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Author Topic: Useless comics news, discussions, and recommendations  (Read 202478 times)
Ironwood
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Reply #350 on: January 21, 2015, 02:56:09 AM


That all sounds like a scream for help from a bunch without a clue what strategy means.

"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
HaemishM
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Reply #351 on: January 21, 2015, 09:36:28 AM

Well, it's been made abundantly clear that not shit the comics do will have any effect on the real moneymakers in the movies. I mean, we won't see a female Thor movie anytime soon, so knock yourselves out, Geek Lords. Maybe they are trying to reset the table so they can make the 616 more like the movies? I mean, the whole fucking universe could use a reboot but it's not even remotely a good idea to try to merge Ultimate and 616 without a serious housecleaning. And if they do that, will they start completely over with new origins? Otherwise, why bother with any kind of reboot because it's not like they've had any give-a-shit about continuity between books for almost a decade.

palmer_eldritch
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Reply #352 on: January 21, 2015, 09:44:07 AM

Does this mean I have to go and read Jonathan Hickman's stuff? Because while he seems like a very clever guy, I don't enjoy reading his stories.

 

My God, she's twisted her body right round at the waist to make sure we get a full view of both her tits and her arse. It's like what that girl in the Exorcist does with her neck.
Ironwood
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Reply #353 on: January 21, 2015, 09:48:31 AM

What fucking angle is her back at ?  Spines do not work that way.

"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
HaemishM
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Reply #354 on: January 21, 2015, 10:25:36 AM

Does this mean I have to go and read Jonathan Hickman's stuff? Because while he seems like a very clever guy, I don't enjoy reading his stories.

Most of it is pretty bad. He does not know when to stop, especially with layering on the ZOMGCOSMICPOWERSBEYONDCOMPREHENSION shit. His Fantastic Four run with its Council of 1000 Reed Richards fighting against Mad Celestials from another dimension was just fucking awful.

Khaldun
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Reply #355 on: January 21, 2015, 11:16:02 AM

I like what Hickman's trying to do sometimes but...yeah. I didn't like it.

The problem with "housecleaning" is that it fails to recognize the reasons why superhero universes end up having alternate time lines, parallel dimensions, and all that shit. The reason is ultimately that nobody wants to do a version of a superhero universe that evolves and changes in a serial, narrative fashion, where characters grow old or have to live with the things that have happened to them and where the world becomes more recognizably "superheroish" over time. Busiek's Astro City is the closest thing I can think of to a mainstream superhero universe that looks like that--it's really what DC and Marvel's universe might look like if they took that approach, given how many of his characters are dopplegangers of the Big Two.

Barring that, the only way to have characters evolve and change is to introduce their counterparts from other timelines, other dimensions, or to sometimes use time travel and other dimensions to reboot or restore a character who has changed too much over time from some imagined baseline.

So you "houseclean", as if you're going to make a single continuity and get rid of all that complex stuff, and it lasts what? a year or two? If that. DC thought "Oh, my, DC Comics are too complicated to follow with all this Earth-2 jazz, we'll just put everyone on one Earth and simplify their origins, no problem." And then they thought that again and again--"gotta simplify! gotta clarify!" And what that led to were monstrously MORE complicated origins and concepts for some characters. Hawkman in the pre-Crisis universe was pretty simple: on Earth-2, he was a reincarnated Egyptian Prince who used a mystical metal to power flying wings; on Earth-1, he was a space cop from a planet of people who wore bird wings. In either case, he was a minor character who could occasionally headline a story or two but who was mostly window dressing. Then after Crisis and Infinite Crisis and so on, his origins became impossibly convoluted--he was an elemental bird spirit who was also a reincarnated Egyptian prince but also from the planet Thanagar who was also a rebel cop fighting his imperialist planet who was also savage who also had a son who was an ancient Egyptian evil spirit who was also not actually his son AGH AGH AGH AGH. That's the "housekeeping" version? Way to bring the new readers and kids on board, guys.

Same thing is going to happen here if what Marvel thinks they're doing is preparing the way for a cleaned-up continuity that resembles or echoes the films, half-Ultimate and half-616 or something of that sort. For one, they'll always have more characters than the films can possibly support, and those characters will tug and pull and push the story-telling to other places than the MCU has going. For another, they'll always be telling more stories, more often, than the films and TV shows do, and that will tug and pull and push the story-telling to other places. For yet another, no writer will be able to keep their hands off all the legacy characters and backstory and famous plotlines, and sooner or later that means more comic-booky, spandex-friendly, goofball stuff entering into the "official continuity". The basic reasons to have other dimensions, time travel and so on will not go away, and that means messy continuity as well.

