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I like this idea, spin me something. I'm in.
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Jan 6, 2018 20:07
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:
So is that a trade or if not collected, how do I find which issues?
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Jan 6, 2018 20:18
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You can read comics via Marvel Unlimited on a PC, right? I mean, I would assume you can, but the website just seems to reference mobile devices. I had a free trial of it years ago and didn't like how it worked, but I'm assuming they've upgraded it since then.
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Jan 7, 2018 01:05
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Roth posted:Desktop is an option for MU still Cool--and I don't mind spending the 10 bucks for a month, but are there promo codes floating around that I'd be a fool not to try to track down?
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Jan 7, 2018 01:09
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Still don't really like MU, at least on desktop, but it's much more convenient than tracking down out of print stuff. I think I just don't like reading on my computer very much, and my tablet is too small. I'm not the biggest Avengers fan or anything, but I thought this was funny, since I never heard of the guy saying this, nor of the three other Avengers he mentioned no one ever hears of, back in 1998:  I also dig his rear end sticking out in so many panels on this page! This was a great idea Lick--would never have thought to read this arc otherwise, but I just finished the first issue and I think it'll be a good ride.
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Jan 7, 2018 04:31
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I love whoever came up with Kang's "lounge on a floating pillow" entrance that's apparently canon, since that's exactly how he shows up in this story. It's like Darkseid always sitting in your easy chair when you get home--kind of takes the arrogance and power of a king on a throne and transfers it.  I know almost nothing about Kang, so I'm looking forward to seeing how what strikes me as a really goofy character ends up elevating this arc to the list of Good Comics.
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Jan 7, 2018 21:22
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I know nothing about Falcon, other than that he got mocked a lot in Twisted Toyfare Theater, but the origin of his falcon link from the 2001 Avengers Annual is intriguing: edit--is there some way to keep signed in on Marvel Unlimited? By the time I finish one issue, I have to sign in again.
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Jan 7, 2018 22:47
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My assignment was to read Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, an arc towards the end of Kurt Busiek's run in the late 90s. I don't know nearly as much about the context of this time period as other reviewers, so I can only speak to my own feelings about the work itself. I realized reading this that I know almost nothing about the Avengers, despite considering myself a Marvel guy for years. Basically, I kept being surprised by how tight the relationship between the Avengers and the United States government was; how many members I'd never heard of; how many members I thought were on the team weren't, or were actually enemies (at least at this time period, like the Hulk). My vision of the Avengers is apparently influenced a lot by the NES Avengers game, where there were 4 members--Captain America, Iron Man, Vision, and Hawkeye. And I knew from random Marvel lore that there was Wasp and Ant-Man, but I was not prepared for the sheer number of Avengers who I'd never even heard of-- 1. Triathlon (and the three unremembered Avengers he mentions whose company he believes he'll fall into--Mantis, Rage, and Deathcry) 2. Photon 3. Stingray 4. Firestar 5. Jack of Hearts ("whose zero-blasts are enough to shatter moons")?? 6. Justice 7. Firebird 8. Black Knight 9. Wonder Man--I'd heard of this guy but don't know anything about him 10. Silverclaw ("Silverclaw shifts into giant-sloth form--her most powerful incarnation")?? 11. Living Lightning 12. 3-D Man!? I guess maybe not technically an Avenger, but still There were even more members that I'd heard of vaguely, like Quasar, but also people like Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, who I thought were mutants and would be on some X-team, not the Avengers, who for some reason I thought just never had mutants. Anyway, so I knew basically nothing about the above characters, and not a ton about what led the ones I had heard about to their current characterizations. But I felt Busiek did a good job--nothing struck me as particularly egregious on the ones he focused on, like Warbird, even though her history I'm sure I don't know the first thing about. My main connection with her is that Rogue stole all her powers. But then she apparently got those powers back, or different powers, or something. So anyway, the whole premise seemed a bit goofy, with Kang showing up from the future (the 40th century?) lounging on his floating pillow with a massive invisible sword shaped doomstation in Earth's orbit, telling the assembled heroes about a number of threats that are coming and how he needs to conquer the Earth to protect it from those threats. Then he blows up the UN but saves all the people in the building to prove some kind of point about him not wasting lives needlessly, before announcing his explicit goal is to create mass chaos across the globe which will of course lead to uncountable casualties on his behalf as factions fight the established nations to get a place in Kang's new world order. And then later on, he just obliterates Washington DC anyway, annihilating millions. I'm curious if this reverberates through future comics at all--I know the President got out safely, but I feel like I should maybe have heard of DC being destroyed in the Marvel universe and I never had. I get the feeling it was supposed to be chilling and a Big loving Deal, but I'd never heard of this happening. It was done in the silent issue, which was cool--the silent G.I. Joe issue is justifiably a classic and I thought this 'Nuff Said issue was decent. Also, about the premise--I don't really understand Kang's time travel abilities because it seems to me that if Kang was losing, he could just go back in time and change the thing that caused him to fail if he wanted to succeed. