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Happy birthday to me, happy birthday tooo meeeee... I love
writing these things on weekends, holidays, big events, you
know that? Reminds me just how little of a life I have. Which is
fortunate for all of you, since if I did have a life, you wouldnt get
to hear me piss and moan ever month! Maybe thats
unfortunate for you, actually.
Ah, what to rant about this month? What has Marvel done
to annoy me now? Ah yes! Thats right! Cable!
Now, let me just get this out of the way very quickly. Cable
was arguably created by Rob Liefeld, and has never really been
a fully realized character. Mainly because Rob scrawled a guy
with huge shoulder pads and guns bigger than his chest, with no
clue to who he was. Writers came and writers went, adding
layer upon layer upon layer to this character until he was an
irrevocable mess.
Until recently, when Cable somehow managed to be granted
a real writer, who has actually written real books! Robert
Weinberg has been writing for many years, won awards and the
like, and out of a love for comics, decided to give writing them a
go.
And you know what? Hes good. Very good. He has a
deep respect for the history of the characters, tells intricate plots
with predetermined destinations so you get a payoff to all the
mysteries that actually make sense.
In fact, if youve been following X-News, you will probably
remember that the fans were so impressed with his handling of
Cable - he actually took this mess, started making some sense
out of the different characterizations that have come over the
years, and actually gave Cable a characterization that made you
actually like the character, and care about what happened to him
- that the fans wrote in to Marvel, in such an outpouring of
support, that the book was spared from the recent wave of
cancellations that swept through the X-Line.
Now, not more than two months after that arguably-
miraculous save, Bob has been fired from the title, and will not
get to complete his massive storyline. The only upside is he will
at least get to complete the minor portion of the big picture that
he was currently working on, in a satisfying manner.
Bob will be replaced with Howard Chaykin. A fine writer,
in my opinion, who could do great things with the book, but I
wont be reading them. Why? In short, this just seems wrong,
and a slap in the face, albeit an unintentional one. Marvel has to
do what they think is right for the company, and thats their
prerogative. But I feel like Ive been jerked around, and it
doesnt help that Im deathly sick of the damned revolving door
of X-Book creators. Yknow, Marvel, if you actually let a
creator stay on a title and tell a story, you might actually see the
title get a fan base and sales begin to rise. And maybe if you
promoted the books, that might help too.
Promote the book? Nah, to radical a concept for the House
of Ideas.
Is there anything we fans can do? Nope. At this point, Bob
is gone as of late summer, so enjoy what we get. The ink is on
the contracts, all the deals are signed. We tried keeping Bob on
the book when we first heard about it, but it was too little too
late. Ah well, thats the way things go. All we can do now is
vote with our wallets and let Marvel know this isnt a nice way
to treat fans.
Well, thats it for me, for another month. Tune in on the first
of March to see how Marvel has pissed me off in the intervening
four weeks. Hopefully it wont be by hiring Rob Liefeld for,
well, anything.
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