Asking these hacks to let sleeping dogs lay is like asking a child not to draw on the walls. They're a collection of impulsive, self assured twat goblins utterly convinced that they know what makes a good story, and they don't care how much shit they have to track over a beloved IP, they're gonna make you see what geniuses they are, whether you like it or not.
>dredged up >every goddamn iconic moment in history
I think the truth is that this isn't a new thing and a lot of the old editorial decisions that were driven by the business eventually became part of the very DNA of comic book storytelling. When you have a deadline and need a story or want to shock audiences, you go into the tool box and pull the same things out.. >"No one dies!"
The editors changed the last panel of the Joker's first appearance so he was alive when originally he was meant to die. Coming up with new villains is hard. And even then, killing people off doesn't stop them. People think that killing people and bringing them back is a new thing but before the Death of Superman there were loads of Silver Age issues that teased the death of Superman in that issue. >Shortcuts
Mutants were made because coming up with powers/origins took too much time and energy. So radiation was the excuse and then that became genetics more. Powers take time to think of but then you also have to take time in the comic to explain them. >Bring back old villain, referencing old moment.
Swiping or homage? Sometimes this works out, like Claremont completely changed Magneto into something great. Sometimes comic books greatest strength and greatest weakness is the retcon. Sometimes you have deadlines and problems and go into the references.
agree with you fully. also, I kind of have been thinking about this lately, if we cant make long lasting changes to characters or kill them off permanently, why not try to do self-contained, separated from continuity stories more? the allure of it would be that comic books could get famous writers or teams to do limit runs/series, and the outcome wouldnt affect later comics because theyre not in continuity with each other. theyre just self-contained stories of existing heroes that could go anywhere. I know there are elseworld/what ifs, but I mean series that're presented as more prestigious. perhaps a return to more graphic novels that purposely try to separate themselves from normal continuity, I mean, if I do this every time I watch a DC animated feature, why not for certain comics?
>if we cant make long lasting changes to characters or kill them off permanently, why not try to do self-contained, separated from continuity stories more?
I mean they do those stories and everytime they do a story like it (pic related) it is a success. And guess what happens then, the business decisions kick in and you end up getting a Fantastic Four: Life Story. X-Men: Grand Designs was a fun summary of years of X-Men comics and then you get a Fantastic Four: Grand Designs and a Hulk: Grand Designs. But even with those additional stories and main series need to drive onwards. > I know there are elseworld/what ifs
And the irony of What If…? is so many of those comics eventually enters the mainstream continuity. Seriously, there were old comics like: >#1 What If Spider-Man Had Joined the Fantastic Four?
He joined during the Future Foundation/Hickman run. >#2 What If the Hulk Had The Brain of Bruce Banner?
Done in Peter David's run. >#10 What If Conan the Barbarian Walked the Earth Today?
Happened in Savage Avengers. >#13 What If Jane Foster Had Found -- the Hammer of Thor?
Happened in Aaron's run.
The strengths and weakness of comics are often the same thing to be honest. Chris Claremont did a bunch of retcons to things, even retconning his own comics with the Classic X-Men (reprint comics of his older stories) edits and back up stories. The truth about continuity is that it should never be so strict you can do nothing or so loose that nothing matters. The problem with comics now isn't continuity but really the fact that a lot of people fall into the same patterns of gimmicks and aren't telling good stories anymore. The business/editorial and creative sides of things have always been at odds, sometimes it helped things and sometimes it hindred things. But a lot of comics now fail at basic things. (Also the myriad of industry problems I CBA to go into.)
While you're right that a lot of the What Ifs do become storylines in the main comic, almost none of them resemble the original story they were based on.
>I mean they do those stories and everytime they do a story like it (pic related) it is a success. And guess what happens then, the business decisions kick in and you end up getting a Fantastic Four: Life Story.
Yeah, they become testing grounds for adding into main continuity, but at least it's something new being added in. I think retcons work sometimes, but perhaps the uproars that have been happening for the past two decades are because the internet has allowed fans to be a lot more vocal. in turn we get this malaise, a compromise between remaining faithful to the original timeline, and then the editors wiping everything out every few years (whilst including whatever is deemed fashionable at the time.) the business of comics is in trouble and I cant help but feel like if serialized runs were published things would work better. but hey, we cant turn down those fans who are obsessed with chasing the monthlies, can we?
>The strengths and weakness of comics are often the same thing to be honest. >The truth about continuity is that it should never be so strict you can do nothing or so loose that nothing matters. The problem with comics now isn't continuity but really the fact that a lot of people fall into the same patterns of gimmicks and aren't telling good stories anymore.
I can't properly express how good it is to see this acknowledged.
Lately there's too much blame placed on traditions and cliches, characters and settings. There's a sentiment that the only way to "fix" these issues is to adopt other countries' business models or to somehow break the system to coerce writers into being more entertaining. But all these conventions are tools, and the blame has always belonged to the hands holding said tools.
I'd rather not get into industry problems either, but the nature of industry is the root of that problem, and it's depressing to see people would rather point at Batman and Spider-Man, or DC and Marvel, rather than see the full scope of the issue.
>if we cant make long lasting changes to characters or kill them off permanently, why not try to do self-contained, separated from continuity stories more?
I would argue that pretty much every series now is self contained anyway. Every writer makes huge changes to things that the next writer can't really follow. You get a big series like Immortal Hulk by Ewing which was popular and then they pick Cate's to do the next series and it pretty much has to ignore a lot of it. While getting different interpretations can be good you also have a continuity that is just all over the place and makes no sense. Every writer wants to up the ante, multiply things, huge ramifications and changes. And no one can write off of that.
it almost breaks my brain to try and wrap my head around how much continuity exists in these lines, and how bad some of the new changes can be. a lot of retcons these days feel like fanfics and a case of 'hey remember this epic moment? lets change that!' but when you have so much history with each character, it weighs everything down. its funny because I never had this problem in the 80s and 90s when I was a kid collecting spiderman, batman, avengers, hulk or whoever.
>pic
And then a one page story from that anthology comic for the Marvel's 80th anniversary comic Marvel Comics #1000 makes you actually feel something, far more than the actual main comic line does.
>I mean they do those stories and everytime they do a story like it (pic related) it is a success. And guess what happens then, the business decisions kick in and you end up getting a Fantastic Four: Life Story.
Yeah, they become testing grounds for adding into main continuity, but at least it's something new being added in. I think retcons work sometimes, but perhaps the uproars that have been happening for the past two decades are because the internet has allowed fans to be a lot more vocal. in turn we get this malaise, a compromise between remaining faithful to the original timeline, and then the editors wiping everything out every few years (whilst including whatever is deemed fashionable at the time.) the business of comics is in trouble and I cant help but feel like if serialized runs were published things would work better. but hey, we cant turn down those fans who are obsessed with chasing the monthlies, can we?
>I think retcons work sometimes
Claremont retconned all the time. Magneto as a Holocaust victim? Retcon. Loads of Wolverine stuff? Retcons. Like I said, the strengths and weaknesses of comics are the same. Everything is fixable but also everything can be ruined. >the internet has allowed fans to be a lot more vocal
Tbh when you read old letters pages or fanzines you really that not much has changed in this regard. Some people hated Giant Size X-Men #1 and early Claremont/Bryne (the famous Kurt Busiek letter). >I cant help but feel like if serialized runs were published things would work better
I think for me that the problem is modern FOMO tbh. FOMO is great at getting people into things, making obsessions and wanting to read that series. But conversely it makes people feel there is too big a buy-in so why bother? For me comics are an ongoing soap opera. And maybe we were more forgiving of those in the past and really it is people's expectations that changed?
it almost breaks my brain to try and wrap my head around how much continuity exists in these lines, and how bad some of the new changes can be. a lot of retcons these days feel like fanfics and a case of 'hey remember this epic moment? lets change that!' but when you have so much history with each character, it weighs everything down. its funny because I never had this problem in the 80s and 90s when I was a kid collecting spiderman, batman, avengers, hulk or whoever.
>its funny because I never had this problem in the 80s and 90s
See part of this is that our mentalities changed (also going on from what I said above). If you got into X-Men during the 80s because of word of mouth you entered a story with very long scale plot points. There weren't readily avaliable collected editions (Classic X-Men reprints and other stuff maybe). But people would be happy with the context or an explanation from friends or the odd back issue. Of course Shooter said everyone's comic was someone's first so you'd get superfluous dialogue explaining powers or w/e. And of course nowadays story decompression means comic arcs are designed also for the trade after market so it is a bit different. But perhaps back then we were more forgiving.
>Claremont retconned all the time. Magneto as a Holocaust victim? Retcon. Loads of Wolverine stuff? Retcons. Like I said, the strengths and weaknesses of comics are the same. Everything is fixable but also everything can be ruined.
I like origins getting expanded when a character is more blank rather than a written page, but I think a problem arises when someone takes a beloved story that developed a character and twists it or wipes it out. claremont had characters that didnt have an expansive story and started to give them one, so thats a good reason as to why they worked. if we retconned magneto into an immortal who lived centuries before, that would begin to alter his humanity (lol) hardships. could it work? sure. but changing something that really added to the character is risky and most of the time unsettles the buying public.
>For me comics are an ongoing soap opera. And maybe we were more forgiving of those in the past and really it is people's expectations that changed?
I think that's a huge part of it. I dont think many comic goers from the past cared about stories changing things, as a lot of them just wanted to read more comics. citing that bruce wayne was initially depicted as a 'bored socialite' is true to the first comic he appeared in, but is it the best story for him? I think respecting the stories that were well received is important, but creating something new in that established lore is tough. maybe telling good stories would be enough for me. if I pick up a star wars EU or star trek novel, do I NEED it to be in main continuity? can I just enjoy it for what it entails? do we even need 'major changes' all the time?
3 months ago
Anonymous
>but I think a problem arises when someone takes a beloved story that developed a character and twists it or wipes it out.
There will always be someone who loves something even if it is considered bad. The OG X-men series was messy and sold poorly until the Adams/Thomas run. But due to how long it took them to get the sales back they only later realised the bump had happened. X-men had, at that point, become a reprint book. But then they decided to have another go at it and make a new team that was purposefully internationalist (diverse) by having characters from different countries. wienerrum and Wein did Giant Size X-Men #1. Kurt Busiek complained majorly about Claremont's run (pic related). Claremont's run is now considered one of the best X-Men runs. So even something that seems "twisted" can later be seen differently. Later on Shooter and Marvel were thinking about bringing Jean back and Busiek actually provided the cocoon and Jamaica Bay idea to do so. And then X Factor happened and Scott's character was damaged. Which also annoyed Claremont. Busiek in a way was like a revenging fan. The whole point of that story is that these problems of what is a beloved character or who is blank or not can be debated and aren't black and white.
>I think that's a huge part of it. I dont think many comic goers from the past cared about stories changing things
Comics were disposable entertainment in a less competitive landscape. Nowadays we exist not in this entertainment media vs that entertainment media but a battle for attention spans. Why watch a movie when you can shit post on Cinemaphile or watch Youtube or streaming show? You can just sit on your phones. Of course there are lots of problems in comics: the industry, the quality, the politcs (and honestly those are gone over in every other thread and I'm trying my best not to go into it because I cba here.)
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Comics were disposable entertainment in a less competitive landscape. Nowadays we exist not in this entertainment media vs that entertainment media but a battle for attention spans
This is why this infamous shit happened.
3 months ago
Anonymous
thanks for the history lesson, sincerely. the idea of comics being more disposable in the past is a fact, as thats the reason why those comics command a huge price on the second hand market. that, and theyre of significant characters. people usually just bought them and moved on, never taking the stories they paid for as something to remember years from then. there will always be fans who hate changes, and it makes me wonder - at what point are they wrong? when are the creatives wrong? continuity and retcons inspire a lot of hate because we arent in the 20 year period of our beloved characters, a lot of them are more like 40-80 years of history. its evidentially going to weigh down on what can be done (without anger), and what can be changed without altering the DNA. I think its hard to sell casual buyers on new stories if something NEW isnt happening, but a lot of that also has to do with the fact that OMG MAJOR CHANGES THIS ISSUE is a huge selling point. and its used cheaply a lot of times. or just to agitate, it seems. I know myself, I have stopped buying spiderman, xmen, and punisher altogether. theyve been so mishandled that I cant even see myself caring what they do now. at some point retcons and changes are harmful
3 months ago
Anonymous
>there will always be fans who hate changes, and it makes me wonder - at what point are they wrong?
Pic related is a Star Wars fanzine that hated the Empire Strikes Back so much it made them quit publishing. >I think its hard to sell casual buyers on new stories if something NEW isnt happening, but a lot of that also has to do with the fact that OMG MAJOR CHANGES THIS ISSUE is a huge selling point
Yeah to go back to my first post the creative issues are often influenced by the business/editorial. Business/editorial stuff gets done so much it eventually becomes the creatives gimmicks. I like this video of Harlan Ellison (science fiction writer) talking about Death of Superman and how it had been done before:
?list=PLn5mSh00tKGGwiZ0CsZvWAzA0M2xQn8jA
I don't think this agitation is new. I think the hype and money making eventually does burn you out. Watch the video and you'll see a lot of his complaints will feel current.
>Some comics have a summary of "what happened in the last issue/current arc" page as well as cast of character pages.
these are god sends to me. the less intrusive but informal, the better.
>I think the fanboy mentality is living close to the flame all the time. I understand the appeal of being so invested. I get it. But also realise where it leads. You can still have that feeling of going into a shop and discovering something new to you.
I think that mentality is slowing coming back to me. I havent bought comics since the 2000s, and the marvel movies didnt make me come back because a lot of the comics were very different from what I knew before, nevermind the movies I just watched. marvel has been dropping the ball a lot imo, they could have done so much more with the eyes of the entire world watching and buying FOTM books and manga.
[...]
I can personally attest that I stopped buying certain comics and didnt come back to them. I wouldnt say I was outraged, but dull to their approach. there has to be such thing as angering fans to the point of no return, as I cant be the only one who found that mentality of brevoort as reprehensible.
>mentality of brevoort as reprehensible.
The funny thing is. Brevoort eventually said he regretted saying that stuff. During the 00s you had that mentality but it largerly worked, Avengers Disassmbled, New Avengers, Civil War. During the 2010s you had the big new diverse character push, in part probably due to concerns over characters eventually becoming public domain and wanting to appeal to a new audience. By 2015 it had reached its apex with Secret Empire and Hydra Cap becoming a meme. A meeting between Marvel and retailers was tense. Retailers said they had replaced too many characters and ruined things thus impacting sales. David Gabriel, a Marvel Executive, pretty much agreed with their assessment but later retracted those comments in a clarification. Marvel did then start bringing back legacy characters. But of course this new character push has also made up a significant part of the Phase 4+ MCU wave, with Kate Bishop, Ms Marvel, America Chavez, Ironheart. Lessons aren't learned.
3 months ago
Anonymous
lol its funny to see a response to empire strikes back being so negative. in a way, a strange way perhaps, I respect it. they didnt like its new direction and stopped. fickle? possibly, but like you said, they danced in the fire until they couldnt do it anymore. we dont own these characters, but we do have a voice
>Business/editorial stuff gets done so much it eventually becomes the creatives gimmicks. I like this video of Harlan Ellison (science fiction writer) talking about Death of Superman and how it had been done before
great video. I bought the cheap superman issue, mainly because I wanted to see the story and how it played out. even back then I realized it'll never sell for much if everyone has multiple copies. but the hype was loud. gimmicks when timed right and presented to a thirsty public, will always be a big business.
>By 2015 it had reached its apex with Secret Empire and Hydra Cap becoming a meme. A meeting between Marvel and retailers was tense. Retailers said they had replaced too many characters and ruined things thus impacting sales
I cant lie, I was checked out around then too. probably caught up with me around secret invasion and that goofy story about the watcher dying or something.
>David Gabriel, a Marvel Executive, pretty much agreed with their assessment but later retracted those comments in a clarification.
marvel is learning the hard way. they thought they had the best product on the block, only to find out that you still can oversaturate a market. you can squeeze too many bucks out of consumers. you can overdo a good thing. the marvel cinematic universe is so weak right now, the last good thing I enjoyed was the halloween special with werewolf by night and man-thing. even then Im fatigued but stayed around long enough to watch fury's faltering series. I say that to tie it back into the comics: not everything is going to work all the time, but being tone deaf to the fans is tragic. no one likes an unpleasant surprise
3 months ago
Anonymous
>lol its funny to see a response to empire strikes back being so negative. in a way, a strange way perhaps, I respect it.
For everything that changes in this world, some stuff remains the same and we just forget about it. Fans complaining is one of those things. >great video. I bought the cheap superman issue
Like I just said about, change yada stays the same. It is amazing how many of his complaints, gimmicks, pricing etc, is the same as we have now. >and that goofy story about the watcher dying or something.
Original Sin. That was a joke of a story. >but being tone deaf to the fans is tragic
To play devils advocate, how the frick do you listen to fans? Social media bubbles are a mess, sales and popularity are twisted all the time. Part of me just thinks that current creatives want to tank the industry just so bad that comic book shops close because they really truly want their comics to be sold in book stores for the "prestige" and not having to deal with the retailers or fans.
3 months ago
Anonymous
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Past Teen Version, Not Present Jean (Skeleton)
kek
3 months ago
Anonymous
>To play devils advocate, how the frick do you listen to fans?
same way you decide to make a change: you use some common sense. there is always a creator's license at play, sure, but a lot of these decisions dont come from a place of elevating the character's origins or introducing something captivating to the character; its about cashing in/a writer 'leaving his mark.' a good idea should almost sell itself to the writer and the fans. the premise can be ground breaking, but not betraying what made them revered. sure its impossible to gauge beforehand, but I like to think that before they voyage off into the land of moronation, they know what theyre doing.
3 months ago
Anonymous
and btw, the 'stars and garters line' here got me to cackle. the writer forgot to add in that fury craves a cigar every second of his miserable life, but he has to smoke off-panel to keep his job.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>in that fury craves a cigar every second of his miserable life, but he has to smoke off-panel to keep his job.
That whole Original Sin event was about Fury too and boy was it bad.
>To play devils advocate, how the frick do you listen to fans?
same way you decide to make a change: you use some common sense. there is always a creator's license at play, sure, but a lot of these decisions dont come from a place of elevating the character's origins or introducing something captivating to the character; its about cashing in/a writer 'leaving his mark.' a good idea should almost sell itself to the writer and the fans. the premise can be ground breaking, but not betraying what made them revered. sure its impossible to gauge beforehand, but I like to think that before they voyage off into the land of moronation, they know what theyre doing.
If only people still had common sense. I think a lot of writers view leaving their mark in the same was as them being capitivating. I don't think all these creatives are terrible people or doing bad things on purpose. I also find it ironic that we have mentioned what is good idea to the writers and fans but still people never all agree, like a few posts ago talking about Magneto. >but I like to think that before they voyage off into the land of moronation, they know what theyre doing.
I have no idea they ever will know what they're doing. Comics has existed in a perpetual twilight for so long. The end isn't here. But there is no one with a huge will wanting to really fix things in a substantial way. And even the industry is all structured in a way that makes change hard. But even with all that the way people are and entertainment is I dunno, I feel like perpetual twilight of comics is all we will have for a long time.
3 months ago
Anonymous
3 months ago
Anonymous
spider storm looks cool
3 months ago
Anonymous
lmao at the comic. I always laugh at a good D-Man reference. As for Rectitude, I hardly even knew the dude!
>That whole Original Sin event was about Fury too and boy was it bad.
Im not going to lie, but something about that series crushed my will to care. I stopped keeping up with comics for a very long time. it was that, and it was other things. but that was the last straw for many years
>I think a lot of writers view leaving their mark in the same was as them being capitivating. I don't think all these creatives are terrible people or doing bad things on purpose.
I dont think theyre bad people either. I just think they can be stubborn and fixated on being remembered so they push for something drastic when it doesnt serve the character, but instead a paltry story that isnt worth it. however, it doesnt always come out in the wash, they just look like buttholes to me.
>Comics has existed in a perpetual twilight for so long. The end isn't here. But there is no one with a huge will wanting to really fix things in a substantial way.
I remember the hype for quesada being the new guy in charge. I thought, the guy who inks random valiant or image stuff? uh, marvel knights? ok. but it turned out to be a lot of hoopala from a 'creator' who just understood business and creating controversy. I like that comics appeal to kids and nerds, but fleecing them via huge events and needless retcons that no one sees the value of, cant have come to fruition in a vacuum. drastic changes should face drastic scrutiny in order to preserve the comics' credibility, instead of hand wiping it away with a cross over in three years or so. its ridiculous.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>I meant to say "No, more mutants."
KEK
god, these are golden
3 months ago
Anonymous
>complicated
shit i finally get it
3 months ago
Anonymous
what is it
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Black Panther has Avril Lavigne CDs >Her most famous song is called Complicated
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Comics were disposable entertainment in a less competitive landscape. Nowadays we exist not in this entertainment media vs that entertainment media but a battle for attention spans
This is why this infamous shit happened.
I quit comics with the Spiderman clone shit in the 90's. Seeing as OMD came soon after, I made the right decision.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Lucky man.
the whole scenario feels a bit stupid though, because at some point your body simply will hit its limits from a mechanical point of view
>posts anime as evidence against breaking your limits
lol
3 months ago
Anonymous
I'd say that it's rare to see the specifics regarding injuries in media as a whole given how cheapened regular violence is
it's quite easy to power through a generic beating, but it's not the same as getting up after suffering severe brain concussions and a fractured vertebra
>See part of this is that our mentalities changed (also going on from what I said above). If you got into X-Men during the 80s because of word of mouth you entered a story with very long scale plot points.
that definitely happened to me. I bought one where havoc returns, and I didnt even know who havoc was or who the xmen were, even though they barely showed up in that issue lol. it actually intrigued me, then it made me drop it. I kept up with the avengers more, and it was probably because they were doing what shooter told them to do, and thats explain the story more. sure the dialog comes off as a bit more goofy today, but adding the backstory to an issue made sure I bought more.
>And of course nowadays story decompression means comic arcs are designed also for the trade after market so it is a bit different. But perhaps back then we were more forgiving.
I was more forgiving. comics were cheaper, my attention wasnt so divided, and I wasnt so upset with bad editorial decisions as I have grown up with the characters and have found some changes to be damaging. I dont think Ill ever give up comics, but I have given up on character due to lame retcons or decisions. I am not as forgiving as I used to be. thats why I dont think adhering to a main continuity is working for me anymore. I just hold onto the main notes of the character and take it from there
3 months ago
Anonymous
> and I didnt even know who havoc was
One thing that makes me laugh is that modern comics actually often do a better job of telling you this information. Some comics have a summary of "what happened in the last issue/current arc" page as well as cast of character pages. >who the xmen were
And like I said, FOMO can be good or bad. FOMO helped make X-Men into the best selling book with changing characters and a big cast where everyone had their favourites. But also the buy in for others like yourself was too great.
>I was more forgiving.
We all change. For me, I like the medium. I follow stuff I enjoy. I follow creators I enjoy. I try to avoid feeling pessimistic all the time. I don't like all the doomsaying thinking everything is ruined. I understand the problems but I didn't let it burn me out. I think the fanboy mentality is living close to the flame all the time. I understand the appeal of being so invested. I get it. But also realise where it leads. You can still have that feeling of going into a shop and discovering something new to you.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Some comics have a summary of "what happened in the last issue/current arc" page as well as cast of character pages.
these are god sends to me. the less intrusive but informal, the better.
>I think the fanboy mentality is living close to the flame all the time. I understand the appeal of being so invested. I get it. But also realise where it leads. You can still have that feeling of going into a shop and discovering something new to you.
I think that mentality is slowing coming back to me. I havent bought comics since the 2000s, and the marvel movies didnt make me come back because a lot of the comics were very different from what I knew before, nevermind the movies I just watched. marvel has been dropping the ball a lot imo, they could have done so much more with the eyes of the entire world watching and buying FOTM books and manga.
>Comics were disposable entertainment in a less competitive landscape. Nowadays we exist not in this entertainment media vs that entertainment media but a battle for attention spans
This is why this infamous shit happened.
I can personally attest that I stopped buying certain comics and didnt come back to them. I wouldnt say I was outraged, but dull to their approach. there has to be such thing as angering fans to the point of no return, as I cant be the only one who found that mentality of brevoort as reprehensible.
>like Claremont completely changed Magneto into something great.
It's scary how many people genuinely believe this, and genuinely believe the character is still great today.
>It's scary how many people genuinely believe this
How was he not improved under Claremont? >and genuinely believe the character is still great today.
X-Men are in fricking dire straights and have been for many years.
>How was he not improved under Claremont?
He wasn't a villain anymore, he was a walking screed about the Holocaust. Even when he was a villain again, he was still a walking screed about the Holocaust. And now he's not allowed to be a villain anymore because his insane fangirls lose their minds if he is.
>He wasn't a villain anymore, he was a walking screed about the Holocaust.
But for many people it was the first time a villain could have genuine depth of feeling and motivation beyond the usual villain with a gimmick suddenly deciding it was time to do evil. It took time for people to attempt to trust him. It wasn't all done overnight. >Even when he was a villain again, he was still a walking screed about the Holocaust.
See you're objectively wrong. The Holocaust screed was actually done sparingly. There is only a handful of times it is really mentioned over many issues. In fact it was so sparingly they tried to retcon it to make him a Gyspy rather than israeli because they worried about adaptations and it offending people. So they claimed in the 90s he had stolen someone's identity. Which in turn was retconned. Honestly it feels like you're looking at the whole picture and a generalisation taken via hindsight. If you read Claremont's run it is not really done how you described. >And now he's not allowed to be a villain anymore because his insane fangirls lose their minds if he is.
Modern X-Men have been through the wringer more times than I can count.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Claremont does try to whitewash Magneto though. He tries to brush past all the actions Magneto did before his run and look how he writes the X-Men reacting to when Magneto goes to trial. There's a reason why the OG Brotherhood barely shows up in Claremont's run specifically Pietro and Wanda.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Claremont does try to whitewash Magneto though.