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me how a guy like him could ever fail if he didn't want to. I know it's a comic book, and Kang was supposed to have 'honor' (again, destroying millions of innocent lives seems counter to this) and the whole relationship with his son, the Scarlet Centurion, but it just seemed odd. Like, he had all this technology from the future but then couldn't actually time travel back in time to ensure he didn't lose this massive invasion he'd meticulously planned.  Part of the run included an Annual that centered around Hank Pym and was largely lost on me because I have no relation to that character and very little knowledge of his history. So the fact that the Annual led to him reunifying mentally with these three different versions of himself didn't make me feel much and felt unearned--but if I'd been following the character for years, maybe it would have felt really satisfying. I saw the domestic abuse thing get referenced--at the time of the issue, in 1998 I believe, it would have been close to 20 years in real life time since that event had happened--how long was supposed to have passed in Marvel years for it to still be such a huge mental issue for Hank? Anyway, felt I wasn't really the intended audience for this scene and maybe it would have been touching otherwise. There was this other villain type guy who popped up to protect the world from Kang with his advanced alien technology named "The Master of the World". His motivation was kind of cool--sort of a Raz al Ghul vibe, making sure that the wrong people get elected so the population can be culled. But then he gets murdered the issue after he shows up by Warbird, who just grabs a chunk of metal and stabs him to death with it to very little comment. After which, the heroes all steal his advanced alien tech to fight Kang with. The rest of the arc is Warbird dealing with what she did, but it seemed a little half-hearted how upset she was with herself, given literally nobody else felt she'd acted wrongly at all. Then after Kang is defeated, she insists on a court martial for herself, where everyone tells her she's being an idiot and what she did is fine because it was wartime or something. I feel maybe I'm missing something with Warbird's character that was probably explored prior to where I jumped on board the Avengers, since I felt it didn't really seem like anybody else cared about what she did, and she cared about it so much. The government in this arc decides to send Sentinels after Kang, even though earlier it's mentioned that every single time they've ever been used in the past, it's led to some sort of disaster. So of course they send them after Kang's space station and I can only imagine them from the 90s X-Men cartoon--ineffective and played for laughs, but it's hard to imagine what the 75 robots they built could possibly do against Kang's future station anyway, when the Avengers failed to penetrate it with their crazy powers. I mean, has there been one superhuman in the entire history of Marvel comics that the Sentinels have actually managed to kill? So why would they think they could pierce the forcefield of a 40th century battle station? And either way, this was a cheesy as gently caress moment where it's presented that Kang had time traveled to when robots were invented and planted a failsafe in EVERY robot ever created except "the Vision and the android Human Torch" (thanks for that oddly specific reference, Kang) so that with a command, he could control any robot at will, including these Sentinels which he sends back to Earth to get destroyed by the Avengers anyway. It's not clear how much time passes between when Kang destroys DC and the US surrenders and when the other heroes come back from space, but it's enough time for there to be prison camps and rebellious groups and things like that. The pacing wasn't great in this part--I would have liked to have seen a little more Days of Future Past type desperate bands of hunted heroes. Thor is still free though and ends up rescuing some people and turning the tide. Speaking of Thor, early on in the arc, Thor is fighting some radiation ghost guys with Captain America and others, and everyone else falls and becomes radiation ghosts. Thor is shaken by how much he's affected by this--obviously, Captain America gets turned back to normal, but it shakes Thor because as an immortal, he knows the mortals he pals around with are going to die someday. This preoccupies him for most of the arc, until the end, when he makes a nice little speech about how mortal lives DO matter, even though he's immortal. And he brings a feast to Avengers Mansion to celebrate Kang's defeat. I felt Kang's defeat was kind of stupid because after sending his son in a time escape pod to the future, he gets captured. Then his son rescues him, and Kang reveals to his son that he's the 22nd Marcus, and the others are all in his private chamber, dead in glass coffins. And Kang kills this son because he'd helped Warbird out earlier, which led to their defeat. Again, I don't understand time travel or its limitations, because it's nonsensical for a father to have 22 adult dead sons who have failed him for various reasons. Using time travel shenanigans, his kids can grow fast, which they go over a bit, but still. And why the gently caress would you name all 22 of your sons Marcus? The other big thing in the ending was completely lost on me, since it centered around this Duane guy who from context was the Avengers' government liaison. But I don't think Duane featured in the arc at all, or if he did, it wasn't very memorable, and I guess he died in the DC explosion, but that also wasn't really pointed out anywhere. So his death I guess was supposed to add gravitas to everything, but it didn't work for me at all because I had no idea who he was or what relationships he had with the Avengers who were so bummed out about his death. It seems chickenshit to have a civilian die to lend weight to the story when you had so many--SO, SO MANY--heroes who could easily have made the ultimate sacrifice instead. Overall, it was a fun read and was more sophisticated than I thought it would be--one of the other reviews mentions Busiek being sort of a very solid master of the comic book formula, and I really agree with that. In this arc, it feels like a good hero book, despite the criticisms above. It's one of those things I'll never re-read because nothing in it really resonates with the real world in a meaningful way, but I don't regret my time with it. I'm really curious what the people who put this on their list at 271 thought about it, what made them think this is even that worthy. Like, what moments made them think this was better than 2/3 of the other stories on their list? And of course anyone in the thread who's familiar with it--maybe I'm missing out on a lot of subtle and cool things because I'm not very familiar with the characters. But that's a ding against the comic in my opinion.