The smart move is to just keep hiring gifted writers and artists and keeping continuity loose. Somebody does something you don't like, just quietly forget about it. The movies are doing fine without having the comics echo them precisely, and the comics are not required to sell the movies. I think comics are at their maximum audience as a medium at the moment--there are not new readers to be had without a big shift in the style of storytelling, and both Secret Wars and the New 52 mostly seem to me to be playing only at best to the audience that already exists. Comics are not the profit centers for comic-book universes any longer.
Velorath
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Reply #356 on: January 21, 2015, 04:26:42 PM

Maybe they are trying to reset the table so they can make the 616 more like the movies?

That might be a side benefit, but really I'm betting it's just more of a sales boost thing. DC's New 52 stuff is starting to tank a bit now and they're just about back down to pre-New 52 levels sales-wise, but for the first 2 years there was a fairly significant increase in sales. If they hadn't mismanaged things with editorial interference driving away good creative teams and the bad publicity that brought, they might have been able to hold on to those sales a bit longer. Secret Wars and the subsequent "reboot" are going to get a lot of attention and probably a line-wide increase in sales.

Ultimately it's the larger-scale version of the old trick of canceling a book and bringing it back with a new #1 issue. There's diminishing returns if you do it way too often of course, but I think Marvel is going to make a good bit of money off this.
Fordel
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Reply #357 on: January 21, 2015, 10:38:09 PM

I'm both afraid they'll go to far, yet not far enough, at the same time.

Which seems entirely contradictory.

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
Lantyssa
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Reply #358 on: January 22, 2015, 08:25:26 AM

My God, she's twisted her body right round at the waist to make sure we get a full view of both her tits and her arse. It's like what that girl in the Exorcist does with her neck.
Well, Magick is a mutant-demon now...

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Velorath
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Reply #359 on: January 23, 2015, 05:51:56 AM

I'm both afraid they'll go to far, yet not far enough, at the same time.

Which seems entirely contradictory.

I'm just hoping they don't make the DC mistake of relaunching 50+ titles in the same month. There's no way of successfully launching that many titles at once and giving each one the marketing it deserves. They could do a cheap digital bundle of all the first issues, but that would completely fuck over retailers. Actually now that I think about it, more than the continuity, it's the outdated format of the comic book that's holding the industry back. If Marvel really wanted to shake things up, they should have also announced that they'd be moving entirely to graphic novels and digital after Secret Wars. I can understand why network TV still desperately clings to the old ways of doing things despite so many better alternatives being available these days, but I have no idea why the comic book industry is hell bent on sticking to a format that only sells to a small handful of people, is only carried by a tiny amount of retailers, is a pain in the ass to store, and typically requires the audience to get drip-fed a story for half a year in order to get a complete story arc from beginning to end.
HaemishM
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Reply #360 on: January 23, 2015, 10:53:27 AM

Can you imagine how many small businesses would fold if Marvel stopped selling monthly issues? It would be catastrophic.

I'm not disagreeing with you, mind... it would help Marvel out greatly. But it would FUCK a ton of retailers directly in the earhole.

CmdrSlack
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Reply #361 on: January 24, 2015, 07:13:56 AM

Not to mention that it would suck to not be able to hang out at my LCS on Wednesday after the store closes and bulllshit with the regulars. 

I traded in my fun blog for several legal blogs. Or, "blawgs," as the cutesy attorney blawgosphere likes to call 'em.
Sky
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Reply #362 on: April 11, 2015, 08:13:03 PM

I forgot where I teasered my current painting/conversion project, but this seems like useless news so I'll put it here.

Something pimpin' this way comes...

CmdrSlack
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Reply #363 on: April 12, 2015, 08:29:23 AM

That is awesome. I would pay a stupid amount of discretionary funds if that was available at the LCS.

I traded in my fun blog for several legal blogs. Or, "blawgs," as the cutesy attorney blawgosphere likes to call 'em.
Sky
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Reply #364 on: April 13, 2015, 08:15:50 AM

That is awesome. I would pay a stupid amount of discretionary funds if that was available at the LCS.
Everything has its price...
Evildrider
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Reply #365 on: April 21, 2015, 06:56:19 PM

Spoiler for an upcoming issue of X-Men.

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Reply #366 on: April 21, 2015, 07:38:18 PM

That is awesome. I would pay a stupid amount of discretionary funds if that was available at the LCS.
Everything has its price...

Want to name one? I don't want to insult your awesome work by coming in too low.

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Khaldun
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Reply #367 on: April 22, 2015, 04:26:36 AM

Spoiler for an upcoming issue of X-Men.


