Marvel... Manga?

[Robin Firedrake]

Here's an interesting thing i found while scouring wikipedia for Marvel and DC villains... Apparently Marvel decided they needed to make a manga version of their comics for a short while. Tons of weird stuff. I found a pic but I'm not sure whether i should post it here. (Doncha just hate when an awesome group photo is ruined by a bikini clad heroin/villainess?) If you want me to I'll PM it to you and those of you that have seen it can tell me whether or not they think I should post it.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

It was terrible. Trust me. Among their quirky side projects, however, they also produced a series of kids comics turning Franklin Richards in to a literal Calvin and Hobbes comic complete with artwork homage.

[That Dude]

Though they do have "Snikt!" By the creator of "Blame!" And also they have some xmen comics done by Kie Asiyama.

[minakichan]

Marvel already has "manga-esque" stuff like Spiderman Loves Mary Jane, but they're starting a Wolverine and an X-Men series.

Personally, yeah, bishie Wolverine is a little creepy and the X-Men series looks like it's going to be JUST. WRONG. (TOTORO BEAST WHAT), buuuuut but but but...

The art, at least judging from concept art, looks SOOO much better than the utterly indigestible crap out in the OEL market today. I might be going to heck for this, but I think I'm going to pick at least the Wolverine title up just because of that.

[uc pseudonym]

Yes, I've browsed some of this while at a bookstore. I didn't find it particularly meaningful - essentially a trivial reworking of the Marvel storylines with a different set of clichés. Kind of fun, but I'd say if you want a Marvel graphic novel just read the Ultimates series.

[whisperingloon]

It's totally an "elseworlds" type of thing, casting the Marvel characters with trappings from other genres. I found it interesting and sort of fun.

They've done with with their Spider-Man, Avengers, and X-men Fairy Tales series as well, casting the characters and whatnot in fairy tale settings.

Avatars: Covenant of the Shield is an older one, casting the Marvel Universe (specifically, Avengers) in an Arthurian styled fantasy. I really enjoyed that one.

There was the "mega-morphs" miniseries lately as well, which was more crass and existed specifically to promote a Marvel Transformers line or something.

The bottom line is, in each of these, there's enough of a recognizable character left, that you have the illusion of a history, as a reader, with the characters. They can then take those and do some crazy stuff with them -- take them in other directions.

I find myself enjoying those stories more than I enjoy the actual series featuring the characters. I'll never buy a regular X-Men series, but I like those characters. So something like Avatars is fun for me. You get the heart of the characters, without thousands of issues of continuity to catch up on.

All that to say: I somewhat enjoyed some of the Marvel Manga issues. The Spider-Clan series was fun. I liked the Hulk as daikaiju (although that didn't live up to its promise). The Fantastic Four in their mechs was kinda fun, too.

~ Ben

[Etoh*the*Greato]

In one of the manga interpretations it was actually one of those cashcow attempts to make money off the fad by having an american make poorly drawn stereotypes of manga characters. Wolverine had laser claws.

[Robin Firedrake]

Ooooh... Mind linking me to info about the avatars then Mr. loon?

[minakichan]

Oh, I thought you were talking about the Wolverine and Kitty Pryde-Host Club thing. Whoops.

You're talking Marvel Mangaverse. That's completely different. That stuff is crap. Because open cleavage, big eyes, and cel-shading automatically qualify as manga imitation. orz

[whisperingloon]

Avataars was only three issues long. The editor of the book (Brevoort) was embarrassed by it because it ended up not being as great as it was supposed to be. Even so, I enjoyed it. I may be a minority. I did not sell well, from what I understand, and they have not revisited it since . . . although there are a number of similarities between this and 1602.

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/earthavataars.htm

This has about all you could want to know . . . may not even need to read the comic! But it gets into who is who (like Captain Avalon is meant to be Captain America . . . and my favorite, the Hulk is Greenskyn Smashtroll).

~ Ben

[Hittokiri04]

Hmm looks kinda dumb. And they butchered Black Cat.