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There were plenty of bad 90's things. Kyle and Wally certainly weren't part of that though.Cornwind Evil posted:And it's not even getting into the whispers/rumors/hearsay I've heard that speaks to an even deeper psychological issue that Quesada was motivated by to do this. That being he watched his mother die a long death from cancer and it deeply scarred him, and that there's a weird Oedipal thing where if he could trade his wife for his mother, he would. You can clearly see the analogies of such a concept in One More Day, but since I have no verification it should just be considered gossip. Both. Better because at least he can speak from that emotional perspective of losing someone close to him. I know I'd trade a lot to have my dad back. Worse, because Aunt May wasn't shot and then Quesada said "Trade the marriage for May." He used May getting shot as an excuse to annul something he didn't like The worst part of OMD isn't just how it hasn't been undone or whatnot, it's the way Marvel constantly shits upon people for not liking OMD. I always laugh when companies do this for whatever reason. The feeling that "The fans didn't like a decision? poo poo upon the fans. That will make them look foolish and not at all make us seem petty and stupid."
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Apr 24, 2018 10:48
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I seem to recall some of the Marvel bigwigs trying to justify it by saying the actual wedding was pretty sudden and a big publicity stunt and Peter and MJ hadn't really been dating at the time. Of course, that doesn't justify such a garbage story and reversion of the character Also I had no idea they did a live version of the wedding at the time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQwslg6lat8
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Apr 24, 2018 20:35
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Zeeman posted:I seem to recall some of the Marvel bigwigs trying to justify it by saying the actual wedding was pretty sudden and a big publicity stunt and Peter and MJ hadn't really been dating at the time. Of course, that doesn't justify such a garbage story and reversion of the character Plus of course even if it was a giant publicity stunt (which, to be fair, it was - this was designed to sell comics) they remained happily married for 20 goddamn years! It's not like they were changing something done 5-6 years ago and still fresh in people's minds. Plus plus again again.... was ANYBODY out there who read comics actually disgruntled at the marriage or felt it was limiting in any way? Because of all the many complaints I've heard about Spider-Man over the years I don't recall anybody saying,"You know what the problem is? The dude is married!"
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Apr 24, 2018 23:08
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I think undoing the marriage was not a great idea, and undoing it in that particular way was an awful idea, but to be honest by the very early 90s Spidey writers seemed to be at a loss for interesting stories to tell about Peter and MJ as a married couple. She was constantly being traumatized by the danger Peter found himself in, or getting menaced by weird stalkers or suitors, or Peter was wrapped up in tedious self-loathing about his wifes awesome career. In a perfect world I think letting the two of them move on and retire, a la the original ending of the Clone Saga, would have probably been for the best, because I can't recall anyone other than JMS (loath as I am to admit it) who seemed to have any knack for writing their relationship, or any legitimate interest in it for that matter.
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Apr 25, 2018 00:37
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It's almost like comic book writers have some kind of chronic issue of not wanting to put effort into writing nuanced female characters with their own stories and motivations beyond being pretty objects to chase.
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Apr 25, 2018 01:54
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Putting all of the "make Spider-Man single again" onus on Quesada or whatever isn't really fair, and the whole "and they were happily married for years!" thing is also a bit of a misconception/false memory. Peter and Mary Jane got married in 1987, which was in fact kind of a sudden reversal of swingin' single Peter being just good friends with MJ and having various other soap opera-y love interests like Black Cat and Debra Whitman. It was pretty explicitly a thing that happened because Jim Shooter and Stan Lee were at a convention panel and someone asked them "will Spider-Man ever get married?" (not to Mary Jane, just in general) and Stan Lee said it was a good idea, and that he should do it in the comic strip while Jim figures out how to do it in the comics. This was right at the tail end of Shooter's run as EiC and Marvel had been purchased by New World and the entire company was getting pressure to get some mainstream attention by their new owners, and it was in fact a rush job that a lot of creators working at Marvel in 1986-7 thought was a bad idea. Whether that was because Jim Shooter said it and they didn't get along with Jim Shooter, or because they're bad people with different story ideas than yours, or if it just felt like a rushed unnatural direction for the character in 1987 is up for speculation. After they got married in 1987, two of the next big storylines (Kraven's Last Hunt and the introduction of Venom) had "oh no MJ is in trouble and she's traumatized and maybe we need some time apart" as soap opera elements. It was a pretty steady stream of those (MJ is stalked! MJ is kidnapped by her crazy boss! MJ starts smoking again and even pre-Quesada Spider-Man disapproves! Peter is out of town promoting his photography book and maybe the long distance will break them up!) sort of storylines for the next few years, and by the time the Clone Saga (or more accurately all of the Fake Parents + THE SPIDER stuff started that was a self-fulfilling prophecy of "Let's break old Spider-Man so fans have to love New Spider-Man) started ramping about five years after the marriage, there were long stretches of Peter Parker forsaking his civilian identity in favor of THE SPIDER, Mary Jane fleeing