans for him, right? Sorry, I can't agree there--DC is also releasing reprints of Night Force, and I'll wager they're not coming back. No, DC is in a position where they have to keep releasing reprint collections, so they'll have as many as previous years, or their sales will go down versus previous years and someone will be canned, so everything they can tidy up is being reprinted, whether it's relevant to current plans or not.

It seems that DC is so intent on building up their current Superboy, Jon Kent, that they don't want to reestablish the clone Superboy, despite his being a pretty vital part that era of DC history (Legion! Young Justice! Titans! Ravers! The Superman Family!). So much for Rebirth restoring legacy to the DCU!

Of course, this could all be resolved when Geoff Johns mumbles something in his sleep that the listening device in his quarters passes on to DC as holy writ. But for now, it sure likes DC is restoring post-Crisis continuity, but going out of their way to exclude the best incarnation of Superboy. What a shame.

Spoiler Sunday--Ant-Man #2!!

WARNING: This point contains a minor but wonderful spoiler for this week's Ant-Man #2. It doesn't show up until a ways after the embedded video below. Read at your own risk...

Allow me to start by saying that Nick Spencer and Ramon Rosanas are rocking it out on the new Ant-Man series.

We all know that Ant-Man is a joke, right? He's Marvel's Aquaman!

Let's face it--when you have a 1970s Saturday Night Live sketch in part dedicated to mocking Ant-Man's very existence, well, that's a major slap in the face from an arbiter of pop culture:


I just can't figure out how Aquaman became pop culture's symbol of the epitome of lameness, after that.

Now, when Marvel decided to bring us an Ant-Man series, to coincide with the forthcoming Ant-Man movie, well, they could have gone the DC/Geoff Johns route: be all defensive about the "loser" reputation. Have your hero spend substantial parts of the first few issues confronting civilians who think he's a loser, and set them straight. While being an obnoxious ass about it.

Or, you could give the title to Nick Spencer. And he could use the same approach that he did on the excellent Superior Foes Of Spider-Man: embrace the lame. Wallow in it. Use it as a way to develop character.

So read the book, I'm saying.

Anyway, that aside, issue # 2 brings us one of the greatest comic book creations in the history of ever. For, locked in a secret vault in a Miami bank...

Midasbot!! An atomic-powered alchemical Nazi robot, that kills its foes by turning them into gold.

Goddamn, I love comic books!!

Keep on flying that loser flag, Nick Spenser!!

Spoiler Sunday--Avengers World #13 Was Written Specifically For Me

I'm going to discuss the last page of this week's Avengers World #13, so if you haven't read it yet, come on back later.

Spoilers commence after the 5 random pictures of the Avengers...

Still here? Good. Let's get started.

Nick Spencer has been doing a bang-up job writing Avengers World. He's using the title to establish that other nations/alliances in the world are stepping up to the plate, establishing their own version of Avengers so they can share in the burden of protecting the world. The Black Knight, for example, has been heading up Euroforce. And S.P.E.A.R., China's equivalent of S.H.I.E.L.D., has put together The Ascendant.

However, some troubles are too big for any one team--or even multiple teams:

Yes, there's a huge-ass dragon WITH THE ENTIRE ISLAND OF MADRIPOOR ON HIS HEAD.

But it gets worse:

A giant dragon with an entire island on his head is ravaging Shanghai.

And the Ascendant and a handful of Avengers are getting their butts kicked fairly well.

So the head of S.P.E.A.R. asks the head of S.H.I.E.L.D.to borrow something special:

What "proprietary technology?"

Uh-oh...what are they going to use Pym Particles for?

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!

Look, I'll be the first to admit that attempts to integrate Shang-Chi into the modern Marvel super-hero universe have been problematic at best, and ultimately unsatisfying. The recent Deadly Hands Of Kung Fu mini-series was nothing less than the worst comics of the year.

BUT OMG A GIANT-SIZE SHANG-CHI FIGHTING A HUGE-ASS DRAGON OMG OMG!!

Ahem.

And of course, one might question this scenario--Giant-Man or any of the other Pym-Particle good guys could never get that big. The damn dragon has an entire city sitting comfortably atop his head, and Madripoor has been described in the past as roughly 100 miles in diameter, which means Godzilla  or Fin Fang Foom would probably come up to this guy's ankle. And since we've never seen a Pym Particle user able to grow much past 25 feet tall, well, this whole scenario is pretty questionable...

