Little known sequels, spin-offs, or "spiritual successors" to Cinemaphile classics.
>Kurt Busiek's and Alex Ross's Marvels has a bafflingly complicated publishing history. Originally there were going to be two sequels, simply titled "Marvels 2" and "Marvels 3", but Alex Ross quit both projects before they even began (allegedly due to simple fanboy reasons). [From what I understand, Busiek was originally going to continue with another artist, but that didn't happen due to "creative differences".] Subsequently, Busiek would also abandon the project and go to Image to do Astro City (which probably reused at least some of his ideas for the Marvels sequels) and neither miniseries would (technically) ever be released (more on that in a bit).
>Here's where it gets complicated: Not long after Marvels, Marvel Comics would release the spin-offs "Tales of the Marvels" and a trio of technically unrelated, but what I'll call "spiritual spin-offs" named after old 60s Marvel superhero anthology titles ("Tales to Astonish", "Tales of Suspense", and "Strange Tales"), all of them with big name creative teams and all featuring painted artwork.
There's also the infamous Marvels satire, Ruins, but that's hardly obscure.
>In the late 90s Marvel would decide that they were going to go through with Marvels 2 whether Busiek and Ross fucking liked it or not, but they apparently got wind of this and complained and Marvel, not wanting to burn bridges with either of them, decided to release it under a different name with no official connection to the original, but still basing it on Busiek's original pitch (which Busiek probably rewrote in The Dark Age storytline for Astro City). Thus we got Code of Honor, a miniseries that is Marvels 2 in every way but name. (Also noteworthy is that it had more artists than issues!)
>Around that same time we also got a blatant spiritual sequel of sorts, a 2-issue miniseries, simply titled "Conspiracy".
>Eventually we even got an official sequel to Marvels titled "Marvels: Eye of the Camera", which, instead of using Busiek's original concepts for Marvels 2 or 3, picks up where the original left off and continues following Phil Sheldon. It's even written by Kurt Busiek himself!
>After this the publication history becomes ludicrously difficult to follow or ever describe, but there are a handful of different blatant cash-ins on the original's popularity that were published in the 2010s and 2020s. The most notable of them (probably the ONLY notable ones) are the IDIOTICALLY titled "Marvel", written and drawn by Alex Ross (with assists on both writing and artwork for certain issues)...
>And "THE Marvels", written by Kurt Busiek.
>THE Marvels
Honestly, that would've been a better name for the Avengers or the F4.
Should point out that Marvel was apparently the original pitch of Marvels that was rejected back then
This one was pretty good, there was also that one cover artist really wanted to make a spiritual sequel of it
>that one cover artist really wanted to make a spiritual sequel of it
More info on this?
>After this the publication history becomes ludicrously difficult to follow or ever describe, but there are a handful of different blatant cash-ins on the original's popularity that were published in the 2010s and 2020s.
The biggest one that you skipped over (and the only one that wasn't an essentially unrelated exploitation of the branding) is The Marvels Project by Ed Brubaker (I don't remember who drew it). It mostly focuses on the forgotten Golden Age Marvel superheroes and explains why some of them were never seen again after the 40s.
That's actually a good one. Wish we had more from the originals earths.
Steve Epting drew it.
This was satire? I didn't get the joke.
Don't worry about it. Dumb-dumbs usually have trouble with satire.
It wasn't satire. It was What If "Marvel Was Real Life?" written by an edgelord. It's fun for what it was.
It most certainly WAS satire.
Don't forget POWERLESS, "what if all the characters from 616 but no one has any superpowers" told by their psychiatrist who turns out to be the closest thing we have to Uatu
>POWERLESS
Was that really "in the vein of Marvels" though?
It don't really find it humorous enough to find it as a satire nor does it criticize MARVELS like a satire would. It has some dope ass body horror and world building except for the inconsistency with RUINS Thor.
>Strange Tales
This one was even written by Kurt Busiek.
>Tales of the Marvels
In addition to Blockbuster, there was also Inner Demons...
And the 2-issue miniseries Wonder Years.
>Tales to Astonish
>Tales of Suspense
Pretty sure these sucked
But this one was neat
Cool
Interesting
How many of you knew that Batman Year One was retold from Catwoman's perspective as "Catwoman: Her Sister's Keeper"?
Would the Year Two and Year Three stories count for this thread, too? They're not nearly as reprinted or acclaimed as Batman: Year One is.