town to stay with relatives, etc. The Clone Saga also stressed the marriage, especially the bit where Peter was mind controlled into trying to murder MJ and then even after the mind control wore off he backhanded he across a warehouse because he was real stressed about being a clone. Then Peter and MJ rode off into the sunset for a year or so, in no small part so that Marvel could have a Swingin' Single Spider-Man again. About a year after the Clone Saga, Mary Jane was blown up in a plane crash and presumed dead for a pretty long time, they even did the whole "Peter Parker, widow, awkwardly dips his toe back into the dating scene" storyline. It was revealed she was just fake-dead and actually kidnapped by a mutant stalker, as revealed more or less in the mop-up of Howard Mackie's run on Spider-Man. The status quo that Quesada inherited as Editor in Chief (and the status quo when JMS took over the book) was that Mary Jane was alive, but the stress of [all of the stuff mentioned above] meant that she couldn't handle Peter being Spider-Man and they were officially separated with her living in California. They didn't reunite until 2003, over a year into JMS's run. I see that Archyduke said this a lot more succinctly, but yes, the idea that Peter and Mary Jane were a married couple that had stories written about them for twenty years where they were in a functional happy marriage and Joey Q came in to blow it up because of some sort of Oedipal Complex(?????) about his own mom is kind of insane. The fact that a generation of writers appeared to be congenitally incapable of writing Married Spider-Man stories is its own damning mark, but if anything Quesada correctly identified a pain point for drat near every writer working for him and endeavored to resolve it. Edge & Christian fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Apr 25, 2018 |
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Apr 25, 2018 03:12
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How were Superman and Flash writers able to do it for the same period, though? It's not like every other arc of Action Comics after that wedding had Lois leaving for months. Is it just the inertia element? The writers grew up with comics and cartoons featuring Spider-Man dating a rotating cast of girls, so that's what writers are comfortable with as the way you write him, but Superman and Lois Lane is a constant, so the wedding ring on their fingers doesn't change a whole lot?
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Apr 25, 2018 03:34
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Gaz-L posted:How were Superman and Flash writers able to do it for the same period, though? It's not like every other arc of Action Comics after that wedding had Lois leaving for months. Is it just the inertia element? The writers grew up with comics and cartoons featuring Spider-Man dating a rotating cast of girls, so that's what writers are comfortable with as the way you write him, but Superman and Lois Lane is a constant, so the wedding ring on their fingers doesn't change a whole lot? They killed Superman to postpone his wedding to coincide with the Adventures of Lois and Clark TV show with Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher.
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Apr 25, 2018 03:51
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Gaz-L posted:How were Superman and Flash writers able to do it for the same period, though? It's not like every other arc of Action Comics after that wedding had Lois leaving for months. Is it just the inertia element? The writers grew up with comics and cartoons featuring Spider-Man dating a rotating cast of girls, so that's what writers are comfortable with as the way you write him, but Superman and Lois Lane is a constant, so the wedding ring on their fingers doesn't change a whole lot? "The Many Loves of Superman" was never a part of the overall narrative the way Spider-Man's various on-again off-again girlfriends were. This didn't stop the New 52 from trying to erase it, but it's much more baked into the concept, and if the platonic ideal of Superman is someone considerably older than The Platonic Ideal of Spider-Man is, shifting the One True Love over into Wife/Mother is less jarring to what people conceive of as the core concept. As for Wally West, I don't really know if that counts. Wally and Linda didn't get married until Mark Waid's very last issue in 2000, and she appeared regularly but not (to my memory) that significantly in Johns's run from 2001-2004. She disappeared along with Wally about a year later, and then came back for a very brief run of "Wally and Linda and Their Kids) in 2007, before everything sort of shifted over to Barry a year or so later and she and wally were straight up erased in 2011. Johns's pre-Infinite Crisis run aside (which I haven't read since it came out and I don't remember a ton of development of her in it) she basically hasn't been a character in comics for a decade, and the marriage itself lasted all of 5-6 years in published comics.
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Apr 25, 2018 03:51
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Seems to me the major "problem" with Spider-Man was bad writing/stories for the most part. The Howard Mackie run in particular was dire from memory, supposedly coming out of an effort to fix the mess of the Clone Saga. I have plenty of memories of very happy moments of wedded bliss between Peter and MJ (one of my favorite issues has Aunt May bring them hot chocolate on a cold winter night and them getting the giggles after she leaves because they were taking care of the cold in their own way) and largely rolling my eyes at any forced drama between them (I legit completely forgot about that dumb stalker/kidnap storyline). Getting rid of the marriage is a publicity stunt just like the initial marriage was a publicity stunt in the first place, the difference being I guess that the former is nasty and mean-spirited and cynical and the latter was a sweet and touching moment between two characters with a long history together. You don't "fix" a series by marrying or ending a marriage, you fix it with good writing. The lovely storylines that happened back when MJ and Pete were married wouldn't have been less lovely if Peter had been single at the time. If a writer can't write a married couple, then get a writer who can.