BUT OMG OMG SHANG-CHI USING PYM PARTICLES TO MAKE HIMSELF HUGE ENOUGH TO FIGHT A DRAGON WITH THE ENTIRE ISLAND OF MADRIPOOR ON HIS HEAD AND OF COURSE SHANG'S SUPERIOR MEDITATION AND BODILY CONTROL WOULD ALLOW HIM TO USE PYM PARTICLES MORE EFFECTIVELY AND OMG OMG SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Ahem.

I guess I'm saying that sometimes you have to ignore your head and go with your heart, because even if there's no reason to think that this makes sense, this reminds me of why I love comic books.

And SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Spoiler Sunday--Unoriginal Sin

Look, we really have to talk about the abominable and head-shakingly awful Original Sin.

But to do so, I've got to spoil some major revelations from Original Sin #5 from last month, as well as this week's Original Sins #5.

So if you haven't read them yet, or are waiting for the trade, you'll probably want to come back later.

Spoiler-filled rant commences after the pictures of 5 original sins that are all better than Marvel's event...

SPOILERS commencing...now!

So the whole Original Sin debacle is supposedly about the death of The Watcher, and the theft of his eyes. Those eyes keep "exploding," releasing many of the deep, dark secrets Uatu has seen over the years. Blah, blah.

But what the series is really about is figuring out what to do with Nick Fury.

Not the new, younger, let's-cash-in-on-Sam-Jackson-as-Fury-even-though-he's-always-wearing-a-spandex-thing-that-Sam-Jackson-would-never-be-caught-dead-wearing guy. No, the problem Marvel has is, now that young Fury is around, and Maria Hill is entrenched as leader of S.H.I.E.L.D., what the hell do you do with the "old" Nick Fury?

The obvious answer is, you turn him into a genocidal villain.

Original Sin has Identity Crisis-envy so badly, I'm surprised that they haven't had Batroc violate Aunt May. The entire series is about deep, dark revelations of "sins" that make us reevaluate our heroes. Because who wants nice heroes when we can have folks who have violated our trust and their own morals? Besides, it's more fun to shit on characters...

So for older Fury, they've gone and rewritten/refocused history, like this:

In 1958, Fury and his Defense Intelligence squad stumble upon an alien invasion:

His guys are wiped out, but Fury (and Earth) are saved by the appearance of a mysterious flying, gun-toting dude:

Our savior dies in the fight, but not before he sends a bomb through the portal that destroys the entire alien world on the other side. The entire world:

Well, Howard Stark shows up, and expositions us. The dead hero was Woodrow McCord, the "man on the wall." (Don't bother looking it up--you've never heard of him before, and you will never hear of him again) You see, Stark and others have been scavenging lost alien technology for years (a la Torchwood...ahem) so they can protect Earth from the alien threats that they know are out there. And there is always one man--answerable to no one, who uses all the goodies to do whatever is necessary to save us all:

And since McCord is dead, we need a new "man on the wall," and Stark recruits Fury to be that man.

Q: Well, if the job is so important, why only have one man on the wall? Why not two, or three? A whole squad?
A: Don't ask sensible questions about nonsensical retcons!

Fury takes the job, moves operations to a super-secret stealth satellite, and begins to protect Earth.

How?

By assassinating alien leaders who lust after our planet:

By wiping out threats before they become so big that super-heroes might become involved:

By going all Guantanamo on captured aliens:

And, yeah, eliminating entire planets. Yes, ELIMINATING ENTIRE PLANETS:

Now, Fury did this while still working for the CIA, and then S.H.I.E.L.D., basically pulling a Peter Parker/Clark Kent and finding an excuse to run off whenever a cosmic-level threat reared its head. Seriously, we're shown him ditching an important briefing when he "forgot it was...my Aunt Matilda's birthday."

Eventually, though, Fury got himself a corp of LMD's who could cover for him when he was extincting entire species.

Also, the Infinity Formula in his blood stopped working, so he's ridiculously old now.

So any recent interactions with a Nick Fury who looks like he always have have most likely been with a Doombot LMD. This has the benefit of conveniently (and lazily) hand-waving away any difficult continuity questions that might arise from this silliness.

