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Even a superhero who is pure in heart And says his prayers by night May become a capwolf when the wolfbane blooms And the autumn moon is bright.  Ferrule posted:It's my twitter background. I think the blond guy is supposed to be Roy Thomas
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Nov 4, 2015 07:39
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Havoc904 posted:Shadowhawk Wasn't his deal that he broke the spines of criminals? And that the readers didn't know his secret identity?
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Nov 4, 2015 22:13
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How about the time David Anthony Kraft based an entire three part Defenders storyline, 58-60 on Blue Oyster Cult references? There's a villain named Vera Gemini, leader of the Cult of the Harvester of Eyes, who are served by Agents of Fortune and Reapers of Souls. Presumably you are not to fear the latter. They were trying to bring back a demon named Balthazar (all praise) though stealing Dr. Strange's amulet - harvesting eyes.   The stories are called "Agents of Fortune", "Tyranny and Mutation", and "The Revenge of Vera Gemini", all songs and the last is where Gemini originates from. BOC themselves appear in issue 59 to play a game of "Dominance and Submission" (another song) against Gemini herself.  It's also the first appearance of Devil-Slayer, who was an escaped member of the Cult and stuck around as a Defenders character for awhile. Jim Shooter said that Kraft wrote this "ripoff" but "he thinks he did nothing wrong" whereas Kraft says he was backstage at a BOC concert when he talked to Eric Bloom, the singer and guy with the sunglasses, beard and poofy hair, about it. Bloom was a big Marvel geek, dug the idea and even visited Marvel's offices. There was PR about it in music media (that I can't find) I believe Kraft over Shooter. Madkal posted:If I am not mistaken I think Barda was based, personality wise, on Kirby's wife. So let that add an extra stink for you. Her physical appearance is based on Lainie Kazan though. Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 08:30
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Wheat Loaf posted:Were any cities set on flame with rock and roll? Probably. I just noticed on the page there's references to the songs "The Red and the Black", "Astronomy" (Nexus of the crisis) "ME-262" (Heavy metal fruit) and "The Golden Age of Leather" (Last crusade and final outrage) as well. Kraft really went all in. There's probably a reference to veterans of some kind of psychic war somewhere in there too. There always is. BTW I know they're mostly "That cowbell band" now but BOC is one of my favorite bands. Unmature posted:Did Godzilla show up? Marvel actually had the license to Godzilla at this point so it was a possibility.
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Nov 5, 2015 17:58
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Lurdiak posted:
I'm straight up reading this right now. Don't forget that Foolkiller has the preserved corpse of the faith healer that apparently made him walk (he had to use a wheelchair since he was a kid) and turned him into a fundamentalist in his Punisher-esque war truck HQ. You know, the corrupt reverend he killed himself because he caught him hanging out with a blonde woman, drinking and sitting on a pile of cash? That he then proceeded to preserve to turn him into a "shrine"? Also Foolkiller showed up in the comic in the first place to kill a character introduced in a previous issue because he was a DJ who played a "blasphemous" George Harrison song. Don't forget, God was revealed to be two dogs earlier in the series. The best thing though is one of the villains of the comic is a corrupt construction magnate who wants to level part of the Everglades to build an airport, named Franklin Armstrong Schist. F.A. Schist? Man-Thing rules. Steve Gerber rules. Lurdiak posted:Steve Gerber's Man-Thing is so good that I'd actually place it ahead of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. While Man-Thing is a superb comic, you're absolutely wrong about that. Swamp Thing is a strong candidate for best comic ever published by Marvel or DC. Also not sure why they even need to be compared, beyond the fact that they're both mystical swamp monsters who both were originally scientists. Very different mystical swamp monsters even. The two comics have very different tones. Ghostlight posted:In looking his origin up I learnt that not only did Man-Thing predate Swamp-Thing unlike what I thought, but that there's a Man-Thing movie that is apparently awful and now I need to watch it. I've never seen it but I'm guessing the Man-Thing movie eliminates the cool occult stuff and leans hard on the "serum turns scientist into monster" angle and is probably pretty much a ripoff of the Wes Craven Swamp Thing film. Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Nov 10, 2015 |
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Nov 10, 2015 05:05
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SirDan3k posted:Fool Killer got a gritty reboot with child murder, rape, and an old man getting punch so hard he puked approximately his body weight in blood. I just googled Foolkiller and holy poo poo this had to have happened in this series huh?  Or was it in the Max series that looks exactly like a Spawn spinoff (because Angel Medina drew it) 
Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Nov 10, 2015 |
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Nov 10, 2015 09:07
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Magic is also totally not out of left field for Wing Commander. A crashed Kilrathi ship appeared in Ultima 7, and there's a race of primitive (either prehistoric or from very far in the future) Kilrathi in Ultima Underworld 2 called the Trilkhai. The implication is that the Wing Commander and Ultima universes are the same. Also, you fly into space to shoot down TIE Fighters in Ultima 1.