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Apr 25, 2018 05:32
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Jerusalem posted:Seems to me the major "problem" with Spider-Man was bad writing/stories for the most part. The Howard Mackie run in particular was dire from memory, supposedly coming out of an effort to fix the mess of the Clone Saga. I have plenty of memories of very happy moments of wedded bliss between Peter and MJ (one of my favorite issues has Aunt May bring them hot chocolate on a cold winter night and them getting the giggles after she leaves because they were taking care of the cold in their own way) and largely rolling my eyes at any forced drama between them (I legit completely forgot about that dumb stalker/kidnap storyline). Also there's been a tremendous amount of crap storylines Spiderman has been involved with since the break-up, it's done nothing TO freshen the character up, and in the end Spiderman has remained the exact same way he's always been. That said there's a huge blog/essay out on the internet regarding the marriage that covers it in way more detail than any post here.
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Apr 25, 2018 05:37
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I miss Spider-Man being a public schoolteacher. Can we have that back? Peter Parker would give great lectures, and care about his students, and...never have time to go superheroing with all the lesson plans and papers to grade... 
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Apr 25, 2018 07:06
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I think it happened during one of the otherwise bad runs on Spider-Man (might have even been Mackie's), but I did get a good laugh out of one issue where he goes looking for a job at some major research lab or something. They look at his resume and go,"Oh yeah, you showed a lot of promise in high school... what the hell have you been doing in the last 10 years? You're woefully behind and have zero experience, get the gently caress outta here."
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Apr 25, 2018 08:26
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just to update, life has extremely gotten in the way on Civil War between school ramping up and work kicking my rear end. i'm still working on it, but it's slow going, and it might be a while; be patient.
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Apr 28, 2018 03:13
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:just to update, life has extremely gotten in the way on Civil War between school ramping up and work kicking my rear end. i'm still working on it, but it's slow going, and it might be a while; be patient. All good, looking forward to it when it comes.  In other news, they've updated the list again so here is another corrected breakdown for a new page: Review Archive - Updated June 5, 2018: 12. Gummy Joe: Jack Staff: Everything Used to Be Black and White 18. Jedi: TRANSFORMERS VS. GI JOE (Tom Scioli and John Barber 26. Lick! The! Whisk!: Daredevil: Born Again 28. Dias: Hitman 48. Cornwind Evil: American Barbarian 50. Jiru: Top Ten #1-12 58. Lick! The! Whisk!: Daredevil #284-290: The Man Without Mercy 60. Roth: Fantastic Four: Unthinkable 69. Retro Futurist: Uncanny X-Men #183: He'll Never Make Me Cry 87. Inkspot: The Demon vol. 1 #1-8 Part 1 | Part 2 119. Jerusalem: Starman (Robinson/Harris) Part One | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 184. Endless Mike: Hickman's Fantastic Four/FF: Part One, Dark Reign: FF | Part Two, Solve Everything | Part Three, Prime Elements | Part Four, The Future Foundation | Part Five, Three | Part 6, Tomorrow | Part 7, The Supremor Seed 185. enigmahfc: Superior Foes of Spider-Man 190. Otherkinsey Scale: Captain America #250, "Cap for President!" 191. Jordan7hm: The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: I Told You That Story So I Could Tell You This One/Spooky Stuff/Punch Dracula 194. Jerusalem: Flash vol. 2, #91 200. Archyduke: JLA Year One 203. Jerusalem: Superman and Batman: World's Funnest 206. Random Stranger: She-Hulk 229. CarlCX: JLA: Tower of Babel, #43-46 236. hup: Alias vol. 1 271. Random Stranger: Doomquest, Iron Man #149-150 283. Inkspot: Tomb of Dracula #44/Doctor Strange #14 301. Jordan7hm: Atomic Robo: Why Atomic Robo Hates Dr. Dinosaur 342. A Strange Aeon: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty 349. Archyduke: Superman: Secret Origin 352. jng2058: Iron Man: Armor Wars 355. Gaz-L: Fantastic Four #8 358. Retro Futurist Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye 369. Senerio: We3 385. Gummy Joe: Animal Man #5: The Coyote Gospel 414. Zeeman: Fear Itself 444. Jiru: Seaguy 447. bagrada: Batman #417-420: Ten Nights of the Beast 455. bagrada: Tales From the Bully Pulpit 504. Zachack: Uncanny X-Men #101-103: Phoenix Rising/Leprechauns 517. baronvonsabre: Bruce Wayne: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D 518. Doctor Spaceman: Marvel Apes 536. Jiru: Garfield: Alone 561. Random Stranger: Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #106 "I am Curious (Black)!" 