The Rudderless 70's

Was just perusing a few of the Amazon reviews of Marvel Comics: the Untold Story when i ran across this bit:

The history of Marvel reads like a series of epic story arcs. There's the Big Bang of the 'sixties; the rudderless 'seventies; the Jim Shooter era, with an editor-in-chief seemingly dedicated to sabotaging Marvel's entire line of books; the boom and bust years of the early to mid 'nineties, in which the Heroes World distribution debacle and the mass defection of artists from Marvel to Image (who, once there, were incapable of releasing their books on time) helped to put thousands of comic shops out of business, just as Marvel, the former industry leader, declared bankruptcy.

And it caught me in that, as many bad '70's books as there were (and YES, there were some terrible 1970's Marvel Comics), there were a significant handful of truly amazing Marvel Comics that came out in that decade which may be glossed over by that simple phrase in the review above.

I've prepared a number of times, and scrapped, posts about using someone else's properties to make a meaningful personal comment, and just how difficult and, yes, strange it is to think of using someone else's character for that. And yet, with no other venues available, that is exactly what those 1970's arteurs did.

Shall we see the rudderless '70's as a company with no over arching vision? Of course, because if someone was really watching, and Jim Shooter would soon be, we would never have had Steve Englehart doing his own personal take on Watergate with his Secret Empire storyline in Captain America, or Jim Starlin exercising his personal Viet Nam and Catholic upbringings in Captain Marvel and Warlock. Don McGregor wouldn't have been able to make Jungle Action: Starring the Black Panther into a personal forum to battle racism and social injustice, nor made Killraven less a derivative science fiction story than a mediation on the rising and advancing of the last free people traversing North America. Would P. Craig Russell have had the chance to develop his singularly lyrical art elsewhere under a DC house style? Starlin wouldn't have given us Thanos. And Gerber, yes, Gerber would have never breathed life into the Man-Thing, let alone Howard the Duck.

Oh, and have we forgotten that, in 1975, a little book called the All New, All Different X-Man would come along and basically save the industry?

I can't wait to read more on this book.

Having my local bookseller, as always, order it for me, not on Amazon.

In Review Of: The Avengers (2012) by Joss Whedon

Be warned, spoilers included amidst the gushing.

I struggled with the opening sentence of this, but the best thing that i came up with, the truest thing, was also the first: Joss put the best part of my childhood up on the screen. Not in any Wonder Years sense, but the part of my childhood that disappeared into the four color world of the comics at the age of 7. Its 1973 and the Avengers are being tricked by Loki and Dormamu into battling the Defenders in Steve Englehart's Avengers/Defenders cross-over. I've just started reading comics, an escape from the nasty playgrounds and bullied bus rides to and from school in Houston, Texas. I'm picking up Iron Man, The Avengers, Captain Marvel, Daredevil and the Fantastic Four. Daredevil and the FF are not in, how shall we put this, their creative prime. The first three? Magic. Iron Man, in the Avengers and guest starring in Captain Marvel, kicks ass and takes names, and there seems to be no end to the inventive stories. The Celestial Madonna? Thanos? The Zodiac team? It was a world of wonder.

And Joss understands everything that was cool about those comics and he's put it all up on the big screen. If the common complaint is that superheros are power fantasies, then we get to see the proper application of that power. this is something is commonly missing among the pundits who want to make a psychological hash out of those of us who loved sueprheros. "Juvenile power fantasies" the common derogatory remark. Yes, but it wasn't out of using the power to bully, we all knew that power all too well. It was how we would use the power if we, the formerly weak, the ones that no one else would protect, ever got the chance. Captain America  was a reminder of the root nature of the appeal of the superhero. Just as Joss understood the need to turn the tables on the blonde walking down the alleyway alone in Buffy, here he understands how they should act. How they should fight.

