Shawn Kane:

"His work on Captain America is very good but the whole Resurrection of Bucky/Death of Captain America/Bucky as Captain America storyline is the foundation of his run. I tend to like the other parts of the run much better."

About a year ago, this comment would have me asking WHAT other parts?  With the exception of a couple of crossover stories, his entire run seemed to be all about Bucky up until the post-movie series reboot.  Since then he's gotten away from that, fortunately.  Got me buying the book again, anyway. 

"Plus by bringing Bucky back, he has aged the Black Widow since she had a connection with him during the Cold War. Yet another character that needs the Infinity Formula."

In Brubaker's defense, all of that predated him.  (First introduced when Black Widow was teamed up with Daredevil, then "solidified" as an actual tie rather than topical reference in X-Men #268 or thereabouts.) 

"Even though he has an interesting story and look, the Winter Soldier is a character that didn't have to be James Buchanan Barnes."

I agree completely.  If Brubaker wanted to use an actual GA character, he could have easily used one of the "imitation" Captain Americas or Buckies that floated around back then (see various GA Marvel Masterworks volumes) with the same end result.  Plenty of emotional resonance available without having to play the "Bucky is Back!!!" card and screwing with a classic Marvel moment.  (And it's annoying how silly it makes the "lost Bucky" recap.  We go from "Bucky died" to "Bucky got seriously hurt and then retrieved by the Russians, brainwashed and sent out as an assassin periodically and then frozen between jobs."  Messy, messy, messy.)

Having not read the title for years, I picked up the recent issues drawn by Alan Davis. The story was enjoyable enough but there didn't seem to be anything particularly new in there; Machinesmith, Arnim Zola, Madbombs.

It looked great though!

QUOTE: You have 5 year olds that don't want to eat their cereal out of the Rubbermaid bowl but the fine china.

That's a really good comparison, Neil.

By the way, correct me if I'm wrong, but there are certain non-superhero franchises where writers don't feel the need to tamper with the past. I haven't read modern versions, but whenever I picked up a He-Man or Thuundercats comic, no-one seemed obsessed with tampering with the past, adding to origins, the whole "all you know is a lie" mindset, etc. That was years ago, but it just seems that, with He-Man and Thundercats - along with other franchises - writers just wanted to tell good stories and not pick apart origins or anything like that.

It's the equvalent of the writers of a sitcom having a character in every scene cut a three octave fart.

**

LOL!!

••

I call it "MAN OF STEEL Syndrome". And usually it walks hand in hand with "Death of Phoenix Syndrome". Such long shadows were cast by both of those "events" that far too many writers want to create their own versions -- reboots every time a new creative team is assigned to a project, for instance.

What is invariably missed is all the time, thought and effort that laid the groundwork for both those projects. Neither happened overnight, or on a whim.

***

Perfection.

The complete opposite?

When it occurred to Chris Claremont that Magneto might actually be a Jewish Holocaust survivor.

The nadir....

••

As I recall, Chris originally wanted Magneto to be a Gypsy, but someone pointed out that Doctor Doom already had that territory staked out.

The biggest problem with the "reveal" of Magneto as a Holocaust survivor was that, unlike my idea that he was Wanda and Pietro's father, it CONTRADICTED what we already knew.

Oh, sure, it could be argued -- as many fans do -- that it was never explicitly stated that he WASN'T a Holocaust survivor, but that's a most slippery slope upon which to place one's convictions. (It has never been explicitly stated that he doesn't sodomize puppies, either.) Thing was, if Stan and Jack (both Jewish, and both products of the Greatest Generation) had wanted Magneto to be Jewish, I'm pretty sure they would have mentioned it!