567. Wapole Languray NYX Part 1 | Part 2 575. Lick! The! Whisk!: Spider-Man: Identity Crisis - A rewrite may come later 580. SMP: Batman/Daredevil King of New York 601. Random Stranger: Batman #598: Santa Klaus Is Coming to Town! 608. jng2058: Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #112: You'd Better Watch Out... 629. CapnAndy: OMAC vol.2 (John Byrne) Part 1 645. Dexie: Flash Rebirth (Geoff Johns run) 661. Random Stranger Punisher #52: Maternity War 665 jng2058: Justice (Alex Ross/Jim Kreuger) 669. CarlCX: Ultimate X-Men #42 683. Roth: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures #1-12 696. Jerusalem: Spider-Man: One More Day 698. Retro Futurist: Suicide Squad (New 52) 699. CapnAndy: Spawn/WildC.A.T.S.: Devil Day Part One Part Two 704. bagrada: Green Lantern #54-55 707. Lick! The! Whisk!: Maximum Clonage 714. Cornwind Evil: Uncanny X-Men: Holy War, #423-424 Part One Part Two 716. Cornwind Evil: Kick-rear end Part One Part Two Part Three Coda 718. Gaz-L: Wanted 721. Jerusalem Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal 730. Doctor Spaceman: Countdown to Final Crisis Part 0 | Part 1 735. Inkspot: Avengers #200 739. Cornwind Evil: Identity Crisis Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Conclusion Reviews That Need To Be Done: 184 Endless Mike: Hickman's Fantastic Four/FF (in progress; issued 1/6/2018) 63. Escobarbarian: Captain America: Winter Soldier issued 1/6/2018 415. Lightning Lord: Inhumans (Jenkins/Lee) issued 1/6/2018 68. Skwirl: Hawkeye #11, Pizza is My Business issued 1/6/2018 322. Sodomy Non Sapiens: Stormwatch (Warren Ellis/Tom Raney) issued 1/8/2018 690. Lightning Lord: Spider-Man: Reign issued 1/8/2018 378. Fritzler: The Mighty Thorcules (The Incredible Hercules #132-137) issued 1/10/2018 85. Jordan7hm: Mister Miracle #3-4, "The Paranoid Pill" issued 1/12/2018 491. Conrad_Birdie: Legion of Monsters (Dennis Hopeless/Juan Doe) issued 1/14/2018 633. Little Mac: Miracleman (Gaiman/Buckingham) issued 1/14/2018 583. AllNewJonasSalk: Final Night issued 2/3/2018 272. enigmahfc: Captain Britain and MI-13: Vampire State issued 2/7/2018 629. CapnAndy: OMAC vol.2 (John Byrne) in progress; issued 2/7/2018 730. Doctor Spaceman: Countdown to Final Crisis in progress; issued 2/7/2018 291. Android Blues: The Coming of Superman (Action Comics #1) issued 2/7/2018 220. Mr. Maltose: Aztek: The Ultimate Man #1-10 issued 2/11/2018 104. baronvonsabre: V for Vendetta issued 3/14/2018 196. Pacra: Locke & Key: The Crown of Shadows issued 3/14/2018 305. Retro Futurist: BATMAN AND ROBIN MUST DIE issued 3/15/2018 317. Zeeman: JLA/Avengers issued 3/21/18 644. LORD OF BOOTY Civil War issued 4/13/18 202. OldTennisCourt Thor: The Mighty Avenger issued 4/29/18 108. Retro Futurist: Flash: The Return of Barry Allen issued 5/1/18 Things are also gonna get pretty drat busy for me in the next couple of weeks, so I'll take this opportunity now to roll again for myself and get something written up fairly quickly:  Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal. Oh my God, I know almost nothing about this character but this story was so legendarily bad that it even permeated my consciousness. This is gonna be... interesting. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Jun 6, 2018 |
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Apr 28, 2018 04:07
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J-Ru gonna get some China Cat
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Apr 28, 2018 14:31
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Oh my God the loving cat 
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Apr 29, 2018 10:22
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HIT ME
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Apr 29, 2018 11:55
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OldTennisCourt posted:HIT  You get 202: Thor The Mighty Avenger, an 8-issue series available at Marvel and Comixology I know absolutely NOTHING about this series, but it's a relatively high number so it is probably pretty good!
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Apr 29, 2018 12:21
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Jerusalem posted:Oh my God the loving cat Think of the number of people who decided that scene was a good idea so that it wound up being published. Comic books!