Of course, there are other questions:

Q: So where was the "man on the wall" during The Invasion? Why did he let the Skrulls invade?
A: Uhhh...

Q: Where was all-powerful Nick Fury during the Kree-Skrull War?
A: Uhhh....

Q: Hey, how come Nick Fury and his Howling Weapons Of Mass Destruction didn't stop Thanos' alien fleet during Infinity?
A: Uhhh...

Q: Hey, speaking of Thanos, the bastard has attacked Earth and thereabouts any number of times. He's precisely the type of thing Nick took the position to stop. And pro-active Nick has weapons capable of killing a Watcher--why didn't he just put a bullet in the Titan's head at any time, like he did to other alien threats?
A: Look, you're not playing fair by asking logical questions that we never thought about!

So, in other words, Uber-Fury saved Earth from countless cosmic threats--except the ones he didn't.

Now look, I understand that Jason Aaron is trying to give us a "subtle" critique of the American "neo-cons," and of many of the things the Bush administration did post-9/11.

All well and good (if not exactly timely). But why the hell do you have to shit all over Nick Fury to make that happen? I've read my fair share of Nick Fury comics, and I never got the sense that he was the type who would endorse, for example, killing every man, woman and child in Germany in order to stop the Nazis. Which is essentially what he's doing here, with his "watch entire races die screaming before they can attack us" protocol.

There are other characters in the Marvel Universe who might fit better into this role, if you insist on having it. Tony Stark is a fine example of an asshole I can see rationalizing all of this as OK. There are others. But why the hell spoil Fury? Why make him into a ruthless, evil version of Captain Jack Harkness? Only because you're trying to get rid of him in favor of the new younger guy.

Oh, but wait, there's more.

In this week's Original Sins #5--a tie-in series which tells shorts stories about folks dealing with the "sins" they learn about from the Watcher's eyes--we have a story which doesn't do that at all. Instead, they decide to ruin another favorite character!

In this one, Dum Dum Dugan offers to give Fury a transfusion of his blood, in order to "kickstart" the Infinity Formula in Fury's system. Hey, it's worked before with the Super-Soldier Serum, and, as Dugan points out:

Oh, dear. Nicky has to break some bad news to Dugan:

It turns out that Dum Dum died back in 1966--yes, nearly 50 years ago--after catching a random bullet in a raid on a Hydra complex.

Wait--then how have we been seeing Dugan in so many stories since then?

Ah. So every appearance of Dugan in the modern Marvel Universe--heading up S.H.I.E.L.D. squads, chasing Godzilla for two years, everything--has just been a LMD that thinks he's Dugan.

Fuck you, Marvel.

Anyway, this information causes "Dugan" to read Fury the riot act, and call him on all of his "I'm the only man who can do this so rules and morality don't apply to me" bullshit. Finally:

Once again, fuck you, Marvel.

We've twisted continuity past any reasonably breaking point, and pooped upon the legacy of two of Marvel's oldest characters. Why? All because you want to replace one of them with a guy who more closely resembles a movie actor.

You know, Marvel, if that's what you wanted, you just could have had elder Nick die, oh, I don't know, a heroic death. You didn't have to turn him into a self-justifying/deluding genocidal maniac and symbol for a decade-old political debate, while rendering decades of stories into so much unrecognizable sewage. Except, of course, you wanted to capture some of that Identity Crisis magic.

It is possible that, in the final issue of Original Sin, that they will reveal that "bastard Fury" is himself just another LMD, and the "real" Nick Fury will be found, or revealed to be long dead, or in some way not responsible for any of this. I don't believe in a minute that will happen, but hey, it's not out yet, so who knows?

Still, the damage has been done. The reader can now never take any previous appearance of Fury at face value--was it really him? An LMD? Following his secret bastard agenda? And if he somehow survives, well, we're in Doombot territory now--no one, reader or character, will ever believe it's the real article again. Ditto for Dugan.

Marvel has effectively taken every single story of two long-term characters and coated it with a slimy, cynical coat of "ha, you thought you were reading about heroes, but we know better, because we're more 'adult' and 'edgy,' you were fooled all those years hahaha" revisionism.

As much as I love comics, there are some days when I really hate comics. I think I'd better go read some Bandette....