Marvel NOW!: Where have all the Editors gone?

I’m doing my best to put my biased fanboy tendencies aside and read just about everything Marvel NOW! is putting out. I’ve come to the conclusion that either my brain is failing me, or Marvel has eliminated all their editors. Now I may just be an over-excited fickle fanboy who likes to complain about everything, but then again, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile. I pose this question to you… “Does Marvel NOW! lack continuity?”

Cyclops:

 

Cyclops is two of the main characters in what has been my favorite Marvel NOW! title in All-New X-Men. Cyclops of the present is a villain alongside Magneto recruiting their own group of mutants while the Cyclops from the past has been brought to the present to confront himself. This has really been a great story, but wait. If you also read Uncanny Avengers, you’d know that present villain Cyclops is a prisoner of S.H.I.E.L.D. What gives? Is he out recruiting mutants with Magneto or a prisoner of S.H.I.E.L.D.? And if he has escaped, why haven’t we gotten an explanation?

Thor:

 

Thor, in Thor: God of Thunder, starts out tracking a god butcher in three different time periods. Pretty cool story telling technique. The present day Thor is on the other side of the galaxy answering alien prayers and fighting god butcher underlings in an alien pantheon. In The Avengers Thor has been trapped on Mars with other fellow Avengers by the cosmic being Aleph. In Uncanny Avengers Thor is working with Captain America on bringing together a sanctioned Avengers/X-Men alliance team. It is permissible that Thor doesn’t play a major part in Uncanny Avengers, but it’s the other two books that star our favorite Norse god that have him off planet in two different parts of the galaxy. This is what I have a problem with. Is he trapped on Mars or fighting god murdering beings on the far side of the galaxy?

Captain America:

 

Good ole Captain America is by far the biggest breaker of continuity in the whole lot of them. In his core title he has been kidnapped and taken to Dimension Z. Yes that’s right a different dimension. In The Avengers he was on Mars fighting Aleph with the rest of his Avenger buddies when he gets rocketed back to Earth, upon which he starts to unite a ‘global Avengers’ and proceeds to teleport them to Mars. In Uncanny Avengers he is recruiting a sanctioned Avengers/X-Men cooperative team. So what is Captain America doing? Is he in another dimension? Is he rescuing his teammates on Mars? Is he busy forming Avenger/X-Men alliances? Before you start arming yourself with your fanboy ideologies and continuity arguments.. know this… Captain America #2 opened with these three words… “ONE YEAR LATER”! That’s right, he’s apparently been trapped in Dimension Z for an entire year already.

Wolverine:

 

I know, I know, a kindergartner would have an easy time picking apart continuity flaws about Wolverine, but it’s not like that. Wolverine is the diamond in the rough. Wolverine seems to be the one character that is in-line. All the X-titles I’ve read with Wolverine in a lead role have had him acting as headmaster of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning and nothing else. These titles include Wolverine and the X-Men, All-New X-Men and Uncanny Avengers. I’m as perplexed as you are. Wait a minute… what is this? The Avengers #2 Wolverine is a global member summoned by Captain America to help rescue the defeated Avengers trapped on Mars. By the end of the issue Wolvie and the rest of the global Avengers are teleported to Mars. He ain’t runnin’ no school from up there.

UNTIL NEXT TIME… While these four are pretty rough, they are not the outliers, they are the norm. Iron Man and The Hulk are both trapped on Mars in The Avengers and doing other things on Earth in their own titles. Mr Fantastic has taken his entire family to the far reaches of outer space but is supposed to be a main player in The New Avengers. (I haven’t read it yet) The biggest problem I have with all of this is that the more Marvel NOW! I read, the more the product as a whole is degraded. If I just kept to one or two titles I wouldn’t be as irritated. Maybe that’s the solution. Read LESS Marvel books to get INCREASED enjoyment.