Yes, I definitely think glossing over some of his crimes was that. But again that goes back to the question of the retcon. Did the stories that do that justify the gloss? Many would argue they did. Continuity shouldn't be a noose stopping growth. Neither should it be too loose. I think Claremont did it in a way that balanced things. Just keeping people in the same position is anti-Claremont. His book was about change and growth and that is what people bought into. When X-Men went back to the Magneto status quo villain in the 90s we got peak X-Men in terms of sales but it isn't remembered as fondly. Claremont was sustainable growth and Jim Lee was temporary. Because after that it never reached the same high. >OG Brotherhood
I mean Magneto went solo most of the time without a team in most of his appearances. Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch ended up in other books and as heroes. Mastermind did come back and was a significant part of Dark Phoenix saga in manipulating Jean. Toad is the only one who was kind of shafted and used sparingly.
Ultimately Magneto didn't bang on about the Holocaust, him leaving his villainry was considered interesting by most, the book still had great villains, he grew as a character in a way that was compelling. Would you rather he remained just in status quo because "he is their arch enemy so must do so"?
3 months ago
Anonymous
Growth and change shouldn't also prevent a character from being held accountable and Claremont during his run actively went out of his way to make anyone wanting to hold Magneto accountable for anything be deemed at best as unreasonable. Again, look at how the X-Men reacted when he got arrested or how the Avengers are framed for being untrustworthy of Magneto. The OG Brotherhood weren't really used partially because it would most likely have to be addressed how Magneto was abusive to him. it's why I think Claremont partially hated the retcon that he was their dad.
3 months ago
Anonymous
I feel like you're moving the goalposts too. First you're upset that: >He wasn't a villain anymore
But now you're saying that the problem was accountability? Much like your previous mention of Holocaust screed, which was wrong, I find your mentions on Magneto seem to be wrong too. You seem very focused on that singular story of X-men vs. Avengers and want to ignore everything outside of it. The accountability that Magneto was held to was the fact he had to carry Charles' vision and the weight of that responsibility. It was the fact he had to gain the X-men's trust over time. It was the fact that he had to grown to realise he was wrong and face his past misdeeds.The accountability you seem to want is what? Arrested? Scheduled for execution? Then escaped by tea time for a new battle with the X-Men? I feel like much like your Holocaust comment, this accountability is something rather general that avoids the context of the whole run. Would you rather Claremont had just had a villainous Magneto his whole run? Because it really feels like you would have?
3 months ago
Anonymous
Arguing with people who have no actual knowledge of the comics in question is pointless, anon
3 months ago
Anonymous
I mean most Cinemaphile discussion is pointless anyway. But it is still interesting to see other perspectives.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>the fact that he had to grown to realise he was wrong and face his past misdeeds
did you not read the 2014 solo book? it's literally about him traveling around murdering people for 21 issues, which you might say "ah yeah but that's not the 80s/90s redemption arc" which really wasn't an arc so much as a redefining of what villainy means to Magneto, or you might say "ah but that's just one book, sometimes there are bad books" and yeah, those things might be true if the same X-Men hadn't already had their own murder squad book for almost a decade at that point
I'm pretty sure the 2007 X-Force book kills more non-mutants than the number of mutants killed by non-mutants to that date (you can't count the Genoshans because that was Cassandra Nova's handiwork, and she's a mutant) and it's just nonsense, it's like deaths don't even matter to the X-Men at all, lives don't matter to them, I guess when one of you did a planetary genocide and then got better after dying about it you stop caring about the small numbers
the 2014 Magneto book even references Genosha as though Magneto himself has *no idea* who was ultimately behind it, which I guess maybe he didn't but that seems weird, no? to not have any interest in who directed this colossal Sentinel to attack and kill his island paradise, despite using it as his impetus for going on a solo rampage?
anyway a couple of years before that he has a 4-issue mini titled Magneto: Not A Hero, in which his evil clone goes around murdering people to frame him, and at the end, he just murders some people for calling him names, and also it looks like he snaps his clone's neck
these are not the actions of a reformed supervillain burdened by the weight of Xavier's vision
like maybe I'm a whole redemption arc cycle out here but even in 2001 he was still kidnapping Xavier and shit, the only change that's stuck is he found shelter with the X-Men after M-Day and never fricked off again
3 months ago
Anonymous
No offense anon but this conversation is excruciating. If you read the reply chain it is clear I was talking about Magneto during the Claremont run and up until the end of that. It was in the context of that and if what Claremont did was good. And you were also arguing in that context too. Now you've completely changed tactics for the third time, not connecting with any of the points I made at all. This is rather pointless.
>these are not the actions of a reformed supervillain burdened by the weight of Xavier's vision
And Magneto stopped being a reformed supervillain when Jim Lee won out against Claremont and got that to happen and then Claremont quit. That was in the 90s. So everything past that point was obviously not following what Claremont was trying to do with the character. So all the books you list have nothing to do with the conversation at hand.
To put it as simply as I can: we were talking about how Claremont dealth with the character in his main original run. So far I have been told that stopping him being a villain was bad (with no elaboration) and that he constantly went on about the Holocaust (which was wrong). Then I heard how he wasn't held accountable (which I disagreed with). So now you list out a bunch of more recent comics well past the period I was talking about for what reason? A lot of 00s/10s X-men has been all over the place. I never mentioned it at all in anything I said.
3 months ago
Anonymous
I told you so
Arguing with people who have no actual knowledge of the comics in question is pointless, anon
3 months ago
Anonymous
Kek I guess you did. I should really go to sleep.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>The thing to avoid, of course, would be the "Legion of Substitute X-Men" stigma
hehehehehe
hahahahahaha
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
3 months ago
Anonymous
John Byrne's faces are so creepy.
3 months ago
Anonymous
John Byrne's faces (and bodies) were mostly modelled on real people, mostly TV and movie stars.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Sure Professor let's get you to bed
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Would you rather he remained just in status quo because "he is their arch enemy so must do so"?
I'd absolutely prefer that villains with body counts or attempted body counts in the millions be 100% off the table for redemption ever, and I don't care how "interesting" people found it.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Yes, it was interesting. And the posts in this thread talk about sometimes you can't please everyone with change. Heck even Claremont said that in a response to Kurt Busiek, one man's dark age is another's golden age. There is a reason why Magneto is considered such a good villain. And part of that is the depth he was given by his backstory and his development. Something that many villains didn't have and still don't. There is a reason why Claremont's run is still popular. You can hand wave it away, but that doesn't change it. You're welcome to your opinions but honestly the issue is mentioned in other posts. Continuity should never stop good stories, never be too tight or too loose. I think Claremont got the balance right. There is a reason why X-Men stagnated and that's when it went back to status quo. The book became the most popular Marvel book because of interesting change. If it had followed what you wanted it would have languished. His redemption was something over time. It doesn't mean all is forgiven. it came up again and again to prove that point.
>he was a walking screed about the Holocaust
http://www.alara.net/opeople/xbooks/magjew.html
Here is a list of issues mentioning Magneto's israeliness. Around 16 issues between 1981 to 1993. 12 years. Hardly a walking screed? (Then the retcon happened.)
Seriously just let shit stand instead of copying better stories and moments
To be fair, all of these are cringe.
>i am big and strong and i'm gonna keep fighting hur hur hur i'm too dum dum 2 quit
>supergirl is DEAAAAAAAAAAAD which is bullshit considering how that nobody fricking dies in comic books
>become a MAN is such bullshit. like honestly, this COULD have worked without the dialogue whatsoever. as it is it just sounds like an edgy kid because nobody over the age of 12 speaks like this.
honestly, the amount of comic books that has actually good writing is very low.
My first exposure to Gage while knowing his name was the assassin Spider-Man story in spider-verse. Spider-Sanction, iirc. It was good and Gage did a good job reintroducing such an interesting version of the character.
Then Dan killed off one of that version in one of the worst and laziest fricking ways. Gage did such a good job at not shitting the bed, and Slott had diaherrea all over it.
And then I went back and read what he had to work with immediately after Superior: Peter telling MJ everything that happened... and her essentially going, "Yeah that's a you problem, I can't handle this shit, bye homie".
Seeing this picture of him I understand how shitty it must be to work as what anons call "Slott's Tardwrangler". Poor bastard.
>good job reintroducing such an interesting version of the character.
Well, aside from killing off Wolverine. I don't think that was necessary... none of spiderverse was
I used to be underweight and once I achieved a normal weight I felt weird walking down stairs because I suddenly had flesh on my torso that bounced a little. I can't even fathom having that much jelly moving around and not being horrified by the feeling with every movement.
Every single thing ever done in Marvel and DC has been ruined. NO ONE should EVER acknowledge anything done in DC post-New 52 or in Marvel post-Marvel NOW.
That’s not a retcon, the older trickshot was the guy who taught them how to use a bow. Barney took his code name after he died, the real retcon is that Barney actually survived his death from his first appearance in an old avengers comic after getting blown up and didn’t show up again until decades later.
It's not even that it's walls of text, which is atrocious, but also that how he's speaking and his actions don't line up.
He's talking as though he were writing a journal while simultaneously collapsing on the ground in despair.
Completely pulls me out of the scene and ensures it isn't the sorrowful moment it's intended to be.
>dramatic monologue
It's not dramatic, he's methodically deciphering the chain of events and actions that led to that point, while supposedly having a complete emotional breakdown. It's fricking hammy and bad.
I can see Cyclops gradually coming to the realization how exactly the death happened and that enhancing his shock and disbelief. And the comics of this time are still inherently hammy.
Yeah, while slumped in a heap or overlooking some scenic view, not mid collapse on the floor.
Look at the panels and the timing, during his fall, in which he's saying all this.
It's poorly constructed, chump.
>Yeah, while slumped in a heap or overlooking some scenic view, not mid collapse on the floor.
I don't really see why that would make a difference. The pose doesn't take anything away for me. And I'm someone who generally doesn't like this "iconic" issue, but not for this scene.
3 months ago
Anonymous
All this dense dialogue, it would have been better if Scott was just slumping in despair, and one of the Recorders or Uatu was in the background spilling out all this dense dissertation. Far, far better.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>one of the Recorders or Uatu was in the background spilling out all this dense dissertation
well... they were there, you know
3 months ago
Anonymous
Well aware, and they are the proper source for this sort of exposition. But Claremont gets carried away with his own "genius" writing sometimes and can't stop.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Jean Grey could have lived to become a God. But it was more important to her that she die...a human
Goddamn Claremont's so good.
Feel sorry for the dummies arguing earlier, "Oh he can't say all that in the time of those panels" shut up, it doesn't matter, he can't actually shoot lasers from his eyes either
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Feel sorry for the dummies arguing earlier, "Oh he can't say all that in the time of those panels" shut up, it doesn't matter, he can't actually shoot lasers from his eyes either
moron
3 months ago
Anonymous
for frick's sake WHY IS THE TEXT NARRATING THE ACTION?! You have pictures you rancid fricks. God I hate comic books.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>I don't really see why that would make a difference.
This is the issue right here, you said it yourself without meaning to >The pose
Because it's not a pose, it's three panels of an action.
He's reciting a bloody soliloquy while collapsing, an act that takes a second or less, nowhere near enough time to spout off everything he runs through.
The blending of text and art is crucial to a comicbook and this objectively fails, even if you can't see it, though I do hope you now understand.
All this dense dialogue, it would have been better if Scott was just slumping in despair, and one of the Recorders or Uatu was in the background spilling out all this dense dissertation. Far, far better.
I'm glad you get my point, anon.
3 months ago
Anonymous
We don't disagree, but "Every panel of Spider-Man kvetching over the problems he's experienced the last two weeks while dodging a punch".
3 months ago
Anonymous
And that's dumb as hell, too.
Completely breaks the flow of action.
It doesn't look to me like he's falling though. He's leaning on his arms and then collapses at the realization. At the very least, if you look at the fist and second panel, he has enough time to straighten his left arm and reach it out.
Fourth panel he starts reeling from Jean's actions, fifth has him trying to take a knee because he's losing strength from the emotional turmoil. sixth has him losing further strength starting the complete fall and seventh has him finish it.
At most, you could say he's got two thirds of his speech in static poses but there's still a whole third while he's unambiguously falling.
Imagine seeing that play out on screen, do they do a freeze frame so he can finish his lines?
Could have easily had him slumped back with his butt on his feet (not sure what the name of the pose is but I'm sure you know what I mean) while going through his long-winded emotional outburst but no, they consciously chose something that wouldn't look right on screen and couldn't happen in real life.
3 months ago
Anonymous
It doesn't look to me like he's falling though. He's leaning on his arms and then collapses at the realization. At the very least, if you look at the fist and second panel, he has enough time to straighten his left arm and reach it out.
>Fourth panel he starts reeling from Jean's actions, fifth has him trying to take a knee because he's losing strength from the emotional turmoil. sixth has him losing further strength starting the complete fall and seventh has him finish it.
Sorry, meant to add on that the art implies it's all one almost perfect motion from Jean's "death" to him on the floor with a little stagger in between.
Not enough time for his rant.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Fourth panel he starts reeling from Jean's actions,
He's instinctively ducking out of the gun's way. And what exactly says "losing strength" to you on fifth and sixth? To me fifth is completely ambiguous and sixth is him reaching out to where Jean was. >Imagine seeing that play out on screen, do they do a freeze frame so he can finish his lines?
No, he just stands leaning on his arms for a while before collapsing when he finishes, which is what I imagine. I really don't see how that is so difficult to picture.
3 months ago
Anonymous
It doesn't look to me like he's falling though. He's leaning on his arms and then collapses at the realization. At the very least, if you look at the fist and second panel, he has enough time to straighten his left arm and reach it out.
Yeah, while slumped in a heap or overlooking some scenic view, not mid collapse on the floor.
Look at the panels and the timing, during his fall, in which he's saying all this.
It's poorly constructed, chump.
Solution: keep the text, but put it in boxes. That way, it indicates that it's his present/future thoughts and realisations, while keeping him collapsing in grief in the moment.
>Scott "wall of exposition" Summers. >Talk about huffing your own farts as a writer (of comics).
I do like X-Men and do like parts of Claremont's run but I also have to agree with all criticism people make of him because honestly the man didn't know how to write for comics. That sounds like a dumb thing to say when his run is so beloved and built X-Men into a huge franchise (well him and all the artists and everyone else).
this is the point that Scott turns evil, when he decides that genocide is an acceptable thing for an x-man to do if he likes them (he does not like Wolverine, hence the constant bickering, Scott's ultimate sanction for other mutants)
look at how he analyses what she did; he's not even sorry about those other people, who mattered so much to her, or her reasons - she's just property he's lost
It speaks to something absolutely rotten in the core of Marvel comic fandom that the most celebrated, most beloved stories are always the ones where SOMEONE DIES.
>It speaks to something absolutely rotten in the core of Marvel comic fandom that the most celebrated, most beloved stories are always the ones where SOMEONE DIES.
Hard disagree. Marvel worked when it did attempt its old adage of "the world outside your window". Having death and consequence was that attempt to truly be that. It changed us from the samey Silver Age into something new. Those moments massively shaped the comics after for the better. And when they were undone that led to stagnation and all the other problems people complain about. Undoing them was the true problem, as inevitable as it was.
I find it bizarre all this revisionism I see in this thread and others were people decide that 95% of all the comics history was a mistake. It is a completely skewed take on things. I honestly feel like you guys make it out that all books should have stayed in their Silver Age position for eternity.
Comics should've stayed in the 80's mentality. Storylines were good, tons of experimentation in the medium, pushed some boundaries without losing the plot the way 90's edge lord shit did.
I'd give anything to have 80's Wolverine back, when he was more of an adventurer and has his weaknesses and his regeneration wasn't full moron survive anything tier.
Pretty much what I was saying in my post. I feel like the Bronze age was the sweet spot of comics before the modern disaster undid the good work.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Bronze Age SUCKED for superheroes though (with exceptions). It really wasn't until the 80s that the industry as a whole started to improve.
3 months ago
Anonymous
This.
3 months ago
Anonymous
This.
Bronze age was half the 80s,
3 months ago
Anonymous
The bronze age is considered to have ended anywhere from the mid to close to the end of the 80s. So you're literally wrong.
You're right. The 70s sucked, but the 80s were great for superheroes, and comics in general.
3 months ago
Anonymous
I don't think the 80s were born out of a vacuum. 70s comics tried a bunch of new stuff and there are some good series. The CCA was waning. Many of the stuff you like in the 80s was built off ideas being tried out then. So just saying it all sucked feels a bit shitty.
3 months ago
Anonymous
This. There is a reason it's considered a collective age as the bronze age.
3 months ago
Anonymous
This. There is a reason it's considered a collective age as the bronze age.
Then why is the usual cutoff at 1985-6? It's either Crisis or TDKR and Watchmen.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Because it was the next big gear shift
3 months ago
Anonymous
You what? What doesn't really connect with what I said?
3 months ago
Anonymous
Crisis fundamentally changed the DC Universe by setting up the Superman reboot and the clear line between pre crisis and post crisis continuity.
Also 1986 was when Jean Grey came back to life, which was the first major paradigm shift away from the changes of the Bronze Age.
3 months ago
Anonymous
It doesn't help that there are no real concreate dates for when the different ages began.
Marvel's Silver Age starts with Fantastic Four #1, but DC's started with Showcase #4; nearly 5 years prior.
I know that the DC's Bronze Age is considered to have started with Neal Adam's run on Batman and that Marvel's Silver Age ended with The Death of Gwen Stacy, but what's considered the end of DC's Silver Age and the beginning of Marvel's Bronze Age?
And what Age are we in now?
3 months ago
Anonymous
Ceramic.
3 months ago
Anonymous
[...]
You're right. The 70s sucked, but the 80s were great for superheroes, and comics in general.
It doesn't help that there are no real concreate dates for when the different ages began.
Marvel's Silver Age starts with Fantastic Four #1, but DC's started with Showcase #4; nearly 5 years prior.
I know that the DC's Bronze Age is considered to have started with Neal Adam's run on Batman and that Marvel's Silver Age ended with The Death of Gwen Stacy, but what's considered the end of DC's Silver Age and the beginning of Marvel's Bronze Age?
And what Age are we in now?
I find it's much better to just refer to decades when talking about periods for comic books. The various Ages are too nebulous and have never been really codified in any meaningful way. Comic fandom hasn't even come up with any real terms for the periods AFTER the Bronze Age, though part of me thinks that's mostly because the 90s onwards largely isn't worth codifying by giving it a title of an Age
I mean, what would you call the 2010s-[current year] period for comics? The Tin Age? The Shitty Age? The Holey Rusted Metal Age?
3 months ago
Anonymous
This. The "Ages" were literally created by comic book speculators in the 90s anyway. IF there was ever an actual attempt at a scholarly assessment of the history of comic books, It would done by decade and then pinpoint specific zeitgeists.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Decades are even more vague and general. There was some significant changes during a single decade.
3 months ago
Anonymous
This. The "Ages" were literally created by comic book speculators in the 90s anyway. IF there was ever an actual attempt at a scholarly assessment of the history of comic books, It would done by decade and then pinpoint specific zeitgeists.
>I find it's much better to just refer to decades when talking about periods for comic books.
I find this debate weird and naive. The truth is, any grouping will always be loose by its definition and a debate because it will never securely fit *everything*. All of your arguments can be used against using decades too? You say ages are too nebulous and not codified, which is true, but the same argument can be made against decades. Deciding just to use a time unit despite all the conflicting stuff is weird. Like what is a 90s comic? Is it X-Men #1 the best selling comic ever, the Marvel superstar artists who broke off into Image? Or is it something like Sandman which was published from '89 to '96 and still wildly regarded now as literature? Because these two books couldn't be more different. So it'll always be a debate and always be loose no matter what you use but the ages are no better or worse than decades. Using a decade can be rather arbitrary and I know it is stuck in public discourse, especially around music, even though music fads grew and waned over different time periods and didn't fit neatly into decades. Do you understand what I mean?
>created by comic book speculators in the 90s anyway
This is not true and there has been defined by scholars.It was also defined by comic book sellers, people in the industry and fans/ For me I would define it as: >Golden Age - pre-CCA. Wild west of different titles and experimentation culminating into the moral panic of the CCA. >Silver Age - CCA, as exemplified by the loosy goosy stories that to modern eyes feel bizarre. >Bronze Age - waning CCA, drug stories in Denny O'Neil's Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Lee's Spider-Man story. Horror titles returned. >The Dark Age/Modern Age - no more CCA, universes rebooted, deaths overturned, grimdark or mature genres explode.
(1/2)
3 months ago
Anonymous
>I mean, what would you call the 2010s-[current year] period for comics? The Tin Age? The Shitty Age? The Holey Rusted Metal Age?
Some people define the "Dark Age" or "Modern Age" ending in the 2000s and just calling now the Present. I think the problem is, which comics would you necessarily define as the new gear shift in the 00s or 10s? For me you could call it the Internet Age. Whether that is because of the wholesale use of digital technology, colouring, amongst other things. Or because of the influence of social media on the comics.
>IF there was ever an actual attempt at a scholarly assessment of the history of comic books
There has been? >A Complete History of American Comic Books by Shirrel Rhoades >Super-history: comic book superheroes and American society, 1938 to the present by Jeffrey K. Johnson >Of Comics and Men by Jean-Paul Gabilliet
But even scholars disagree on exact periods and use different dates.
(2/2)
3 months ago
Anonymous
>I mean, what would you call the 2010s-[current year] period for comics? The Tin Age? The Shitty Age? The Holey Rusted Metal Age?
Some people define the "Dark Age" or "Modern Age" ending in the 2000s and just calling now the Present. I think the problem is, which comics would you necessarily define as the new gear shift in the 00s or 10s? For me you could call it the Internet Age. Whether that is because of the wholesale use of digital technology, colouring, amongst other things. Or because of the influence of social media on the comics.
>IF there was ever an actual attempt at a scholarly assessment of the history of comic books
There has been? >A Complete History of American Comic Books by Shirrel Rhoades >Super-history: comic book superheroes and American society, 1938 to the present by Jeffrey K. Johnson >Of Comics and Men by Jean-Paul Gabilliet
But even scholars disagree on exact periods and use different dates.
(2/2)
I think the whole decade of the 80s should be called the Renaissance Age, which saw the more powerful stories in superhero comics and the rise of other publishers and indies. Miller's Daredevil, Simonson's Thor, Moore's Marvelman amd Swamp Thing, Chaykin's American Flagg, Ronin, TDKR, Watchmen, Batman Year One, RAW, Cerebus: High Society and Church & State, Love and Rockets, The Puma Blues, Concrete, etc. all came around in this era.
3 months ago
Anonymous
A lot of the Vertigo titles and British invasion comics went into the 90s, for instance, like I said previously, the Sandman being 1989-96.
During the mid-1980s Marvel moved away from its traditional "house style of art", where artists all coeslesced towards a Marvel way of doing things, towards different types of art. People like Bill Sienkiewicz for instance.
Look at the work of R Crumb and Zap Comix from the late 1960s youth culture into the 70s. The 70s underground scene boosted the independent/self published comics of the 80s. But then the late 80s went into the 90s independent scene with explosions of stuff like TMNT.
Using the 1980s as a fully defined period can be just as picked apart as the previous ages. There is always overlaps and building on top of things and other stuff.
3 months ago
Anonymous
The bronze age is considered to have ended anywhere from the mid to close to the end of the 80s. So you're literally wrong.
3 months ago
Anonymous
[...]
Bronze age was half the 80s,
People never know what they're talking about here.
>It speaks to something absolutely rotten in the core of Marvel comic fandom that the most celebrated, most beloved stories are always the ones where SOMEONE DIES.
The way I see it, Marvel did it with some sort of dignity and urgency. When DC did it, it was incredibly soulless.
>Barry's death was so nobly executed that Marvel instantly had "Buried Alien" show up in their setting for further adventures >Bruce and Clark didn't even die
Can't agree with you there mate
> When DC did it, it was incredibly soulless.
The problem with Death of Superman was it had been done before. See:
>there will always be fans who hate changes, and it makes me wonder - at what point are they wrong?
Pic related is a Star Wars fanzine that hated the Empire Strikes Back so much it made them quit publishing. >I think its hard to sell casual buyers on new stories if something NEW isnt happening, but a lot of that also has to do with the fact that OMG MAJOR CHANGES THIS ISSUE is a huge selling point
Yeah to go back to my first post the creative issues are often influenced by the business/editorial. Business/editorial stuff gets done so much it eventually becomes the creatives gimmicks. I like this video of Harlan Ellison (science fiction writer) talking about Death of Superman and how it had been done before:
?list=PLn5mSh00tKGGwiZ0CsZvWAzA0M2xQn8jA
I don't think this agitation is new. I think the hype and money making eventually does burn you out. Watch the video and you'll see a lot of his complaints will feel current.
[...] >mentality of brevoort as reprehensible.
The funny thing is. Brevoort eventually said he regretted saying that stuff. During the 00s you had that mentality but it largerly worked, Avengers Disassmbled, New Avengers, Civil War. During the 2010s you had the big new diverse character push, in part probably due to concerns over characters eventually becoming public domain and wanting to appeal to a new audience. By 2015 it had reached its apex with Secret Empire and Hydra Cap becoming a meme. A meeting between Marvel and retailers was tense. Retailers said they had replaced too many characters and ruined things thus impacting sales. David Gabriel, a Marvel Executive, pretty much agreed with their assessment but later retracted those comments in a clarification. Marvel did then start bringing back legacy characters. But of course this new character push has also made up a significant part of the Phase 4+ MCU wave, with Kate Bishop, Ms Marvel, America Chavez, Ironheart. Lessons aren't learned.
>I like this video of Harlan Ellison (science fiction writer) talking about Death of Superman and how it had been done before:
?list=PLn5mSh00tKGGwiZ0CsZvWAzA0M2xQn8jA
A lot of Harlan's complaints about Death of Superman match up modern day complaints. The 90s DC character "deaths" were full on hype machine. That's the problem, there used to be a clear distinction between a good death (e.g. Uncle Ben) and a bad death (random title grabbing story). But eventually the tools become part of the DNA of comics and get overused.
When Cap got shot dead in '07 I came to realize this.
That is in part because comics by then became a parody of themselves in how death was used. It doesn't mean the old stories with death were bad, per se. Every modern story with death has the fact that it will be overturned in a few months/years.
>I honestly feel like you guys make it out that all books should have stayed in their Silver Age position for eternity.
Fair enough. One of those agree to disagree moments.
