Team books

[The NZA]

I forget what thread made me think of this, i think it mighve been the announcement of the Avengers movie. Anyway....

 

Im a fan of solo chracter books: Miller's run on Daredevil and the like. Guys like Busiek and Perez, who grew up reading Captain America and the like, thought the team books were the best, cause youd get "more bang for your buck."

When the Marvel Ultimate U was being formed, i agreed with Bendis writing Ultimate Spider-Man and solo books, at first shying away from the team ones, cause i personally dont know how much character/etc you can get from too large a lineup; incidentally, Mark Millar clearly shut my fucking mouth with Ultimates.

 

I dont think X-Men falls in the same league as Avengers and JLA, personally, cause of a few factors:

1) X-books sell regardless. Its sad but true. Put Clarement and Austen on one title with Larocca's mediocre pencils, or Brubaker and a hot artist and it sells either way.

2) more importantly, Wolverine aside, no characters have been fleshed out enough to viably hold their own title.

Seriously. I mean, maybe Cable, but most any popular (and some not) X-Men have had at least a mini-series that practially no one read and bore no real importance to said character. Theyre a team because, sans Wolverine, they have to be. Theyre cool-looking charcters who can barely stand on their own back when Clarement (in his heyday) would do solo issues; most people prolly dont remember the Bishop one, but i bet you remember the Cap/Wolvy WW II teamup.

 

The Avengers - Here's a crappily-named team that really looks like it was marvel's most popular characters lumped together at first, but worked out good.

Your A-List/varsity squad's obvious: theyre the ones that're interesting enough to carry their own series consistently. But by very nature, these characters have their finest moments in those books, not the team one.

 

Cap - Best with classic Byrne shit (nazi vampires, running for president), Mark Waid & Ron Garney (before Heroes Reborn...you gotta read Operation: Rebirth and Man Without a Country if you havent), and of course, Brubaker.

 

Iron Man - Known most for drinking in the past....Chief'd cover this better, tho I'm fond of the recent Warren Ellis run.

 

Thor - He's admittedly hard to like, cause he talks/looks kinda gay, but he's synonymous with Simonson's epic run, all wrapped in norse mythology and Betra Ray Bill. I also enjoyed Ellis' "Worldengine" and Jurgen's run in volume 2.

 

Then there's 2nd stringers like Vision, Hawkeye, Scarlet Bitch etc, after that its all Wonder Mans, Ms Marvel and the like.

 

Now, to be fair, i dont read the book unless theres an event, or uh, Bendis. But beyod Kang, Ultron and the like, i think they run into the same problem as the JLA: you need big villians to justify this team coming out to fight, and a lotta the old ones look cheezy.

 

JLA/Justice League - I know, theyre the orgiinals, there woudlnt be Avengers, Authority etc without them, but by god, if theyre not fighting Aliens or Darkseid its a giant Starfish or something. Youve got a core lineup of the gods - Superman, Bats, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash and Aquaman, followed by whoever-the-fuck-else-that-i-dont-care-about. Ive read all of a few of Grant Morrison's arcs that i rather liked; otherwise, like the Avengers, this team strikes me as most interesting when its in disaray (sp?). Anyway, to do the same as i did for Avengers....

 

Supes - Honestly, i cant say im a fan 'casue i only wanna read the Elseworlds shit like Red Son, though "Man for all Seasons" by Loeb was great, as was Action # 775 "what's so funny about truth, justice and the american way?" cause the character just feels like a deus ex. Between the 2 icons, i always liked Captain America more, maybe cause he's been in wars and can get hurt.

 

Bats - finest moments, i think, are Miller pre 2k, and a lotta stories like Long Haloween and such. He's like to me: overused, but for a reason. Sometimes he works best in the background of a story, like Gotham Central.

 

Green Lantern - For me, i really dug Emerald Twilight (Jordan going nuts) by Ron Marz, though the classic "socaillly conscious" book with Green Arrow's interesting too. Current series aint bad.

 

Flash - I hear Waid's run is awesome, never got into it.

 

Wonder Woman - tells me the Artemis stuff with Deaodato Jr was great, ill never know.

 

Aquaman - Peter David, i guess?

 

That's it, fuck Hawkman, Martian Manhunter and anyone else.

 

 

 

maybe there's just something im missing out on with the big team books. What do you think, any fans here? I guess im mainly lookin at Newt.