Oh and yes, how they fight. the most glorious fight scenes ever recorded with superheroes and with the proper use of their powers. From Cap's Adamantium shield to Iron Man being both smart and powerful, Stark using his mind as much as his armor. The scene where he confronts Loki out of the armor may be one of the best of the movie. And we get the team, as they become one, deferring to Cap, the ultimate soldier, who gets to turn to a weapon unlike one that any general has ever been able to wield, The Hulk, and give him an order: "Smash."

So why reference the Englehart issues? Because clearly Joss read them and loved them and knows a good moment to steal when he sees it. Here, from Defender #10, still sitting on the spinner rack in my living room, is the moment when the Hulk tries to pick up Thor's hammer... and can't. It plays beautifully on the Shield Helicarrier in the movie.

They finally got the Hulk right as well. Mark Ruffalo plays Banner with a resigned air about him, with an apparent edge underneath as well. Its a great, pocket, tour-de-force performance, hidden among all the effect laden grandeur. Hiddleston's Loki is excellent as well. If there is anything else that Joss brought to the movie it was the sense that everyone in the ensemble had to have their moment to shine, and there are really great moments for all the characters. No small feat that.

Small quibbles, because, yes, there will always be a few. The blue on Cap's uniform was way too bright. And its hard to miss. And since they nailed Iron Man's armor, Thor's Simonson outfit, and the Widow so well, its a little shocking to see that bright a blue. The uniform itself is fine design-wise, but more of a navy next time please. The middle third of the movie could be tighter. We spend a lot of time on the Helicarrier waiting for the coolness to start, and for the heroes to figure out why Loki allowed himself to be captured, and it takes a little more time than it should. Perversely, i wish that the anonymous aliens that attack were some species that we'd see before. Badoon perhaps? Just a name change would have been cool. That's about it.

And because talking about the alien race leads us to the post-credits sequence...

And because Joss knows that, if this makes money, which it has, and if you can actually get everyone back for a sequel, there are very few places that you can go to surpass Loki as a villian. The final, post credits sequence, with the alien complaining to his overlord that the humans aren't as weak as we thought leads us to  the one final twist set-up. Anyone reading the bio part of my blog knows that it was Starlin's Captain Marvel series that, literally, changed my life. So punch in the gut when the overlord turns his head and it reveals Thanos is one that, well, took my breath away. If they decide to do a second one, it will be because this makes enough money to validate them doing a film with Thanos, and all I hope is that a certain kree Captain at least gets a name check. But for now, Marvel has, astonishingly, rendered me truly speechless by making the superhero film of my dreams. Wow.

Captain Marvel #29: Starlin & Milgrom - The Real Cover!

And in honor of the review of the Starlin book, here is the ORIGINAL cover to Captain Marvel #29: one of the most iconic covers in Marvel Comics history.

Not owned by me but by Len Gallo. Don't be jealous of me. I've only seen it up close once.

...and I think that Len either has, or knows the guy who owns the splash to issue #29. He had it at San Diego a few years ago. I should have asked him if he wanted to trade for the splash of issue #30.

In Review Of: Jim Starlin - A Life In Words and Pictures

This is an interesting book to be reviewing, given that its finally a retrospective by one of the two major influences in my artistic life. Starlin and Gulacy were to the two men who really changed my life by providing art and stories that I was dying to try and compete with. The irony, of course, is that you'll never top those formative stories. They tend to take on far greater significance in your head than just being issue #30, or #40.

Now, having worked with Gulacy on and off since 1996, I have less issue with making comments on his work. I guess having pages that i inked included in his art book gives me the chance to be making those comment for a place of knowledge.

Starlin, on the other hand, is a whole different kettle of cosmic fish. We've met a few times, but he wouldn't remember me from any other artist/fan, so I've no other connection with him other than continuing to read over his work on the periods that i've enjoyed. I was looking forward to a "Behind the Music" approach to some of my favorite comics. What i got with this book, both fed that desire, but also left me terribly hungry for more. I'll be curious to see if other Starlin-ophiles like my buddy Alex Sheikman feel the same.

