Thought dump-Comics the Contrived Cameo

Has been a long time since i've even attempt to post anything on this site....wow. Earlier in the year my computer died and i forgot about The Throne for the longest time but now i'm back to ramble on various subjects. This is essnetially a rant based upon the idea that Contrived Cameos to boost sales need to stop and if you going to be contrived at least make it worth while.

Got into an argument recently about Wolverine Publicity or the fundamental practice in comics to take one character and completely overhype them by throwing them in hundreds of books for no real story reasons outside of contrived popularity. Marvel is the major culprit throwing Wolverine in books where he has no buisness in(I'm looking at you New Avengers) and now its spread to Deadpool who for the longest time i was a major fan of.

What i'm essentially talking about is back during Warren Ellis Thunderbolts, there was a mini-series about former New Warrior turned thudnerbolt Penance and his struggle with his guilt over the Stamford incident. Now it was a mini that needed to be told due to the fact that many disliked the joyful Speedball becoming the gloomy Penance. Now Penance has gone awol for a good portion of the story out of Thunderbotls control to search down Nitro who caused the stamford incident. Now Wolverine Civil War one of the few Wolverine storylines i'm not ashamed to own dealt with Wolverine hunting down Nitro for his involvement in the civil war while everyone else was busy fighting eachother. Now there is clearly common ground for a good wolverien cameo in this storyline, as Penance could have gone to meet with Wolverine to discuss what happened with him and Nitro and being comics had a fight. However they ignore this obvious tie and Wolverien just shows up in the third issue for no particular reason...or there was but i didn't care enough to keep reading. This was a cameo for no reason only to put in to ape sales for the book by luring people in with Wolverine on the cover. Whats also glaring is that the issue he shows up in the Initative, you know the Civil War registered heroes were on the move and on the scene when Penance showed up but ignored the fact that Wolverine was there simply to allow the cameo. Now you can just complain that this is more bad writing then bad wolverine and its a little of both. The writer didn't need to shoe horn him in and Wolverien himself even if written well is completely irrelevant to the story that was told.

On the flipside i recently read the end of the Psylocke Mini and while not being as good as the storm mini which despite my dislike of Storm was really good, Wolverine showed up at the end of the third issue and was the main draw of the fourth. Now why didn't this appearence anger me. Well its because Wolverine not only had a connection with Psylocke but a connection with the major draw of the issue her assailant Matsuo who killed Wolverine's wife.

I also mentioned Deadpool in this rant and while i'm shamed to say i didn't read much of his 90's or early 2000 material the run on Cable and Deadpool by was really good. It made me fond of the character and he i enjoyed his oddball antics. Somehow Deadpool however has morphed into the sort of opposite Wolverine as Wolverine showing up something must be serious and when Deadpool shows up something is supposed to be not serious. Now theres a storyline running right now called doom war which is about the black panther and how doctor doom has conquered Wakanda. Now i don't care for Black panther for a various reasons which i'll probably list in another post but it suffers from a couple of issues right now. One Doom is congruent in like three storylines at the time so i see no suspense or urgency, two the Black Panther picks a team of X-men to help him fight which include boringly enough Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler no one else. Yeah the X-men literally became an army and you pick only three dudes who rate C to be when it comes to destructive power. Anyway one of the recent teasers had Deadpool thrown into the mix which is an isntant i don't care anymore.

The solitician is as followed

So far, Doctor Doom has won every round. With an army of indestructible shock troops, a horde of enhanced super-villains, and a new and terrifying level of personal power at his disposal, Doom is ready to crush the Fantastic Four, Storm and the Panthers for good. The only chance our heroes have to survive Doom’s deadly game is to change the rules. Enter: Deadpool.

Really there is no reason Deadpool should be in this mini-event.

Like with Wolverine Deadpool can be used as a tool for good and done well in contrived cameos. Now i mentioned how i loved Cable and Deadpool and the two characters have a good chemistry and history. So in the recent x-men crossover Messiah War Deadpool was thrown into the mix in a contrived Cameo. You know what made this one work, it was essentially a reunion of Cable and Deadpool for the first time in like two years. He had a connection to the characters in the story and while he played no real role in the story his appearence was appreciated so much as uneeded.

But i've ranted on about contrived cameos and how Deadpool and Wolverine are the culprits. Nigh every character is guilty of this but with most of them there not so overexposed and overhyped that there appearence throws me out of the story. A good example is Ghost Rider, while a popular character is not as overhyped as Wolverine and Deadpool so when his unnatural appearence graced the pages of X-Force i was a little giddy with glee rather then groaning(sigh..again). You see the story involved apache x-man and member of X-Force Warpath and his fight with a demonic bear. Warpath is a mutant with no magical abilities despite havign the indian spirit so the fight went one sided. Now any magical character would have done and but the writers chose Ghost Writer and while the coincendence of him riding down the desert in his bike while Warpath fights the bear was contrived it was awesome cuz it added something to a book primarily steeped in the center of the x-men world

Spiderman is also a character guilty of this, showing up in hundreds of books as a suprise Cameo but what makes Spiderman tend to work is that Spiderman is primarily stationed in New York so if a book takes place in New York and webhead shows up i'm okay with it. The same came be said about D.C. and there whoring of their Trinity specifcally Batman and Superman who do to the weight they hold in D.C. comics gives a grandeur to their appearences in random books for contrived reasons. When those two show up something is going down when Wolverine and Deadpool shows up...someone is looking to boost sales

I think i'm down ranting right now though i have a lot more rants to get out of my system..stay tuned while i explain my dislike for Wolverine and piss off one of my best friends in the process