How many year X stories are there?
Did you know that Kingdom Come had a sequel?
I'm pretty sure that it was in modern continuity, too (which technically would make it a prequel).
Wasn't there more than just this? Like I thought they did a whole series of them all around the same time. And that's not counting the Kingdom Come related arc from Geoff Johns's JSA years later.
The Kingdom is proof that the best-written AUs fizzle out when you try to extend them into their own ongoing continuities.
1. Magog transitions from 90s Liefeld X-Treem asshole who eventually learned his lesson at the end of KC to Morlun 1.0
2. Not-Damian goes bad and reconstructs Brainiac because reasons
3. Waid gives Plastic Man a son named after a dead pop-punk band
4. Complete tonal shift due to regular comic book artwork
5. All the memorability of a fast food meal
I only knew of the original, EofC, and Ruins. Thanks.
Didn't know of the Catwoman Year One, but I did know about the Kingdom Come stories.
what were the fanboy reasons
surprised he wasn't offended by the gorey immortal hulk
By all metrics, Alex Ross's fanboyism seems to be lightened up over the decades.
Alex Ross used to absolutely despise drawing late 80s to 90s characters, so famously that he made the green lantern in kingdom come Alan Scott rather than acknowledge Kyle Rayner existed
Then he got older and realized that was stupid
He didn't even like 70s characters. He was a HARDCORE Golden/Silver Age purist.
To be honest, having at least one of those alive rather than everyone chugging the canon of whatever comes out is nice
I think part of that was that KC was conceptualized as an Earth 2 story- It's why despite being Wally West in the profiles, Flash looks like Jay Garrick.
And why Power Girl's in it instead of Supergirl.
Damn that's a missing link falling into place
That had to be push back from Waid
iirc they couldn't agree over Wally or Barry which is why The Flash looks like Jay and is ambiguous
It’s neither. That particular Flash married Angela Margolin who was Dark Flash’s love interest, implying that this Flash isn’t Wally but Walter, the Dark Flash.
He also named his son Barry Jr instead of naming him after Jay. Seriously, though. Why the fuck wouldn’t he name his only son after his idol and father figure? Especially since Barry was dead at that point.
Tbh it still looks weird to me whenever Ross does a non-Golden/Silver Age character
When he paints X-Men you can tell he doesn't care about any post-Wein character, even Claremont's from the early 80s. He's matured enough to DRAW more recent characters, but he cannot bring himself to put emotion into any created after 1979. This is weird to me because I'm 2 years older than him but I never got stuck in the Bronze Age like that.
there was before the fantastic four, written by the editor kavanaugh
prequel
and there's a beta ray bill that takes place after thor raganarok from jurgens
>corpse of galactus on the front page of the tabloids
>GOD FOUND DEAD IN SPACE
I liked Ruins.
Yeah, idk why people are fags about it. It'd be nicer if it had an overall story rather than a parade of horrible shit, but it was still good.
At the time, I read KC as being sort of Earth-Super Friends for a couple of reasons:
- The UN building, one of the world's most recognizable office buildings, is inexplicably SF's Hall of Justice here as though the dissolution of the Justice League needed to be hammered home
- Wendy and Marvin as aimless young adults
So it's a sequel to Alex Ross' Justice?
nice thread.
J. M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck did a follow-up graphic novel to Kraven's Lost Hunt in 1992 called Soul of the Hunter that I rarely ever see talked about.
It's a pretty simple story, from what I remember. Spidey ends up having to save Kraven's soul, which is unable to rest after he committed suicide.
>Spidey ends up having to save Kraven's soul
But why?
Because he's a nice guy
Kraven's soul is essentially stuck in purgatory until Peter gets over the trauma of being buried alive and feeling partially responsible for Kraven's insanity and suicide
>Because he's a nice guy
Ew.
How many sequels or follow-ups to Kraven's Last Hunt are there?
Secret Wars II is something that is vaguely remembered in nerd circles but hardly ever brought up. I guess even back then everyone could tell a sequel was unnecessary and an event bloat would rob them of what made them special. If only the new staff at Marvel 15 years later followed the same philosophy.
Secret Wars II doesn't exactly have a great reputation to begin with, and it doesn't help that it's not really kept in regular print by Marvel like the original is
I cant believe people are reading modern comics