Gems to be found here: Jim admitting that we started the whole Thanos story with a bunch of characters in mind and nothing resembling a plot. That Roy Thomas wanted Captain Marvel to have the glittering trail behind him. He added the guest stars on the book (Iron Man and the Avengers) on a whim. He demanded to have a say over the inkers on Captain Marvel and the resulting demand got him off the book.

And now the quibbling on my part: We are treated to a number of panels of artwork and even full pages being reproduced here, but very little original artwork. Now, i know that after all this time the art has been long since sold, but lets look at who this book is for. Not the casual fan. No, this book is entire for the long devoted, cosmic cube loving Starlin fan. So why print a number of panels that we already know and love and give us more original art to look at? The only original of the entire Captain Marvel run reproduced here is the cover for #30, which Jim sold only recently. And its the size of a postage stamp. Why not put the call out to the artistic community? I alone could have provided a print read version of three different pages from issue #30, including two splash pages. I've seen the unaltered cover for issue #29, Jim's original version without the Romita head. Why isn't that in there, as large as could be? (The original artwork for Captain Marvel is concentrated primarily in the hands of about about 6 individuals, and we're all fairly well known, it wouldn't have been that hard.)

And why is there a ton of art from the late 1970's printed before the chapter on Captain Marvel 1973-1974? It comes at exactly the wrong point in the book. Its out of chronology and even messes up the narrative flow of the text.

Warlock fairs better, with a couple of great scans of original art, and a more precise storyline of exactly how working with Marvel went on that series. What is missing is a dissection of just how the Universal Church of Truth came from his being in a strict Catholic school growing up, and how the inventive time travel story ending came about. Its a deep storyline, one with more emotional gravitas and thought than most superhero stories. I guess that i'd love to hear Jim go deeper into the work.

Metamorphosis Odyssey comes off better here than it did at the time in the Epic books, I think partly because the art isn't a complete and utter muddle in the printing, and it comes off less as "The Grand Artistic Statement" and more as someone stretching out and trying something new.

Another gem: Jim dislocated his finger playing volleyball and had to tape a felt tip pen to his hand to ink the book. Which is why it looks different. And why the originals have all turned blue and purple over time. And that the book was part of the game changers on royalties to artists. As was Dreadstar.

Jim goes on to delineate any number of other projects over the next 20 years, many I'd seen, and some that i hadn't, but i won't spoil your chance to dig into the book for yourself. Certainly it does an excellent job of spelling out the much more of the editorial insanity that continually pushed Jim away from comics, or completely scuttled series that would have been worth reading. Why? No idea other than it was something that i saw in the comics industry every damn day taht i worked there. Now, this is just Jim's side, and he is nothing is not at opinionated figure, which was presented to me when i showed him a portfolio of work back in '89 or '90 and he told me in fairly straight forward terms to keep my day job. Always.

Jim makes the point of saying on page 294 that he doesn't want to come off "like a bitter old man, ranting about all the things that went wrong with his final job in commercial comics", but after a while it hard to make excuses for why so many creative people constantly have to do interviews to explain how editorial messed up their most recent project. I have no problem believing Jim when he writes, "There was no longer any fun in the job (working for Marvel or DC)." And that's so sad.

Jim came in when comics were chaos, and an ex-viet nam vet who would still get drunk or loaded could go home and create a bunch of crazy fun shit that has clearly stood the test of time. And that time is long since past. Rock and Roll has moved on.

I appreciate the reprint of more obscure short stores in the back, at least one that i hadn't seen. And I like the few pages of proposals that didn't go through as well. I suppose that none of the sketches from back in the day could have been used to round out the pages from earlier in Jim's career. Are there no long lost sketches from Captain Marvel or Warlock for us to check out? No old script pages? Nothing else to let us peak behind the curtain? After all, we're the die hards; we'd appreciate stuff like that.