Nta, but honestly, why even be here? Like you say that anon gave a thoughtless response but it sometimes feels like a sizeable part of the Cinemaphile population is people that despise it all with every fibre of their being. Is coming here attacking the same stuff over and over again really that cathartic?
It says so much that you people always want deaths, more deaths, but lose your minds over the idea that maybe it was a mistake and they actually need that character back, or people liked them and want them back. If you guys had things your way all the popular characters would be long dead, and the big 2 would have nothing left but replacement characters and crappy OCs.
We wouldn't have the whole cycle of death and return events if the entire rise of X-Men to becoming Marvel's biggest book of the 80s and 90s wasn't entirely built on them killing one of the original cast and everyone praising it as Marvel's best story, leading to everyone wanting to get sales, attention and praise by killing someone, but there's the problem, you all want that to keep happening and get the short-term shock and feels without ever bringing people back because you don't want it "invalidated".
3 months ago
Anonymous
Look, I'll tell you what I want, and this is just me. If your characters are too old and outdated, pass the torch to a newer character. It's been time to do that long ago in my opinion. Some of these old characters need to be retired. Give us YOUTH. That's how you end a cycle. If that means letting them get their big death then fine. But don't keep reusing them. Make up your mind, either they are dead and done or they're in another role now out of the spotlight.
But then I'm going to argue my own point, if you'll allow me. Because of the MCU, it's harder to pull that. Current fans will open the book and go, "who the hell is this? Where's my Tony Stark? Where's Logan? How come Captain Marvel's a kid?"
3 months ago
Anonymous
>But don't keep reusing them.
There's always going to be reinvention and rebooting and adaptation of course, but I think in general there's no real argument against the notion that characters who are endlessly reset in a single continuity lose any real impact when, for example, their lives are at risk. Jean Grey might die? They'll get a new one and lie to Scott and say she grew an inch overnight.
But by that same token there's little currency in high-stakes stories that radically change the character/team/setting, which is where the summer events of the Big 2 fall down. Very little is ever going to stick but even if it did - those kind of radical changes very rarely work out. If Miller's Daredevil had sunk without trace the character and stories would have reverted to being goofy and probably been forgotten like so many characters from the publishers who didn't make it over the last 60 years.
Legacy hires to replace an older character can work, but they're not a panacea for the problems that the old version faced. Leaving aside younger time-travel/dimension-travel versions of the same character (Jean Grey, Tony Stark) which don't really change anything simply by adding youth to the mix, if the problem is the character/setting and can't be changed without fundamentally altering what the character is, it's time to retire them completely. The problem there is not movies and tv (because those fans rarely open a comic book if ever) but the existing readers, who are likely the only people who'd buy a replacement. If that replacement isn't what they want, then regardless of what it is, it won't sell. That's why old characters get recycled.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>But don't keep reusing them.
Do you not think reuse of the characters got some of peoples favourite stories? When people say Batman they recommend some Frank Miller. Reinvention gave people a lot of stuff they wanted.
>But don't keep reusing them.
There's always going to be reinvention and rebooting and adaptation of course, but I think in general there's no real argument against the notion that characters who are endlessly reset in a single continuity lose any real impact when, for example, their lives are at risk. Jean Grey might die? They'll get a new one and lie to Scott and say she grew an inch overnight.
But by that same token there's little currency in high-stakes stories that radically change the character/team/setting, which is where the summer events of the Big 2 fall down. Very little is ever going to stick but even if it did - those kind of radical changes very rarely work out. If Miller's Daredevil had sunk without trace the character and stories would have reverted to being goofy and probably been forgotten like so many characters from the publishers who didn't make it over the last 60 years.
Legacy hires to replace an older character can work, but they're not a panacea for the problems that the old version faced. Leaving aside younger time-travel/dimension-travel versions of the same character (Jean Grey, Tony Stark) which don't really change anything simply by adding youth to the mix, if the problem is the character/setting and can't be changed without fundamentally altering what the character is, it's time to retire them completely. The problem there is not movies and tv (because those fans rarely open a comic book if ever) but the existing readers, who are likely the only people who'd buy a replacement. If that replacement isn't what they want, then regardless of what it is, it won't sell. That's why old characters get recycled.
>But by that same token there's little currency in high-stakes stories that radically change the character/team/setting
I feel like this was talked about earlier ITT. X-Men to an extent was soap opera and comics were a disposable form of entertainment. I think the precise problem is acting like everything needs stakes enters the paradigm of FOMO, is the buy in too great or not? Is it worth checking out and overcoming stuff you might missed? So much has changed since then, sure, but it is also a question of mentalities changing. A lot of people seem to want continuity to matter to a huge degree. And yet even in the past continuity was often loosened to make many stories that people say are some of the best. The strengths and weaknesses of comics are the same. Just our perspectives and mentalities of the medium change depending on a bunch of factors. A lot of our complaints end up completely reflected in old letter pages.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>It says so much that you people always want deaths, more deaths, but lose your minds over the idea that maybe it was a mistake
I think the problem here is you're conflating a bunch of fans and people together? It feels like a generalisation of a generalisation? I mean there is nuance in accepting one death and not liking how another was executed. >If you guys had things your way all the popular characters would be long dead, and the big 2 would have nothing left but replacement characters and crappy OCs.
I think it is more than many major characters ended up having any even hint at growth or temporary happiness destroyed by editorial. It lead to stunted growth when growth improved comics for people. >wasn't entirely built on them killing one of the original cast and everyone praising it as Marvel's best story
Firstly, you're wrong. The book wasn't built on one death. The book had a bunch of good artists. The book had a good cast of characters giving people their favourite or their self insert. Honestly, what do you want to say with this? I mean, all comics have to balance creativity with the business/editorial. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And the business will always repeat stuff until it becomes the DNA of comics creative gimmicks. I don't think that it is right to blame a storyline as the problem but the industry mentality. But even then you could defend that mentality as them just copying what served them before and then getting stuck in their ways. And really that is the problem. >you all want that to keep happening and get the short-term shock and feels
So much of this just depends on the storyline. I don't even think fans respond to the short term shock anymore anyway:
>Comics were disposable entertainment in a less competitive landscape. Nowadays we exist not in this entertainment media vs that entertainment media but a battle for attention spans
This is why this infamous shit happened.
a lot of people believe Tom Brevoort's comments were wrong and burnt them out. I mean this in a polite way but your post comes across as an angry rant blaming generalisations of all fans for everything.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Firstly, you're wrong. The book wasn't built on one death. The book had a bunch of good artists. The book had a good cast of characters giving people their favourite or their self insert.
By John Byrne's own admission, the book had been in danger of cancellation several times since the 1975 relaunch. It had slowly built an audience, but the Dark Phoenix Saga was what really put it on the map, and it wouldn't have had that sudden explosion of popularity without it.
Maybe it would have continued to steadily grow in audience and sales, maybe it wouldn't, but it wouldn't have been as sudden without that. And in the long term that led the industry into a deaths for sales mentality that's still with them today.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Forgive me if I am wrong, anon. But I just feel like this is a weirdly targeted point as if you're blaming Dark Phoenix for all the problems comics have? As if you have a bone to pick with that one storyline? Kinda like Kurt Busiek did,
>but I think a problem arises when someone takes a beloved story that developed a character and twists it or wipes it out.
There will always be someone who loves something even if it is considered bad. The OG X-men series was messy and sold poorly until the Adams/Thomas run. But due to how long it took them to get the sales back they only later realised the bump had happened. X-men had, at that point, become a reprint book. But then they decided to have another go at it and make a new team that was purposefully internationalist (diverse) by having characters from different countries. wienerrum and Wein did Giant Size X-Men #1. Kurt Busiek complained majorly about Claremont's run (pic related). Claremont's run is now considered one of the best X-Men runs. So even something that seems "twisted" can later be seen differently. Later on Shooter and Marvel were thinking about bringing Jean back and Busiek actually provided the cocoon and Jamaica Bay idea to do so. And then X Factor happened and Scott's character was damaged. Which also annoyed Claremont. Busiek in a way was like a revenging fan. The whole point of that story is that these problems of what is a beloved character or who is blank or not can be debated and aren't black and white.
>I think that's a huge part of it. I dont think many comic goers from the past cared about stories changing things
Comics were disposable entertainment in a less competitive landscape. Nowadays we exist not in this entertainment media vs that entertainment media but a battle for attention spans. Why watch a movie when you can shit post on Cinemaphile or watch Youtube or streaming show? You can just sit on your phones. Of course there are lots of problems in comics: the industry, the quality, the politcs (and honestly those are gone over in every other thread and I'm trying my best not to go into it because I cba here.)
I think there was more to X-Men's success. Maybe a death sparked people to check it out but people were just as fickle back then about what to spend their money on as now and as it continued they could have dropped off. Why did the readership not just remain, but build? So the idea that one death built the thing cannot be true. I just feel like you're blaming the storyline and not the industry here. Again, correct me if I am wrong in that assessment, but it does feel like you just hate that storyline.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>It says so much that you people always want deaths, more deaths
Justify having this thought. Where are people clamoring for character deaths?
3 months ago
Anonymous
It depends. A lot of them are more useless alive, or in the case of team books just get in the way of who should be the most focused on.
Maybe you don't have to kill them. Just make them go away.
3 months ago
Anonymous
X-Men did not become the biggest title in comics because of a death.
You are moronic.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Anon, we have people here who despite facts proving otherwise, and statements from people working on the book, believe X-Men just became Marvel's top book immediately from the 1975 relaunch just on the basis of those characters being so inherently appealing to readers, and believe it was still Marvel's top book all the through to the mid 2010s when Ike's Inhumans push happened. There are your morons.
It's fact that the Dark Phoenix Saga was the moment that jumpstarted X-Men's rise to being Marvel's top book for the next 20 years, and it likely wouldn't have happened without the shock value of them killing one of the book's original cast members.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Anon, we have people here who despite facts proving otherwise, and statements from people working on the book, believe X-Men just became Marvel's top book immediately from the 1975 relaunch
Literally no one said that at all. They all clearly say it built up.
3 months ago
Anonymous
It is just another built up strawman based on his own skewed perception.
3 months ago
Anonymous
I swear anon I see people say this shit all the time (chances are it was probably you repeating it) but I've never, I mean never, seen someone here pretend like X-Men is number 1 still (or was until Inhumans push). I really think you have built up some strange complex in your head over this because you have some bone to pick.
I have seen people say it could be top again, but that is in the context of how a good adaptation propelled Iron Man to the top or how GotG got popular with general audiences. And the chances of this happening are diminished with how the MCU is.
There is an X-push coming soon though, X-Men '97, Wolverine and X-Men games from Insomniac, post-Krakoa era comics and their inclusion in the MCU. So they are clearly banking on it. But again, who knows if it'll be any good.
Jean's existence was only to make Cyclops seem more interesting and balance out the fact that he's a douchebag. It's more funny now because the roles are reversed.
Jean only really existed to be "the girl". Cyclops got her. All the other boys wanted her. Xavier fancied her. All of Stan Lee written women blended together tbh.
>Xavier fancied her
That's some first-class grooming.
3 months ago
Anonymous
"First Class"
Ah, humor
3 months ago
Anonymous
>That's some first-class grooming.
Jean ended up mind raping people. She learnt from the best.
3 months ago
Anonymous
20 years ago at the comic-con... >"So I grew up watching Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends and I always wondered can you guys write a Bobby-Angelica couple?" >"OH NOT THIS QUESTION AGAIN THAT DOES IT IM SICK OF THIS SHIT WERE GONNA MAKE BOBBY GAAAAAAAY! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT HUH NOW I'LL NEVER HAVE TO HEAR THAT QUESTION AGAIN NOW PISS OFF MY BOOTH!"
3 months ago
Anonymous
Bendis understood one thing: more adaptations are coming. All his books end up in the "must read recommended" lists for character histories. Shit like House of M is always mentioned with Wanda because of this. So that shit keeps getting reprinted and sold. Man could stick his tongue out into the air like some reptilian and taste the way the wind was blowing and say "time to make a diverse Spider-Man and gay-ify an X-Men character".
3 months ago
Anonymous
One question. Why did he let his precious Jessica Drew fade into obscurity again before he left Marvel?
3 months ago
Anonymous
When the editorial wouldn't let him have his BLACKED Jess Drew/Luke Cage pairing, he created Jessica Jones to get around that and promptly discarded Jess.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Serious question: is Bendis the most wide-reaching example of a creepy little man with a black cuckold fetish shaping the world around him by sheer force of perversion? We’ve had to put up with endless Luke Cage wank (a guy nobody gave two shits about before New Avengers), Miles Morales x not-Gwen Stacy, and whatever the frick Riri is as a direct result of the little israelite who wanted to huff black farts all day.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Jessica Drew was originally meant to be in Alias until he realised the character had "grown into its own distinctive voice" or alternatively the difficulty of having an old character in a Max series that was more mature. Then he changed the character to Jessica Jones. >Bendis envisioned the series as centered on Jessica Drew and only decided to create Jones once he realized that the main character he was writing had a distinct-enough voice and background to differentiate her from Drew, though deciding to still name the character after her on the basis of how "two [people] can have the same first name".[2]
I think ultimately Jessica Drew represents one of those "writer-fus". He did bring her back with full force but eventually discarded her for his own toys and then no one could be bothered to deal with her after.
3 months ago
Anonymous
oh hey, a charming interaction where the other hero isn't malding over spidey
3 months ago
Anonymous
She served her purpose: to show that Marvel could have other Spider-People in their comics and people will actually read them.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>All his books end up in the "must read recommended" lists for character histories. Shit like House of M is always mentioned with Wanda because of this. So that shit keeps getting reprinted and sold.
Sadly lists like that never make a point of saying "this is important to the character's history, but in a bad way. It's an awful story that permanently damaged them". The idiots actually recommend it just because it's "important".
One question. Why did he let his precious Jessica Drew fade into obscurity again before he left Marvel?
Bendis' Spider-Woman book failing was one of the first times a Marvel book he wrote underperformed and got cancelled, he just kept her in his Avengers books. Then he moved on to X-Men where his other waifu Kitty was, so he was focused on her, and Marvel were still trying to push Jessica Drew in her own book at the time, and they've tried at least twice since he left Marvel, they don't seem to have any intention of accepting failure and giving up.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Sadly lists like that never make a point of saying "this is important to the character's history, but in a bad way. It's an awful story that permanently damaged them". The idiots actually recommend it just because it's "important".
Just like how Death in the Family and Hush show up in top 10 Batman stories rankings.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Those aren't that bad.
3 months ago
Anonymous
I agree that it’s overrated, but how did Hush hurt Batman? “He can manage to not die against a poorly mind-controlled Superman who desperately wants to help him”? That’s not exactly Batwank - any human DC hero could probably dodge for a little while given comic book logic. The Batman angle is that he was ruthless enough to leverage Lois against him. Is it the paranoia stuff? That’s been a Batman staple since post-Knightfall. Catwoman romance? That’s been on and off for years.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>but how did Hush hurt Batman?
Jim Lee making money hurts DC.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Sadly lists like that never make a point of saying "this is important to the character's history, but in a bad way. It's an awful story that permanently damaged them". The idiots actually recommend it just because it's "important".
>Just like how Death in the Family and Hush show up in top 10 Batman stories rankings.
This is something really sad about comics. People rarely go off the beaten path. The same runs are seen and the same runs are recommended and the same runs are reprinted. Popularity is in part due to this. Like adaptations. If a character is adapted well they get a boost but this in turn means they are more likely to get adapted again. The problem is this constant drinking at the same well and never expanding out. (Or when they try to expand out it is fricking awful.) And yet it is doable because they even made GotG work for the MCU.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>and they've tried at least twice since he left Marvel, they don't seem to have any intention of accepting failure and giving up.
SHE WON'T STOP SHOWING UP IN MY CAPTAIN MARVEL COMICS AND I HATE IT. Carol and Jess have the worst type of friend chemistry in that it's boring.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>carolgay pretending to have standards
3 months ago
Anonymous
I have standards. I believe that Captain Marvel could have been a good solo character but the editorial and whatever dogshit writer they pull off the curb do everything in their powers to kill my hope.
3 months ago
Anonymous
They stopped calling her Ms. Marvel for a reason. Current Carol is just an insert.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah but even in the '70s Carol Danvers was written as a feminist magazine editor for the Daily Bugle.
3 months ago
Anonymous
That's not what I mean. Carol before the costume change was written to have her own character and personality. Now she's a mouthpiece for the ditz at the desk writing her.
3 months ago
Anonymous
That's not what I mean. Carol before the costume change was written to have her own character and personality. Now she's a mouthpiece for the ditz at the desk writing her.
Carol can't be Ms. Marvel anymore because the young feminists have claimed her, and they go against the old feminists since the young ones would like pop culture characters they like to be "abrosexual", while the old feminists fought to have women more represented on the cover of a book or billboard in the first place because they were proud to be women.
She was turned into a dyke image with a covered-up costume to represent being "fluid", which is why she can still date men on-panel.
3 months ago
Anonymous
I liked old school San Francisco British flyover detective Jessica. Also, she had a natural and balanced sensuality that was just right. Once she had that baby and writers barfed all the gurl power in her books, it was over.
3 months ago
Anonymous
That was NEVER "the way the wind was blowing". It NEVER sold worth a damn.
3 months ago
Anonymous
You misunderstood. Anon, it was the way the wind was blowing politically with their ideas and with adaptations. And it was shit.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>That time Jack of Hearts came back to life & was groomed by She-Hulk to be her personal houseslave.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Jack is back? And no containment room?
3 months ago
Anonymous
He's gone again, He fricked off to Mexico to get away from Jen.
Yeah I was mostly thinking of the superhero women, e.g. Wasp, Invisible Woman. I think it got better later on? MJ that was in tandem with the gear shift change that things like Spider-Man got and that also had the Romita influence.
3 months ago
Anonymous
People felate Ditko (and for good reason) but Romita coming on was one of the best things to happen to that book
3 months ago
Anonymous
Honestly there are a lot of sticklers ITT and board for silver age supremacy. I enjoyed what Ditko did and understand his strengths and weaknesses did but the shift with Romita really was enjoyable. I think it just shows how even back at the start people had favourite runs over one another and ulimately you follow the runs you like and avoid the ones you don't.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Light the Night is such an underrated story and it saddens me that everything following it basically just ignored Max's character from it
3 months ago
Anonymous
I couldn't get into Ditko's Spidey, it felt too dated. Just like Lee/Kirby's original X-Men felt dated. I mean, both books literally had the characters wearing trilby hats and driving Dusenbergs, and the dialogue was too much DYNAMIC! Stan cheese.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>I couldn't get into Ditko's Spidey, it felt too dated.
I think it works because it is the perpetually shit-on Peter that enamoured people to him combined with practically all of Spider-man's villains. It is weird because when you read the letter pages you see how much people wanted him to change (which we got with Romita). It is interesting that the thing that got people into him also became something people criticised until they softened his edges. It works because of the context and because we did get a bunch of solid villains. It was incomparable to a lot of other books: younger hero, full face mask, real life problems, constantly going wrong for him in his social life. >Just like Lee/Kirby's original X-Men felt dated.
OG X-Men really felt like laziness to me. Instead of coming up with character origins they all got their power via radiation and being Children of the Atom which translate to Stan couldn't be asked pretending like he came up with new shit. Mutants being misunderstood was just a reused trope and not a full on allegory: >Spider-Man had JJJ and that stuff. >Hulk was misunderstood. >Avengers/FF had their PR mishaps.
OG X-Men was the most impenetrable of those books for me.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Ironically I never had this issue with the Thor books. In fact with Thor, the older the better. The dynamism of his early days hasn't matched since.
3 months ago
Anonymous
It's called 'soul'
3 months ago
Anonymous
Moviecasual pls go back to Cinemaphile
3 months ago
Anonymous
>I couldn't get into Ditko's Spidey, it felt too dated.
I think it works because it is the perpetually shit-on Peter that enamoured people to him combined with practically all of Spider-man's villains. It is weird because when you read the letter pages you see how much people wanted him to change (which we got with Romita). It is interesting that the thing that got people into him also became something people criticised until they softened his edges. It works because of the context and because we did get a bunch of solid villains. It was incomparable to a lot of other books: younger hero, full face mask, real life problems, constantly going wrong for him in his social life. >Just like Lee/Kirby's original X-Men felt dated.
OG X-Men really felt like laziness to me. Instead of coming up with character origins they all got their power via radiation and being Children of the Atom which translate to Stan couldn't be asked pretending like he came up with new shit. Mutants being misunderstood was just a reused trope and not a full on allegory: >Spider-Man had JJJ and that stuff. >Hulk was misunderstood. >Avengers/FF had their PR mishaps.
OG X-Men was the most impenetrable of those books for me.
Pre-Giant Size X-Men really isn't very good and it doesn't represent the otherwise very high quality standards of Marvel at the time.
>Xavier fancied her
That's some first-class grooming.
worth mentioning that originally Xavier was only meant to be in his late 20's so not quite as skeevy as they made it out to be when they called back to this panel in the 90's during the Onslaught event
3 months ago
Anonymous
His age is all over the place. His parents worked at Los Alamos or nearby, I forget. (Since radiation was the original part of mutation.) He was drafted during the Korean War too. Stan wanted him to be early 20s but then other stuff makes it possibly in his 30s.
3 months ago
Anonymous
yeah that math doesn't work. Los Alamos was like 43-45 and Korea was 50-53. He'd have to be born around '32. I dunno enough history to know if there was radiation shit that his parents could've been working on at that time.
I love Thanos, favorite character, and yeah, this was the perfect send-off and end for him. And I liked Cancerverse and shit. It's a shame but the medium is what it is.
>Be young Batman >Sets up this whole big reveal to scare the hell out of the big players in Gotham >Really fricking nervous >Goes off >Accidentally piss yourself in fear of your oversized explosive >Roll with it >Give a cool speech hoping to god they don't smell your urine >Awkwardly do the shameful shuffle back home
Blame Wolfman. In Who's Who In the DC Universe's entry for the Monitor, which came out after Crisis ended, Wolfman slipped in a big bit of Crisis lore not mentioned in Crisis #12 stating that if GA Superman and Lois, Alex Luthor, and Superboy Prime ever returned to the regular DC Universe "something horrible would happen".
Geoff just picked up on that to make them the bad guys in Infinite Crisis.
I assume it was one of his "If you ever corner me at Comicon, I will tell you all the hidden outs I placed in CoIE."
For years, he claimed that he specifically wrote a way for them to bring back Barry into the pages of CoIE, but no one has ever figured it out.
>This is what I proposed to DC back in 1985. Please note that I didn't think it was a good idea to kill The Flash but those were my marching orders, so I did the best I could to make his death as moving as I could. Here is the given I worked from: Much of the reason the people in charge didn't care for Barry Allen was that he was considered dull. I felt if I could come up with a way of making him vital again while keeping him alive, then perhaps Barry would be given a second lease on life. I came up with the idea of Flash moving back through time, flashing into our dimension even as he was dying. So, thought I, what if Barry was plucked out of the time stream at one of those moments he appeared? What if that meant from this point on Barry knew that he was literally living on borrowed time, that at any moment the time stream could close in on him and take him to his inevitable death. What would this mean to Barry? 1: from now on the fastest man alive would literally be running for his life. 2: He knew he didn't have much time left and believed (as Barry would) that he had to devote it to helping others. 3: This meant Barry would become driven and desperate to help others with each passing tick of the clock. I felt this new revitalized attitude might be enough to make the formerly dull police scientist into someone who now had to push himself as he never had to before. I was hoping that this would make the character interesting enough to live. Earlier, I said my explanation was comic booky. In many ways it is because none of us knows when we are going to die. But this knowledge would haunt a man like Barry Allen and change him from an unassuming character into a driven hero. At least that was the plan!
Huh. I always figured it involved just scooping him out of the time stream. At least Wolfman got what he wanted in the end; Barry eventually became seen as the heart and soul of DC's Silver Age.
I don't think it's deliberate, I think it's just how Johns flows.
I'm sure he stares at his bust of Alan Moore and thinks he's a genius while he's penning this stuff.
Johns was all about making prophecies come true; even when they didn't make any sense.
The Blackest Night has always been THE canonical ending of the Green Lantern Corps. They don't exist in the era of the Legion of Superheroes and are practically considered a myth. AND YET, Johns had to do it as his big finale on the title, as well as a way to "fix" his favorite characters with Brightest Day And cement that Christianity is the correct religion
Red; Cain killed Abel
Orange: The Serpent tempted Eve with the Fruit
Yellow: The First Predator chased down the First Prey
Green: The first thing moved on its own
Blue: Noah prayed to God during the Flood
Indigo: Christ dying on the cross for our sins
Violet: Adam and Ever meeting for the first time
>Sinestro Corps War
You're right; most of the prophesy stuff happened there. Even still, though; it was never framed as something the Corps would survive.
That was a post-Crisis retcon.
Literally the issue after The Great Darkness Saga showed that the GLC was still up and running during the Legion's time. It's just that they stopped needing a Guarding for Sector 2814 because Earth's superheroes kept the peace better than one Lantern ever did.
Blame Wolfman. In Who's Who In the DC Universe's entry for the Monitor, which came out after Crisis ended, Wolfman slipped in a big bit of Crisis lore not mentioned in Crisis #12 stating that if GA Superman and Lois, Alex Luthor, and Superboy Prime ever returned to the regular DC Universe "something horrible would happen".
Geoff just picked up on that to make them the bad guys in Infinite Crisis.
I'm fricking amazed that people who didn't read that comic (or the comic it's tied to, the Generations minis) keep bringing it up across Twitter and wherever else
It's like those idiots in the 00s going "Hank Pym was always a wifebeater in the comics for decades, these pages from Ultimates are proof"
Both, it's funny because Joker has no scruples so him suddenly drawing a line is unexpected (or was in an era where it was not common practice to march out every single character you plan to not use as a strawman and have them specifically denounce National Socialism, white supremacy and people wearing red hats so the Right Side of History knows it's ok to like them)
To be fair anon if you don't stop your comic book adventures to specifically have every character announce their advertising-friendly political views, that's just as bad as having your heroes put on a maga hat and curb stomp a gay trans black person
This is Golden Age Joker, in a world where DC characters were around during the 40s and (mostly) age in real time
Pages before he killed a bunch of US soldiers for a mysterious benefactor, and then that panel is him finding out that mysterious benefactor was actually Red Skull and flipped
>kills hundreds of people >rapes Barbara Gordon
Except that didn't happen in the crossover with Captain America that takes place during WWII, you dumb frick.