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Apr 29, 2018 13:21
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 What the hell were they thinking?  In 2008, DC Comics produced the wonderful Final Crisis, a series that ended on about as hopeful and inspiring a note as possible while also essentially giving DC a free reign to ignore their long-standing (and honestly irrelevant) issues with continuity and the "aging" of their characters. Things were set up so well, it would have taken real incompetence to gently caress it all up. They hosed it all up. In 2009, James Robinson began producing a new Justice League series, an ongoing title with a team spearheaded by Green Lantern which would be more "pro-active" in how it dealt with super-villains. This was quickly turned into a 7-issue mini-series instead, one that was widely panned for its writing, inconsistent characterization as well as a rather vile and unpalatable attitude towards torture. Basically, it was guilty of all that long-evident bullshit that so often plagues the comic industry (Marvel included): the idea of being "adult" by writing over-the-top violence and often grossly handled sexual aspects. Mass death scenarios, casual torture, nastily smug villains who we are TOLD are brilliant without actually being written that way, and it all ends with blatant pre-meditated murder in what comes across as intended to be "badass" but just feels like apologism for the notion of extra-judicial murder in spite of token efforts towards "we have to be better than this". Running alongside this series were a number of tangential comics, including "Rise of Arsenal" featuring the story of Green Arrow's former sidekick and now hero in his own right, Roy Harper. It's a truly hilarious story filled with comedy, wackiness and ridiculously over-the-top nonsense that can't help but put a smile on your face. There's just one problem: It's not a comedy.  "Hey honey, get ready, it's time for the funeral for that small child who died brutally in a citywide terrorist attack!" "Oh gently caress hold on, let me get the outfit that REALLY showcases my cleavage!" The tonal dissonance is present throughout the entire series. Starting around the midpoint of Cry for Justice and running past its ending, it tells the story of how Harper is crippled, his daughter is killed, he relapses into drug addiction, becomes estranged(er) from his father-figure and also his dick stops working. It is supposed to be a heartbreaking tale of a man pushed so far over the edge that even when he pulls himself back he is still beyond the line that separates heroes from vigilantes and villains. But everything is just so corny and weird and poorly realized that it becomes a comedy of errors. The "tragedy" fails to tug at the heartstrings, at best it is silly and at worst it's feels cheap and manipulative. The death of Roy's young daughter makes her feel like a prop: I don't know if it falls under the category of "fridging" so often (rightly) derided in comic-books, particularly DC, but it sure feels like a cheap and lovely way to invoke sympathy. Then there's the loving arm.  What the gently caress is it with DC and people getting their arms ripped off? Cry for Justice was supposed to be Prometheus' return to the big-time as a villain, as he had largely been a b-list clown after his initial excellent appearances in Grant Morrison and Mark Waid's JLA series. During that event (and the first issue of this series) he orchestrated arrival on the Watchtower to pull off his cartoonishly stupid evil scheme, and in the process got into a fight with Arsenal and cut his arm off. When Roy awakes, he discovers that Prometheus killed 100,000 people (a number so large it is nonsensical rather than horrifying) in Star City, including Roy's own daughter. With his arm stump infected by nanobites that Dr. Midnite cannot remove, Roy's grief is compounded by delirium from both the medication he has to take and the physical pain it can't quite remove. Oh yeah, the drugs.  Back in 1971, Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams wrote an eye-opener of a story in which Green Arrow's ward Speedy (Roy Harper) was revealed to be a junkie. Like the Spider-Man/Harry Osborn drugs story (which this story was written before but published after), In this story, Arsenal's grief and pain are so overwhelming that he begins hallucinating an old bandmate friend of his who died years earlier. This character goads him into getting back on street drugs (the heroin of the 70s is replaced by some nonsense made-up drug in this story), pops up a couple more times and then just... disappears from the story. He's replaced by a hallucination of Roy's dead daughter, which feels even grosser than killing her off in the first place. Especially as what is meant to be the artistic rendition of her body slowly rotting just ends up making her look like a weird little robot. Inbetween getting high as poo poo and lashing out at all the heroes who try to help him, he also runs into the mother of his dead daughter, a super-villain called Cheshire. Angrily blaming each other for their daughter's death, they suddenly get all hot and bothered and decide to gently caress. What is intended to be a look at how anguish drives the grieving to illogical ends is handled appallingly badly - the shift from rage to the desperate need for physical comfort is horribly conveyed and just looks like an excuse to draw some T&A, especially as the fight scenes that prelude it take every opportunity to look down her top at her cleavage. To top it off comes a passing reference to Roy being impotent. This is meant to demonstrate his psychological turmoil but coming on top of