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Nov 14, 2015 05:29
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Edge & Christian posted:I'm not sure if edits of old comics to put 'funny captions' in or whatever technically counts as "poo poo that actually happened." What about the actual published examples of those? Those Keith Giffen What Were They Thinking!? books. Or Watchmensch.
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Nov 16, 2015 02:52
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root posted:Marvel's desperate attempts to cash in on that sweet sweeeeeeeet toy-money led to some very interesting titles like Sectaurs, Crystar, and Marvel's own "Hey guys wouldn't this make a great toy line oh poo poo nobody was interested" title... BRUTE FORCE! A group of sassy cyborgized animals who fought other sassy cyborgized animals to protect the environment because... uh... the 90s? Crystar ends up being a kinda great little comic that turns a lot of the stereotypes and assumptions of toyetic 80s kids fantasy franchises on their head, including it's own original status quo. Most likely because closer to the end, nobody was paying attention. I'm definitely going to do a write up of it for this thread now. Also Sectaurs reads like an 80s Basic D&D setting book, especially with that map at the end. I'm sure there's a write-up of it for Labyrinth Lord somewhere. Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Nov 17, 2015 |
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Nov 17, 2015 04:25
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zoux posted:Is that the same Crystar that showed up in Weirdworld? Yes. Crystar was produced by Marvel to license to toy companies for a line of action figures (the designs were created by JRJR) not the other way around. When that toyline failed, the comic became much more interesting. Lurdiak posted:I really hate Adam Warren. You and every other person who has a conspiracy theory about how ~*THE PERNICIOUS INFLUENCE OF MANGA*~ destroyed comics.
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Nov 17, 2015 07:51
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I guess this thread is due to become a battleground between the forces who think Empowered is subversion and those who think it's straightforward? It was more a comment on how most people I see shittalking Warren do so because of lingering resentment towards late 90s/early 2000s manga influence in superhero comics anyway. The same types who are furious over Chris Bachalo and Joe Mad, or still whine about decompression. Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Nov 17, 2015 |
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Nov 17, 2015 09:38
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No you are golden.
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Nov 17, 2015 09:59
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Wanderer posted:Claremont is why we have a lot of people. You can draw a fairly straight line between him and half the working sf/fantasy creators in the English-speaking world. Claremont is weird because yeah he absolutely was all about putting his id up on display in a Heinlein-ish manner. But at the same time, when you look at what was being produced at the time in terms of representation of women in mainstream comics, dude was leagues ahead of his contemporaries. Stereotypical Strong Female Protagonists (That mention of the Brian Wood X-Men makes me pretty uncomfortable. Hindsight I guess) are a world better than the kidnapping victims of the likes of early Jean Grey and Sue Storm. He's a product of 70s nerd proto-feminism, stuff like Elfquest and all that. A good example of this is he wrote a response to the whole "Carol Danvers is raped by her own magical son" Avengers storyline (Avengers 200 belongs in this thread, is a strong candidate for worst comic ever published by Marvel and also Marcus' creepface will be stuck in my nightmares for eternity) where Carol takes the Avengers to task for just letting it happen. This isn't to excuse his... foibles, it's to contextualize him. Yeah he's more remembered for being super into bondage and mind control, and that is part of the weird total package. But to just remember that because his 90s comics were awful and he's hung up on the X-Men is pretty uncharitable I think. Also interestingly a lot of writers from that time seemed to have stock phrases that they kept returning to. Simon Furman is particularly notorious for this. twistedmentat posted:Yea. Basically everything from there to I'd say 85 is consistently solid. Its after the Brood Saga and into Mutant Massacre that things start to get weird. Australia has a lot of good stuff, and it also contains my 3rd favorite team after the Giant Sized Team and the Jim Lee team. Fall of the Mutants is really strange, but the X-men part is way better than the New Mutants one, though that's more because I hate Dr Moreau stories. Excalibur is pretty much good until Warren Ellis leaves(skip Lobdell however) and although the book basically became Alan Davis' baby, I think when Claremont's around the quality does have to do with him. Check out the Cross-Time Caper. I remember my dad getting me X-Factor 23 as a back issue in like 1991 because he thought Cameron Hodge's ruby quartz armor and the creepy smiling Right robot looked rad... I remember being pretty upset over the ad for Fall of the Mutants.  Looking back it's a pretty striking image, exactly what an ad should be. Maybe I should start a house ads thread... Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Nov 19, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 11:15
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zoux posted:I tried to do a huge read of all the Claremont stuff a few months ago and I was like "this is supposed to be good?" I guess he does plotting and new concepts well but he writes some of the worst dialogue ever. I dunno if editorial demanded that every character somehow force pithy expository descriptions of their powers in every issue but they're there. Compare Claremont's dialog to a lot of his contemporaries though, is the point. Also yeah, the reason characters explain themselves over and over again in older comics is because "every comic is someone's first" was essentially a law.