>Fixing and absolving Hal needed to be done
No it didn't. Everyone who wasn't Alex Ross or Geoff Johns had already moved on. Hal's "turn" to "villainy" was actually remarkably well done by 90s standards and made perfect sense in context. Parallax was right about everything, the Guardians are idiots and killing Sinestro was the right move. I don't know why homosexuals just couldn't deal with it.
it absolutely wasn't. in GL 46 he says to mongul "you broke my arm...shattered my leg...but my will is something you'll never touch" and legitimately gains closure for coast city, before 47 is completely unrelated. the heel turn was ridiculous and insulting to hal's character (3 issues?!) and not only turning hal into an irredeemable monster, killing off kilowog and removing the newly established corps members was horribly done
Can you blame them? They specifically kept Hal's continuity the same, which made him having a longer tenure as a superhero compared to the Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Then, he suddenly turns evil JUST so they can introduce an All New, All Radical Lantern Boy to replace him.
Imagine if they did that in nu-52 with Batman. >All of Bruce Wayne's continuity is the same >Gives in to the Court of Owls and becomes Owlman >Batwing is brought in as the new Batman >Bruce dies saving everyone in Forever Evil >This year's big event is The Return of the Knight, where Bruce is resurrected and becomes Batman again.
You missed something crucial, anon. People actually care about Batman.
3 months ago
Anonymous
They really don’t care about Batman. If they did, then they’d stop reading his comics because of how bad they’ve gotten.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Just like they cared about Hal. HEAT didn't appear from nowhere.
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For being as rushed as 'Emerald Twilight' was I thought it was a neat idea. Not too many superheroes at the time did heel turns like that and Hal was entirely justified in my opinion. The self-appointed Guardians gave him the power to will anything and they get pissy when he just wants to undo the damage Mongul and Cyborg Superman did. He's defied the Guardians several times in the past, so it was par for the course he'd go straight for the Central Battery. It certainly needed those three additional issues that got culled back to really flesh out Hal's decline a bit better.
Where it got really shit was immediately after. 'Zero Hour', 'Final Night', 'Day of Judgement', 'Last Will and Testament of Hal Jordan', DeMattis' 'Spectre', and even Kyle's GL run were all pulling in separate directions with how Parallax was characterized. Editorial settled for "cartoonishly evil" in a majority of the stories -- which didn't help. I am Geoff Johns' biggest hater; however, he made the 100% correct decision of making Parallax a space bug. There's no way to really justify Hal returning as a GL if he was conscious of his actions during 'Zero Hour' and beyond. Even if he was "redeemed" as Spectre he still had a LOT to answer for. We hold mass murderers in contempt even centuries after the fact, so a guy who threatened to wipe away entire universes getting a pass doesn't really work in a heroic group like the JLA.
Overall it was a pointless ten year gap without Hal. John Stewart got a modicum of development in 'Mosaic' and then never again. They passed up Hal's actual trained replacement (and Guy) for a really dull character in Kyle that only really got fleshed out when Green Lantern stopped being his solo book.
Just my opinion, but Larry Niven would've made for a killer replacement after Gerard Jones. 'Ganthet's Tale' was an excellent read and Niven really *got* what made the character and his powers so unique.
Based Nivenchad
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Just like they cared about Hal. HEAT didn't appear from nowhere.
And they were right every step of the way. Kyle flopped because they robbed him of the GLC and made him just another earth vigilante.
3 months ago
Anonymous
No argument here, man. Kyle's at his most tolerable in the Johns with other GLs to bounce off of.
Whoever wrote calling Thanos "Dione".
Marvel fans have memory holed that so hard sometimes I wonder if I imagined it.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Kyle flopped because they robbed him of the GLC and made him just another earth vigilante.
Weren't GL sales higher in the mid-90s?
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Weren't GL sales higher in the mid-90s?
The mid-90s is literally when the industry declined thanks to Marvel's bankruptcy.
I blame the editors honestly. They were all Superman and Batmangays who didn’t get the character at all. Kyle could have gotten a good run, but they set him up to fail.
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For being as rushed as 'Emerald Twilight' was I thought it was a neat idea. Not too many superheroes at the time did heel turns like that and Hal was entirely justified in my opinion. The self-appointed Guardians gave him the power to will anything and they get pissy when he just wants to undo the damage Mongul and Cyborg Superman did. He's defied the Guardians several times in the past, so it was par for the course he'd go straight for the Central Battery. It certainly needed those three additional issues that got culled back to really flesh out Hal's decline a bit better.
Where it got really shit was immediately after. 'Zero Hour', 'Final Night', 'Day of Judgement', 'Last Will and Testament of Hal Jordan', DeMattis' 'Spectre', and even Kyle's GL run were all pulling in separate directions with how Parallax was characterized. Editorial settled for "cartoonishly evil" in a majority of the stories -- which didn't help. I am Geoff Johns' biggest hater; however, he made the 100% correct decision of making Parallax a space bug. There's no way to really justify Hal returning as a GL if he was conscious of his actions during 'Zero Hour' and beyond. Even if he was "redeemed" as Spectre he still had a LOT to answer for. We hold mass murderers in contempt even centuries after the fact, so a guy who threatened to wipe away entire universes getting a pass doesn't really work in a heroic group like the JLA.
Overall it was a pointless ten year gap without Hal. John Stewart got a modicum of development in 'Mosaic' and then never again. They passed up Hal's actual trained replacement (and Guy) for a really dull character in Kyle that only really got fleshed out when Green Lantern stopped being his solo book.
Just my opinion, but Larry Niven would've made for a killer replacement after Gerard Jones. 'Ganthet's Tale' was an excellent read and Niven really *got* what made the character and his powers so unique.
Emerald Twilight and Hal turning into Parallax is the equivalent of Cass turning evil and what Wally did during Heroes in Crisis. Except the latter two are rightfully reviled while Emerald Twilight still has defenders even though Hal during his villain phase does much worse things than Cass and Wally did.
Can you blame them? They specifically kept Hal's continuity the same, which made him having a longer tenure as a superhero compared to the Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Then, he suddenly turns evil JUST so they can introduce an All New, All Radical Lantern Boy to replace him.
Imagine if they did that in nu-52 with Batman. >All of Bruce Wayne's continuity is the same >Gives in to the Court of Owls and becomes Owlman >Batwing is brought in as the new Batman >Bruce dies saving everyone in Forever Evil >This year's big event is The Return of the Knight, where Bruce is resurrected and becomes Batman again.
You missed something crucial, anon. People actually care about Batman.
Emerald Twilight and Kyle were massive mistakes
For being as rushed as 'Emerald Twilight' was I thought it was a neat idea. Not too many superheroes at the time did heel turns like that and Hal was entirely justified in my opinion. The self-appointed Guardians gave him the power to will anything and they get pissy when he just wants to undo the damage Mongul and Cyborg Superman did. He's defied the Guardians several times in the past, so it was par for the course he'd go straight for the Central Battery. It certainly needed those three additional issues that got culled back to really flesh out Hal's decline a bit better.
Where it got really shit was immediately after. 'Zero Hour', 'Final Night', 'Day of Judgement', 'Last Will and Testament of Hal Jordan', DeMattis' 'Spectre', and even Kyle's GL run were all pulling in separate directions with how Parallax was characterized. Editorial settled for "cartoonishly evil" in a majority of the stories -- which didn't help. I am Geoff Johns' biggest hater; however, he made the 100% correct decision of making Parallax a space bug. There's no way to really justify Hal returning as a GL if he was conscious of his actions during 'Zero Hour' and beyond. Even if he was "redeemed" as Spectre he still had a LOT to answer for. We hold mass murderers in contempt even centuries after the fact, so a guy who threatened to wipe away entire universes getting a pass doesn't really work in a heroic group like the JLA.
Overall it was a pointless ten year gap without Hal. John Stewart got a modicum of development in 'Mosaic' and then never again. They passed up Hal's actual trained replacement (and Guy) for a really dull character in Kyle that only really got fleshed out when Green Lantern stopped being his solo book.
Just my opinion, but Larry Niven would've made for a killer replacement after Gerard Jones. 'Ganthet's Tale' was an excellent read and Niven really *got* what made the character and his powers so unique.
John would have doomed the GL run if they opted for him.
3 months ago
Anonymous
With Mars and Raab? Absolutely. Would've been the worst. I'm convinced John can be written well in a vacuum. He worked so well as a metaphysical architect rather than being the military guy that makes really, really intricate constructs. For that kind of thing you need a good science fiction writer that can really push the imagination of the ring's power, while giving a convincing human angle to dealing with abstract problems.
Kyle being relegated to less grandiose adventures and antagonists really showed how limited their scope at DC was. You give a character with a ring that can do literally anything and thirty issues in he's fighting a Kurt Cobain lookalike with yellow demons.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Kyle being relegated to less grandiose adventures and antagonists really showed how limited their scope at DC was. You give a character with a ring that can do literally anything and thirty issues in he's fighting a Kurt Cobain lookalike with yellow demons.
That’s what happens when you break the comic in half like Emerald Twilight did.
>Where it got really shit was immediately after.
It was shit from the beginning because DC would never ever give Green Lantern the same treatment Superman and Batman got when they went out of commission in DoS and Knightfall. Emerald Twilight is one of the most soulless events of the 90s because it shows how little DC cared about the Green Lantern if they were cool with him going insane and murdering his friend in cold blood.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Superman and Batman
I agree Hal never got his due since his stories post-death were dry as frick and ultimately pointless. He at least had the decency to stay dead for a decade, which is more than what anyone could say for those two. Everyone who had half a mind knew Superman wouldn't be "dead" for more than a year.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>I agree Hal never got his due since his stories post-death were dry as frick and ultimately pointless.
Legacy was pretty good. It's charged with post-9/11 energy so it's more emotionally charged and soulful than whatever Batman and Superman could muster. I don't think Rebirth invalidates it.
>am Geoff Johns' biggest hater; however, he made the 100% correct decision of making Parallax a space bug. There's no way to really justify Hal returning as a GL if he was conscious of his actions during 'Zero Hour' and beyond.
Easy, don't have Hal return.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Easy, don't have Hal return.
Then you don't get a successful run.
Eat shit and die. You Kyle gays ruined GL for a decade. Sales QUADRUPLED literally INSTANTLY when Hal came back. Kyle was the mistake that never should've happened.
DEAL.
WITH.
IT.
Also, you're moronic for thinking that writers make those descisions and not editors.
HEAT won, Poochie Lantern lost, and it was the best thing that ever happened to Green Lantern.
Seethe forever.
>it was a yellow space bug u guyz! >remember this Allen Moore reference? >now here's ANOTHER color corps! Please hire me Hollywood!
Kyle's run was the only other one that came close to sucking as much. Dogfricker made better comics.
Johns started out working in hollywood. He quit because he wanted to do comics instead. He might be the only American comic book writer of his generation who's NOT trying to get hired by hollywood.
Eat shit and die. You Kyle gays ruined GL for a decade. Sales QUADRUPLED literally INSTANTLY when Hal came back. Kyle was the mistake that never should've happened.
DEAL.
WITH.
IT.
Also, you're moronic for thinking that writers make those descisions and not editors.
Eh... while sales did collapse under Kyle (mainly after Byrne yanked Donna Troy from the series and the double failure of Winnick and Raab), the first year and a half of Hal's return did badly Rebirth not withstanding. People tend to forget that the first 20 issues of Geoff's Hal run was boring earth driven shit with Hal's garbage rogue gallery and motherfricking Evil Starr was being prepped as the new big bad.
It took Sinestro Corps, the return of Anti-Monitor, and PRIME TIME to make Hal's book's sales really explode.
Remember when Hal was consudered an international criminal, and he and Cowgirl were kept as political prisoners for carrying out clandestine air force missions or some gay shit like that?
>Make Hal into a major villain >He shows up all of once, in Zero Hour. >Just sorta bums around before and afterwards. >"Welp, better kill myself to save Earth."
That's the core reason Parallax never stuck. DC tried to have it both ways. They wanted to make Hal a villain but got nervous about him doing villainous shit.
I really like this. It explains why the Emotional Spectrum is sort of clumsily integrated into the history of the DC universe, since Hal clumsily integrated it into history in-universe.
(I like the Emotional Spectrum, by the way. I just think that there's a lot of things which don't make sense about the execution, particularly the fact that the Green Lantern Corps is so much more well-established than the other Corps despite the fact that they're all supposed to be drawing on primordial sources of power.)
Parallax was better as a villain, writing wise it makes sense for him to be heroic still, since he always wanted to do good, no matter the cost. But the Theory is also funny as frick
honestly the Wrasslor episode of Dial M For Monkey did it better than this comic, if mostly because Wrasslor actually legitimately defeated all of Earth's heroes, Champion of The Universe cheated by disqualifying every potential opponent Earth had except two guys(Colossus and Thing) who had no chance at beating him, makes him a hollow threat
to be fair he actually worked really well as Zero Hour's true villain, indeed while Zero Hour does have more than it's fair share of flaws it also definitely has a lot of good moments to it
Spectre Hal was probably the most inane up its own ass capeshit comic I've ever read. Its a shame Johns got rid of his niece but aside from that good riddance.
Mockingbird has had it rough, I thought that after they brought her back things would get better but then they handed her over to Chelsea Cain and it all went to shit.
>Matt hugging the back of the tombstone not the front because he's blind.
I know it's so the cover makes sense to the viewer but it's unintentionally fricking hilarious.
I think he's referring to this issue >The Champion on Skardon battled various heroes with only one rule: no weapons. He, however, was using the Power Gem and defeated Hercules, Beta Ray Bill, Gladiator and Adam Warlock. She-Hulk was brought to the planet to face him. She-Hulk lost but asked for a rematch in 3 months. She-Hulk underwent extensive training with Gamora. After that time she declared the Power Gem as a weapon, then in a fair fight beats the Champion badly. She is declared the planet's ruler.
I mean The Thing would have likely beaten him without the Power Gem too. Hulk would have absolutely Mike Tyson'd him. The Champion was a little b***h.
Couldn't beat Herc without a cheat-gem either.
The entire point of the issue with The Thing is that even though The Champion is stronger than any of Earth's heroes, The Thing refuses to quit so damn hard that The Champion respects him and leaves. Then She-Hulk just beats him because haha.
the whole scenario feels a bit stupid though, because at some point your body simply will hit its limits from a mechanical point of view
3 months ago
Anonymous
To be fair in your manga example, neither of those people are "people". They're masses of spirit energy when in soul reaper mode. So them having bones to begin with is a dumb idea.
Not sure how much it counts as a "future writer" but pretty much every Win the heroes had against Thanos post-Infinity Gauntlet was retconned away because Starlin is a baby and pissed his pants over his pet character losing.
Doom bots are consistently noted as one of the most wanky things in comics
Thanos began by ripping off Doombots. His very first appearance ends with him revealing the Thanos talking was actually a robot after it gets blown up. Not even an illusion or something. Completely shameless.
The main point of Thanos is that he's self serving. Literally the reason he looses in original Infinity Gauntlet stoyline is because his own self doubt manifests thanks to the gauntlet and prevents himself from winning.
>Parallax is the strongest entity the DCU faces until that point >an arrow from that homosexual Green Arrow is enough to stop him
Subtracting every scene where Parallax steals the scenes, Zero Hour is fricking shit.
...Even though Morrison was setting up that The Empty Hand is literally suppose to be something literally metatextual and not... DC's The One Below All?
I mean, I guess? The Presence has always been treated as "It's God from Christianity; just don't think about it, okay?"
It never needed one, but it's basically the embodiment of hate reading. As another anon put it long, long ago:
>The Hand of the Presence opened its grasp and unleashed creation. The Empty Hand is the opposite. It's the Hand that remains when all stories are gone; the ultimate destroyer of existence and imagination. >At the same time, it is an empty hand that greedily grasps for another comic, and another, and another, even though all enjoyment is long gone. That is the threat... the reader either finishing the story or losing interest.
That's how I always saw it. The Empty Hand is fans just wanting bigger and bigger stories, unthinking of how that would be perceived by the inhabitants inside those stories. To us, CoIE and the wholesale retconning of multiverses are just cool stories. To those on the inside, they're terrifying and genuinely world ending. We turn the page and allow evil to happen because we want to know how the story ends.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>To those on the inside, they're terrifying and genuinely world ending. We turn the page and allow evil to happen because we want to know how the story ends.
this is a little to close to "Everything has to be happy coffee shop AUs" style of thinking. Even though I know what you mean. There's also the problem of a story's quality is subjective. Like House of M and Disassembled are total garbage and that hasn't stopped tons of people enjoying them and being influenced by them
3 months ago
Anonymous
I'm not making a personal assessment. Literally the text of Multiversity is that by opening the book and reading, you're causing the events of the story to happen.
Superman will never finally save the day because we want to keep reading Superman stories. Jack Knight is the one superhero who actually got his happily ever after because DC decided to never write new stories with him in them. I think it's a cool twist that we're secretly the ultimate villains of comic book universes because we want bigger and more bombastic stories.
3 months ago
Anonymous
I love ultra comics is the only multiversity floppie I had.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Superman will never finally save the day because we want to keep reading Superman stories
I'm not calling you wrong or anything and I'm a fan of both but I love that the triumphant ending of Superman Beyond, also my Morrison, is the opposite of this.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>we want bigger and more bombastic stories
Sales say that we don't. The more they go crazy with the events, the lower their sales get.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Comics publishers aren't exactly the brightest. That's why I don't believe that all the LGBTQ stuff is some insidious plot. They have it in their heads that they can REALLY make a ton of money off of these stories because its the new IT thing.
Just like they did with summer events.
And massive reboots.
And alternate universe lines.
And aping the XTREME style.
And making 100 variant covers for the speculator market.
And aping mature stories.
And hiring British writers.
And aping Mad Magazine.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>And hiring British writers.
In terms of chasing a cash grab, I'm surprised that the publishers have never seriously tried to go after Japanese writers. Maybe the money on offer just doesn't make sense to Japanese writers like it did to Brits in the 80s and 90s?
They've tried to ape the manga art style at times, but it's been very surface-level take. B&W specials. Big eyes. That kind of thing.
3 months ago
Anonymous
The American comic market was gigantic and considered "the big league" for anyone wanting to do experimental cape stuff compared to the British market at the time.
Meanwhile, the American comic market is small potatoes next to Japan's. Why bother making a series for Americans that will probably only last 10-12 issues using someone else's characters when you can just do your own shit and get picked up by any number of magazines in Japan; online or physical?
3 months ago
Anonymous
This comic was just a ripoff of "There's a Monster at the End of This Book
3 months ago
Anonymous
To be fair, DC has been doing the "The characters are trying to tell you to not read the comic because they'll be forced to continue the story" gag for years.
Hell, I think that was something they did back in the days of House of Mystery.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>unthinking of how that would be perceived by the inhabitants
Morrison does this but then also decides to write Talia date raping Batman.
It never needed one, but it's basically the embodiment of hate reading. As another anon put it long, long ago:
>The Hand of the Presence opened its grasp and unleashed creation. The Empty Hand is the opposite. It's the Hand that remains when all stories are gone; the ultimate destroyer of existence and imagination. >At the same time, it is an empty hand that greedily grasps for another comic, and another, and another, even though all enjoyment is long gone. That is the threat... the reader either finishing the story or losing interest.
Kinda the same thing with Tony Stark. "Modern" Marvel history only goes back a year or two before Franklin Richards was born, right? His origin story has been bound to whatever major military conflict America has been engaged in. Pretty soon, it can't be the Iraq War that he was profiteering off of.
Iron Man's origin got retconned to taking place in an entirely fictional conflict in a fictional nation back in 1991, there was no need to keep retconning it again after that.
Kinda the same thing with Tony Stark. "Modern" Marvel history only goes back a year or two before Franklin Richards was born, right? His origin story has been bound to whatever major military conflict America has been engaged in. Pretty soon, it can't be the Iraq War that he was profiteering off of.
Iron Man's origin got retconned to taking place in an entirely fictional conflict in a fictional nation back in 1991, there was no need to keep retconning it again after that.
Everyone with a WW2 or Vietnam backstory got retconned into vets of a fictional country/conflict called Siancong a couple of years ago when Waid did the History of the Marvel Universe and the Busiek expanded on it in a series called Marvels.
>Everyone with a WW2 or Vietnam backstory
You forgot the Korean War. I believe it was Ben Grimm, Reed Richards and Charles Xavier who all fought there. I think, if I remember rightly, that is where Cain Marko got the original gem and became Juggernaut? Although I could be wrong.
Ben and Reed were WW2. Dunno about Cain, I thought he found the gem on like vacation randomly or something. Anyway the point is if you had a backstory involving a real war set to a real time it's now Siancong.
Except for Magneto and maybe Karma. Magneto has been deaged at least twice and has died and is coming back and Xuân is actually Vietnamese. If they ever address her origin again they might just try to make her an immigrant or a refugee for a different reason.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Ben and Reed were WW2.
I thought they also fought in Korea? I think it is FF #11 that mentions their service. If I am remembering it right, I don't think Ben's service was clearly defined, beyond him being a pilot, I don't think it said where/when he served. But Reed was a civilian assisting them in WW2. But I swear there is another time when it came up and they mentioned Korea?
I did a quick google and this came up: >(Originally, Reed Richards and Ben Grimm had served in the Korean War, and James Rhodes in the Vietnam War.) >https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/marvel-fixes-history-a-fictional-war-1233910/
This confused me further.
>Dunno about Cain >X-Men #12 states that both Charles Xavier and Cain Marko fought in the US Armed Forces in the Korean War. The story was originally published in 1965. >https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Cain_Marko_(Earth-616)#Birth_of_a_Juggernaut
Yeah it was definitely there.
> Anyway the point is if you had a backstory involving a real war set to a real time it's now Siancong.
Yeah I read that History of the marvel Universe when it came out in that oversized treasury edition format.
There's something very funny about this. For the longest time, Marvel prided itself on the idea that, aside from the existence of superheroes, their history was the same as ours.
Meaning that all the wars still happened PLUS this random Saincong War that lasted for DECADES, but the American public had no real opinion on it, as we elected the exact same presidents and mainstream culture ran about the same.
>Hulk is a manifestation of child abuse.
always had been, read hulk comicbooks from sal buscema era and nightmare era and even early john byrne and early peter david era.
Frankenstein is almost literally a manifestation of child abuse. First half of that novel is the doc wanging on about how he'll win his father's respect by making a man. It's classic approval seeking from an abusive father figure. The creature even engages in it briefly, then fricks off into nowhere because he's smarter than the doc.
Fun fact. Bill Mantlo was the writer on the Sal Buschema stuff. Bill stole the child abuse thing from Barry Windsor Smith, who was writing a Hulk story treatment. BWS made a graphic novel a few years ago called Monsters that would have been his Hulk story based off of it. Bill Mantlo is a known swiper. He ripped off a Harlan Ellison story once and the editors had to go begging to Harlan not to sure then into oblivion.
Which part? The Harlan Ellison part is well known. Harlan has talked about it. You can find interviews. The BWS stuff isn't 100% factual for definite, but bullpen talk, Bill's reputation, implication and the fact that BWS had this Hulk story in his back pocket for years. It is kind of backed up when you hear the above fact that Bill swiped stuff. It isn't unsubstantiated BS but I'm not saying it is 100% true either. And I didn't get this from a Youtuber? Monsters being an old Hulk treatment is known and acknowledged by BWS.
Let me guess, the kang one based on Soldier?
Probably just thought he was ripping off The Outer Limits version and didn't realize what was chained up to the other end of that.
It isn't unsubstantiated. Jim shooter even says it happened.
http://jimshooter.com/2011/06/plagiaris.html/
>Barry came to me with a completely penciled and written graphic novel. It was the about the development of the “mighty, raging fury” inside Bruce Banner, who, he revealed, was the product of an abusive home. I looked it over. I thought it was brilliant, one of the best comics stories I’d ever seen. I offered Barry a contract and an advance. He turned me down — temporarily. He proposed to finish the thing — then, if I would agree to publish it as created, no alterations whatsoever, he would sign a contract and take the money. I was willing to agree to that in writing on the spot, but he said, no, when it’s finished. Okay. Fine by me. I already knew, from what he’d shown me, that there’d be no problem. >Barry showed the work around a bit to people in the office. I guess he allowed Al Milgrom or someone to make photocopies of it. Ask Al. >I was later given to understand that Al kept the copies in the Hulk drawer of his flat file. >Bill Mantlo, looking through the drawer to see what current Hulk artwork had come in, saw the copies. He then blatantly ripped the story off for a regular issue of the Hulk. >In those days, I was on the road a lot, spending time in Europe with the licensees, at our London office, in L.A., or on licensing trips elsewhere. The book went to press without my seeing it. How Al didn’t notice, or someone else didn’t notice, I don’t know. >Barry was furious. I don’t blame him. He, however, blames me, as of the last time I heard. Okay, the buck stops here, I suppose.
Al Milgrom was always encouraging Mantlo to do something so he shares quite a bit of blame for this.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>encouraging Mantlo to do something
What do you mean by that?
3 months ago
Anonymous
He'd tell Mantlo to find any way to take Hulk in a new direction than he used to be. Well, if you connect this to the incident, he sure did alright.
Then Al, who saw Kaplan's copies so he knows already what those are for, just so much as greenlights Mantlo do it.
3 months ago
Anonymous
I'm not sure that means Milgrom has a share of the blame. If you read that link and go to the comments you see a bunch of other accusations of Bill Mantlo swiping. I think ultimately that proves a pattern. Milgrom pushing him doesn't justify it. And the fact that Mantlo did it a bunch feels like it is just what he did.
I tire of how so much of Cinemaphile is bullshit uninformed opinions from people with no idea what they are talking about accusing others of being wrong.
3 months ago
Anonymous
It is tiring. There is no point even posting evidence most of the time because no one will acknowledge it.
3 months ago
Anonymous
That statement can be extended to quite a few boards here, Cinemaphile most definitely
>Barry was furious. I don’t blame him. He, however, blames me, as of the last time I heard. Okay, the buck stops here, I suppose.
Do note he didn't fire Mantlo over it when it should have been his call.
