Mirage Vol4 Issue #11 Discussion [spoilerz]

[ToTheNines]

RIP FAKE (?) SPLINTER!

Read this last night. It's been a long, long time. I forgot what a great issue this was. The main story was very beautifully drawn, laid out and written. I still want to see where Peter was taking Battle Nexus Splinter, and I really hope it doesn't undercut this funeral too much.

The funeral guest list was cool to see. We still never got the Tale behind the mysterious cat-man, but the mystery is honestly more fun that knowing.

Vol. 4 didn't quite make it to #33, but you can roughly break it into 3 thirds, with this being the end of the first third (and the first 8, and final 2 pages being a preview of the next "phase"). This first chunk was interesting. There is the massive development of the Utrom reveal, but it has almost nothing to do with our characters. They're just living in this world and reacting to it. I quite liked most of it.

This next upcoming third is pretty rough, per my memory. Everyone gets their own plot, but the pacing is SLOW and the stories aren't super interesting. I personally always liked the infamous #22 and Peter started kicking things into gear after that (especially #28-32), but I hope Journeys makes it that long. We'll see how the normies take to this upcoming year of doldrums lol.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

This next upcoming third is pretty rough, per my memory. Everyone gets their own plot, but the pacing is SLOW and the stories aren't super interesting.

It's a little bit like mid-to-late seasons of The Walking Dead in that way. Everybody splits up and separates into less interesting storylines and they go on and on and on and you keep waiting for them to coalesce but they never do, or by the time they do they've been hemorrhaging their viewership numbers because folks are tuning out.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

It's a little bit like mid-to-late seasons of The Walking Dead in that way. Everybody splits up and separates into less interesting storylines and they go on and on and on and you keep waiting for them to coalesce but they never do, or by the time they do they've been hemorrhaging their viewership numbers because folks are tuning out.

Not a bad comparison at all.

I never understood or cared for whatever he was doing with Gameraph or mini-Don, but I always did find Leo and Mike’s plots VERY intriguing. I know a lot of people didn’t like Mike’s extreme reaction to his situation, but I was very interested to see how far Laird was going to take that and where he’d end up.

But yeah, it just took… so… long…

Journeys’ monthly release schedule will absolutely help with that, though.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Well, I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one, Rose, for whatever it's worth. Ever since the lettercol a few issues ago where Laird first started tossing the "moron" label around to stick on people who send in what he feels to be unarranted criticism, every single issue (starting with that one) has been full of letters with nothing but gushing praise, and maybe I'm overly cynical, but it really smacks of "See? I told you so!" I think, if anything, it's Peter Laird who has "issues" with anyone who doesn't agree with what HE thinks. I mean, sure, not everyone who sends in criticism is likely to be intelligent about it, but the way Laird replies to people is so condescending it aggravates me. It's like he generalizes ALL the people who disagree or criticize as "morons", "idiots", or whatever else he feels comfortable with, and it aint right.

So now, instead of printing ANY criticism, he prints letters of nothing but praise. Which I can definitely understand... why bother replying to someone who says the same things he's heard over and over again and is obviously sick of hearing? But at the same time, it seems like the most recent lettercols have been about "proving" to the naysayers that their opinion is "wrong" by showing how many people disagree. And there's nothing exactly wrong with that, it's certainly his prerogative, it just rubs me wrong because by going so far to prove how much he doesn't care about the criticism, he does a 180 and proves just how much it DOES bother him. Which is a shame, because someone who's lasted so long in the industry and made so much money and had so much success really ought to have a little thicker skin.

He should be glad he's not Mark Waid. HE's getting eaten alive by a large portion of the Superman fanbase over the "Birthright" mini-series he's doing...

Regardless... there's little else I can say on this, aside from the fact that your statement of me having "issues" with people who disagree with me is, with all due respect, patently ludicrous, since unlike some people around here who I HAVE had issues with, I don't call people who disagree with me names, or call their opinions stupid. I simply state my opinion, or reiterate it for the sake of those who may have missed it the first time, and if someone disagrees or questions my logic, I explain my opinion to them. Based on that, they can then either agree to disagree, or else be persuaded to my way of thinking. But that's up to them.

And if you think that it's outside the realm of possibility for a publisher or company to only print positive reviews of their product, well... I have two words for you: WWE Magazine.

Pussyyyyy!