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Nov 19, 2015 18:08
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Every issue of Man-Thing is legally required to have the phrase "Whatever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing's touch!" and the Gerber stories are still all great.
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Nov 19, 2015 18:11
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I'm pretty busy this weekend but I'm planning some write ups. At this point, I think I'd like to focus on Big 2 fantasy comics. I would like to do Crystar and Arak, Son of Thunder, about a Native American who gets adopted by Vikings, becomes one of Charlemagne's peers and fights mythological monsters in Conan-esque adventures. I might also do the time Travis Morgan, the Warlord, appeared in Green Arrow when Mike Grell was writing it as a gritty crime comic with almost no ties to the DC Universe that influenced Arrow, simply because Grell wanted to do a joke where people confused Morgan for Oliver Queen. Because they both have goatees, you see? Anyone have any requests in this vein? zoux posted:When I got MU I was like "Wow I can read every comic ever" and got about 2 issues into the original FF. Those comics are to be enjoyed for Kirby's art and plotting. Stan Lee's thin contributions are pretty much a distracting burden.
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Nov 19, 2015 19:12
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CharlestheHammer posted:I have the opposite problem, I have read some golden age poo poo and they are just terrible. Reading summaries can be fun to see the batshit insanity. But man are they nearly unreadable. The best superhero comics of this period are probably Jack Cole's Plastic Man.
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Nov 19, 2015 20:22
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twistedmentat posted:Oh and my local store got in the Nocenti's DD run TPB which is the first DD i ever read, so it remains the one stuck in my head more than the MIller one, and also makes me want to see Typhoid Mary in the show, maybe season 3. Anyways, the weird thing is this is the inside cover Super jarring to see Steve Lightle art on anything but Legion of Superheroes.
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Nov 20, 2015 06:57
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Gavok posted:In the final issue, the leader of the Legion of Doom turned out to be Brainwave Jr. An obscure hero character who became evil for reasons never explained in the book, nor was anything relating to him foreshadowed at all in the series. Just some hero you've never heard of shows up as the big villain. It's like if Hickman's Avengers run ended with the reveal that Rabum Alal is actually Charcoal from Thunderbolts. And they made him look like Grant Morrison.  Why yes that's from a post of yours from 2007. Oh and would Justice League Elite have been possible without Extreme Justice????