It isn't unsubstantiated. Jim shooter even says it happened.
http://jimshooter.com/2011/06/plagiaris.html/
>Barry came to me with a completely penciled and written graphic novel. It was the about the development of the “mighty, raging fury” inside Bruce Banner, who, he revealed, was the product of an abusive home. I looked it over. I thought it was brilliant, one of the best comics stories I’d ever seen. I offered Barry a contract and an advance. He turned me down — temporarily. He proposed to finish the thing — then, if I would agree to publish it as created, no alterations whatsoever, he would sign a contract and take the money. I was willing to agree to that in writing on the spot, but he said, no, when it’s finished. Okay. Fine by me. I already knew, from what he’d shown me, that there’d be no problem. >Barry showed the work around a bit to people in the office. I guess he allowed Al Milgrom or someone to make photocopies of it. Ask Al. >I was later given to understand that Al kept the copies in the Hulk drawer of his flat file. >Bill Mantlo, looking through the drawer to see what current Hulk artwork had come in, saw the copies. He then blatantly ripped the story off for a regular issue of the Hulk. >In those days, I was on the road a lot, spending time in Europe with the licensees, at our London office, in L.A., or on licensing trips elsewhere. The book went to press without my seeing it. How Al didn’t notice, or someone else didn’t notice, I don’t know. >Barry was furious. I don’t blame him. He, however, blames me, as of the last time I heard. Okay, the buck stops here, I suppose.
Let me guess, the kang one based on Soldier?
Probably just thought he was ripping off The Outer Limits version and didn't realize what was chained up to the other end of that.
Oh, I'm not saying it was a good arc. But complaining about that particular one like it ruined Champion just comes off as cherrypicking, because let's be honest, every single of his appearances after his debut was a dozen steps down from his first one.
It isn't unsubstantiated. Jim shooter even says it happened.
http://jimshooter.com/2011/06/plagiaris.html/
>Barry came to me with a completely penciled and written graphic novel. It was the about the development of the “mighty, raging fury” inside Bruce Banner, who, he revealed, was the product of an abusive home. I looked it over. I thought it was brilliant, one of the best comics stories I’d ever seen. I offered Barry a contract and an advance. He turned me down — temporarily. He proposed to finish the thing — then, if I would agree to publish it as created, no alterations whatsoever, he would sign a contract and take the money. I was willing to agree to that in writing on the spot, but he said, no, when it’s finished. Okay. Fine by me. I already knew, from what he’d shown me, that there’d be no problem. >Barry showed the work around a bit to people in the office. I guess he allowed Al Milgrom or someone to make photocopies of it. Ask Al. >I was later given to understand that Al kept the copies in the Hulk drawer of his flat file. >Bill Mantlo, looking through the drawer to see what current Hulk artwork had come in, saw the copies. He then blatantly ripped the story off for a regular issue of the Hulk. >In those days, I was on the road a lot, spending time in Europe with the licensees, at our London office, in L.A., or on licensing trips elsewhere. The book went to press without my seeing it. How Al didn’t notice, or someone else didn’t notice, I don’t know. >Barry was furious. I don’t blame him. He, however, blames me, as of the last time I heard. Okay, the buck stops here, I suppose.
>She was turned into a dyke image with a covered-up costume to represent being "fluid", which is why she can still date men on-panel.
Do you morons ever stop and read your own posts before posting them?
>those digits >classic gaslighting tactics
Hmmm. I thought the other guy was just being a spaz but maybe he's onto something. Frick you Satan!
You want to act like this don't look like a dyke?
Cut the crap, man.
What world do you live where the lesbians look like Carol instead of hideous hambeasts with hideous clothing, haircuts and offensive body odor because I want some of that.
homie please I went to college and got a job for a medical tech company. I know what dykes and homosexuals actually look like because both my school and job touted every July or whenever gay month is.
[...]
Carol can't be Ms. Marvel anymore because the young feminists have claimed her, and they go against the old feminists since the young ones would like pop culture characters they like to be "abrosexual", while the old feminists fought to have women more represented on the cover of a book or billboard in the first place because they were proud to be women.
She was turned into a dyke image with a covered-up costume to represent being "fluid", which is why she can still date men on-panel.
Let’s get real: nobody here would ever read a Ms. Marvel comic because they sucked. They’ve sucked since the beginning to the point Shooter and editorial were ready to retire Carol full time before Claremont shipped her off with his team of dimeless space shitters and nobody cared.
>balls to the wall slugout fest because even if he's losing, Peter will stay in the ring as long as possible to get his getback until he physically cannot anymore >willing to irradiate himself just to take him down, no question, barely any hesitation >immediately locks in during their second fight >later on runs scared at the mere mention of Morlun's name like a little b***h despite being the one dude in the multiverse to fight him and win, even without the other backing him up >Willing to kill him before but stops his alternate universe daughter from killing morlun and his family because... reasons
Also, Shathra. Showed Peter has an immense sense of pride and respect for himself and snaps when people insult and lie about him after all he's done and question his character... but now the most popular take on him is that funny dude who lets people walk all over and disrespect him.
Swear to fricking Christ every goddamn iconic moment in history gets dredged up by some hack for easy memberberries
Seriously just let shit stand instead of copying better stories and moments
Asking these hacks to let sleeping dogs lay is like asking a child not to draw on the walls. They're a collection of impulsive, self assured twat goblins utterly convinced that they know what makes a good story, and they don't care how much shit they have to track over a beloved IP, they're gonna make you see what geniuses they are, whether you like it or not.
What a time to be alive that must've been. This medium went wrong somewhere.
It was literally the only time a Captain Marvel comic published by Marvel actually sold well.
*industry
A medium is the medium, it can't be ruined inherently. And yes it was ruined by major corporate buyouts like every other American industry.
It's always so weird to notice Superman hiding in the back.
You think DC wouldn't send Superman to the death of a Captain Marvel? He's there to piss on the grave and goose the widow.
>dredged up
>every goddamn iconic moment in history
I think the truth is that this isn't a new thing and a lot of the old editorial decisions that were driven by the business eventually became part of the very DNA of comic book storytelling. When you have a deadline and need a story or want to shock audiences, you go into the tool box and pull the same things out..
>"No one dies!"
The editors changed the last panel of the Joker's first appearance so he was alive when originally he was meant to die. Coming up with new villains is hard. And even then, killing people off doesn't stop them. People think that killing people and bringing them back is a new thing but before the Death of Superman there were loads of Silver Age issues that teased the death of Superman in that issue.
>Shortcuts
Mutants were made because coming up with powers/origins took too much time and energy. So radiation was the excuse and then that became genetics more. Powers take time to think of but then you also have to take time in the comic to explain them.
>Bring back old villain, referencing old moment.
Swiping or homage? Sometimes this works out, like Claremont completely changed Magneto into something great. Sometimes comic books greatest strength and greatest weakness is the retcon. Sometimes you have deadlines and problems and go into the references.
agree with you fully. also, I kind of have been thinking about this lately, if we cant make long lasting changes to characters or kill them off permanently, why not try to do self-contained, separated from continuity stories more? the allure of it would be that comic books could get famous writers or teams to do limit runs/series, and the outcome wouldnt affect later comics because theyre not in continuity with each other. theyre just self-contained stories of existing heroes that could go anywhere. I know there are elseworld/what ifs, but I mean series that're presented as more prestigious. perhaps a return to more graphic novels that purposely try to separate themselves from normal continuity, I mean, if I do this every time I watch a DC animated feature, why not for certain comics?
>if we cant make long lasting changes to characters or kill them off permanently, why not try to do self-contained, separated from continuity stories more?
I mean they do those stories and everytime they do a story like it (pic related) it is a success. And guess what happens then, the business decisions kick in and you end up getting a Fantastic Four: Life Story. X-Men: Grand Designs was a fun summary of years of X-Men comics and then you get a Fantastic Four: Grand Designs and a Hulk: Grand Designs. But even with those additional stories and main series need to drive onwards.
> I know there are elseworld/what ifs
And the irony of What If…? is so many of those comics eventually enters the mainstream continuity. Seriously, there were old comics like:
>#1 What If Spider-Man Had Joined the Fantastic Four?
He joined during the Future Foundation/Hickman run.
>#2 What If the Hulk Had The Brain of Bruce Banner?
Done in Peter David's run.
>#10 What If Conan the Barbarian Walked the Earth Today?
Happened in Savage Avengers.
>#13 What If Jane Foster Had Found -- the Hammer of Thor?
Happened in Aaron's run.
The strengths and weakness of comics are often the same thing to be honest. Chris Claremont did a bunch of retcons to things, even retconning his own comics with the Classic X-Men (reprint comics of his older stories) edits and back up stories. The truth about continuity is that it should never be so strict you can do nothing or so loose that nothing matters. The problem with comics now isn't continuity but really the fact that a lot of people fall into the same patterns of gimmicks and aren't telling good stories anymore. The business/editorial and creative sides of things have always been at odds, sometimes it helped things and sometimes it hindred things. But a lot of comics now fail at basic things. (Also the myriad of industry problems I CBA to go into.)
While you're right that a lot of the What Ifs do become storylines in the main comic, almost none of them resemble the original story they were based on.
>almost none of them resemble the original story they were based on.
Yeah absolutely, just the central ideas get taken.
>I mean they do those stories and everytime they do a story like it (pic related) it is a success. And guess what happens then, the business decisions kick in and you end up getting a Fantastic Four: Life Story.
Yeah, they become testing grounds for adding into main continuity, but at least it's something new being added in. I think retcons work sometimes, but perhaps the uproars that have been happening for the past two decades are because the internet has allowed fans to be a lot more vocal. in turn we get this malaise, a compromise between remaining faithful to the original timeline, and then the editors wiping everything out every few years (whilst including whatever is deemed fashionable at the time.) the business of comics is in trouble and I cant help but feel like if serialized runs were published things would work better. but hey, we cant turn down those fans who are obsessed with chasing the monthlies, can we?
>The strengths and weakness of comics are often the same thing to be honest.
>The truth about continuity is that it should never be so strict you can do nothing or so loose that nothing matters. The problem with comics now isn't continuity but really the fact that a lot of people fall into the same patterns of gimmicks and aren't telling good stories anymore.
I can't properly express how good it is to see this acknowledged.
Lately there's too much blame placed on traditions and cliches, characters and settings. There's a sentiment that the only way to "fix" these issues is to adopt other countries' business models or to somehow break the system to coerce writers into being more entertaining. But all these conventions are tools, and the blame has always belonged to the hands holding said tools.
I'd rather not get into industry problems either, but the nature of industry is the root of that problem, and it's depressing to see people would rather point at Batman and Spider-Man, or DC and Marvel, rather than see the full scope of the issue.
>if we cant make long lasting changes to characters or kill them off permanently, why not try to do self-contained, separated from continuity stories more?
I would argue that pretty much every series now is self contained anyway. Every writer makes huge changes to things that the next writer can't really follow. You get a big series like Immortal Hulk by Ewing which was popular and then they pick Cate's to do the next series and it pretty much has to ignore a lot of it. While getting different interpretations can be good you also have a continuity that is just all over the place and makes no sense. Every writer wants to up the ante, multiply things, huge ramifications and changes. And no one can write off of that.
it almost breaks my brain to try and wrap my head around how much continuity exists in these lines, and how bad some of the new changes can be. a lot of retcons these days feel like fanfics and a case of 'hey remember this epic moment? lets change that!' but when you have so much history with each character, it weighs everything down. its funny because I never had this problem in the 80s and 90s when I was a kid collecting spiderman, batman, avengers, hulk or whoever.
>pic
And then a one page story from that anthology comic for the Marvel's 80th anniversary comic Marvel Comics #1000 makes you actually feel something, far more than the actual main comic line does.
>I think retcons work sometimes
Claremont retconned all the time. Magneto as a Holocaust victim? Retcon. Loads of Wolverine stuff? Retcons. Like I said, the strengths and weaknesses of comics are the same. Everything is fixable but also everything can be ruined.
>the internet has allowed fans to be a lot more vocal
Tbh when you read old letters pages or fanzines you really that not much has changed in this regard. Some people hated Giant Size X-Men #1 and early Claremont/Bryne (the famous Kurt Busiek letter).
>I cant help but feel like if serialized runs were published things would work better
I think for me that the problem is modern FOMO tbh. FOMO is great at getting people into things, making obsessions and wanting to read that series. But conversely it makes people feel there is too big a buy-in so why bother? For me comics are an ongoing soap opera. And maybe we were more forgiving of those in the past and really it is people's expectations that changed?
>its funny because I never had this problem in the 80s and 90s
See part of this is that our mentalities changed (also going on from what I said above). If you got into X-Men during the 80s because of word of mouth you entered a story with very long scale plot points. There weren't readily avaliable collected editions (Classic X-Men reprints and other stuff maybe). But people would be happy with the context or an explanation from friends or the odd back issue. Of course Shooter said everyone's comic was someone's first so you'd get superfluous dialogue explaining powers or w/e. And of course nowadays story decompression means comic arcs are designed also for the trade after market so it is a bit different. But perhaps back then we were more forgiving.
>Claremont retconned all the time. Magneto as a Holocaust victim? Retcon. Loads of Wolverine stuff? Retcons. Like I said, the strengths and weaknesses of comics are the same. Everything is fixable but also everything can be ruined.
I like origins getting expanded when a character is more blank rather than a written page, but I think a problem arises when someone takes a beloved story that developed a character and twists it or wipes it out. claremont had characters that didnt have an expansive story and started to give them one, so thats a good reason as to why they worked. if we retconned magneto into an immortal who lived centuries before, that would begin to alter his humanity (lol) hardships. could it work? sure. but changing something that really added to the character is risky and most of the time unsettles the buying public.
>For me comics are an ongoing soap opera. And maybe we were more forgiving of those in the past and really it is people's expectations that changed?
I think that's a huge part of it. I dont think many comic goers from the past cared about stories changing things, as a lot of them just wanted to read more comics. citing that bruce wayne was initially depicted as a 'bored socialite' is true to the first comic he appeared in, but is it the best story for him? I think respecting the stories that were well received is important, but creating something new in that established lore is tough. maybe telling good stories would be enough for me. if I pick up a star wars EU or star trek novel, do I NEED it to be in main continuity? can I just enjoy it for what it entails? do we even need 'major changes' all the time?
>but I think a problem arises when someone takes a beloved story that developed a character and twists it or wipes it out.
There will always be someone who loves something even if it is considered bad. The OG X-men series was messy and sold poorly until the Adams/Thomas run. But due to how long it took them to get the sales back they only later realised the bump had happened. X-men had, at that point, become a reprint book. But then they decided to have another go at it and make a new team that was purposefully internationalist (diverse) by having characters from different countries. wienerrum and Wein did Giant Size X-Men #1. Kurt Busiek complained majorly about Claremont's run (pic related). Claremont's run is now considered one of the best X-Men runs. So even something that seems "twisted" can later be seen differently. Later on Shooter and Marvel were thinking about bringing Jean back and Busiek actually provided the cocoon and Jamaica Bay idea to do so. And then X Factor happened and Scott's character was damaged. Which also annoyed Claremont. Busiek in a way was like a revenging fan. The whole point of that story is that these problems of what is a beloved character or who is blank or not can be debated and aren't black and white.
>I think that's a huge part of it. I dont think many comic goers from the past cared about stories changing things
Comics were disposable entertainment in a less competitive landscape. Nowadays we exist not in this entertainment media vs that entertainment media but a battle for attention spans. Why watch a movie when you can shit post on Cinemaphile or watch Youtube or streaming show? You can just sit on your phones. Of course there are lots of problems in comics: the industry, the quality, the politcs (and honestly those are gone over in every other thread and I'm trying my best not to go into it because I cba here.)
>Comics were disposable entertainment in a less competitive landscape. Nowadays we exist not in this entertainment media vs that entertainment media but a battle for attention spans
This is why this infamous shit happened.
thanks for the history lesson, sincerely. the idea of comics being more disposable in the past is a fact, as thats the reason why those comics command a huge price on the second hand market. that, and theyre of significant characters. people usually just bought them and moved on, never taking the stories they paid for as something to remember years from then. there will always be fans who hate changes, and it makes me wonder - at what point are they wrong? when are the creatives wrong? continuity and retcons inspire a lot of hate because we arent in the 20 year period of our beloved characters, a lot of them are more like 40-80 years of history. its evidentially going to weigh down on what can be done (without anger), and what can be changed without altering the DNA. I think its hard to sell casual buyers on new stories if something NEW isnt happening, but a lot of that also has to do with the fact that OMG MAJOR CHANGES THIS ISSUE is a huge selling point. and its used cheaply a lot of times. or just to agitate, it seems. I know myself, I have stopped buying spiderman, xmen, and punisher altogether. theyve been so mishandled that I cant even see myself caring what they do now. at some point retcons and changes are harmful
>there will always be fans who hate changes, and it makes me wonder - at what point are they wrong?
Pic related is a Star Wars fanzine that hated the Empire Strikes Back so much it made them quit publishing.
>I think its hard to sell casual buyers on new stories if something NEW isnt happening, but a lot of that also has to do with the fact that OMG MAJOR CHANGES THIS ISSUE is a huge selling point
Yeah to go back to my first post the creative issues are often influenced by the business/editorial. Business/editorial stuff gets done so much it eventually becomes the creatives gimmicks. I like this video of Harlan Ellison (science fiction writer) talking about Death of Superman and how it had been done before:
?list=PLn5mSh00tKGGwiZ0CsZvWAzA0M2xQn8jA
I don't think this agitation is new. I think the hype and money making eventually does burn you out. Watch the video and you'll see a lot of his complaints will feel current.
>mentality of brevoort as reprehensible.
The funny thing is. Brevoort eventually said he regretted saying that stuff. During the 00s you had that mentality but it largerly worked, Avengers Disassmbled, New Avengers, Civil War. During the 2010s you had the big new diverse character push, in part probably due to concerns over characters eventually becoming public domain and wanting to appeal to a new audience. By 2015 it had reached its apex with Secret Empire and Hydra Cap becoming a meme. A meeting between Marvel and retailers was tense. Retailers said they had replaced too many characters and ruined things thus impacting sales. David Gabriel, a Marvel Executive, pretty much agreed with their assessment but later retracted those comments in a clarification. Marvel did then start bringing back legacy characters. But of course this new character push has also made up a significant part of the Phase 4+ MCU wave, with Kate Bishop, Ms Marvel, America Chavez, Ironheart. Lessons aren't learned.
lol its funny to see a response to empire strikes back being so negative. in a way, a strange way perhaps, I respect it. they didnt like its new direction and stopped. fickle? possibly, but like you said, they danced in the fire until they couldnt do it anymore. we dont own these characters, but we do have a voice
>Business/editorial stuff gets done so much it eventually becomes the creatives gimmicks. I like this video of Harlan Ellison (science fiction writer) talking about Death of Superman and how it had been done before
great video. I bought the cheap superman issue, mainly because I wanted to see the story and how it played out. even back then I realized it'll never sell for much if everyone has multiple copies. but the hype was loud. gimmicks when timed right and presented to a thirsty public, will always be a big business.
>By 2015 it had reached its apex with Secret Empire and Hydra Cap becoming a meme. A meeting between Marvel and retailers was tense. Retailers said they had replaced too many characters and ruined things thus impacting sales
I cant lie, I was checked out around then too. probably caught up with me around secret invasion and that goofy story about the watcher dying or something.
>David Gabriel, a Marvel Executive, pretty much agreed with their assessment but later retracted those comments in a clarification.
marvel is learning the hard way. they thought they had the best product on the block, only to find out that you still can oversaturate a market. you can squeeze too many bucks out of consumers. you can overdo a good thing. the marvel cinematic universe is so weak right now, the last good thing I enjoyed was the halloween special with werewolf by night and man-thing. even then Im fatigued but stayed around long enough to watch fury's faltering series. I say that to tie it back into the comics: not everything is going to work all the time, but being tone deaf to the fans is tragic. no one likes an unpleasant surprise
>lol its funny to see a response to empire strikes back being so negative. in a way, a strange way perhaps, I respect it.
For everything that changes in this world, some stuff remains the same and we just forget about it. Fans complaining is one of those things.
>great video. I bought the cheap superman issue
Like I just said about, change yada stays the same. It is amazing how many of his complaints, gimmicks, pricing etc, is the same as we have now.
>and that goofy story about the watcher dying or something.
Original Sin. That was a joke of a story.
>but being tone deaf to the fans is tragic
To play devils advocate, how the frick do you listen to fans? Social media bubbles are a mess, sales and popularity are twisted all the time. Part of me just thinks that current creatives want to tank the industry just so bad that comic book shops close because they really truly want their comics to be sold in book stores for the "prestige" and not having to deal with the retailers or fans.
>Past Teen Version, Not Present Jean (Skeleton)
kek
>To play devils advocate, how the frick do you listen to fans?
same way you decide to make a change: you use some common sense. there is always a creator's license at play, sure, but a lot of these decisions dont come from a place of elevating the character's origins or introducing something captivating to the character; its about cashing in/a writer 'leaving his mark.' a good idea should almost sell itself to the writer and the fans. the premise can be ground breaking, but not betraying what made them revered. sure its impossible to gauge beforehand, but I like to think that before they voyage off into the land of moronation, they know what theyre doing.
and btw, the 'stars and garters line' here got me to cackle. the writer forgot to add in that fury craves a cigar every second of his miserable life, but he has to smoke off-panel to keep his job.
>in that fury craves a cigar every second of his miserable life, but he has to smoke off-panel to keep his job.
That whole Original Sin event was about Fury too and boy was it bad.
If only people still had common sense. I think a lot of writers view leaving their mark in the same was as them being capitivating. I don't think all these creatives are terrible people or doing bad things on purpose. I also find it ironic that we have mentioned what is good idea to the writers and fans but still people never all agree, like a few posts ago talking about Magneto.
>but I like to think that before they voyage off into the land of moronation, they know what theyre doing.
I have no idea they ever will know what they're doing. Comics has existed in a perpetual twilight for so long. The end isn't here. But there is no one with a huge will wanting to really fix things in a substantial way. And even the industry is all structured in a way that makes change hard. But even with all that the way people are and entertainment is I dunno, I feel like perpetual twilight of comics is all we will have for a long time.
spider storm looks cool
lmao at the comic. I always laugh at a good D-Man reference. As for Rectitude, I hardly even knew the dude!
>That whole Original Sin event was about Fury too and boy was it bad.
Im not going to lie, but something about that series crushed my will to care. I stopped keeping up with comics for a very long time. it was that, and it was other things. but that was the last straw for many years
>I think a lot of writers view leaving their mark in the same was as them being capitivating. I don't think all these creatives are terrible people or doing bad things on purpose.
I dont think theyre bad people either. I just think they can be stubborn and fixated on being remembered so they push for something drastic when it doesnt serve the character, but instead a paltry story that isnt worth it. however, it doesnt always come out in the wash, they just look like buttholes to me.
>Comics has existed in a perpetual twilight for so long. The end isn't here. But there is no one with a huge will wanting to really fix things in a substantial way.
I remember the hype for quesada being the new guy in charge. I thought, the guy who inks random valiant or image stuff? uh, marvel knights? ok. but it turned out to be a lot of hoopala from a 'creator' who just understood business and creating controversy. I like that comics appeal to kids and nerds, but fleecing them via huge events and needless retcons that no one sees the value of, cant have come to fruition in a vacuum. drastic changes should face drastic scrutiny in order to preserve the comics' credibility, instead of hand wiping it away with a cross over in three years or so. its ridiculous.
>I meant to say "No, more mutants."
KEK
god, these are golden
>complicated
shit i finally get it
what is it
>Black Panther has Avril Lavigne CDs
>Her most famous song is called Complicated
I quit comics with the Spiderman clone shit in the 90's. Seeing as OMD came soon after, I made the right decision.
Lucky man.
>posts anime as evidence against breaking your limits
lol
I'd say that it's rare to see the specifics regarding injuries in media as a whole given how cheapened regular violence is
it's quite easy to power through a generic beating, but it's not the same as getting up after suffering severe brain concussions and a fractured vertebra
(CONT)
>See part of this is that our mentalities changed (also going on from what I said above). If you got into X-Men during the 80s because of word of mouth you entered a story with very long scale plot points.
that definitely happened to me. I bought one where havoc returns, and I didnt even know who havoc was or who the xmen were, even though they barely showed up in that issue lol. it actually intrigued me, then it made me drop it. I kept up with the avengers more, and it was probably because they were doing what shooter told them to do, and thats explain the story more. sure the dialog comes off as a bit more goofy today, but adding the backstory to an issue made sure I bought more.
>And of course nowadays story decompression means comic arcs are designed also for the trade after market so it is a bit different. But perhaps back then we were more forgiving.
I was more forgiving. comics were cheaper, my attention wasnt so divided, and I wasnt so upset with bad editorial decisions as I have grown up with the characters and have found some changes to be damaging. I dont think Ill ever give up comics, but I have given up on character due to lame retcons or decisions. I am not as forgiving as I used to be. thats why I dont think adhering to a main continuity is working for me anymore. I just hold onto the main notes of the character and take it from there
> and I didnt even know who havoc was
One thing that makes me laugh is that modern comics actually often do a better job of telling you this information. Some comics have a summary of "what happened in the last issue/current arc" page as well as cast of character pages.
>who the xmen were
And like I said, FOMO can be good or bad. FOMO helped make X-Men into the best selling book with changing characters and a big cast where everyone had their favourites. But also the buy in for others like yourself was too great.
>I was more forgiving.
We all change. For me, I like the medium. I follow stuff I enjoy. I follow creators I enjoy. I try to avoid feeling pessimistic all the time. I don't like all the doomsaying thinking everything is ruined. I understand the problems but I didn't let it burn me out. I think the fanboy mentality is living close to the flame all the time. I understand the appeal of being so invested. I get it. But also realise where it leads. You can still have that feeling of going into a shop and discovering something new to you.
>Some comics have a summary of "what happened in the last issue/current arc" page as well as cast of character pages.
these are god sends to me. the less intrusive but informal, the better.
>I think the fanboy mentality is living close to the flame all the time. I understand the appeal of being so invested. I get it. But also realise where it leads. You can still have that feeling of going into a shop and discovering something new to you.