everything else it feels like a farce, and certainly fails to generate any sympathy for the character. Unable to get his high from sex, Roy rushes off to get it from drugs, and after getting high is confronted by hallucinations of Prometheus menacing his daughter. So he fights them, before a two-page reveal is intended to demonstrate the depths to which Roy has lost himself.... and oh my God do they gently caress this up unbelievably badly:   After Batman (Dick Grayson) subdues him, Roy is sent to rehab but quickly breaks out at the goading of hallucination-Lian. Green Arrow has already killed Prometheus and gone to jail, but Prometheus' henchman the Electrocutioner, the one who set up the device that ultimately killed Lian, is alive and imprisoned. Roy breaks in to kill him, and when the prison guards can't stop him they rush to Green Arrow's cell to ask for his help. By a stroke of luck Green Arrow gets to wear his costume in jail too, and he confronts Roy and fights him to try and prevent him making the same mistake he made and regrets: killing a villain. Ollie is able to beat Roy in a fight, but despite his years of experience and skills he doesn't seem to notice he's hitting Roy in the Electrocutioner's direction. Roy is able to cut Ollie off with prison bars, and then stabs the poo poo out of the Electrocutioner and storms off. What exactly we're meant to think about all this I have no idea, because the whole comic is a weird mishmash of ideas and philosophies and social problems and dilemmas mixed up together with no real sense that there is a clear idea of what is right and wrong. You could argue this is entirely the point, as in Roy's grief, pain and drugged state that's just how somebody might think and act. While I'd agree with that, I will say that it doesn't make for a particularly coherent, enjoyable and worthwhile comic. It doesn't help that none of the key emotional points land in any way. Everything feels like it is aping something done better (even if badly) in other comics. The big funeral scene is straight out of Identity Crisis. The drug use was handled far more interestingly back in 1971. Impotence and the superhero has been mined to death but is probably best demonstrated in Watchmen. Hell even the jail fight comes across like a poor reflection of Rorshach in jail. With the Electrocutioner dead, Roy returns to his home and literally burns it to the ground, thus symbolically saying goodbye to Lian (the hallucination burns up with the home) before heading off with renewed purpose to be... I don't know, a vigilante who beats up criminals just like he used to be before? What was the whole point of this comic? I don't know, it certainly didn't tell a story that hasn't been told far better many times before. It's dark and lovely for no other reason than to be dark and lovely. It's a complete failure (as is Cry for Justice) to realize the promise that came out of Final Crisis. It's ludicrous, it's funny, it's stupid, and it wasn't meant to be any of those things.  Pictured above: Some DC Editor when he gets a page back featuring somebody getting their arm ripped off Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 13:18 on May 1, 2018 |
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May 1, 2018 12:13
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Nice write up and I don't have anything to say about that comic but...Jerusalem posted:Oh yeah, the drugs.  It's kind of an infamous thing that Marvel couldn't get the comic code for their anti-drugs story, and then when GL/GA did the story a few years later they could.
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May 1, 2018 12:31
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Huh, I did not know that, that's pretty cool. I'd always thought of it as one of those issues that just got sent out without the CCA logo.
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May 1, 2018 13:16
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Jerusalem posted:
I honestly don't have much to say about this one, which is what I was afraid of. It's like trying to do a review of New Hope or something; not in terms of quality but more the cultural impact, in that it would difficult to find someone NOT familiar with this source. This covers the first 6 issues of the comic, which translates to the first 2 or 3 episodes of the show for the most part, though Darabont did make a lot of changes, especially with Shane, but the bones are still the same, and you know them. Rick Grimes is a cop who's shot and put into a coma. When he wakes up, the world is full of zombies. He fights his way to Atlanta, makes some new friends, and meets up with his family. His partner told his wife Rick was dead and has been trying to start a relationship with her, sleeping with her at least once. In the show this leads to more of a drawn out conflict, but in the book Shane tries to kill Rick pretty early on, and Carl's the one who kills him to protect his father. Now, my Blaise attitude aside, this is really good stuff. There's a reason Walking Dead was king poo poo for several years, its an exciting story with a really good human element. The show and books have both gone on way too long, but if you haven't checked the beginnings of both they're definitely worth a look. I'll take another, Hit me again, no dupes
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May 2, 2018 00:07
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I'm always entertained by DC's attempts to make Prometheus seem like a serious threat. Especially since he's really just a zero-dimensional character who's a riff on "Batman is prepared for anything" and whose whole motivation is "I'm e~e~e~e~vile".
