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I have an announcement to leak. Don't tell anybody I'm revealing this, but Marvel actually hired me to be their new head screenwriter. I'm super excited because I loved the Avengers movies, but it's gonna be hard since I barely know anything about Marvel outside the cinematic universe. Like, who the gently caress even is Catwoman? There's no way I can write a screenplay in my current position, so here's how this thread will work. I'm going to send myself back in time to 1940 and set aside any preconceived notions, so my mind is a blank slate. Then I'll train that empty mind-egg into a Marvel god-machine by feeding it every comic that Marvel has ever published. Overkill? Naaahhhhh. I'm going to be chronicling my journey in this thread. For each issue I read, I'll write up a post about it, and then at the end I'll take everything I learned and try to apply it towards my job of writing the next Marvel movie. Rules: -You're not allowed to tell me that this idea is wildly foolish. -DON'T SPOIL ME. REALLY REALLY DON'T. If you do, then I'll literally have to start all over because my brain-egg would be contaminated. I swear to god if you even tell me there's a superhero named Iron Man, I'll flip the gently caress out. You can, however, feed me cultural/contextual knowledge that an original reader of the issue would have known. That sort of stuff is actually extremely helpful! -Don't tell Marvel that I'm doing this. ************ Marvel Comics #1 (part 1)  (This cover doesn't even make sense since the Human Torch doesn't have a face, but whatever) So, it appears the first several issues we'll be exploring are of the anthology variety. Perfect for writing a crossover movie! The first character we are introduced to is the Human Torch (henceforth referred to as Torchy), an artificial human of dubious sentience who suffers from an acute case of uncontrollable spontaneous combustion. He gets manipulated by a bunch of racketeers and then beats them up, gaining the ability to control his fire through some extremely questionable science.  The origin of Torchy's name is.... ambiguous. This dialogue makes it seem like Professor Horton named his creation "the human torch" before discovering that it had an issue with spontaneous combustion, which is one hell of a coincidence. This is also the only mention that Torchy is a robot. He can't be made of metal because metal can't burn, so Horton must have invented a sort of synthetic skin. My guess is that the synthetic skin is the source of the fire problem. Still, it's awfully impressive that Horton managed to engineer a mechanical system so insanely heat-resistant when he didn't even know it would need to be. Interestingly, everybody in this comic is super drat impressed with this marvel of science that is a man-shaped bonfire, but literally nobody cares that Professor Horton just invented a sentient AI. Or at least one that simulates sentience...? I'm still not clear on that.  What exactly was Professor Horton's motivation for building Torchy anyway? Surely he was trying to create an artificial intelligence, but once the fire stuff started, he seemingly forgets that Torchy is sentient at all. I mean, he tries to bury him alive FOREVER knowing he's conscious in there? Professor Horton is loving horrible! At least he's probably not in the rest of the series, since Torchy ditches him at the end of the chapter.  The story only really starts to shine once Torchy starts having dialogue. His very first thought process that we are privy to, is questioning his own existence. That combined with everyone being scared of him gives me a huge "Frankenstein's monster" vibe. Like, the one from the novel that's not a dumb bumbling idiot.  Also, Torchy is freakin' adorable! He is attracted to the firemen because he likes the sound of the bell (which very much makes me question what his mental age is supposed to be? But that's another issue), which has a cuteness factor that's extremely not what you'd expect from a dude made of fire. Weirdly, once he turns into his human form I could sort of not give two shits about him, but once he's this endearingly faceless flame-man, he is a goddamn cinnamon roll. Also, flame butt. Torchy's only motivation at the start of this chapter is to stop himself from accidentally causing destruction, which is actually a pretty unique situation for a main character to be in. It also makes him a really sympathetic character that's easy to root for (unlike some stinkers later in this issue).  Uhhhh what? Anyway, his motivations quickly turn to spite against the racketeers who tricked him, which is also a very relatable motivation, though I was surprised by the cruelty of some of the deaths. He kills one guy by melting a goddamn car on top of him! Maybe this proves he's still missing a piece of his humanity?  DAT rear end! (Also, Sardo is an excellent name for a one-off villain)  This panel is simply amazing. Nothing more needs to be said. At the end of the chapter, Torchy declares a statement that is probably meant to be an indication of his motivations from here on: "I'll be free, And no one will ever use me for selfish gain -- or crime!" I'm happy for him! I was honestly not expecting to write this much about just the first story in the issue, but it was surprisingly solid. The best part was by far the character of Torchy, and everything else was kind of just background noise. I'm kind of shocked that they introduced the concept of a sentient AI and then completely didn't follow up on any of that potential. Literally nothing in this chapter is affected by the fact that Torchy is a robot, and isn't that weird?? A modern audience would 1000% be interested in a more sci-fi take on this character. *clicks pen* (Wow okay, I vastly underestimated how long this would take, and made the ill-informed decision to start writing at like midnight. I really want to get this OP finished tonight and it's super late, so I'll save the rest of the issue for next post. The rest of the stories are generally way more boring than this one, so I probably won't write as much. Still, it's gonna be a looooooooooong road ahead.)