I think that mentality is slowing coming back to me. I havent bought comics since the 2000s, and the marvel movies didnt make me come back because a lot of the comics were very different from what I knew before, nevermind the movies I just watched. marvel has been dropping the ball a lot imo, they could have done so much more with the eyes of the entire world watching and buying FOTM books and manga.
I can personally attest that I stopped buying certain comics and didnt come back to them. I wouldnt say I was outraged, but dull to their approach. there has to be such thing as angering fans to the point of no return, as I cant be the only one who found that mentality of brevoort as reprehensible.
i miss hypercrisis posting so much
Not even joking, that shit is what put me off of comics for a while. At least the new run is returning to the horror genre.
>Not even joking, that shit is what put me off of comics for a while.
Which did? Ewing's run?
No, Cates' moronic bullshit
>like Claremont completely changed Magneto into something great.
It's scary how many people genuinely believe this, and genuinely believe the character is still great today.
>It's scary how many people genuinely believe this
How was he not improved under Claremont?
>and genuinely believe the character is still great today.
X-Men are in fricking dire straights and have been for many years.
>How was he not improved under Claremont?
He wasn't a villain anymore, he was a walking screed about the Holocaust. Even when he was a villain again, he was still a walking screed about the Holocaust. And now he's not allowed to be a villain anymore because his insane fangirls lose their minds if he is.
>He wasn't a villain anymore, he was a walking screed about the Holocaust.
But for many people it was the first time a villain could have genuine depth of feeling and motivation beyond the usual villain with a gimmick suddenly deciding it was time to do evil. It took time for people to attempt to trust him. It wasn't all done overnight.
>Even when he was a villain again, he was still a walking screed about the Holocaust.
See you're objectively wrong. The Holocaust screed was actually done sparingly. There is only a handful of times it is really mentioned over many issues. In fact it was so sparingly they tried to retcon it to make him a Gyspy rather than israeli because they worried about adaptations and it offending people. So they claimed in the 90s he had stolen someone's identity. Which in turn was retconned. Honestly it feels like you're looking at the whole picture and a generalisation taken via hindsight. If you read Claremont's run it is not really done how you described.
>And now he's not allowed to be a villain anymore because his insane fangirls lose their minds if he is.
Modern X-Men have been through the wringer more times than I can count.
Claremont does try to whitewash Magneto though. He tries to brush past all the actions Magneto did before his run and look how he writes the X-Men reacting to when Magneto goes to trial. There's a reason why the OG Brotherhood barely shows up in Claremont's run specifically Pietro and Wanda.
>Claremont does try to whitewash Magneto though.
Yes, I definitely think glossing over some of his crimes was that. But again that goes back to the question of the retcon. Did the stories that do that justify the gloss? Many would argue they did. Continuity shouldn't be a noose stopping growth. Neither should it be too loose. I think Claremont did it in a way that balanced things. Just keeping people in the same position is anti-Claremont. His book was about change and growth and that is what people bought into. When X-Men went back to the Magneto status quo villain in the 90s we got peak X-Men in terms of sales but it isn't remembered as fondly. Claremont was sustainable growth and Jim Lee was temporary. Because after that it never reached the same high.
>OG Brotherhood
I mean Magneto went solo most of the time without a team in most of his appearances. Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch ended up in other books and as heroes. Mastermind did come back and was a significant part of Dark Phoenix saga in manipulating Jean. Toad is the only one who was kind of shafted and used sparingly.
Ultimately Magneto didn't bang on about the Holocaust, him leaving his villainry was considered interesting by most, the book still had great villains, he grew as a character in a way that was compelling. Would you rather he remained just in status quo because "he is their arch enemy so must do so"?
Growth and change shouldn't also prevent a character from being held accountable and Claremont during his run actively went out of his way to make anyone wanting to hold Magneto accountable for anything be deemed at best as unreasonable. Again, look at how the X-Men reacted when he got arrested or how the Avengers are framed for being untrustworthy of Magneto. The OG Brotherhood weren't really used partially because it would most likely have to be addressed how Magneto was abusive to him. it's why I think Claremont partially hated the retcon that he was their dad.
I feel like you're moving the goalposts too. First you're upset that:
>He wasn't a villain anymore
But now you're saying that the problem was accountability? Much like your previous mention of Holocaust screed, which was wrong, I find your mentions on Magneto seem to be wrong too. You seem very focused on that singular story of X-men vs. Avengers and want to ignore everything outside of it. The accountability that Magneto was held to was the fact he had to carry Charles' vision and the weight of that responsibility. It was the fact he had to gain the X-men's trust over time. It was the fact that he had to grown to realise he was wrong and face his past misdeeds.The accountability you seem to want is what? Arrested? Scheduled for execution? Then escaped by tea time for a new battle with the X-Men? I feel like much like your Holocaust comment, this accountability is something rather general that avoids the context of the whole run. Would you rather Claremont had just had a villainous Magneto his whole run? Because it really feels like you would have?
Arguing with people who have no actual knowledge of the comics in question is pointless, anon
I mean most Cinemaphile discussion is pointless anyway. But it is still interesting to see other perspectives.
>the fact that he had to grown to realise he was wrong and face his past misdeeds
did you not read the 2014 solo book? it's literally about him traveling around murdering people for 21 issues, which you might say "ah yeah but that's not the 80s/90s redemption arc" which really wasn't an arc so much as a redefining of what villainy means to Magneto, or you might say "ah but that's just one book, sometimes there are bad books" and yeah, those things might be true if the same X-Men hadn't already had their own murder squad book for almost a decade at that point
I'm pretty sure the 2007 X-Force book kills more non-mutants than the number of mutants killed by non-mutants to that date (you can't count the Genoshans because that was Cassandra Nova's handiwork, and she's a mutant) and it's just nonsense, it's like deaths don't even matter to the X-Men at all, lives don't matter to them, I guess when one of you did a planetary genocide and then got better after dying about it you stop caring about the small numbers
the 2014 Magneto book even references Genosha as though Magneto himself has *no idea* who was ultimately behind it, which I guess maybe he didn't but that seems weird, no? to not have any interest in who directed this colossal Sentinel to attack and kill his island paradise, despite using it as his impetus for going on a solo rampage?
anyway a couple of years before that he has a 4-issue mini titled Magneto: Not A Hero, in which his evil clone goes around murdering people to frame him, and at the end, he just murders some people for calling him names, and also it looks like he snaps his clone's neck
these are not the actions of a reformed supervillain burdened by the weight of Xavier's vision
like maybe I'm a whole redemption arc cycle out here but even in 2001 he was still kidnapping Xavier and shit, the only change that's stuck is he found shelter with the X-Men after M-Day and never fricked off again
No offense anon but this conversation is excruciating. If you read the reply chain it is clear I was talking about Magneto during the Claremont run and up until the end of that. It was in the context of that and if what Claremont did was good. And you were also arguing in that context too. Now you've completely changed tactics for the third time, not connecting with any of the points I made at all. This is rather pointless.
>these are not the actions of a reformed supervillain burdened by the weight of Xavier's vision
And Magneto stopped being a reformed supervillain when Jim Lee won out against Claremont and got that to happen and then Claremont quit. That was in the 90s. So everything past that point was obviously not following what Claremont was trying to do with the character. So all the books you list have nothing to do with the conversation at hand.
To put it as simply as I can: we were talking about how Claremont dealth with the character in his main original run. So far I have been told that stopping him being a villain was bad (with no elaboration) and that he constantly went on about the Holocaust (which was wrong). Then I heard how he wasn't held accountable (which I disagreed with). So now you list out a bunch of more recent comics well past the period I was talking about for what reason? A lot of 00s/10s X-men has been all over the place. I never mentioned it at all in anything I said.
I told you so
Kek I guess you did. I should really go to sleep.
>The thing to avoid, of course, would be the "Legion of Substitute X-Men" stigma
hehehehehe
hahahahahaha
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
John Byrne's faces are so creepy.
John Byrne's faces (and bodies) were mostly modelled on real people, mostly TV and movie stars.
>Sure Professor let's get you to bed
>Would you rather he remained just in status quo because "he is their arch enemy so must do so"?
I'd absolutely prefer that villains with body counts or attempted body counts in the millions be 100% off the table for redemption ever, and I don't care how "interesting" people found it.
Yes, it was interesting. And the posts in this thread talk about sometimes you can't please everyone with change. Heck even Claremont said that in a response to Kurt Busiek, one man's dark age is another's golden age. There is a reason why Magneto is considered such a good villain. And part of that is the depth he was given by his backstory and his development. Something that many villains didn't have and still don't. There is a reason why Claremont's run is still popular. You can hand wave it away, but that doesn't change it. You're welcome to your opinions but honestly the issue is mentioned in other posts. Continuity should never stop good stories, never be too tight or too loose. I think Claremont got the balance right. There is a reason why X-Men stagnated and that's when it went back to status quo. The book became the most popular Marvel book because of interesting change. If it had followed what you wanted it would have languished. His redemption was something over time. It doesn't mean all is forgiven. it came up again and again to prove that point.
>he was a walking screed about the Holocaust
http://www.alara.net/opeople/xbooks/magjew.html
Here is a list of issues mentioning Magneto's israeliness. Around 16 issues between 1981 to 1993. 12 years. Hardly a walking screed? (Then the retcon happened.)
How many times has DC made "The offical sequel to CoIF"? Really, it feels like every few years they do that and pretend all the others don't count.
To be fair, all of these are cringe.
>i am big and strong and i'm gonna keep fighting hur hur hur i'm too dum dum 2 quit
>supergirl is DEAAAAAAAAAAAD which is bullshit considering how that nobody fricking dies in comic books
>become a MAN is such bullshit. like honestly, this COULD have worked without the dialogue whatsoever. as it is it just sounds like an edgy kid because nobody over the age of 12 speaks like this.
honestly, the amount of comic books that has actually good writing is very low.
Which writer ruined it
Im not caught up, what did he do?
They’re trans now
I know he’s fat but surely it isn’t necessary to walk like you’re wading through a pool.
Boobah-looking motherfricker.
Five star post
Dear god, how does a man let himself go like that? Bet he cant even wipe his ass.
I hate fat "men" so much it's unreal
Love when comic book creators actually look like stereotypes of comic book creators. Hawaiian shirt Mark Waid counts too.
They're more or less failed TV writers.
WHOMMP-WHOMMP-WHOMMP DIDDLY WHOMMP
He won.
Gage wrote Avengers Academy right? what he doing now?
My first exposure to Gage while knowing his name was the assassin Spider-Man story in spider-verse. Spider-Sanction, iirc. It was good and Gage did a good job reintroducing such an interesting version of the character.
Then Dan killed off one of that version in one of the worst and laziest fricking ways. Gage did such a good job at not shitting the bed, and Slott had diaherrea all over it.
And then I went back and read what he had to work with immediately after Superior: Peter telling MJ everything that happened... and her essentially going, "Yeah that's a you problem, I can't handle this shit, bye homie".
Seeing this picture of him I understand how shitty it must be to work as what anons call "Slott's Tardwrangler". Poor bastard.
>good job reintroducing such an interesting version of the character.
Well, aside from killing off Wolverine. I don't think that was necessary... none of spiderverse was
>"Slott's Tardwrangler"
Uh ironic Slott writes all his women like they need one, which is one of his self-inserts.
False.
I used to be underweight and once I achieved a normal weight I felt weird walking down stairs because I suddenly had flesh on my torso that bounced a little. I can't even fathom having that much jelly moving around and not being horrified by the feeling with every movement.
>flesh on my torso that bounced a little
SEX
>that mask on that face-chin merger
WORST
WRITER
EVER
>bUt HiS bAtMaN AnD sHe-HuLk Is GoOd!
This is the man calling you a basement dwelling loser. Holy shit, he's a parody of himself.
Good gravy he's like a penguin
Every single thing ever done in Marvel and DC has been ruined. NO ONE should EVER acknowledge anything done in DC post-New 52 or in Marvel post-Marvel NOW.
Of the three moments mentioned I would imagine a bit more context might help this thread.
Every single moment when Gert has character development in I Hate Fairyland after Revival #7.
>Why do people refer to this very well known thing that everyone has seen and loves
Are you really asking why references exist?
this right
Was it just Cancerverse or is there more?
speaking of cancer
But I prefer better the retcon of Trickshot being Hawkeye's brother
That’s not a retcon, the older trickshot was the guy who taught them how to use a bow. Barney took his code name after he died, the real retcon is that Barney actually survived his death from his first appearance in an old avengers comic after getting blown up and didn’t show up again until decades later.
I never knew thx
That moment when your enemies show you more goodwill than your friends.
ngl its kinda cringe
hello newhomosexual
Jesus Christ Thor, don't they teach etiquette in Asgard? Show some fricking respect and take off your silly hat!
>Life can make me live. The future is so beautiful...so beautiful...
Basically, all of them.
>]
Scott "wall of exposition" Summers.
Talk about huffing your own farts as a writer (of comics).
It's not even that it's walls of text, which is atrocious, but also that how he's speaking and his actions don't line up.
He's talking as though he were writing a journal while simultaneously collapsing on the ground in despair.
Completely pulls me out of the scene and ensures it isn't the sorrowful moment it's intended to be.
Reciting a dramatic monologue while staring at your dead lover's body is like stage drama 101, chump.
JEEEEAAAAAAAAaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.
>dramatic monologue
It's not dramatic, he's methodically deciphering the chain of events and actions that led to that point, while supposedly having a complete emotional breakdown. It's fricking hammy and bad.
I can see Cyclops gradually coming to the realization how exactly the death happened and that enhancing his shock and disbelief. And the comics of this time are still inherently hammy.
>Yeah, while slumped in a heap or overlooking some scenic view, not mid collapse on the floor.
I don't really see why that would make a difference. The pose doesn't take anything away for me. And I'm someone who generally doesn't like this "iconic" issue, but not for this scene.
All this dense dialogue, it would have been better if Scott was just slumping in despair, and one of the Recorders or Uatu was in the background spilling out all this dense dissertation. Far, far better.
>one of the Recorders or Uatu was in the background spilling out all this dense dissertation
well... they were there, you know
Well aware, and they are the proper source for this sort of exposition. But Claremont gets carried away with his own "genius" writing sometimes and can't stop.
>Jean Grey could have lived to become a God. But it was more important to her that she die...a human
Goddamn Claremont's so good.
Feel sorry for the dummies arguing earlier, "Oh he can't say all that in the time of those panels" shut up, it doesn't matter, he can't actually shoot lasers from his eyes either
>Feel sorry for the dummies arguing earlier, "Oh he can't say all that in the time of those panels" shut up, it doesn't matter, he can't actually shoot lasers from his eyes either
moron
for frick's sake WHY IS THE TEXT NARRATING THE ACTION?! You have pictures you rancid fricks. God I hate comic books.
>I don't really see why that would make a difference.
This is the issue right here, you said it yourself without meaning to
>The pose
Because it's not a pose, it's three panels of an action.
He's reciting a bloody soliloquy while collapsing, an act that takes a second or less, nowhere near enough time to spout off everything he runs through.
The blending of text and art is crucial to a comicbook and this objectively fails, even if you can't see it, though I do hope you now understand.
I'm glad you get my point, anon.
We don't disagree, but "Every panel of Spider-Man kvetching over the problems he's experienced the last two weeks while dodging a punch".
And that's dumb as hell, too.
Completely breaks the flow of action.
Fourth panel he starts reeling from Jean's actions, fifth has him trying to take a knee because he's losing strength from the emotional turmoil. sixth has him losing further strength starting the complete fall and seventh has him finish it.
At most, you could say he's got two thirds of his speech in static poses but there's still a whole third while he's unambiguously falling.
Imagine seeing that play out on screen, do they do a freeze frame so he can finish his lines?
Could have easily had him slumped back with his butt on his feet (not sure what the name of the pose is but I'm sure you know what I mean) while going through his long-winded emotional outburst but no, they consciously chose something that wouldn't look right on screen and couldn't happen in real life.
>Fourth panel he starts reeling from Jean's actions, fifth has him trying to take a knee because he's losing strength from the emotional turmoil. sixth has him losing further strength starting the complete fall and seventh has him finish it.
Sorry, meant to add on that the art implies it's all one almost perfect motion from Jean's "death" to him on the floor with a little stagger in between.
Not enough time for his rant.
>Fourth panel he starts reeling from Jean's actions,
He's instinctively ducking out of the gun's way. And what exactly says "losing strength" to you on fifth and sixth? To me fifth is completely ambiguous and sixth is him reaching out to where Jean was.
>Imagine seeing that play out on screen, do they do a freeze frame so he can finish his lines?
No, he just stands leaning on his arms for a while before collapsing when he finishes, which is what I imagine. I really don't see how that is so difficult to picture.
It doesn't look to me like he's falling though. He's leaning on his arms and then collapses at the realization. At the very least, if you look at the fist and second panel, he has enough time to straighten his left arm and reach it out.
Yeah, while slumped in a heap or overlooking some scenic view, not mid collapse on the floor.
Look at the panels and the timing, during his fall, in which he's saying all this.
It's poorly constructed, chump.
Stage plays are different from comics.
Solution: keep the text, but put it in boxes. That way, it indicates that it's his present/future thoughts and realisations, while keeping him collapsing in grief in the moment.
>Scott "wall of exposition" Summers.
>Talk about huffing your own farts as a writer (of comics).
I do like X-Men and do like parts of Claremont's run but I also have to agree with all criticism people make of him because honestly the man didn't know how to write for comics. That sounds like a dumb thing to say when his run is so beloved and built X-Men into a huge franchise (well him and all the artists and everyone else).
this is the point that Scott turns evil, when he decides that genocide is an acceptable thing for an x-man to do if he likes them (he does not like Wolverine, hence the constant bickering, Scott's ultimate sanction for other mutants)
look at how he analyses what she did; he's not even sorry about those other people, who mattered so much to her, or her reasons - she's just property he's lost
absolute shitbag of a dick
Jean coming back fricked up so much shit.
No, making her a killer then killing her did.
It speaks to something absolutely rotten in the core of Marvel comic fandom that the most celebrated, most beloved stories are always the ones where SOMEONE DIES.
>It speaks to something absolutely rotten in the core of Marvel comic fandom that the most celebrated, most beloved stories are always the ones where SOMEONE DIES.
Hard disagree. Marvel worked when it did attempt its old adage of "the world outside your window". Having death and consequence was that attempt to truly be that. It changed us from the samey Silver Age into something new. Those moments massively shaped the comics after for the better. And when they were undone that led to stagnation and all the other problems people complain about. Undoing them was the true problem, as inevitable as it was.
I find it bizarre all this revisionism I see in this thread and others were people decide that 95% of all the comics history was a mistake. It is a completely skewed take on things. I honestly feel like you guys make it out that all books should have stayed in their Silver Age position for eternity.
>I honestly feel like you guys make it out that all books should have stayed in their Silver Age position for eternity.
Comics should've stayed in the 80's mentality. Storylines were good, tons of experimentation in the medium, pushed some boundaries without losing the plot the way 90's edge lord shit did.
I'd give anything to have 80's Wolverine back, when he was more of an adventurer and has his weaknesses and his regeneration wasn't full moron survive anything tier.
Pretty much what I was saying in my post. I feel like the Bronze age was the sweet spot of comics before the modern disaster undid the good work.
Bronze Age SUCKED for superheroes though (with exceptions). It really wasn't until the 80s that the industry as a whole started to improve.
This.
Bronze age was half the 80s,
You're right. The 70s sucked, but the 80s were great for superheroes, and comics in general.
I don't think the 80s were born out of a vacuum. 70s comics tried a bunch of new stuff and there are some good series. The CCA was waning. Many of the stuff you like in the 80s was built off ideas being tried out then. So just saying it all sucked feels a bit shitty.
This. There is a reason it's considered a collective age as the bronze age.
Then why is the usual cutoff at 1985-6? It's either Crisis or TDKR and Watchmen.
Because it was the next big gear shift
You what? What doesn't really connect with what I said?
Crisis fundamentally changed the DC Universe by setting up the Superman reboot and the clear line between pre crisis and post crisis continuity.
Also 1986 was when Jean Grey came back to life, which was the first major paradigm shift away from the changes of the Bronze Age.
It doesn't help that there are no real concreate dates for when the different ages began.
Marvel's Silver Age starts with Fantastic Four #1, but DC's started with Showcase #4; nearly 5 years prior.
I know that the DC's Bronze Age is considered to have started with Neal Adam's run on Batman and that Marvel's Silver Age ended with The Death of Gwen Stacy, but what's considered the end of DC's Silver Age and the beginning of Marvel's Bronze Age?
And what Age are we in now?
Ceramic.
I find it's much better to just refer to decades when talking about periods for comic books. The various Ages are too nebulous and have never been really codified in any meaningful way. Comic fandom hasn't even come up with any real terms for the periods AFTER the Bronze Age, though part of me thinks that's mostly because the 90s onwards largely isn't worth codifying by giving it a title of an Age
I mean, what would you call the 2010s-[current year] period for comics? The Tin Age? The Shitty Age? The Holey Rusted Metal Age?
This. The "Ages" were literally created by comic book speculators in the 90s anyway. IF there was ever an actual attempt at a scholarly assessment of the history of comic books, It would done by decade and then pinpoint specific zeitgeists.
Decades are even more vague and general. There was some significant changes during a single decade.
>I find it's much better to just refer to decades when talking about periods for comic books.
I find this debate weird and naive. The truth is, any grouping will always be loose by its definition and a debate because it will never securely fit *everything*. All of your arguments can be used against using decades too? You say ages are too nebulous and not codified, which is true, but the same argument can be made against decades. Deciding just to use a time unit despite all the conflicting stuff is weird. Like what is a 90s comic? Is it X-Men #1 the best selling comic ever, the Marvel superstar artists who broke off into Image? Or is it something like Sandman which was published from '89 to '96 and still wildly regarded now as literature? Because these two books couldn't be more different. So it'll always be a debate and always be loose no matter what you use but the ages are no better or worse than decades. Using a decade can be rather arbitrary and I know it is stuck in public discourse, especially around music, even though music fads grew and waned over different time periods and didn't fit neatly into decades. Do you understand what I mean?
>created by comic book speculators in the 90s anyway
This is not true and there has been defined by scholars.It was also defined by comic book sellers, people in the industry and fans/ For me I would define it as:
>Golden Age - pre-CCA. Wild west of different titles and experimentation culminating into the moral panic of the CCA.
>Silver Age - CCA, as exemplified by the loosy goosy stories that to modern eyes feel bizarre.
>Bronze Age - waning CCA, drug stories in Denny O'Neil's Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Lee's Spider-Man story. Horror titles returned.
>The Dark Age/Modern Age - no more CCA, universes rebooted, deaths overturned, grimdark or mature genres explode.
(1/2)
>I mean, what would you call the 2010s-[current year] period for comics? The Tin Age? The Shitty Age? The Holey Rusted Metal Age?
Some people define the "Dark Age" or "Modern Age" ending in the 2000s and just calling now the Present. I think the problem is, which comics would you necessarily define as the new gear shift in the 00s or 10s? For me you could call it the Internet Age. Whether that is because of the wholesale use of digital technology, colouring, amongst other things. Or because of the influence of social media on the comics.
>IF there was ever an actual attempt at a scholarly assessment of the history of comic books
There has been?
>A Complete History of American Comic Books by Shirrel Rhoades
>Super-history: comic book superheroes and American society, 1938 to the present by Jeffrey K. Johnson
>Of Comics and Men by Jean-Paul Gabilliet
But even scholars disagree on exact periods and use different dates.
(2/2)
I think the whole decade of the 80s should be called the Renaissance Age, which saw the more powerful stories in superhero comics and the rise of other publishers and indies. Miller's Daredevil, Simonson's Thor, Moore's Marvelman amd Swamp Thing, Chaykin's American Flagg, Ronin, TDKR, Watchmen, Batman Year One, RAW, Cerebus: High Society and Church & State, Love and Rockets, The Puma Blues, Concrete, etc. all came around in this era.
A lot of the Vertigo titles and British invasion comics went into the 90s, for instance, like I said previously, the Sandman being 1989-96.
During the mid-1980s Marvel moved away from its traditional "house style of art", where artists all coeslesced towards a Marvel way of doing things, towards different types of art. People like Bill Sienkiewicz for instance.
Look at the work of R Crumb and Zap Comix from the late 1960s youth culture into the 70s. The 70s underground scene boosted the independent/self published comics of the 80s. But then the late 80s went into the 90s independent scene with explosions of stuff like TMNT.
Using the 1980s as a fully defined period can be just as picked apart as the previous ages. There is always overlaps and building on top of things and other stuff.
The bronze age is considered to have ended anywhere from the mid to close to the end of the 80s. So you're literally wrong.
People never know what they're talking about here.
>It speaks to something absolutely rotten in the core of Marvel comic fandom that the most celebrated, most beloved stories are always the ones where SOMEONE DIES.
The way I see it, Marvel did it with some sort of dignity and urgency. When DC did it, it was incredibly soulless.
>Barry's death was so nobly executed that Marvel instantly had "Buried Alien" show up in their setting for further adventures
>Bruce and Clark didn't even die
Can't agree with you there mate
> When DC did it, it was incredibly soulless.
The problem with Death of Superman was it had been done before. See:
>I like this video of Harlan Ellison (science fiction writer) talking about Death of Superman and how it had been done before:
?list=PLn5mSh00tKGGwiZ0CsZvWAzA0M2xQn8jA
A lot of Harlan's complaints about Death of Superman match up modern day complaints. The 90s DC character "deaths" were full on hype machine. That's the problem, there used to be a clear distinction between a good death (e.g. Uncle Ben) and a bad death (random title grabbing story). But eventually the tools become part of the DNA of comics and get overused.
That is in part because comics by then became a parody of themselves in how death was used. It doesn't mean the old stories with death were bad, per se. Every modern story with death has the fact that it will be overturned in a few months/years.
Fair enough. One of those agree to disagree moments.
When Cap got shot dead in '07 I came to realize this.
I have no idea why you even engage with fiction
What a thoughtless response. Big Two's fiction isn't just any fiction, it's endless regurgitation.
Nta, but honestly, why even be here? Like you say that anon gave a thoughtless response but it sometimes feels like a sizeable part of the Cinemaphile population is people that despise it all with every fibre of their being. Is coming here attacking the same stuff over and over again really that cathartic?
Why am I here? Why are you here?
Bob the Builder said we can fix it. I don't why not.