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Jan 12, 2018 02:49
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Seconding E and C to come in and explain why Alan Moore has his name on such a lovely script. That seems really really out of keeping with his reputation.
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Jan 14, 2018 15:00
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Random Stranger posted:I do agree with the broad concept that the Gaiman issues of Miracleman are not good. I remember thinking Gaiman was doing what he always did back then: take a little detail Alan wrote and extrapolate from it. I haven't read any of the new stuff, though, maybe it resolves better than it began.
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Jan 15, 2018 01:57
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Edge & Christian posted:If you look at some of the stuff in the top 50 (Transformers vs. GI Joe/American Barbarian, Alan Moore's Supreme, Sexcastle, some IDW Transformers trade) you'll see that the WRA guys have very different tastes in comics than a lot of people. For what it's worth they really don't seem to like Grant Morrison outside of All Star Superman and bits of his Batman run. Are Transformers Vs GI Joe / American Barbarian and Alan Moore's Supreme really controversial or something? The Scioli stuff is so Kirby inspired I'd be surprised if people generally into comics DIDN'T like it, and Supreme is such an homage to Silver Age Superman, it would appeal to anybody who likes that era.
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Jan 18, 2018 02:43
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The picture you posted looks like a She-Hulk omnibus of some sort, is there a trade of just the first 12 issues? That part sounds like fun reading!
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Feb 25, 2018 13:21
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What was the big panel in Wanted you kept referencing? I honestly no nothing about the work beyond that they made it into a movie and what I just read.
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Mar 11, 2018 21:31
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Millar wrote Red Son, right? It seems so tonally different from Kick rear end and Wanted and not just because DC wouldn't allow sodomy.
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Mar 13, 2018 04:06
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Cornwind Evil posted:He did. He also wrote Superior, a Superman pastiche, and it's why I am (among others) so drat harsh on him: it's about a 3 on the grimness scale of '1 to 10 to 11 to breaking off the drat dial' with him always ending up at 10 and worse. It shows he can control himself, he can even write half decent good stuff, but most of the time he not only doesn't, he seems to go out of his way to go in the opposite direction. Did he also write that "1986" (I'm sure I have the date wrong) book with the weird art where the Marvel universe bleeds into the real world or something like that? Was that any good?
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Mar 13, 2018 13:10
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The Kick-rear end and Wanted reviews have me wanting to sample, if not great Millar, at least not "this is me loving you in the rear end" Millar.
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Mar 13, 2018 19:58
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Is there a good resource for what happened in the Ultimate universe? I read a few trades in high school and I kind of just want to read a comparison between the traditional characters, i.e., classic Wolverine is like this and Ultimate Wolverine is like that. Your review has me curious if the whole endeavor was as edgy and try hard as I recall or if there were some cool ideas there.
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Mar 19, 2018 03:31
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What sort of weird events would have occurred in an Ultimate DC universe? I'm sure this was all over comic blogs 15 years ago.
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Mar 19, 2018 20:08
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Jerusalem posted:God I hate annuals, they're either entirely skippable or include some gigantic major event/reveal you'll completely miss if you're only reading the actual issues of the series you want to read. Please tell me the annuals are included in the Starman omnibus volumes I've slowly been acquiring? I thought I checked before and they have everything, where the trades are really awful in what they omit.
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Mar 26, 2018 19:06
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What are like the top 5 crossover comics that are actually decent? I haven't read very many, but I recall really enjoying Batman vs the Punisher--it uses the Azrael Batman and has Joker and Jigsaw, if I recall. I liked the tone of it. Archie vs the Punisher was also pretty fun, though probably not really great.
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Apr 13, 2018 04:05
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JLA/Avengers sounds really cool. A quick look shows the used trades to be outrageously expensive, but presumably such a huge marketing event had tons of the individual issues printed, so that'd probably be the best way to read it, right?
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Apr 13, 2018 15:35
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