Atlas, has, once again, been cancelled. Cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth from those people who decry yet again that everything would be fine if only you read and enjoyed the same comics the four of them do.
Y'know, I read the thing pretty consistently, but even I have to admit that the third time around maybe it's time to confront the issue that Atlas just doesn't have the readership to sustain an indefinite series. Even if there was, I'm not sure that an extended storyline featuring the godforsaken 3-D man (played by the even more godforsaken Triathlon) that steadfastly kept the titular Agents of Atlas off their own book for most of the first issue wasn't the smartest idea to sell new people on the 13th go-round of this concept.
So save your tears, people--good as it may be (which, after the initial miniseries, it was only fitfully so) it can't sustain month-in and month-out. Mythologise it all you want as being "too good to last" and enjoy the sweet rarefied air of delusion, because that's what it was.
Ideally the solution to this inability to sustain an ongoing would be to feature them in an occasional limited series, but as this is far too intelligent a concept to grasp, it will not be done, because comics do the smart thing only after all other options have been exhausted.
And speaking of other options totally exhausted:
Your Three-Sentence Review Of X-Men #1: So really, all you need to turn people into vampires is to have them explode and get some of themselves on you? Vampire bukkake--how very well thought out. I look forward to not giving a shit about any of this for many months to come.
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4 comments:
I think Jeff Parker is making a smart move in bringing it to a close on its own terms. Atlas has been around for awhile, and Marvel has done several things to attempt to build readership. If it's not selling more by now, it's probably just not going to happen.
It's better to have a series end earlier than you wanted, while you still sort of like it, than have it hang around until you can't wait for it to end.
I think under the circumstances, it's a good plan--of course this means I have 4 more issues of the goddamned 3D Man to wade through, but I have to give it to Marvel, they've done everything they could to make this work. There's no sense in digging this up one more time after this--it's looked worse every time.
Well, apart from just making it a yearly mini-series.
It's rather odd: Jeff Parker is one of the few creators at Marvel with near-unanimous support from the general readership, but I've never read anything by him that absolutely compelled me to stick around. Even his run on "Exiles" looked better simply by virtue of not being Chris Claremont - the man's competent, sure, but I'd hate to think that's become such a rare feature in comics today that he's getting accolades for it...
Well, in all honesty, he's good. The first Agents of Atlas mini-series was pretty damn good, but in retrospect probably benefited from having a set end-point, because in both iterations of the series, they've been fitfully good but somewhat directionless, and ultimately one feels like he's kind of working on being good and not quite closing the deal. :)
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