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Sep 21, 2019 07:27
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 07:19 |
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I'm getting in on the ground floor of this.
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Sep 21, 2019 08:48
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drat, I agree the original Human Torch had one nice rear end...
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Sep 21, 2019 09:18
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Great start, and I had no idea Human Torch was written like this back at the start. I agree, I like his character quite a bit!
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Sep 21, 2019 09:31
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My money is that you burn out before the first spoiler-spoiler spoiler. I'll also point out that most people doing this start out in 1961 rather than try to pick through the mess that is golden age Timely/Atlas/Marvel/One-of-the-other-two-dozen-company-names-used.
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Sep 21, 2019 21:26
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Random Stranger posted:My money is that you burn out before the first spoiler-spoiler spoiler. Those people are cowards.
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Sep 21, 2019 22:17
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Yvonmukluk posted:Those people are cowards. Maybe they don't want to read six hundred low end, nearly identical funny animal comics?
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Sep 21, 2019 22:38
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Random Stranger posted:Maybe they don't want to read six hundred low end, nearly identical funny animal comics? Like I said, cowards. Also, he said no spoilers, jeez.
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Sep 21, 2019 22:40
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Random Stranger posted:Maybe they don't want to read six hundred low end, nearly identical funny animal comics? Like Yvon said, cowards. edit: by the way, i'm using the marvel wiki's weekly publication pages to find the order of releases, so i'm not sure animal comics published under a different name will be there? but if they are, i'm gonna read them! Mr. Steak fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Sep 21, 2019 |
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Sep 21, 2019 22:45
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Marvel #1 (part 2 of 3) The second superhero character ever introduced by Marvel is The Angel, an overpowered Superman wannabe who hates evil and loves justice. That's exciting, right? ...Right?  In stark contrast to The Human Torch, all the best parts of this chapter are the parts without The Angel in them. For example, I actually kind of like this opening montage of all the terrible stuff the racketeers are doing. The rest of the chapter is honestly just incredibly boring. The Angel pretty much doesn't even have any superpowers besides the power of plot contrivance, and there's no life in the script. Like... I don't even want to write anything more about it because there's nothing to say.  Angel, that's disgusting. Don't talk about a man's hole like that. Next is Namor the Sub-Mariner, also known as gently caress White People. Hey, isn't that what people are calling Marvel nowadays too? Hahaha The first half of the chapter is a fairly engaging horror story about some divers who encounter Namor and get totally slaughtered by him. The encounter is quite fun actually due to the fact that Namor thinks the divers are robots.  He takes them to his royal family and finds out they're actually human. But literally nobody cares because they hate humans too lol. And apparently this is what the series will be about.  In my opinion, the chapter really picks up after this point, when Namor and his cousin go out with the sole purpose of loving people's poo poo up. I'm totally on board for that!  gently caress WHITE PEOPLE! Yeah! I sort of feel obligated to write more, since I wrote so much about The Human Torch, and I actually did enjoy the Sub-Mariner story. It just... didn't really start until the last 3 pages. Eh, all that matters is that I'm feeding my brain matter all this Marvel knowledge. To be continued later but I'm impatient to post...
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Sep 21, 2019 23:34
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Mr. Steak posted:
Well, you found the central theme of pre-WW2 Namor pretty quickly.  Mr. Steak posted:edit: by the way, i'm using the marvel wiki's weekly publication pages to find the order of releases, so i'm not sure animal comics published under a different name will be there? but if they are, i'm gonna read them! I doubt that you'll reach that point (the funny animal books period really kicked off around 1950), but those lists are usually completely superhero focused rather than an actual document of what happened. So they typically ignore things like the crime comics, the westerns, the funny animal books, the teen comedies, and the romances that were in the rotation for Marvel up to the 1970's.
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Sep 22, 2019 05:11
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As we all know, the sole barrier to creating an artificial intelligence in the 1940s was their tendency to burst into flames. It's kind of interesting that even in this first issue, Marvel already really shines with stories about underdogs and outcasts, but struggles with a 'conventional' hero.
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Sep 22, 2019 07:48
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I can't wait until this thread gets to characters and stories which are vaguely good.
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Sep 22, 2019 08:46
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Looking forward to seeing this project completed
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Aug 15, 2023 23:13
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inferis posted:Looking forward to seeing this project completed Does not appear it will happen at all given the perma.
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Sep 7, 2023 21:38
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On the bright side, he's probably gonna go a lot faster through the marvel publication list now that he doesn't have to post about it.
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Sep 7, 2023 22:32
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 07:19 |
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MonsterEnvy posted:Does not appear it will happen at all given the perma. I'm sure someone else (not me) could usurp it.
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Sep 8, 2023 03:04
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