And, unlike many other popular comics figures, Jim's best work deserves that level of dissection. At his best, Jim posed philosophical questions of his villians, and existential queries about not just his heroes but all his protagonists. He used off-handed Kirby creations like the cosmic cube in throughly creative ways, and did so in a time when the use of corporate comics as a means of personal expression was becoming the norm for the young mavericks of the 1970's. The proof of Jim's genius is rooted in the fact that there have been very few legitimate additions to the cosmic pantheon of Marvel that haven't been branched off of Jim's ideas. With two failing heroes, Jim created a storm of ideas around them. Ideas that are still being traded off even today.

Soul Gem? Check. Titan, a hollow moon of Jupiter? Check. Cosmic awareness? Check. Thanos. Gamora. Pip. Infinity Gems. Inbetweener. Chaos. Order.

Thanos. Villian who didn't want to knock over banks. No, he worshipped Death. Try saying that over in your head a few times. He was Darkseid done better.

I'd have loved for Jim to address some of his own, reportedly, dissatisfaction with his art, and his switch to writing in the 1980's. What prompted his change in style? Other than Kirby and Ditko, who else influenced his early art? The change of only doing pencils instead of inks in the mid-1980's? Who got him to have the vast majority of his characters constantly ready to pounce? Where did this delicate inking style on his book plate illustrations come from? Inquiring minds want to know on a $50 book.

i've been meaning to do an appreciation post on Starlin, as i had Gulacy for the blog. As a nice history piece. Perhaps this will be a good push to do that. In the meantime, this is one fun book. And while shorter on substance that i would have liked, I still enjoyed it quite a bit, even if it wasn't quite the behind the scenes look that I would have loved.

More ACBA scans to groove on...

A new collection of pieces from the 1973 ACBA portfolio. John Romita, Mike Royer, Jim Starlin, and Jim Steranko. of all of the them, the Starlin piece is the oddest, a mix of swampy comic characters piled on each other for no other reason that it looks silly. A drunken dare at a con?

What Hath I Learned: The Mighty Thor #213

All the comics are spread all over the floor last night, reorganizing them the same way at the tender age of 43 that I did at 9 years of age. I put my 8 year old to the task of "organizing" the Supermans, and the Avengers just so that she had the chance to flip through some new comics that she's never seen. And, of course, I run across The Mighty Thor #213, the very first comic that I ever read. I decided to re-read the issue, to see just how it holds up. Just what did I learn from the experience of reading Thor #213?

Well, I learned that the All-Father is a whiny bitch. Odin spends what few panels he has in the story telling everyone not to fight and to give up. I learned that Gerry Conway and Len Wein can knock this sort of stuff out before lunchtime: The Golden City has been overtaken by slave trading giant Lizards and they have sold the Lady Sif off in the gap between issues. The destruction of the secret drug processing plant that is the crux of keeping the aliens docile takes place on a small panel. The drug plant is so secret that John Buscema and Don Perlin never even end up drawing the damn thing. I learned that the plot makes little sense. Thor, the godling who stood up to Magog, gets knocked out by a chunk of masonry dropped on his head. I learned that Wein and Conway decided NOT to use the evil lizard race that they already have in the Marvel Universe, the Badoon, but instead make up an entirely new race, typo-ridden Vrellnexians, whose main claim to fame must be the unpronounability of their race's name.

I learned that a Starlin cover is a Jim frikkin' Starlin cover, regardless of being touched up by Romita. I learned that there is actually a guy dressed like a Greek fisherman who is travelling space and time with the Asgardians and he never even gets a caption, let alone a word balloon. I learned that the Living Zombie was about to debut in "Tales of the Zombie", appearing wherever fine magazines are sold. I learned that John Buscema either got sick or behind the deadline or simply so bored with the plot that it fell to Don Perlin to finish the last 2 pages... and since Vinnie Colletta inked the isssue, its pretty difficult to tell.

I learned via a full page house ad that Gwen Stacy had died by the Green Goblin's hand and Spider-Man is PISSED.