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Nov 26, 2015 06:31
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twistedmentat posted:I always love how every time Grant Morrison has a bald guy in the comic (which is all the time because there are no shortage of bald guys) they always end up looking like Morrison. Professer X, Lex Luther, whats his name from the Invisibles, etc. This predates Morrison's involvement with the JLA. Maybe they knew what was going to happen, or it's just coincidence. Edge & Christian posted:The series (and Priest's run on JLTF if I recall correctly) also launched out of Zero Hour, which was another of DC's semi-annual "CONTINUITY HAS CHANGED! HOW? uhhh we'll tell you later." periods, so I'm sure someone who thought they could beg forgiveness instead of asking permission was even more of a mess for all parties. The oblique reference to Zero Hour in the Sandman (Basically the reality storm in Worlds' End is ZH) probably qualifies as STAH material Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Nov 26, 2015 |
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Nov 26, 2015 07:16
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The Saddest Rhino posted:I like Alan Moore's stuff but I always seem to recall there's always at least one thing "off" with his works. This is part of why I like Swamp Thing so much, the weird sex could be said to be both romantic and part of the appeal. Abby communing with Swampy through the medium of psychedelic yam and the whole thing with the sentient city in space are interesting fantasy concepts. Moore's offputting latter-day thought experiment about "What if Lovecraft was about sexual body horror" is pretty much a creepy creative misfire. Watchmen might be more iconic, but anyone who asks me "So why is Moore so well regarded" gets Swamp Thing.
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Nov 28, 2015 19:51
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Senior Woodchuck posted:What was Fantagraphics' porno imprint like? Here you go http://www.factualopinion.com/the_factual_opinion/2015/10/inside-the-tent-memories-of-eros-comix.html It seems like churned out reprints of hentai manga mostly, with the occasional original porny art comic like Ho Che Anderson's I Want to Be Your Dog or Gilbert Hernandez's Birdland. It basically existed to fund Fantagraphics. Years ago I read something that talked about a jokey discussion at the Eisners about who did the most damage to comics and it was decided that it was Gary Groth because of Eros, but I'll be damned if I can find that post, wherever it was, again.
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Nov 30, 2015 22:39
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Wanderer posted:Good lord. Looking at all their work right in a row like that, it's a broad list of things I wish I didn't know about. Not a fan of Los Bros Hernandez?
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Nov 30, 2015 22:57
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twistedmentat posted:Did Marvel have someone with an engineering background working for them? Those drawings are pretty good. And I like how Bobbi in AoS has pretty much those. That would be Eliot R. Brown, who worked for both Marvel and DC. He also drew a lot of maps of comic cities. Weirdness like making up an origin for Cyclops' powers and being the inspiration for generations of pedantic fans aside, I dig that whole Mark Gruenwald Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe scene. Probably because I play a lot of superhero tabletop RPGs, and that sort of writing is useful for that. Much of his work is posted here http://comicallytechnical.tumblr.com/ (not sure if it's by himself or not) poo poo like that blank Avengers identicard is golden for RPGs. Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Nov 30, 2015 |
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Nov 30, 2015 23:38
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Gavok posted:The skeleton Spider-Man deserves its own post here. 
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Dec 1, 2015 00:53
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twistedmentat posted:The art in Dark Empire is loving weird. There's also a panel that clearly shows Ewoks as members of the regular Rebellions forces. The art is by Cam Kennedy, who is a good artist best known for drawing Judge Dredd.   I haven't actually read Dark Empire, but frankly this art is making me want to. Like look at this panel. It's pretty drat cool. 
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Dec 4, 2015 00:39
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Skwirl posted:Didn't Wonder Woman also pick up Mjolnir, then drop it because she thought it would be unfair? The fact that we'll never get a Walt Simonson written and drawn Wonder Woman/Thor crossover is a cosmic crime.
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Feb 23, 2016 08:48
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ImpAtom posted:Depending on which you mean he either got erased from existence or killed by Superboy Prime. Wasn't that Golden Age Superman? Choco is referring to Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow btw
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Feb 24, 2016 22:27
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Squizzle posted:Wikia wikis are disasters on all levels, imo, especially the wikis for nerd properties. Instead of documenting the a character's history of portrayals and shifting histories and so on—tge things a reasonable reader might care about—they tend to be written from an in-setting perspective, prizing internal chronology and fully incorporating retcons without describing prior status quo concepts. Want to know about what sort of changes marked Batman's shift from technicolor blue friend of law and children, to '70s pulp punchman with a bachelor penthouse? Welp eat a dick, it ain't mentioned. Yeah. Plus it bugs me that the Marvel and DC wikias list characters under their real names. Seems to cater to the type of fan who does that, like people who call Spider-Man "Peter" almost exclusively.
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Feb 28, 2016 01:54
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I like Ruined FOREVER . Pretty sure it is where it originates from too. Tom Scioli should probably be added to that list, although I won't pretend the outrage towards that wonderful series even approaches the rest.
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Mar 3, 2016 11:42
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