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May 2, 2018 00:15
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Volume one of Walking Dead is the only one I've read, and I did think it was very good but was disappointed in how quickly the Rick/Shane stuff was dealt with. It's where I think the tv series, for all its many flaws, actually worked better by stretching it out a bit and making Shane and his more aggressive mindset contrast so strongly with Rick's perhaps naive attempts to hold to pre-infection values.Evil Mastermind posted:I'm always entertained by DC's attempts to make Prometheus seem like a serious threat. Especially since he's really just a zero-dimensional character who's a riff on "Batman is prepared for anything" and whose whole motivation is "I'm e~e~e~e~vile". It's a shame, because I think he worked well in his first appearance, but then that was kind of wrapped up perfectly the next time he showed up and Batman got to deal with him pretty drat conclusively. Everything since then has been a stepdown, and the bit in Cry for Justice where he effortlessly demolishes the entire JLA is laughably bad and feels like Robinson's also awful issue of Starman where he had the Mist take out the Justice League Europe. Retro Futurist posted:I'll take another, Hit me again, no dupes  You get 108 - Flash: The Return of Barry Allen. It's a 6 issue run of The Flash issues 74-79 which you can find as part of a collection on Comixology or starting as individual issues from here
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May 2, 2018 01:31
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The whole Cry for Justice/Rise of Arsenal is a collection of disgust and terrible for me, a blotched spot on DC that decided that the best thing to do for Single Father Roy Harper is to have him lose his daughter, get his arm cut off, and become a complete druggie. I don't recall them even doing anything with Roy until the Nu52 happened and he popped up in Red Hood and the Outlaws with both arms, but never having had a daughter. The fact this was a Step UP from his previous position is an example of just how bad Cry for Justice and Rise of Arsenal completely hosed his character. Oh and Jerusalem skipped over a really loving horrid scene. Where Donna Troy, who in the past has been a love of Roy Harper, trying to comfort him, he lashes out at her, saying that she can't compare the death of her son to the death of his daughter, because "You were whoring through space with Kyle Rayner when he died" (This, by the way, is totally incorrect, they were on earth at his mothers house and Terry had custody of the kids so there was literally nothing she could do.) Which... even if it was true, is so loving utterly inappropriate, so utterly disgusting that Roy Harper could not POSSIBLY be sympathetic after saying it. Again, if the idea is to show his spiral down into... vigilantism? Which, by the way, nice going rising back up into the position you were already in. Except we can't even say that, he's so far worse than he ever was.
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May 2, 2018 09:57
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Yeah, I didn't mention it because it was just so gross I didn't want to even think about it after reading it. The whole comic is just loving gross, ill-conceived and horribly executed. I can see why it is so high (low) on the list of lovely comics.
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May 2, 2018 10:02
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Avengers #200 is a comic by nobody, for nobody, and it should never be read. There are many, many words written about this story. Jim Shooter, Editor-in-Chief of Marvel at the time of its unleashing, swears up and down that he doesn't remember a thing about its creation, but has politely apologized for it nonetheless. Chris Claremont, former Ms. Marvel writer, immediately turned around and scripted a damnation/rebuttal (kind of) in the form of Avengers Annual #10. There is, of course, Carol A. Strickland's essay from the premiere issue of LOC, "The Rape of Ms. Marvel." And, with the Golden Age of Internet Criticism upon us, a veritable smorgasbord of write-ups, vlogs, and whathaveyous detailing just how awful these ~40 pages of content are is right at your fingertips. Also I wrote this one.  Prior to Avengers #200, I guess there was a thread in the Ms. Marvel book about how she'd be the perfect specimen to breed an army of Kree-Terran hybrids? Never read it, so I'm not really sure how pervasive it is. From the panels above, it looks pretty bad, but given his reaction, I doubt even Claremont meant for events to unfold how they eventually do. For our purposes, the story starts in Avengers 197.   Our heroine, Carol Danvers, visits her friend Wanda Frank (nee Maximoff) as she looks out over the ocean, contemplating having children. Carol seems staunchly against the idea, asking The Scarlet Witch if focusing on one life versus the entire population of the planet (and elsewhere) would actually fulfill her, a point to which Wanda surprisingly agrees, admitting that she and The Vision had more or less come to the same conclusion. The superhero life is no life for children. Then, without warning, Carol collapses. At the hospital, the physician readily lets Wanda in to see her friend, suggesting she could use the moral support. It seems Carol's taken her diagnosis rather poorly, though he's not sure why. "After all", he says, "nausea and fainting are quite common symptoms for someone who is--"  So far, fairly compelling melodrama. One friend wants to have kids but knows she probably shouldn't. The other thinks having kids is a mistake and, whoops, it turns out she's pregnant. Ironic, right? Not a terrible cliffhanger. The three months thing is a little strange, but superhero comics. Without any of the impending context, this isn't so bad. Uncomfortable, of course, but not unheard of. Next issue, Carol reveals her identity to Wanda. Since she's hit her second trimester in under 24 hours, Ms. Marvel might not be scared, but Ms. Danvers is, and she needs a friend. There is no father (that she can remember), and, unfortunately, The Avengers are going to be of little to no help.  