Goodwill said:
It was implied... I think you're reading too much into the whole "No body, no death" thing there, LS.
Although didn't Nick Fury make a comment to Peter Parker at the end of the USM Venon arc that "There's not too many actual rules to this game of ours, but one of the big ones is: If there's no corpse...the guy's alive."?
Sorry, Goodwill, couldn't resist. :wink:
Although Beast is one of my favorite characters, I'm also hoping there's no convenient "resurrection". This is, technically, the second time they've killed him, although the first time I could buy into the "come-back" because Storm's not a doctor and it's most likely she just thought he was dead. In real life, death is permanent and the living need to learn to deal with it, pick up and move on. I realize we're talking about comic books here, but there's enough good drama in death and the reactions of the living that this is one point in which I think art needs to imitate life.
To just touch on the original question of the target age of USM, the books are shelved in the Young Adult section of my public library, but I have no problem with handing them to kids in the upper elementary grades. If the kid has seen the movies, s/he should be able to handle most of what's in the books. The fact that the profanity is shown as "#&@%" is, in my opinion, a plus -- it means I won't have parents coming back and yelling at me for giving their kid something inappropriate. (And I'm sorry to be such a little old lady about such things, but I really prefer it that way. I don't need to have the actual words on the page; I can usually tell from context just which swear word the character would be using if it were printed out.)
I think Marvel is pitching USM at teens, but I recommend them to anyone of any age I think would like and understand them, the same as I do with any other piece of literature.
longshotjimlee said:
This is why I think that titles should have a finite life span.
I agree, and I wouldn't even suggest a target number of issues. To paraphrase a character from Lewis Carroll, figure out the story you're going to tell, break it up into a reasonable number of issues, publish it to the end, and then stop.
One of the things I like about the whole story arc approach in comics is that the story has a beginning, a middle and an end. There are logical points at which the writer could stop writing. Although it's been frustrating being a fan of
The Ultimates, I appreciate the idea that first, Mark Millar has his stories actually planned out, complete with a stopping point; and second, that Brian Hitch is being allowed time to get a substantial amount of the art done before the first book is released, so the likelihood of delays is much smaller.
The Ultimates is one of those series I think should continue ONLY if the writers/illustrators can produce a quality piece of work. Comic books being published on a schedule face the same problems as television series -- the whole thing is driven more by "we gotta get an issue/episode out every month/week" than by "here's a great story, let's serialize it for 13 issues/episodes". I think quality really suffers many times because the creative teams are more focused on getting something,
ANYthing out in time to meet the deadline. Maybe it's a sign of age, but I'd really prefer quality over quantity. (Of course, I also prefer graphic novels rather than monthly issues, but that too might be a sign of age. :wink: )