Mostly I learned that this was one damn confusing issue to start reading comics with. At least the next two I bought, Iron Man #64 and Marvel Feature #12 were easier on the storylines: Doctor Spectrum and the Blood Brothers were attacking, and someone named Thanos was in the background. Who said Marvel in the 1970's was easy to read?

Recreations of Original Art: Avengers #1

20th Century Danny Boy has a great blog, and always has great stuff with regards to art and comics. With two posts, recently, he's blown the cover off of what what was quietly being done in the Marvel Masterwork series: art by Kirby, Ditko, Ayers, Klein, and Stone is quietly being redone and presented to us as original. If you don't know that this is happening, then its worth a quick read.

The first post, here, describes reading the fine print and figuring out the scoop, along with finding a dealer who is repping the artists doing the recreations. The second, here, talks about the splash page to Avengers #1 up for auction... and the whole discussion of whether it is really Kirby or not.

Danny Boy also brings up something that I've thought many times: there is no reason to recreate what still exists, and I make a case in point "The Life Of Captain Marvel" trade paperback from a few years ago. Clearly Marvel was using low quality stats, or bleaching out original copies of the comics. The brush work was muddy and degraded. As someone who has lived those books as the best part of my childhood (Captain Marvel #25 - 34 and Marvel Feature #11 & 12 since you asked), having it all contained in one easy to read volume was a dream, and I simply couldn't look at the reproduction. Given that a large part of that Starlin artwork in held by about 4 individuals (and you're reading a blog by one of them), I would certainly be happy as can be to send a bunch of 600 dpi scans to Marvel, for free, so that they could have perfect copies for their files. They just have to ask. Why aren't they doing that for the Masterwork Series?

Remind me to tell the story of the Starlin collectors one day. Kinda funny.

Original Artwork: The Holy Grail

I love how the term "Grail" has become accepted within the original art world as a way to signify a piece that has become the top of the heap, the summit of your art collection, the quest for which you would sacrifice any number of Knights of the Round Table. Of course, having just seen Spamalot, it still has a tendancy to make me laugh just a little bit, but I'm aware of being in a situation that I'm not sure other collectors are willing to address: I've collected myself into a corner with regards to original art.

The brutal reality: I cannot afford to get the art that I would need or want to add to my collection anymore. Its simply too expensive. I'm afflicted with the curse of not wanting to part with any of the art that I've collected so far, and now find little that I can actually get! Partly because art prices have gone up so much, and partly because the stuff that I want is almost impossible to get.

Should ComicArtFans ever decide to do one of their weekly interviews of me, here are the pieces that I'd list as my 5 most desired pieces of artwork:

1: A Marshall Roger/Terry Austin page from Detective Comics #471-476 Doesn't even matter which page, this is simply the best Batman ever. Sharp incisive inks, Rogers at his innovative best, Englehart writing a compelling story that established the best Joker ever as well.

2: A Bissette/Totleben Swamp Thing page from the Demon trilogy (Swamp Thing #24-26). Alan Moore at his innovative best as well, and Bissette and Totleben really finding their feet on the series. Extra points for a page with Etrigan on it.

3: A Dave McKean Cages page from issue #4, with the artist and his neighbor talking all night while the Angel plays. Alan Siegel has been jacking the prices up on the cages pages over the last 3 years and it really annoys the hell out of me. Makes me sorry that I ever bought my other Mckean work from him back in the day.

4: A John Totleben page from Miracleman #15. Do a search on my blog for my post on that issue. Devastating work. Don't care that it took a year to do. Fine. Worth every second.

5: The cover or splash to Captain Marvel #29 I've met the person who has these, and while I'm very glad that they exist, and, in fact, that I've at least had the good fortune to see the splash in the flesh so to speak, i'm also sure that they're not going to change hands for less than $8K, and I'll never have that money, so there you go. Two of the most formative pieces of Bristol board there, and I'll never get my hands on them. Ah well. At least they're safe.