Cap passes. Jan fails. Hank fails worse. Simon... passes? Carol is left in the charge of Dr. Donald Blake, aka The Mighty Thor, and The Avengers settle down for Jarvis-prepared cocoa. But just as their marshmallows are beginning to melt, in storms Blake. The baby is coming.  This is where things get really bad.  The menfolk pace the floors, Hawkeye ribbing Cap that his concern makes him sound like a proud papa-to-be. Carol doesn't even have to push for the baby to crown and the delivery is over in a matter of moments. Dr. Blake is letting the various Avengers coo over the baby when The Wasp notices the mother isn't there. Wonder Man is wheeling her up to her room when Jan steps in to congratulate her, but Carol brushes the diminutive heroine off.  Jocasta and The Vision discuss life. It's very poignant and definitely not pretentious at all. Hank and Clint play pool, providing one of the only salvageable pages from this whole mess. It's sadly fitting that Beast gets a strong, likable character moment in the middle of this dreck. Meanwhile, the baby is mere hours old, but has developed physically into a two-year-old, and is starting to speak. Honestly, with those peepers, he might not be totally done cooking.   Simon steps in again, visiting Carol in her quarters. I don't know much about Wonder Man. He's got a terrible sense of style. His powers are standard brick stuff and maybe some kind of energy beams or something? Anyway. Not important. What is important is that he really does seem to be trying to help, but it's a highly unusual situation, even for these unusual people. Still, his encouragement to at least try and figure out what's going on instead of running is admirable. I kinda like this guy. All dressed up with a fresh apology from Jan and nowhere else to go but to meet her son, Carol is introduced to the now self-identifying Marcus, who requests tools and parts to begin building a machine that he never really explains. Probably something to do with time? There are a string of anachronisms that call for The Avengers' attention, and with whatever manipulative aura that surrounds Marcus, his arrival and their occurrence are probably not coincidental.  While the other Avengers fight dinosaurs, a knight, a musketeer, a troop of Native Americans, an anaconda, and a handful of other things displaced from time and space, Hawkeye slips away to investigate further when he sees Marcus put Carol to sleep. He lets loose an arrow that causes the mysterious man's mysterious machine to explode, putting an end to the anachronisms and putting The Avengers squarely in the sights of this crazy bastard. Or they would be, if his eyes could focus in the same direction. Turns out this was all a ploy to get our heroes to... kill him? That can't be right...  Upon discovering that Marcus is actually Immortus' son, Carol rightly voices her concern. How could she have given birth to the child of a man she's never met? The remaining pages do their best to explain what's going on, which is where this plodding, unfortunate story becomes infamous:     Marcus' father Immortus, the ruler of Limbo, plucked a woman who was destined to die in a shipwreck out of time and used machines to make her fall in love with him. After she disappeared and Immortus left, Marcus was all alone. He hatched a scheme to get himself to the home planet of his parents. By pulling Ms. Marvel from the timeline, using his father's machines to seduce her, and "implanting his essence within her", Marcus was able to be born on Earth and immediately set about building a machine to stabilize the effects his presence would have on local space-time. You know. The one Hawkeye destroyed. With the machine gone, the anachronisms have vanished, but so too must Marcus. He is not chronally stable enough to exist on Earth, and without his machine, he can't be. Lucky for him, Carol immediately agrees to go with him, saying her goodbyes to a slightly bewildered Iron Man before Thor whisks them off. And so, the issue ends, not with a bang, but with a "wait... what?" of disbelief. The Avengers have done nothing and learned nothing. Except for Hawkeye. Hawkeye learned to... um... not shoot first, I guess.  Avengers 200 is the culmination of a plot that forever mars the history of Marvel Comics' flagship title. It reduces Earth's Mightiest Heroes to simpering, domesticated idiots who half-heartedly shrug as the villain explicitly lays out just how unrepentantly awful he's been and takes his new mommy-wife back home with him without any opposition. I am not the right person to dive into the social ramifications of everything Carol endures in these pages. There are plenty of other more credible sources for that. But if I had been an average comic-reading kid in 1980, excited for one of my favorite teams to hit a milestone issue, and this is what I got? "Maybe the next one won't be so bad..."  Nope.
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Jun 5, 2018 15:50
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Jesus Christ now I gotta repress my memory of that issue all over again. It's so loving awful and stupid and dumb and what the hell was anybody thinking and how can this have gone from a pitch to sketches to finalized script to coloring and lettering and then to printing all with constant editorial oversight with nobody at any point going,"....now hang on a loving second here...." Somehow what I find most offensive is everybody cheerily joking and laughing with Carol about her being pregnant and treating it like any regular pregnancy while she is freaking out as her hijacked body zips through an accelerated and unwanted pregnancy. Everybody comes across like a tone-deaf idiot.
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Jun 6, 2018 02:45
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