Why was this soshit/co/? Where did it all goso wrong?What did you like? What didn't you like?
I'm still scratching my head over this one.
>>83869649
Was this the book where most of team was gay?
>>83869649
Best theory I've seen is that writing the ending to Journey Into Mystery broke Gillen emotionally.
Plus IMO McKelvie's reeeeeeeeeallly fucking shit.
>>83869660
Yes, it was. I was mostly shocked by the drastic departure from solid characterization and bright, shiny and dynamic art to The Billy and Teddy Show, starring Kid Loki paired with a flat, ugly horrendously samefaced artstyle.
I never read Vol. 1, but I did read this because I did a full kid Loki reading.
Jesus Christ, after Journey into Mystery this was painful to get through. What the fuck, Gillen? I don't understand how he went from JiM to this abomination.
>>83869726
>>Plus IMO McKelvie's reeeeeeeeeallly fucking shit.
His paneling is good at times. If only he didn't sameface everyone into being an ultra-smug hipster.
>>83869660
One of them!
>>83869649
Gillen was too tricky for his own good. He wanted to write something that was supposed to mirror superficial youth culture and... it just didn't work out.
Gillen can be really hit and miss.
>>83869737
It bothered me that Kid Loki was even there, since it didn't seem like he fit in with all of them at all.
Plus, Gillen completely ignored the three volumes of characterization beforehand and just went with whatever he felt like. The treatment of Billy and Teddy's relationship, which took all the way to Children's Crusade to get their first kiss on the page, was handled poorly- they were kissing every issue, and it seemed forced.I am gay, and I'm all for representation but this was bordering on fetishistic... The books were about events happening to the kids, not their relationships.
>>83869726
>Plus IMO McKelvie's reeeeeeeeeallly fucking shit.
Right? His ability to make literally everyone look a smug asshole from a fashion magazine puts Dillon and Cheung to shame. That being said, I don't mind some of his designs.
>>83869777
Yeah I get what you're saying. I'm gay too and I felt like Gillen was really shit at handling the Billy and Teddy relationship and was trying way too hard with the "everyone is gay!" angle.
I don't understand what's so special about Billy and Teddy, they seem to be really popular with the tumblr crowd. There are gay characters who are better and more interesting than them.
>>83869761
Man this makes me wonder what it would have been like if he had pulled it off
>>83869805
I always felt the draw of them was that they were treated pretty normally in the previous runs- they were written just like any other couple. They supported one another, made some jokes, but their relationship wasn't the focal point of their characters. Even when Teddy threatened to rip Pietro's legs off for dragging Billy along with him, it felt natural.
Once Gillen wrote them, Billy went from a giant comics nerd who was sarcastic at all times and loved being a superhero (even with what happened in Children's Crusade) to just being a gay kid who liked his boyfriend. That was all there was to him. The fight in the first issue made no sense (when did they make an agreement not to superhero? I'm pretty sure they all said they'd go their separate ways) and it only spirals downward from there. Gillen is also guilty of the 'everyone's gay' angle in his Wicked and the Divine series, which makes me hella uncomfortable to read.
>>83869872
>when did they make an agreement not to superhero?
Well, the end of Children's Crusade. They didn't "go their separate ways", they all quit. Speed was the only one who wanted to keep going.
>>83869649
Ha, gaaaaaaaaay.gif
>>83869961
That's what I meant- yes, they quit, but no one said they were quitting forever. Billy getting irrationally upset over it, saying that Teddy/the team swore/promised never to do that again didn't make sense. The reaction was disproportionate.
>>83869987
Eh, two teammates had just died and (still in CC) that made Billy depressive for literally months. It's not a stretch saying that when they quit, it wasn't just a break from superheroing but they were done. I had read the scene in CC this way, Gillen probably did, too.
>>83869733
If I remember right the book was even marketed by Gillen as "style over sustence".
For my money the book focused way too much on Wiccan and Hulkling, whenever the book stepped back from them it was capable of being good, like the issue with Speed being a superhero temp.
>>83869649
It was too Wiccan heavy, I'm a fan of Wiccan but he'd just gotten Children's Crusade and it was someone else's turn. Instead we got Wiccan is future God.