Complaining about character death as a blanket concept is moronic. It's all about execution.
Especially when you bring them back to life for the umpteenth time off an asspull and it was all for FRICKING NOTHING.
It says so much that you people always want deaths, more deaths, but lose your minds over the idea that maybe it was a mistake and they actually need that character back, or people liked them and want them back. If you guys had things your way all the popular characters would be long dead, and the big 2 would have nothing left but replacement characters and crappy OCs.
We wouldn't have the whole cycle of death and return events if the entire rise of X-Men to becoming Marvel's biggest book of the 80s and 90s wasn't entirely built on them killing one of the original cast and everyone praising it as Marvel's best story, leading to everyone wanting to get sales, attention and praise by killing someone, but there's the problem, you all want that to keep happening and get the short-term shock and feels without ever bringing people back because you don't want it "invalidated".
Look, I'll tell you what I want, and this is just me. If your characters are too old and outdated, pass the torch to a newer character. It's been time to do that long ago in my opinion. Some of these old characters need to be retired. Give us YOUTH. That's how you end a cycle. If that means letting them get their big death then fine. But don't keep reusing them. Make up your mind, either they are dead and done or they're in another role now out of the spotlight.
But then I'm going to argue my own point, if you'll allow me. Because of the MCU, it's harder to pull that. Current fans will open the book and go, "who the hell is this? Where's my Tony Stark? Where's Logan? How come Captain Marvel's a kid?"
>But don't keep reusing them.
There's always going to be reinvention and rebooting and adaptation of course, but I think in general there's no real argument against the notion that characters who are endlessly reset in a single continuity lose any real impact when, for example, their lives are at risk. Jean Grey might die? They'll get a new one and lie to Scott and say she grew an inch overnight.
But by that same token there's little currency in high-stakes stories that radically change the character/team/setting, which is where the summer events of the Big 2 fall down. Very little is ever going to stick but even if it did - those kind of radical changes very rarely work out. If Miller's Daredevil had sunk without trace the character and stories would have reverted to being goofy and probably been forgotten like so many characters from the publishers who didn't make it over the last 60 years.
Legacy hires to replace an older character can work, but they're not a panacea for the problems that the old version faced. Leaving aside younger time-travel/dimension-travel versions of the same character (Jean Grey, Tony Stark) which don't really change anything simply by adding youth to the mix, if the problem is the character/setting and can't be changed without fundamentally altering what the character is, it's time to retire them completely. The problem there is not movies and tv (because those fans rarely open a comic book if ever) but the existing readers, who are likely the only people who'd buy a replacement. If that replacement isn't what they want, then regardless of what it is, it won't sell. That's why old characters get recycled.
>But don't keep reusing them.
Do you not think reuse of the characters got some of peoples favourite stories? When people say Batman they recommend some Frank Miller. Reinvention gave people a lot of stuff they wanted.
>But by that same token there's little currency in high-stakes stories that radically change the character/team/setting
I feel like this was talked about earlier ITT. X-Men to an extent was soap opera and comics were a disposable form of entertainment. I think the precise problem is acting like everything needs stakes enters the paradigm of FOMO, is the buy in too great or not? Is it worth checking out and overcoming stuff you might missed? So much has changed since then, sure, but it is also a question of mentalities changing. A lot of people seem to want continuity to matter to a huge degree. And yet even in the past continuity was often loosened to make many stories that people say are some of the best. The strengths and weaknesses of comics are the same. Just our perspectives and mentalities of the medium change depending on a bunch of factors. A lot of our complaints end up completely reflected in old letter pages.
>It says so much that you people always want deaths, more deaths, but lose your minds over the idea that maybe it was a mistake
I think the problem here is you're conflating a bunch of fans and people together? It feels like a generalisation of a generalisation? I mean there is nuance in accepting one death and not liking how another was executed.
>If you guys had things your way all the popular characters would be long dead, and the big 2 would have nothing left but replacement characters and crappy OCs.
I think it is more than many major characters ended up having any even hint at growth or temporary happiness destroyed by editorial. It lead to stunted growth when growth improved comics for people.
>wasn't entirely built on them killing one of the original cast and everyone praising it as Marvel's best story
Firstly, you're wrong. The book wasn't built on one death. The book had a bunch of good artists. The book had a good cast of characters giving people their favourite or their self insert. Honestly, what do you want to say with this? I mean, all comics have to balance creativity with the business/editorial. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And the business will always repeat stuff until it becomes the DNA of comics creative gimmicks. I don't think that it is right to blame a storyline as the problem but the industry mentality. But even then you could defend that mentality as them just copying what served them before and then getting stuck in their ways. And really that is the problem.
>you all want that to keep happening and get the short-term shock and feels
So much of this just depends on the storyline. I don't even think fans respond to the short term shock anymore anyway:
a lot of people believe Tom Brevoort's comments were wrong and burnt them out. I mean this in a polite way but your post comes across as an angry rant blaming generalisations of all fans for everything.
>Firstly, you're wrong. The book wasn't built on one death. The book had a bunch of good artists. The book had a good cast of characters giving people their favourite or their self insert.
By John Byrne's own admission, the book had been in danger of cancellation several times since the 1975 relaunch. It had slowly built an audience, but the Dark Phoenix Saga was what really put it on the map, and it wouldn't have had that sudden explosion of popularity without it.
Maybe it would have continued to steadily grow in audience and sales, maybe it wouldn't, but it wouldn't have been as sudden without that. And in the long term that led the industry into a deaths for sales mentality that's still with them today.
Forgive me if I am wrong, anon. But I just feel like this is a weirdly targeted point as if you're blaming Dark Phoenix for all the problems comics have? As if you have a bone to pick with that one storyline? Kinda like Kurt Busiek did,
I think there was more to X-Men's success. Maybe a death sparked people to check it out but people were just as fickle back then about what to spend their money on as now and as it continued they could have dropped off. Why did the readership not just remain, but build? So the idea that one death built the thing cannot be true. I just feel like you're blaming the storyline and not the industry here. Again, correct me if I am wrong in that assessment, but it does feel like you just hate that storyline.
>It says so much that you people always want deaths, more deaths
Justify having this thought. Where are people clamoring for character deaths?
It depends. A lot of them are more useless alive, or in the case of team books just get in the way of who should be the most focused on.
Maybe you don't have to kill them. Just make them go away.
X-Men did not become the biggest title in comics because of a death.
You are moronic.
Anon, we have people here who despite facts proving otherwise, and statements from people working on the book, believe X-Men just became Marvel's top book immediately from the 1975 relaunch just on the basis of those characters being so inherently appealing to readers, and believe it was still Marvel's top book all the through to the mid 2010s when Ike's Inhumans push happened. There are your morons.
It's fact that the Dark Phoenix Saga was the moment that jumpstarted X-Men's rise to being Marvel's top book for the next 20 years, and it likely wouldn't have happened without the shock value of them killing one of the book's original cast members.
>Anon, we have people here who despite facts proving otherwise, and statements from people working on the book, believe X-Men just became Marvel's top book immediately from the 1975 relaunch
Literally no one said that at all. They all clearly say it built up.
It is just another built up strawman based on his own skewed perception.
I swear anon I see people say this shit all the time (chances are it was probably you repeating it) but I've never, I mean never, seen someone here pretend like X-Men is number 1 still (or was until Inhumans push). I really think you have built up some strange complex in your head over this because you have some bone to pick.
I have seen people say it could be top again, but that is in the context of how a good adaptation propelled Iron Man to the top or how GotG got popular with general audiences. And the chances of this happening are diminished with how the MCU is.
There is an X-push coming soon though, X-Men '97, Wolverine and X-Men games from Insomniac, post-Krakoa era comics and their inclusion in the MCU. So they are clearly banking on it. But again, who knows if it'll be any good.
Jean's existence was only to make Cyclops seem more interesting and balance out the fact that he's a douchebag. It's more funny now because the roles are reversed.
Jean only really existed to be "the girl". Cyclops got her. All the other boys wanted her. Xavier fancied her. All of Stan Lee written women blended together tbh.
>Xavier fancied her
That's some first-class grooming.
"First Class"
Ah, humor
>That's some first-class grooming.
Jean ended up mind raping people. She learnt from the best.
20 years ago at the comic-con...
>"So I grew up watching Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends and I always wondered can you guys write a Bobby-Angelica couple?"
>"OH NOT THIS QUESTION AGAIN THAT DOES IT IM SICK OF THIS SHIT WERE GONNA MAKE BOBBY GAAAAAAAY! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT HUH NOW I'LL NEVER HAVE TO HEAR THAT QUESTION AGAIN NOW PISS OFF MY BOOTH!"
Bendis understood one thing: more adaptations are coming. All his books end up in the "must read recommended" lists for character histories. Shit like House of M is always mentioned with Wanda because of this. So that shit keeps getting reprinted and sold. Man could stick his tongue out into the air like some reptilian and taste the way the wind was blowing and say "time to make a diverse Spider-Man and gay-ify an X-Men character".
One question. Why did he let his precious Jessica Drew fade into obscurity again before he left Marvel?
When the editorial wouldn't let him have his BLACKED Jess Drew/Luke Cage pairing, he created Jessica Jones to get around that and promptly discarded Jess.
Serious question: is Bendis the most wide-reaching example of a creepy little man with a black cuckold fetish shaping the world around him by sheer force of perversion? We’ve had to put up with endless Luke Cage wank (a guy nobody gave two shits about before New Avengers), Miles Morales x not-Gwen Stacy, and whatever the frick Riri is as a direct result of the little israelite who wanted to huff black farts all day.
Jessica Drew was originally meant to be in Alias until he realised the character had "grown into its own distinctive voice" or alternatively the difficulty of having an old character in a Max series that was more mature. Then he changed the character to Jessica Jones.
>Bendis envisioned the series as centered on Jessica Drew and only decided to create Jones once he realized that the main character he was writing had a distinct-enough voice and background to differentiate her from Drew, though deciding to still name the character after her on the basis of how "two [people] can have the same first name".[2]
I think ultimately Jessica Drew represents one of those "writer-fus". He did bring her back with full force but eventually discarded her for his own toys and then no one could be bothered to deal with her after.
oh hey, a charming interaction where the other hero isn't malding over spidey
She served her purpose: to show that Marvel could have other Spider-People in their comics and people will actually read them.
>All his books end up in the "must read recommended" lists for character histories. Shit like House of M is always mentioned with Wanda because of this. So that shit keeps getting reprinted and sold.
Sadly lists like that never make a point of saying "this is important to the character's history, but in a bad way. It's an awful story that permanently damaged them". The idiots actually recommend it just because it's "important".
Bendis' Spider-Woman book failing was one of the first times a Marvel book he wrote underperformed and got cancelled, he just kept her in his Avengers books. Then he moved on to X-Men where his other waifu Kitty was, so he was focused on her, and Marvel were still trying to push Jessica Drew in her own book at the time, and they've tried at least twice since he left Marvel, they don't seem to have any intention of accepting failure and giving up.
>Sadly lists like that never make a point of saying "this is important to the character's history, but in a bad way. It's an awful story that permanently damaged them". The idiots actually recommend it just because it's "important".
Just like how Death in the Family and Hush show up in top 10 Batman stories rankings.
Those aren't that bad.
I agree that it’s overrated, but how did Hush hurt Batman? “He can manage to not die against a poorly mind-controlled Superman who desperately wants to help him”? That’s not exactly Batwank - any human DC hero could probably dodge for a little while given comic book logic. The Batman angle is that he was ruthless enough to leverage Lois against him. Is it the paranoia stuff? That’s been a Batman staple since post-Knightfall. Catwoman romance? That’s been on and off for years.
>but how did Hush hurt Batman?
Jim Lee making money hurts DC.
>Sadly lists like that never make a point of saying "this is important to the character's history, but in a bad way. It's an awful story that permanently damaged them". The idiots actually recommend it just because it's "important".
>Just like how Death in the Family and Hush show up in top 10 Batman stories rankings.
This is something really sad about comics. People rarely go off the beaten path. The same runs are seen and the same runs are recommended and the same runs are reprinted. Popularity is in part due to this. Like adaptations. If a character is adapted well they get a boost but this in turn means they are more likely to get adapted again. The problem is this constant drinking at the same well and never expanding out. (Or when they try to expand out it is fricking awful.) And yet it is doable because they even made GotG work for the MCU.
>and they've tried at least twice since he left Marvel, they don't seem to have any intention of accepting failure and giving up.
SHE WON'T STOP SHOWING UP IN MY CAPTAIN MARVEL COMICS AND I HATE IT. Carol and Jess have the worst type of friend chemistry in that it's boring.
>carolgay pretending to have standards
I have standards. I believe that Captain Marvel could have been a good solo character but the editorial and whatever dogshit writer they pull off the curb do everything in their powers to kill my hope.
They stopped calling her Ms. Marvel for a reason. Current Carol is just an insert.
Yeah but even in the '70s Carol Danvers was written as a feminist magazine editor for the Daily Bugle.
That's not what I mean. Carol before the costume change was written to have her own character and personality. Now she's a mouthpiece for the ditz at the desk writing her.
Carol can't be Ms. Marvel anymore because the young feminists have claimed her, and they go against the old feminists since the young ones would like pop culture characters they like to be "abrosexual", while the old feminists fought to have women more represented on the cover of a book or billboard in the first place because they were proud to be women.
She was turned into a dyke image with a covered-up costume to represent being "fluid", which is why she can still date men on-panel.
I liked old school San Francisco British flyover detective Jessica. Also, she had a natural and balanced sensuality that was just right. Once she had that baby and writers barfed all the gurl power in her books, it was over.
That was NEVER "the way the wind was blowing". It NEVER sold worth a damn.
You misunderstood. Anon, it was the way the wind was blowing politically with their ideas and with adaptations. And it was shit.
>That time Jack of Hearts came back to life & was groomed by She-Hulk to be her personal houseslave.
Jack is back? And no containment room?
He's gone again, He fricked off to Mexico to get away from Jen.
Except for one
Yeah I was mostly thinking of the superhero women, e.g. Wasp, Invisible Woman. I think it got better later on? MJ that was in tandem with the gear shift change that things like Spider-Man got and that also had the Romita influence.
People felate Ditko (and for good reason) but Romita coming on was one of the best things to happen to that book
Honestly there are a lot of sticklers ITT and board for silver age supremacy. I enjoyed what Ditko did and understand his strengths and weaknesses did but the shift with Romita really was enjoyable. I think it just shows how even back at the start people had favourite runs over one another and ulimately you follow the runs you like and avoid the ones you don't.
Light the Night is such an underrated story and it saddens me that everything following it basically just ignored Max's character from it
I couldn't get into Ditko's Spidey, it felt too dated. Just like Lee/Kirby's original X-Men felt dated. I mean, both books literally had the characters wearing trilby hats and driving Dusenbergs, and the dialogue was too much DYNAMIC! Stan cheese.
>I couldn't get into Ditko's Spidey, it felt too dated.
I think it works because it is the perpetually shit-on Peter that enamoured people to him combined with practically all of Spider-man's villains. It is weird because when you read the letter pages you see how much people wanted him to change (which we got with Romita). It is interesting that the thing that got people into him also became something people criticised until they softened his edges. It works because of the context and because we did get a bunch of solid villains. It was incomparable to a lot of other books: younger hero, full face mask, real life problems, constantly going wrong for him in his social life.
>Just like Lee/Kirby's original X-Men felt dated.
OG X-Men really felt like laziness to me. Instead of coming up with character origins they all got their power via radiation and being Children of the Atom which translate to Stan couldn't be asked pretending like he came up with new shit. Mutants being misunderstood was just a reused trope and not a full on allegory:
>Spider-Man had JJJ and that stuff.
>Hulk was misunderstood.
>Avengers/FF had their PR mishaps.
OG X-Men was the most impenetrable of those books for me.
Ironically I never had this issue with the Thor books. In fact with Thor, the older the better. The dynamism of his early days hasn't matched since.
It's called 'soul'
Moviecasual pls go back to Cinemaphile
Pre-Giant Size X-Men really isn't very good and it doesn't represent the otherwise very high quality standards of Marvel at the time.
worth mentioning that originally Xavier was only meant to be in his late 20's so not quite as skeevy as they made it out to be when they called back to this panel in the 90's during the Onslaught event
His age is all over the place. His parents worked at Los Alamos or nearby, I forget. (Since radiation was the original part of mutation.) He was drafted during the Korean War too. Stan wanted him to be early 20s but then other stuff makes it possibly in his 30s.
yeah that math doesn't work. Los Alamos was like 43-45 and Korea was 50-53. He'd have to be born around '32. I dunno enough history to know if there was radiation shit that his parents could've been working on at that time.
I love Thanos, favorite character, and yeah, this was the perfect send-off and end for him. And I liked Cancerverse and shit. It's a shame but the medium is what it is.
Kevin Smith
This is the only one of these itt I understand bc the rest of you are just posting cool moments
Post the Aquaman and the Joker page
Did you read the OP?
It's moments that were ruined by future writers. Ruined implies that they were good to begin with.
>Be young Batman
>Sets up this whole big reveal to scare the hell out of the big players in Gotham
>Really fricking nervous
>Goes off
>Accidentally piss yourself in fear of your oversized explosive
>Roll with it
>Give a cool speech hoping to god they don't smell your urine
>Awkwardly do the shameful shuffle back home
Has any "i was a nerd growing up" celeb ever actually been cool and not a total embarrassment?
Cavill? Vin Diesel?
Batman wasn't actually telling the truth, he was making that up to make the frickhead in the bottom left feel better about himself
Thank you Geoff Johns
Blame Wolfman. In Who's Who In the DC Universe's entry for the Monitor, which came out after Crisis ended, Wolfman slipped in a big bit of Crisis lore not mentioned in Crisis #12 stating that if GA Superman and Lois, Alex Luthor, and Superboy Prime ever returned to the regular DC Universe "something horrible would happen".
Geoff just picked up on that to make them the bad guys in Infinite Crisis.
Is there another Who's Who entry for the Monitor, because I'm not seeing the "something horrible would happen" part
I assume it was one of his "If you ever corner me at Comicon, I will tell you all the hidden outs I placed in CoIE."
For years, he claimed that he specifically wrote a way for them to bring back Barry into the pages of CoIE, but no one has ever figured it out.
Wolfman did have an idea to bring back Barry:
>This is what I proposed to DC back in 1985. Please note that I didn't think it was a good idea to kill The Flash but those were my marching orders, so I did the best I could to make his death as moving as I could. Here is the given I worked from: Much of the reason the people in charge didn't care for Barry Allen was that he was considered dull. I felt if I could come up with a way of making him vital again while keeping him alive, then perhaps Barry would be given a second lease on life. I came up with the idea of Flash moving back through time, flashing into our dimension even as he was dying. So, thought I, what if Barry was plucked out of the time stream at one of those moments he appeared? What if that meant from this point on Barry knew that he was literally living on borrowed time, that at any moment the time stream could close in on him and take him to his inevitable death. What would this mean to Barry? 1: from now on the fastest man alive would literally be running for his life. 2: He knew he didn't have much time left and believed (as Barry would) that he had to devote it to helping others. 3: This meant Barry would become driven and desperate to help others with each passing tick of the clock. I felt this new revitalized attitude might be enough to make the formerly dull police scientist into someone who now had to push himself as he never had to before. I was hoping that this would make the character interesting enough to live. Earlier, I said my explanation was comic booky. In many ways it is because none of us knows when we are going to die. But this knowledge would haunt a man like Barry Allen and change him from an unassuming character into a driven hero. At least that was the plan!
https://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=151015
Huh. I always figured it involved just scooping him out of the time stream. At least Wolfman got what he wanted in the end; Barry eventually became seen as the heart and soul of DC's Silver Age.
>Johns made IC deliberately terrible in order to fulfill the prophecy
I don't think it's deliberate, I think it's just how Johns flows.
I'm sure he stares at his bust of Alan Moore and thinks he's a genius while he's penning this stuff.
Johns was all about making prophecies come true; even when they didn't make any sense.
The Blackest Night has always been THE canonical ending of the Green Lantern Corps. They don't exist in the era of the Legion of Superheroes and are practically considered a myth. AND YET, Johns had to do it as his big finale on the title, as well as a way to "fix" his favorite characters with Brightest Day And cement that Christianity is the correct religion
>The Blackest Night has always been THE canonical ending of the Green Lantern Corps
I think you mean Sinestro Corps War
>spoiler
Elaborate?
Weird how Moore's little short story was better than the entirety of Johns whole run, I guess less is more.
It's still my favorite Green Lantern-related story ever.
The emotional spectrum was created when:
Red; Cain killed Abel
Orange: The Serpent tempted Eve with the Fruit
Yellow: The First Predator chased down the First Prey
Green: The first thing moved on its own
Blue: Noah prayed to God during the Flood
Indigo: Christ dying on the cross for our sins
Violet: Adam and Ever meeting for the first time
>Sinestro Corps War
You're right; most of the prophesy stuff happened there. Even still, though; it was never framed as something the Corps would survive.
>Rankx the Sentient City
makes Danny the Street look like a pile o puke
The Legion barely acknowledged that any superheroes existed besides Superman and Supergirl before Zeroboot.
That was a post-Crisis retcon.
Literally the issue after The Great Darkness Saga showed that the GLC was still up and running during the Legion's time. It's just that they stopped needing a Guarding for Sector 2814 because Earth's superheroes kept the peace better than one Lantern ever did.
>we don't need you GLC
The Legion are such goobers.
This is before they're even an officially chartered superhero team, too. Them stopping this guy was suppose to be their first adventure together.
I'll never forgive Johns for ruining this.
Remember when this was supposed to be a funny joke?
I'm fricking amazed that people who didn't read that comic (or the comic it's tied to, the Generations minis) keep bringing it up across Twitter and wherever else
It's like those idiots in the 00s going "Hank Pym was always a wifebeater in the comics for decades, these pages from Ultimates are proof"
It's just stolen from the Rocketeer anyways
Which stole it from real life
IT'S AN ELSEWORLDS BASED ON THE GOLDEN AGE VERSIONS OF THE CHARACTERS.
WHY THE FRICK DOES Cinemaphile STILL NOT UNDERSTAND THAT?
>Cinemaphile
>actually reading comic books to get any context
>implying /misc/ can read
>he doesn't know that it was a thing in-canon too
Thing is that Joker shouldn't be aligned with any ideology other than the Cinemaphile "I'm whatever position that will make you mad".
Cinemaphile hasn't been that in decades
Yeah. And it was ruined by future writers that didn't understand that.
Was the original joke that joker is a massive hypocrite or that nobody likes nazis?
Both, it's funny because Joker has no scruples so him suddenly drawing a line is unexpected (or was in an era where it was not common practice to march out every single character you plan to not use as a strawman and have them specifically denounce National Socialism, white supremacy and people wearing red hats so the Right Side of History knows it's ok to like them)
To be fair anon if you don't stop your comic book adventures to specifically have every character announce their advertising-friendly political views, that's just as bad as having your heroes put on a maga hat and curb stomp a gay trans black person
Both.
This is Golden Age Joker, in a world where DC characters were around during the 40s and (mostly) age in real time
Pages before he killed a bunch of US soldiers for a mysterious benefactor, and then that panel is him finding out that mysterious benefactor was actually Red Skull and flipped
Remember when you hadn't been skullfricked by moronic propaganda yet?
Honestly? No. And I'm really fricking old.
>kills hundreds of people
>rapes Barbara Gordon
>aT LeAsT I'm nOt A nAzI
Why are white people like this
>kills hundreds of people
>rapes Barbara Gordon
Except that didn't happen in the crossover with Captain America that takes place during WWII, you dumb frick.
The next page is also funny.
Frick Geoff Johns. Frick Geoff Johns. Frick Geoff Johns. Frick Geoff Johns. Frick Geoff Johns. Frick Geoff Johns. Frick Geoff Johns. Frick Geoff Johns. Frick Geoff Johns. Frick Geoff Johns. Frick Geoff Johns. Frick Geoff Johns.
Hal as Spectre sucked and DeMatties was in full "head up his ass" mode writing the series.
Fixing and absolving Hal needed to be done
>Fixing and absolving Hal needed to be done
No it didn't. Everyone who wasn't Alex Ross or Geoff Johns had already moved on. Hal's "turn" to "villainy" was actually remarkably well done by 90s standards and made perfect sense in context. Parallax was right about everything, the Guardians are idiots and killing Sinestro was the right move. I don't know why homosexuals just couldn't deal with it.
it absolutely wasn't. in GL 46 he says to mongul "you broke my arm...shattered my leg...but my will is something you'll never touch" and legitimately gains closure for coast city, before 47 is completely unrelated. the heel turn was ridiculous and insulting to hal's character (3 issues?!) and not only turning hal into an irredeemable monster, killing off kilowog and removing the newly established corps members was horribly done
>Everyone who wasn't Alex Ross or Geoff Johns had already moved on.
Including the GL readers who promptly stopped reading.
Can you blame them? They specifically kept Hal's continuity the same, which made him having a longer tenure as a superhero compared to the Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Then, he suddenly turns evil JUST so they can introduce an All New, All Radical Lantern Boy to replace him.
Imagine if they did that in nu-52 with Batman.
>All of Bruce Wayne's continuity is the same
>Gives in to the Court of Owls and becomes Owlman
>Batwing is brought in as the new Batman
>Bruce dies saving everyone in Forever Evil
>This year's big event is The Return of the Knight, where Bruce is resurrected and becomes Batman again.
You missed something crucial, anon. People actually care about Batman.
They really don’t care about Batman. If they did, then they’d stop reading his comics because of how bad they’ve gotten.
Just like they cared about Hal. HEAT didn't appear from nowhere.
Based Nivenchad
>Just like they cared about Hal. HEAT didn't appear from nowhere.
And they were right every step of the way. Kyle flopped because they robbed him of the GLC and made him just another earth vigilante.
No argument here, man. Kyle's at his most tolerable in the Johns with other GLs to bounce off of.
Marvel fans have memory holed that so hard sometimes I wonder if I imagined it.
>Kyle flopped because they robbed him of the GLC and made him just another earth vigilante.
Weren't GL sales higher in the mid-90s?
>Weren't GL sales higher in the mid-90s?
The mid-90s is literally when the industry declined thanks to Marvel's bankruptcy.