Iceman is iconic like Aquaman is iconic. E.g., for a long time he just kind of sucked and really had no characterization at all. Originally he looked more like Frosty the Snowman than anything else. When they introduced the All-New X-Men and dropped Angel, Beast and Iceman, they didn't even really bother to think about Angel and Iceman (well, they ended up in the Champions for 15 issues, which was sort of the hopeless leftovers team) and Claremont didn't even bother with the character when he brought Beast and Angel back into the scene during the Phoenix storyline. They've sort of let the character date a few women here and there, but not terribly convincingly. This is not like taking a character whose sex life has been a major narrative force for years and suddenly invalidating it--it's taking a character who never had much of a personality and was kind of shy and trying to think of a new way to portray him. It's fine.
Velorath
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Reply #368 on: April 22, 2015, 04:49:31 AM

Yeah I don't really think there's about it that inherently conflicts with Iceman as a character. I can think of dozens of more egregious examples of Bendis getting characters completely wrong and most of the time it's just because he's a hack. Does seem like an odd thing to just toss out there though right before the big MU changing event though.
MediumHigh
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Reply #369 on: April 22, 2015, 06:21:21 AM

No one cares about the Xmen anymore and nothing will make me read an xmen comic any time this decade. Bobby, meet Alan Scott.
HaemishM
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Reply #370 on: April 22, 2015, 08:54:02 AM

Actually, Iceman would be the one I'd least consider being gay - in the iterations I've read of him, he's always been hitting on women. I guess they are trying to say that he was overcompensating? I don't know, that just seems like "no one is reading this shit anymore, better do something." Also, isn't that younger X-Men book still being written by Bendis? If so, then it totally fits because as Velorath said, Bendis is a fucking hack.

Mattemeo
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Reply #371 on: April 22, 2015, 10:40:37 AM

Bobby being gay makes perfect sense to me. So many men and women live a lie, day in, day out, that they almost forget what it is to be true to who they really are (till it inevitably ends messily on a variety of human levels). Bobby's always made up for his shortcomings with jokes, and comedians are some of the saddest, loneliest people around. That he's had a variety of short-lived, very failed relationships with women is pretty true to life (even UK's very gay national treasure Stephen Fry has tried heterosexual relationships). Overcompensating? Absolutely.

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Khaldun
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Reply #372 on: April 22, 2015, 11:09:29 AM

It's not like Stan Lee was ever going to write someone whose imaginary sex life wasn't essentially ripped straight out of the romance comics that he and Kirby used to do. It was a long time in the MU before anybody had something remotely resembling an adult interior life. Even Peter Parker, for all the talk of "Parker luck", was involved with two almost ridiculously beautiful and desirable women.

Oddly enough the one early Lee-written male character that I can think of who didn't have much of a sex life one way or the other was the Beast. I don't think Hank ever really even seemed to think about dating for most of his time in the initial run of X-Men, though I recall that he had a nominal girlfriend who was a librarian. He's had other girlfriends off and on but I don't think was portrayed as having a really defining relationship until Abigail Brand in Whedon's Astonishing X-Men.

But otherwise, Lee wrote every male character as if they were naive romance-comic horndog adolescents and every woman as if they were always hopelessly pining for Mr. Right. Even Dr. Strange and Clea were written that way for the early part of their relationship. If the Marvel Universe was stuck with that and could only write something more complex or grown-up (gay or otherwise) with newer characters, we would never have seen the more twisty, complicated and soap-operatic relationships that Matt Murdock, Reed and Sue, Dr. Strange and Clea, Cyclops/Phoenix/Wolverine, etc. developed. So here's to not sticking to what Stan Lee wrote.
HaemishM
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Reply #373 on: April 22, 2015, 01:31:19 PM

I thought during Grant Morrison's X-Men run they made the Beast gay, but then that later seemed to be either completely forgotten and ignored, or I am remembering incorrectly.

Evildrider
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Reply #374 on: April 22, 2015, 05:44:44 PM

Bobby being gay makes perfect sense to me. So many men and women live a lie, day in, day out, that they almost forget what it is to be true to who they really are (till it inevitably ends messily on a variety of human levels). Bobby's always made up for his shortcomings with jokes, and comedians are some of the saddest, loneliest people around. That he's had a variety of short-lived, very failed relationships with women is pretty true to life (even UK's very gay national treasure Stephen Fry has tried heterosexual relationships). Overcompensating? Absolutely.

This is pretty much every X-Man ever.
MediumHigh
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Reply #375 on: April 23, 2015, 06:36:20 AM

By that accretion Magneto is very gay.
Ironwood
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Reply #376 on: April 23, 2015, 09:03:16 AM


"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
Lantyssa
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Reply #377 on: April 23, 2015, 09:22:45 AM

Oh that's brilliant.

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
palmer_eldritch
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Reply #378 on: April 23, 2015, 09:43:19 AM

I thought during Grant Morrison's X-Men run they made the Beast gay, but then that later seemed to be either completely forgotten and ignored, or I am remembering incorrectly.

