snap judgments

Okay, don’t have my notes on this week’s preview books but we’re gonna push on though anyways as I have some stuff to talk about.

In Brubaker’s remarkable first arc on Daredevil, Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk have a sit-down over their personal difference, the nature of justice and what love has lost.  It’s deep, it’s short and poignant and resolves the Daredevil book quite nicely with this genius idea of emigrating the Kingpin out of the country.  SMART MOVE.  Think about it: it’s a genius way to punish an obviously criminal character responsibly and still keep him in the book.  Just because he’s been kicked out of the country doesn’t mean people won’t be receiving spooky phone calls and Fisk won’t be pulling some very long strings.  he’s still an in-play character, just from a different point.

But no.

Amazing Spider-Man has him personally ordering the hit on Peter Parker’s family from jail, suggesting that this takes place during the Brubaker arc before he’s out of jail and out of the US.  Awkward, but I can handle that.  What I can’t is the Kingpin sitting down with the Runaways to give them street cred.  That’s sloppy editing.  I know it’s Whedon and they’d give him Gwen Stacy and her Osborn love-children if he asked, but to try and set this current book within what we’ve already seen in other titles just makes the story seem like a writing trick than anything intelligent.

Yes, having the kids talk to the Big Name in MU Crime makes them seem more credible as a ’super-force’ or street level cadre of maybe-heroes-maybe-villains-we-don’t-know-’cause-it’s-edgy.  Yes, the Kingpin is more than willing to use a bunch of loser kids with powers for his own personal gain.  But having him sit out in the open in a restaurant and bankroll these kids on sight alone when he’s supposed to be overseas is just corny.

Marvel?  Read your other titles, especially when they are really good.  It’s time to put the Kingpin down.  You’re proud to use the Hood as the next big thing in Crime Lords?  Throw him in, no problem.