I blame the editors honestly. They were all Superman and Batmangays who didn’t get the character at all. Kyle could have gotten a good run, but they set him up to fail.
That would've been a lot better than the past 12 years of actual Batman comics.
Emerald Twilight and Hal turning into Parallax is the equivalent of Cass turning evil and what Wally did during Heroes in Crisis. Except the latter two are rightfully reviled while Emerald Twilight still has defenders even though Hal during his villain phase does much worse things than Cass and Wally did.
For being as rushed as 'Emerald Twilight' was I thought it was a neat idea. Not too many superheroes at the time did heel turns like that and Hal was entirely justified in my opinion. The self-appointed Guardians gave him the power to will anything and they get pissy when he just wants to undo the damage Mongul and Cyborg Superman did. He's defied the Guardians several times in the past, so it was par for the course he'd go straight for the Central Battery. It certainly needed those three additional issues that got culled back to really flesh out Hal's decline a bit better.
Where it got really shit was immediately after. 'Zero Hour', 'Final Night', 'Day of Judgement', 'Last Will and Testament of Hal Jordan', DeMattis' 'Spectre', and even Kyle's GL run were all pulling in separate directions with how Parallax was characterized. Editorial settled for "cartoonishly evil" in a majority of the stories -- which didn't help. I am Geoff Johns' biggest hater; however, he made the 100% correct decision of making Parallax a space bug. There's no way to really justify Hal returning as a GL if he was conscious of his actions during 'Zero Hour' and beyond. Even if he was "redeemed" as Spectre he still had a LOT to answer for. We hold mass murderers in contempt even centuries after the fact, so a guy who threatened to wipe away entire universes getting a pass doesn't really work in a heroic group like the JLA.
Overall it was a pointless ten year gap without Hal. John Stewart got a modicum of development in 'Mosaic' and then never again. They passed up Hal's actual trained replacement (and Guy) for a really dull character in Kyle that only really got fleshed out when Green Lantern stopped being his solo book.
Just my opinion, but Larry Niven would've made for a killer replacement after Gerard Jones. 'Ganthet's Tale' was an excellent read and Niven really *got* what made the character and his powers so unique.
John would have doomed the GL run if they opted for him.
With Mars and Raab? Absolutely. Would've been the worst. I'm convinced John can be written well in a vacuum. He worked so well as a metaphysical architect rather than being the military guy that makes really, really intricate constructs. For that kind of thing you need a good science fiction writer that can really push the imagination of the ring's power, while giving a convincing human angle to dealing with abstract problems.
Kyle being relegated to less grandiose adventures and antagonists really showed how limited their scope at DC was. You give a character with a ring that can do literally anything and thirty issues in he's fighting a Kurt Cobain lookalike with yellow demons.
>Kyle being relegated to less grandiose adventures and antagonists really showed how limited their scope at DC was. You give a character with a ring that can do literally anything and thirty issues in he's fighting a Kurt Cobain lookalike with yellow demons.
That’s what happens when you break the comic in half like Emerald Twilight did.
>Where it got really shit was immediately after.
It was shit from the beginning because DC would never ever give Green Lantern the same treatment Superman and Batman got when they went out of commission in DoS and Knightfall. Emerald Twilight is one of the most soulless events of the 90s because it shows how little DC cared about the Green Lantern if they were cool with him going insane and murdering his friend in cold blood.
>Superman and Batman
I agree Hal never got his due since his stories post-death were dry as frick and ultimately pointless. He at least had the decency to stay dead for a decade, which is more than what anyone could say for those two. Everyone who had half a mind knew Superman wouldn't be "dead" for more than a year.
>I agree Hal never got his due since his stories post-death were dry as frick and ultimately pointless.
Legacy was pretty good. It's charged with post-9/11 energy so it's more emotionally charged and soulful than whatever Batman and Superman could muster. I don't think Rebirth invalidates it.
DeMatteis Spectre says hi
>am Geoff Johns' biggest hater; however, he made the 100% correct decision of making Parallax a space bug. There's no way to really justify Hal returning as a GL if he was conscious of his actions during 'Zero Hour' and beyond.
Easy, don't have Hal return.
>Easy, don't have Hal return.
Then you don't get a successful run.
>it was a yellow space bug u guyz!
>remember this Allen Moore reference?
>now here's ANOTHER color corps! Please hire me Hollywood!
Kyle's run was the only other one that came close to sucking as much. Dogfricker made better comics.
Johns started out working in hollywood. He quit because he wanted to do comics instead. He might be the only American comic book writer of his generation who's NOT trying to get hired by hollywood.
Eat shit and die. You Kyle gays ruined GL for a decade. Sales QUADRUPLED literally INSTANTLY when Hal came back. Kyle was the mistake that never should've happened.
DEAL.
WITH.
IT.
Also, you're moronic for thinking that writers make those descisions and not editors.
>Sales QUADRUPLED literally INSTANTLY when Hal came back.
Not only that, but they stayed at that level and didn't go down for several years.
Eh... while sales did collapse under Kyle (mainly after Byrne yanked Donna Troy from the series and the double failure of Winnick and Raab), the first year and a half of Hal's return did badly Rebirth not withstanding. People tend to forget that the first 20 issues of Geoff's Hal run was boring earth driven shit with Hal's garbage rogue gallery and motherfricking Evil Starr was being prepped as the new big bad.
It took Sinestro Corps, the return of Anti-Monitor, and PRIME TIME to make Hal's book's sales really explode.
Remember when Hal was consudered an international criminal, and he and Cowgirl were kept as political prisoners for carrying out clandestine air force missions or some gay shit like that?
HEAT won, Poochie Lantern lost, and it was the best thing that ever happened to Green Lantern.
Seethe forever.
>Make Hal into a major villain
>He shows up all of once, in Zero Hour.
>Just sorta bums around before and afterwards.
>"Welp, better kill myself to save Earth."
That's the core reason Parallax never stuck. DC tried to have it both ways. They wanted to make Hal a villain but got nervous about him doing villainous shit.
That's why I love Cinemaphile's retcon theory of Hal making up the Space Bug to absolve himself of killing so many people to set up Zero Hour.
I really like this. It explains why the Emotional Spectrum is sort of clumsily integrated into the history of the DC universe, since Hal clumsily integrated it into history in-universe.
(I like the Emotional Spectrum, by the way. I just think that there's a lot of things which don't make sense about the execution, particularly the fact that the Green Lantern Corps is so much more well-established than the other Corps despite the fact that they're all supposed to be drawing on primordial sources of power.)
Parallax was better as a villain, writing wise it makes sense for him to be heroic still, since he always wanted to do good, no matter the cost. But the Theory is also funny as frick
honestly the Wrasslor episode of Dial M For Monkey did it better than this comic, if mostly because Wrasslor actually legitimately defeated all of Earth's heroes, Champion of The Universe cheated by disqualifying every potential opponent Earth had except two guys(Colossus and Thing) who had no chance at beating him, makes him a hollow threat
to be fair he actually worked really well as Zero Hour's true villain, indeed while Zero Hour does have more than it's fair share of flaws it also definitely has a lot of good moments to it
Emerald Twilight and Kyle were massive mistakes
Nah, Kyle’s cool
Spectre Hal was probably the most inane up its own ass capeshit comic I've ever read. Its a shame Johns got rid of his niece but aside from that good riddance.
A longtime Marvel relationship broken up for no good reason. Many such cases
Mockingbird has had it rough, I thought that after they brought her back things would get better but then they handed her over to Chelsea Cain and it all went to shit.
Didn't that story retcon her being sexually assaulted into a consensual relationship? That feels really fricked up.
Yeah she went from victim who killed her assaulter to a psychopath killing her ex-lover to hide her cheating from her husband
And the series ended with Mockingbird having a threesome with her ex-husband and a dashing British spy.
>Matt hugging the back of the tombstone not the front because he's blind.
I know it's so the cover makes sense to the viewer but it's unintentionally fricking hilarious.
I still need someone to explain to me what happened with this one? What could possibly have happened that took this W away from Ben?
Dan Slott’s shehulk, he basically redid this story but in a worse way.
I think he's referring to this issue
>The Champion on Skardon battled various heroes with only one rule: no weapons. He, however, was using the Power Gem and defeated Hercules, Beta Ray Bill, Gladiator and Adam Warlock. She-Hulk was brought to the planet to face him. She-Hulk lost but asked for a rematch in 3 months. She-Hulk underwent extensive training with Gamora. After that time she declared the Power Gem as a weapon, then in a fair fight beats the Champion badly. She is declared the planet's ruler.
I mean The Thing would have likely beaten him without the Power Gem too. Hulk would have absolutely Mike Tyson'd him. The Champion was a little b***h.
Couldn't beat Herc without a cheat-gem either.
Not sure why OP is angry at that except maybe something something woman bad
I assume that OP was upset by the fact that anyone who goes back to that issue immediately thinks of Rasslor.
The entire point of the issue with The Thing is that even though The Champion is stronger than any of Earth's heroes, The Thing refuses to quit so damn hard that The Champion respects him and leaves. Then She-Hulk just beats him because haha.
the whole scenario feels a bit stupid though, because at some point your body simply will hit its limits from a mechanical point of view
To be fair in your manga example, neither of those people are "people". They're masses of spirit energy when in soul reaper mode. So them having bones to begin with is a dumb idea.
Not sure how much it counts as a "future writer" but pretty much every Win the heroes had against Thanos post-Infinity Gauntlet was retconned away because Starlin is a baby and pissed his pants over his pet character losing.
Seems less butt hurt about him losing and more about him being written as a violent brute. Is it really any more wanky than Doom bots are?
Doom bots are consistently noted as one of the most wanky things in comics
Thanos began by ripping off Doombots. His very first appearance ends with him revealing the Thanos talking was actually a robot after it gets blown up. Not even an illusion or something. Completely shameless.
Nah this is a good retcon cause Thanos outside of Starlin is literally just a purple hulk who can shoot lasers.
And who also has a glass jaw against mids and street lvlers.
How many times was Thanos beaten between Gauntlet and Abyss?
If you count Squirrel Girl and Deadpool and a skirmish with Jane-Thor I may be misremembering he's been beaten suprisingly a lot
Literally the guy who takes over the entire multiverse a dozen times and still fails
The main point of Thanos is that he's self serving. Literally the reason he looses in original Infinity Gauntlet stoyline is because his own self doubt manifests thanks to the gauntlet and prevents himself from winning.
sneed's feed and seed was killed by later writers
Honestly does work so much better.
Now all we need is a page of him writing the original text in his journal where it belongs.
Imagine letting some hack's fanfic affect your enjoyment of a classic scene
Couldn't be me
Somebody explain how these were ruined.
How about Martian Manhunter's whole career post-crisis
I'm still mad
Barbatos and what that homosexual Morrisson did with him
Source?
Dark knight dark city
Thanks anon
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Batman:_Dark_Knight,_Dark_City
That's nothing compare dto what Snyder did with him.
did they get a fricking pharmacist to write this, jeez
How?
>Parallax is the strongest entity the DCU faces until that point
>an arrow from that homosexual Green Arrow is enough to stop him
Subtracting every scene where Parallax steals the scenes, Zero Hour is fricking shit.
Whoever wrote calling Thanos "Dione".
Too many to list for me.
Think I'll go with that time period in Marvel when they killed off the Living Tribunal and everything went full froot loop moron.
Kind of amazing how much William ruined this one singular moment.
Did we ever even get an official explanation of what the Empty Hand is suppose to be/represent?
According to Williamson the Empty Hand is just the hand that shook with the Presence's hand during Swamp Thing's experience with it.
...Even though Morrison was setting up that The Empty Hand is literally suppose to be something literally metatextual and not... DC's The One Below All?
Well to be fair the presence's hand is also metatextual
I mean, I guess? The Presence has always been treated as "It's God from Christianity; just don't think about it, okay?"
That's how I always saw it. The Empty Hand is fans just wanting bigger and bigger stories, unthinking of how that would be perceived by the inhabitants inside those stories. To us, CoIE and the wholesale retconning of multiverses are just cool stories. To those on the inside, they're terrifying and genuinely world ending. We turn the page and allow evil to happen because we want to know how the story ends.
>To those on the inside, they're terrifying and genuinely world ending. We turn the page and allow evil to happen because we want to know how the story ends.
this is a little to close to "Everything has to be happy coffee shop AUs" style of thinking. Even though I know what you mean. There's also the problem of a story's quality is subjective. Like House of M and Disassembled are total garbage and that hasn't stopped tons of people enjoying them and being influenced by them
I'm not making a personal assessment. Literally the text of Multiversity is that by opening the book and reading, you're causing the events of the story to happen.
Superman will never finally save the day because we want to keep reading Superman stories. Jack Knight is the one superhero who actually got his happily ever after because DC decided to never write new stories with him in them. I think it's a cool twist that we're secretly the ultimate villains of comic book universes because we want bigger and more bombastic stories.
I love ultra comics is the only multiversity floppie I had.
>Superman will never finally save the day because we want to keep reading Superman stories
I'm not calling you wrong or anything and I'm a fan of both but I love that the triumphant ending of Superman Beyond, also my Morrison, is the opposite of this.
>we want bigger and more bombastic stories
Sales say that we don't. The more they go crazy with the events, the lower their sales get.
Comics publishers aren't exactly the brightest. That's why I don't believe that all the LGBTQ stuff is some insidious plot. They have it in their heads that they can REALLY make a ton of money off of these stories because its the new IT thing.
Just like they did with summer events.
And massive reboots.
And alternate universe lines.
And aping the XTREME style.
And making 100 variant covers for the speculator market.
And aping mature stories.
And hiring British writers.
And aping Mad Magazine.
>And hiring British writers.
In terms of chasing a cash grab, I'm surprised that the publishers have never seriously tried to go after Japanese writers. Maybe the money on offer just doesn't make sense to Japanese writers like it did to Brits in the 80s and 90s?
They've tried to ape the manga art style at times, but it's been very surface-level take. B&W specials. Big eyes. That kind of thing.
The American comic market was gigantic and considered "the big league" for anyone wanting to do experimental cape stuff compared to the British market at the time.
Meanwhile, the American comic market is small potatoes next to Japan's. Why bother making a series for Americans that will probably only last 10-12 issues using someone else's characters when you can just do your own shit and get picked up by any number of magazines in Japan; online or physical?
This comic was just a ripoff of "There's a Monster at the End of This Book
To be fair, DC has been doing the "The characters are trying to tell you to not read the comic because they'll be forced to continue the story" gag for years.
Hell, I think that was something they did back in the days of House of Mystery.
>unthinking of how that would be perceived by the inhabitants
Morrison does this but then also decides to write Talia date raping Batman.
It never needed one, but it's basically the embodiment of hate reading. As another anon put it long, long ago:
>The Hand of the Presence opened its grasp and unleashed creation. The Empty Hand is the opposite. It's the Hand that remains when all stories are gone; the ultimate destroyer of existence and imagination.
>At the same time, it is an empty hand that greedily grasps for another comic, and another, and another, even though all enjoyment is long gone. That is the threat... the reader either finishing the story or losing interest.
>Hal Jordan came back.
probably looking for another little girl
Nobody has talked about Punisher's marriage being retconned as a very unhappy one yet?
Was that Aaron with his MAX series?
616's Punisher was also retconned as a very unhappy one and in fact, his (revived) wife fricking hates him now.
They replaced him with a guy who's basically the same except he was a SHIELD agent and uses laser guns.
great panels, thank for posting this
Mu pleasure.
Remember when they retconned him to a Gulf War vet?
Frank cannot be a Vietnam war veteran and still be young enough to go around killing thugs. Yeah, it sucks but at least it's understandable.
Kinda the same thing with Tony Stark. "Modern" Marvel history only goes back a year or two before Franklin Richards was born, right? His origin story has been bound to whatever major military conflict America has been engaged in. Pretty soon, it can't be the Iraq War that he was profiteering off of.
Iron Man's origin got retconned to taking place in an entirely fictional conflict in a fictional nation back in 1991, there was no need to keep retconning it again after that.
Everyone with a WW2 or Vietnam backstory got retconned into vets of a fictional country/conflict called Siancong a couple of years ago when Waid did the History of the Marvel Universe and the Busiek expanded on it in a series called Marvels.
>Everyone with a WW2 or Vietnam backstory
You forgot the Korean War. I believe it was Ben Grimm, Reed Richards and Charles Xavier who all fought there. I think, if I remember rightly, that is where Cain Marko got the original gem and became Juggernaut? Although I could be wrong.
Ben and Reed were WW2. Dunno about Cain, I thought he found the gem on like vacation randomly or something. Anyway the point is if you had a backstory involving a real war set to a real time it's now Siancong.
Except for Magneto and maybe Karma. Magneto has been deaged at least twice and has died and is coming back and Xuân is actually Vietnamese. If they ever address her origin again they might just try to make her an immigrant or a refugee for a different reason.
>Ben and Reed were WW2.
I thought they also fought in Korea? I think it is FF #11 that mentions their service. If I am remembering it right, I don't think Ben's service was clearly defined, beyond him being a pilot, I don't think it said where/when he served. But Reed was a civilian assisting them in WW2. But I swear there is another time when it came up and they mentioned Korea?
I did a quick google and this came up:
>(Originally, Reed Richards and Ben Grimm had served in the Korean War, and James Rhodes in the Vietnam War.)
>https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/marvel-fixes-history-a-fictional-war-1233910/
This confused me further.
>Dunno about Cain
>X-Men #12 states that both Charles Xavier and Cain Marko fought in the US Armed Forces in the Korean War. The story was originally published in 1965.
>https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Cain_Marko_(Earth-616)#Birth_of_a_Juggernaut
Yeah it was definitely there.
> Anyway the point is if you had a backstory involving a real war set to a real time it's now Siancong.
Yeah I read that History of the marvel Universe when it came out in that oversized treasury edition format.
>Ben Grimm, Reed Richards and Charles Xavier who all fought there
Uncle Ben too I think
There's something very funny about this. For the longest time, Marvel prided itself on the idea that, aside from the existence of superheroes, their history was the same as ours.
Meaning that all the wars still happened PLUS this random Saincong War that lasted for DECADES, but the American public had no real opinion on it, as we elected the exact same presidents and mainstream culture ran about the same.
Good Retcon: Hulk is a manifestation of child abuse.
Bad Retcon: Jennifer Walters is a femcel from the 2000's on wards.
>Hulk is a manifestation of child abuse.
always had been, read hulk comicbooks from sal buscema era and nightmare era and even early john byrne and early peter david era.
He was always there.
Really? I thought he started as an admixture of Frankenstein & Mr. Hyde.
Neat.
Frankenstein is almost literally a manifestation of child abuse. First half of that novel is the doc wanging on about how he'll win his father's respect by making a man. It's classic approval seeking from an abusive father figure. The creature even engages in it briefly, then fricks off into nowhere because he's smarter than the doc.
It's based on Mary Shelley's husband rejecting their dying premature baby and fricking her stepsister instead
He did. Kirby and Lee's Hulk was literally just Atomic Age Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Not always. That's not present in the initial Lee/Kirby and Lee/Ditko runs. It's from earlier than people think, but it's still a retcon.
Fun fact. Bill Mantlo was the writer on the Sal Buschema stuff. Bill stole the child abuse thing from Barry Windsor Smith, who was writing a Hulk story treatment. BWS made a graphic novel a few years ago called Monsters that would have been his Hulk story based off of it. Bill Mantlo is a known swiper. He ripped off a Harlan Ellison story once and the editors had to go begging to Harlan not to sure then into oblivion.
>He ripped off a Harlan Ellison story once
Why do I hear Boss Music?
You're just parroting unsubstantiated BS from some Youtube video (forget which one but I saw it too)
Which part? The Harlan Ellison part is well known. Harlan has talked about it. You can find interviews. The BWS stuff isn't 100% factual for definite, but bullpen talk, Bill's reputation, implication and the fact that BWS had this Hulk story in his back pocket for years. It is kind of backed up when you hear the above fact that Bill swiped stuff. It isn't unsubstantiated BS but I'm not saying it is 100% true either. And I didn't get this from a Youtuber? Monsters being an old Hulk treatment is known and acknowledged by BWS.
https://www.cbr.com/hulk-harlan-ellison-soldier-credit/
It isn't unsubstantiated. Jim shooter even says it happened.
http://jimshooter.com/2011/06/plagiaris.html/
>Barry came to me with a completely penciled and written graphic novel. It was the about the development of the “mighty, raging fury” inside Bruce Banner, who, he revealed, was the product of an abusive home. I looked it over. I thought it was brilliant, one of the best comics stories I’d ever seen. I offered Barry a contract and an advance. He turned me down — temporarily. He proposed to finish the thing — then, if I would agree to publish it as created, no alterations whatsoever, he would sign a contract and take the money. I was willing to agree to that in writing on the spot, but he said, no, when it’s finished. Okay. Fine by me. I already knew, from what he’d shown me, that there’d be no problem.
>Barry showed the work around a bit to people in the office. I guess he allowed Al Milgrom or someone to make photocopies of it. Ask Al.
>I was later given to understand that Al kept the copies in the Hulk drawer of his flat file.
>Bill Mantlo, looking through the drawer to see what current Hulk artwork had come in, saw the copies. He then blatantly ripped the story off for a regular issue of the Hulk.
>In those days, I was on the road a lot, spending time in Europe with the licensees, at our London office, in L.A., or on licensing trips elsewhere. The book went to press without my seeing it. How Al didn’t notice, or someone else didn’t notice, I don’t know.
>Barry was furious. I don’t blame him. He, however, blames me, as of the last time I heard. Okay, the buck stops here, I suppose.
Al Milgrom was always encouraging Mantlo to do something so he shares quite a bit of blame for this.
>encouraging Mantlo to do something
What do you mean by that?
He'd tell Mantlo to find any way to take Hulk in a new direction than he used to be. Well, if you connect this to the incident, he sure did alright.
Then Al, who saw Kaplan's copies so he knows already what those are for, just so much as greenlights Mantlo do it.
I'm not sure that means Milgrom has a share of the blame. If you read that link and go to the comments you see a bunch of other accusations of Bill Mantlo swiping. I think ultimately that proves a pattern. Milgrom pushing him doesn't justify it. And the fact that Mantlo did it a bunch feels like it is just what he did.
I tire of how so much of Cinemaphile is bullshit uninformed opinions from people with no idea what they are talking about accusing others of being wrong.
It is tiring. There is no point even posting evidence most of the time because no one will acknowledge it.
That statement can be extended to quite a few boards here, Cinemaphile most definitely
>Barry was furious. I don’t blame him. He, however, blames me, as of the last time I heard. Okay, the buck stops here, I suppose.
Do note he didn't fire Mantlo over it when it should have been his call.
Kek btfo:
Let me guess, the kang one based on Soldier?
Probably just thought he was ripping off The Outer Limits version and didn't realize what was chained up to the other end of that.
Well, Mantlo became a cripple for life so all's fair I suppose.
You ought to be careful your perspective of misfortune doesn't affect your own destiny down the line.
Scott and Jean have never really broken up, they've just died at inopportune moments.
But he's banging Emma Frost?
Everybody's banging Emma Frost
>She Hulk beats The Champion later
Only after she got buffed and Champion got nerfed.
It was bad storytelling.
Slott mad Jen too strong & painted himself into a corner.
Oh, I'm not saying it was a good arc. But complaining about that particular one like it ruined Champion just comes off as cherrypicking, because let's be honest, every single of his appearances after his debut was a dozen steps down from his first one.
>Handling Slott with kid gloves.
He does not deserve your grace.
>Self-insert mansplains to you how you've been working-out wrong your entire life.
Beaten to it:
You can't pull the big whopping hero death at the end of an event card out of the hat anymore, readers are too desensitized to it now.
DC is such a mess that it needed a bigger mess to wipe out an earlier mess that was built upon a 4 decade old mess.
Doctor Manhattan causing the nu52
>She was turned into a dyke image with a covered-up costume to represent being "fluid", which is why she can still date men on-panel.
Do you morons ever stop and read your own posts before posting them?
I'm speaking truth.
You sound like a schizophrenic.
Why is it people like you like to go against what is obviously in front of your eyes?
What world do you live where the lesbians look like Carol instead of hideous hambeasts with hideous clothing, haircuts and offensive body odor because I want some of that.
It isn't in the idea of the guly butchies you see every day, it's in the concept. Getting the hint?
In other words, you’re full of shit.
In other words you don't fricking comprehend basic literacy or an image clearly in front of your eyes. Go to bed, pisser.
Lol
I'm sorry you never moved out.
homie please I went to college and got a job for a medical tech company. I know what dykes and homosexuals actually look like because both my school and job touted every July or whenever gay month is.
>those digits
>classic gaslighting tactics
Hmmm. I thought the other guy was just being a spaz but maybe he's onto something. Frick you Satan!
Do you really think they didn't redesign her to look like a dyke superhero?
Anon have you seen an actual dyke?
You want to act like this don't look like a dyke?
Cut the crap, man.
>carolgays ruining another thread
Holy shit that happened fast.
Nah, it all went to shit here
Let’s get real: nobody here would ever read a Ms. Marvel comic because they sucked. They’ve sucked since the beginning to the point Shooter and editorial were ready to retire Carol full time before Claremont shipped her off with his team of dimeless space shitters and nobody cared.
So we're just going to pretend Brian Reed's run never happened just to piss off some trolls?
He was talking about her runs back in the past and not modern runs.
I'm always struck by this being one of two different Marvel comics that Star Trek actively ripped off.
>balls to the wall slugout fest because even if he's losing, Peter will stay in the ring as long as possible to get his getback until he physically cannot anymore
>willing to irradiate himself just to take him down, no question, barely any hesitation
>immediately locks in during their second fight
>later on runs scared at the mere mention of Morlun's name like a little b***h despite being the one dude in the multiverse to fight him and win, even without the other backing him up
>Willing to kill him before but stops his alternate universe daughter from killing morlun and his family because... reasons
Also, Shathra. Showed Peter has an immense sense of pride and respect for himself and snaps when people insult and lie about him after all he's done and question his character... but now the most popular take on him is that funny dude who lets people walk all over and disrespect him.
>Moments ruined
The moment is still good though.
>moments ruined
Shit only gets ruined if you allow yourself to get cucked by what editorial dictates. Those past moments aren't erased by the new.
The 00's was the sleaziest age.
Doubly so for Marvel.