De Nada, Joe Quesada

So, upon writing my opinion blog on the current states of Marvel and DC, I started thinking on a controversial bigtime player, Joe Quesada. Joe was the instigator of the Marvel Knights line, bringing in Kevin Smith on Daredevil which has basically had a ten-year run of being really good. From Smith begat Mack who begat Bendis who begat Brubaker. From the success of that line he was promoted to EIC, and proceeded to make huge changes in the Marvel U. He brought in Morrison and Quitely to X-Men, helped usher in the Ultimate line with Bendis, Millar, Kubert, Hitch and Ellis, brought Ennis to The Punisher and JMS to Amazing Spider-Man.

There've been a lot of good runs under his tenure, with Hulk under Bruce Jones and Mark Waid's Fantastic Four. I also believe he was the guy that resurrected Black Panther with Christopher Priest at the helm.

However, people on the internet hate him. Now, I've covered this slightly on my post on internet message boards, but it bears repeating. I've heard him called "Joe Quesadilla" which struck me as a little bit racist considering that he's Cuban. His name sounds different. It's the same principle as the assholes who stress Barack HUSSEIN Obama. The general consensus is that he's ruined Marvel, he's pissing in the open graves of Jack King and Stan Lee (wait, Stan Lee's not dead yet? Boize Moi, he must be drinking that same swill that Nick Fury does), yada yada yada.

What exactly did he ruin at Marvel? The hopelessly convuluted X-Men? The post-Clone era Spider-Man? The Avengers featuring teenage non-evil Tony Stark? Heroes Reborn? Ugh. Just think of all the great, memorable comic runs and stories in the 1990s. Then think of the same of the 2000s. 2000s wins.

Obviously I think Joey Q has done more good than harm. He brought back the subtle rivalry with DC while making JLA/Avengers a reality. Although after reading it maybe that one should have stayed a pipe dream. Marvel comics continue to spank DC in regards to sales so he's clearly doing something right. He's also done a good job of positioning Marvel as the hipper company, which it kind of always was-from the era of stodgy Silver Age "your dad as a superhero" DC to the modern "simple wing of a huge conglomerate", the competition isn't really fierce. Marvel is a Twittering, TV-friendly place.

Is he perfect? No. As mentioned before, the revamp of a universe not even a decade old was unnecessary and dumb. The idea that you don't have to explain magic, and that Peter Parker would make a deal with the devil (literally, Beezlebub) is idiotic. They kinda killed Supreme Power by bringing it away from MAX. They cut off Epic's wings before it took flight, only for them to eventually allow creator-owned series too late to take advantage of Millar's movie and sales-spawning works, not to mention probably alienating a ton of dudes that probably just went to Vertigo. Yeah, Epic was a huge missed opportunity. And he keeps hiring Greg Land, although it's admirable for him personally that he sticks up for friends and employees.

So, I dunno. Feel free to criticize Joey Q. Hell, do it here, in the comments section, and give me something to respond to. But try not to be too big of a weirdo about it. Or else you'll end up like this gentleman here.