Chewy Cosmic Goodness: Annihilation - Conquest

I fully admit it, I've been sucked in by the type of story that my brain and heart just love: the cosmic adventure story. And, yes, it has been created by Marvel Comics.

This is classic world building folks, and a beautiful build-up in the prologue issue to show me just where everyone stands. And we do get pretty much what appears to be the most interesting versions of Starlord and Nova and Quasar and, especially, Moondragon. She hasn't looked this interesting since the Jim Starlin origin piece from Daredevil #105 (not her wretched Madame McEvil intro from Iron Man for those still checking).

I've never understood why comics don't do this more often. Comic books are so good at this type of story, we can bridge worlds so effortlessly from panel to panel, that good sci fi is just a joy to behold. Its what Green lantern has never had the guts to really do: Go deep out into space and give us the full opera.

Welcome to the Jim Starlin Universe many years later: the man who took the cosmic genre into a deep noir place must be happy to see material following in his footsteps. Quasar follows the Captain Mar-Vells, Star Lord returns, the Spaceknights return, we have cosmic awareness, a quest in the heart of sequestered Kree space, and we all know that its going to get worse before it gets better.

Some people hate this type of story, and find it totally divorced from anything real: i.e. there is no Spider-Man hitting the malt shops before swinging off, nothing that they can relate to. And to this i say, who cares? This is pue imagination, pure space and cyborgs and force fields and kree frikkin' sentrys and quantum bands and we are out in fucking space trying to save everything. If we can't enjoy the sheer thrill of taking our adventure as deep into the unknown as we can, then we're better off picking up a new issue of the spider man clone saga and wrapping ourselves deeper into the confines of the Spider-man dune buggy. You want to talk sense of wonder? Well here it is. Welcome to Kree space. Hope that you live to tell about it. After all, it ain't over til the fat skrull sings. I'm all over this series til it either ends or they screw it up too much. I just hope, the little 9 year old that still dreams of flying through space, that they don't. You got Bug, Captain Universe, Groot and the Celestial Madonna on the way? I'm so in.

And, for the record, I always knew that Moondragon was gay. I'm just glad that they can show it these days.

In Review of: Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers!

In the growing number of volumes that exist on my bookshelf about comics, about the history of comics, and the importance that they play or don't play in our lives, I have an odd place in my heart for some of the essays gathered in the rather unwieldily titled Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers!

One in particular that I wanted to discuss is the essay Oui, Je Regrette Presque Tout by Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil. A personal experience of longing and occasional self loathing, of missing the chance to acquire some original art, wrapped up in a quick overview of Starlin's Warlock takes less than 20 pages, but what a great 18 pages it is.

"You have the fever," a friend once told him, as he once again mentally cataloged his own art collection, as well as that of his friends. And you know what? I know that fever, I haven't had a day without it for a couple decades. I just hope that I'm past the self loathing.

While Starlin's run ended with issue #15 in print, the real ending of the story takes place issues earlier, as the current, in time, Adam Warlock goes ahead in time to his future self and sees what a disaster his life has become. "My life has been a failure, I welcome its end," opines the future Adam, and the current steals his soul, setting up a circular loop of causality that will boggle the mind as many of Starlin's metaphysical questions tend to do.

As a teenager, filled with the hormonal angst, that a nameless longing that can only strike those who have finally glimpsed a bigger world, only to be denied it by dint of age or ability, I read those panels and felt each and every word that came from Adam's gritted teeth. At some point or another, most teens have probably felt that, have thought of death and all its drama... and either decide to do something about it or not. The adult Starlin adroitly found the drama of Warlock's life and reduced it, no matter what, to an unhappy ending that anyone who has felt the sting of failure can respond to, something rather unheard of in comics at the time. While most people point to The Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel as sticking in their minds, Adam Warlock's death is far better realized.

