Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities "That wasn't so bad"

Ever re-read a story you didn't like years later, and it surprises you in a good way?

In my case, I've been inventorying my collection, and I turned up the first six issues of the Captain Marvel (as in Genis-Vell) relaunch from 2003. These issues were produced under dire circumstances which would take too long to explain -- the short version is that Marvel's TPTB actually wanted Peter David to fail. And they feature a main character whose "cosmic awareness" drives him insane and takes him past the point of no return. So I had to see whether or not I would keep them, and perhaps also understand why I still had them in the first place.

Well, I have my answer: because this story is hilarious. Not "fun" funny, but "dark" funny. PAD has always invested his sense of humor into his work and, in this case, he seemed to be channeling his anger at TPTB as well as, perhaps, the more fickle fans whose neglect of the Captain Marvel series had put him in that predicament in the first place. Because Genis literally destroys the universe! Sure, he was manipulated to some degree by Entropy, and sure, it gets rebuilt at the end, but this is definitely an extreme tack to take with your lead character. And with this re-reading, I have come to feel that this arc is a brilliant bit of meta-storytelling from a writer who had paid his dues and had every right to be bitter.

That said, I can see why this arc, and the series that followed (which I vaguely remember being terrible) upset a lot of Genis fans, especially those who had loved him from Avengers Forever, in which it was foretold he was destined to become an Avenger. I guess since I've never been crazy about Avengers Forever, or with the previous volume of Captain Marvel, which felt to me like PAD-by-numbers most of the time, I had no problem with what PAD did to him in this arc. I personally think it was gutsy and underappreciated, although I also think that it was a clumsy way to launch an ongoing series, as the character really had nowhere to go from there but (further) down. Perhaps if this had been a mini-series, and Genis had been put out to pasture for a while, things might have turned out differently. And for what it's worth, I wouldn't wish Genis' gruesome fate in Thunderbolts Mark II (which was not written by PAD) on any character.

So anyone else re-evaluate a much-disliked story arc lately?

Not lately, but I did distance myself from The Kingdom for a few years when I was younger.

I didn't read The Kingdom until last year. I had very high expectations for it, since it was where the concept of Hypertime (a concept I adore) was introduced. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. IIRC, Mark Waid was going through something of a personal and professional lull at that time.

I give it more of a break. I know it's not as epic as Kingdom Come, but the Planet Krypton story is a favorite of mine, and it fleshed out Nightstar, Kid Flash, and even introduced Offspring.

Also, the fact that Waid remembered Kathy Kane was one of the reasons I wanted to find The Kingdom. Keep in mind I was in middle school at the time and I didn't start regularly buying comics until 2005.

Actually now that I really think about it, I admit I've become somewhat curious over the Mister Terrific series Eric Wallace did, even though I avoid his writing like the plague because of how terrible Villains for Hire was.

Point taken about The Kingdom, Sarky. I actually thought Kingdom Come was an overhyped letdown at the time it came out, and haven't re-read it since. Maybe that one will pleasantly surprise me if I re-read it.

As for the Mister Terrific series, he is a great legacy character (Michael Holt was, after all, created by John Ostrander), but I find I'm almost never impressed by writers I'm already predisposed to dislike, no matter what character they're writing.

I have a morbid kind of curiosity over books and characters that I learn are generally disliked for a variety of reasons... unless I actually read the stories they were in first BEFORE I read that they were disliked.