User blog:Nausiated/Heroes Rebored

So people who follow my updates here at the Marvel Wiki may have noticed that I've taken a pause from my usual issue summaries to do a bunch of articles about characters that were part of the Heroes Reborn story line (AKA the Counter-Earth 2 characters). Well the main reason why I'm doing these is because I'm in the process of moving to a new place so the majority of my graphic novels and such are packed up and I don't want to go through boxes of stuff only to pack things up again (kind of defeats the purpose of moving.)

I'll liken the Heroes Reborn story arc like my most shrooms trip (PS: I am not advocating drug use. If you choose to do your drugs thats you own call, I'm a POOR role model anyway). I have a full recollection of what happened, however what I experienced was mostly conversations that were only going on in my head. That is what Heroes Reborn was. They pretty much had four different stories to tell and cram them into four 12 issue series and hope that the reader would know what was going on. It relied on the reader having an understanding of some of Marvel's continuity because they couldn't spend the time building up all the back story.

Which frankly, defeated the whole point. When Heroes Reborn first came to be, Marvel Comics had the idea that high issue numbers alienated new readers because they didn't want to read a series that was in circulation for 50 years. Take Fantastic Four for example. The first volume ended at what -- issue #418 or something? They rebooted with volume 2 so that the issue numbers were lower and that would SOMEHOW make people want to pick up Fantastic Four and Avengers again.

The reality is shitty writing actually. If you read some of the titles that they cancelled and rebooted due to Heroes Reborn and you'll see one glaring similarity: They all sucked.

The issue number thing is laughable especially now that Marvel is making a point to point out issue #500 or 600 of a series (FF Vol 3 went back to the Vol 1 numbering, Amazing Spider-Man Vol 2 went back to Vol 1 numbering as well, and the most ridiculious was Mighty Thor going back to the Journey Into Mystery numbering.) these days.

Fact is, comic book readers don't are about the issue numberings. They want to read a story. Numbers don't matter.

The biggest flaw with Heroes Reborn was that it was hoping to sell comics based on names attached to the titles. Avengers and Captain America had Rob Liefeld and Fantastic Four and Iron Man had Jim Lee. Only problem is Liefeld mostly worked on Captain America, drew the odd Avengers issue, and Jim Lee only drew the first few issues of Fantastic Four, and the cover to Iron Man #1. They weren't carrying all the art chores, and they eventually farmed out the writing as well.

I will say this about Rob Liefeld: He is one of worst artists out there, especially if he's trying to meet a deadline, Captain America made for some of his most embarrassing work, but he is a halfway decent writer. Jim Lee is a good writer a decent writer as well. The problem I found with the stories they were trying to tell was the fact that these two guys were primarily artists. Not writers. Also at least with Liefeld.

The other snafu was when -- while halfway through the run -- Cap and Avengers were given over to Jim Lee's team because Liefelds people were not making the cut. The end result was the fact that most of the plot points that Liefeld was working on were dumped in favor of other directions.

Best example: Hawkeye in Heroes Reborn was supposed to be Simon Williams, not Clint Barton. There's a flashback scene where it's alluded that Hawkeye and Grim Reaper are brothers. The list goes on: The DUMP of villains right near the end, Thor 2, Captain America going after the Sons of the Serpent and putting Bucky on the side lines.

The other bad things that this series suffered from was the fact that when you read these stories it looks like they were going to keep the Heroes Reborn thing in line intentionally. Especially when you read the last few issues of FF and Iron Man. With the FF it's the revelation that Sue Storm is pregnant, which is a plot threat that is completely dropped and abandoned by the time Heroes Return came about. Iron Man it was the introduction of Doc Samson and She-Hulk into the plot and forming the Hulkbusters. It was crammed in at the end and dropped like a hot potatoe.

The Heroes Reunited storyline made NO SENSE, every time Dr. Doom traveled back in time events completely deviated from what was previously established it's like every writer didn't know what the other was doing.

Anyway. It's still an interesting series to read and there were some cool stories here and there. Check it out and get the magnifying glass out because you're going to see some HUGE plot holes.