Morrison never quite made it clear but the suggestion was the Beast was pretending to be gay to try to provide a positive gay role model for the world but also as a sort of joke because he had a bizarre sense of humour (in Morrison's  run), and the other X-Men would occasionally tell him to stop being silly.

As for Iceman, it's great they are doing this. In a perfect world I'd rather they did it with a character who doesn't have 50 years of history because it is an obvious retcon but it's still nice.
Hutch
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Reply #379 on: April 23, 2015, 03:46:41 PM

In a perfect world, Jean Grey died on the moon. She didn't hibernate at the bottom of New York Harbor for six years. And the Dark Phoenix saga didn't get retconned into irrelevance.

Retcons happen. Some are more egregious than others.

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Sir T
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Reply #380 on: April 26, 2015, 03:40:57 AM

Well sadly for the "THIS IS HISTORY MAKING!!!" demographic, its not the first time that marvel have revamped an existing hero second tier hero to make him homosexual. They did the same thing to the Rawhide kid back in 2003. Unfortunatly, it, er, didnt work out all that well

http://www.cracked.com/article_18502_the-5-most-unintentionally-offensive-comic-book-characters.html

Quote
Homosexual characters have been featured in comics prior to 2003, but usually he (it was always a he) would be a mincing effeminate poof who would be either the butt of constant jokes, or beaten up, or both. (Or, you know, Robin.) But the mainstream comic scene had not yet seen a gay title character in a comic, which is actually pretty shocking, when you realize that they'd made room for the roller-disco demographic. So, Marvel decided to team veteran comic artist John Severin with writer Ron Zimmerman to help correct that oversight.

The plan was to revamp The Rawhide Kid, a tough, quick-gunned cowboy from the 50s. They were going to keep his toughness and attitude, just with a gay twist. By making a gay character that was both a hero and a cowboy--typically uber-masculine roles--it was a great opportunity to break away from stereotypes and show the comic-reading audience that not all homosexuals were screaming hairdressers or over-the-top caricatures; they could be just as tough and badass as your favorite action hero. If handled properly, this could be a very important comic series.

So, How'd That Go?

Not, uh... not great.

Rawhide Kid was every negative, damaging gay stereotype dressed in a cowboy hat. Sure, he was still a good fighter and a great shooter, but he was also a nancing, effeminate goon and the exact kind of character people didn't need to identify the gay movement with. He's the title character, but he's still the butt of the joke. Additionally, his antics made him, and we say this respectfully, annoying as shit. He says things like "toodles" and calls out "meow" when he's being bitchy. He gives out douchey fashion advice...

There's panels and more arrrgh at the link.

The problem with deciding to make someone who already exists "the gay guy" is that at least for a while you have to make everything about the guy relate to the fact that he is the gay guy. So for the next few years all you will get of Iceman is that he is Gay. Look at him he is our flagship gay character with gayness. And that can turn into a total wreck which is what happened with the well intentioned disaster of the Rawhide kid, who wound up being straight out of Will and Grace.

We will have to see how they handle it, but based on past results its not promising...

Hic sunt dracones.
Khaldun
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Reply #381 on: April 26, 2015, 04:47:28 AM

That was then, this is now. Marvel's had other gay characters since which have been handled pretty well.
Velorath
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Reply #382 on: April 26, 2015, 04:58:15 AM

The problem with Rawhide Kid wasn't that they retconned him into a gay character, it's that Ron Zimmerman was a horrendously shitty writer to the point where he makes Bendis look like Alan fucking Moore. Quesada and Jemas were irrationally supportive of the guy, seemingly for the sole reason that he was a "Hollywood writer", and that he must be a huge fan of comics to take time out of his schedule to write them rather than making more money writing TV scripts. Unlike other Hollywood writers though like Whedon, Kevin Smith, and JMS, Zimmerman's claim to Hollywood fame was that he's written a couple episodes of Charles in Charge and 7th Heaven and a few other shows I've never heard of. Oh, and he's buddies with Howard Stern and appeared on Stern's show a bit.
Lantyssa
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Reply #383 on: April 26, 2015, 07:58:10 AM

What the writers of these things don't get is that there is no need to do anything different until there's a relationship evolving.  Just have them fall in love with someone over a long period as a secondary or tertiary arc.  Only as comics, they want it to be in your face.  So they announce it then spend effort trying to "prove" the character is gay.

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
CmdrSlack
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Reply #384 on: April 26, 2015, 09:13:25 AM

Amazing X Men did that wedding last year, so Bobby being gay isn't really earth-shattering other than how he's outed.

I traded in my fun blog for several legal blogs. Or, "blawgs," as the cutesy attorney blawgosphere likes to call 'em.
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