The highlight of Gold's essay is his own story of collecting fever, and the role that it plays it played in his (and oh so many of ours) life. A chance encounter with a closed shop and a treasure trove of original art and a reclusive owner... its practically an origin story in and of itself.

He finishes with a thought:

there is a strange twilight awaiting collectors. Your moment passes and what you are left with is stacks of whatever monstroous accumulations you so desired. And you fade by some mechanical, spiritless process, like that little blue dot at the center of a screen in the days of solid state television.

Does that fate await us all, surriounded by endless "kipple" (to quote Phil Dick) that we once were sure that we needed? I ask myself that with each piece that I pick up, that little internal question that can start to discern, "why am I buying this piece of art?" there has to be a good answer along the way or the art goes back to the pile. And yet, it took dedicating a room of the house to show off the pages, making a wall and a half of the TV room the gallery to finally cement the fact that I was collecting this stuff because I liked to look at it. Just buying them and keeping them in a portfolio was an idiotic exercise. I didn't want to have them to have them, I wanted to look at them.

I have settled enough in middle age to deal with my failures and my successes, in my own sense, enough that I can function as a human being. I still recall Warlock's despair, honestly, but its a bit more at an arm's length these days. I still have the fever, but can take pills for that. And I'm glad that I have Gold's essay as a reminder that, when things could get bad, that there are brother's under the skin out there, who know it and felt it just like I did/do.

More thoughts on the essays in Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers! later.

This is Just Wrong: The Return of Captain Marvel

Perhaps I can paraphrase our friends over at live journal:

Fuck you Marvel.

There, is that succinct enough? This image comes from a pulled preview that was saved and put up on Live Journal and Photobucket. This is the image that completes the evisceration of the Marvel Universe that began with Civil War screwing up the Fantastic Four.

Not just bringing back Mar-Vell, no, since Thanos has long since been resurrected I suppose that we should have expected this, but the manner of which its being done, the position that Mar-Vell supposedly now holds, which is commendant of the Negative Zone prison, is so, so, SO COMPLETELY not the man that he is that I cannot even think about it straight. It warps my head around like trying to figure out the beginning of an Escher drawing.

There is nothing here that makes any sense. I could be thinking Clone maybe, but I doubt that that will be the case. The most meaningful death in the Marvel Universe (since they long since messed up Jean's sacrifice in X-men #137) has been hedged around: Mar-Vell appearing as an apparition in Silver Surfer years ago, the alternate earth version from Earth X, his "son" Genis, and others that I've not followed completely, but the actual man himself has been left alone.

Tellingly it was a paucity of imagination that led to the death of Mar-Vell. After a fairly interesting run by Doug Moench and Pat Broderick in his own book, Mar-Vell his cancellation and character oblivion. Marvel honchos from that era, perhaps Shooter, (I don't know as I never asked) went to Starlin and said, "We don't know what to do with him." Jim apparently said, "Well, let me kill him." and there you go.

Mar-Vell, the way that Starlin, Englehart, and Moench wrote him, was one of the noblest characters in comics, the universal protector, someone who had made bad decisions in the past but lived with his regrets of being a soldier for the Kree and did the best that he could. His best was very, very good. Defeating Thanos, the Destroyer, standing up to Issac the mad computer and the Watcher, battling Megaton the Nuclear Man (heh heh), he was a hero in the classic Joesph Campbell mold: one that had come by his nobility the honest way: through real trial and error.

That Mar-Vell would never have been involved with the Pro-Registration forces in the Marvel Universe, much less get himself sucked in the Negative Zone ever, ever, EVER again. If you know anything at all about the character, the last place that he would be would be in the Negative Zone.

Perhaps it should be an even bigger deal that the Fantastic Four, lets say this again, THE FANTASTIC FOUR, the moral and physical cornerstone of the Marvel Universe, has been ripped apart with such incorrect characterization of Sue, Reed, and Ben that we shouldn't be shocked by anything anymore, but, yes, I am.

I am shocked.

This. Just. Sucks.