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danbanana
Jun 7, 2008

OG Bell's fanboi

Bonzo posted:

I was about 10 years old when I went to the zoo one year for trick or treat someone stuffed this comic into my bag. My friends got random issues of Batman and Iron man so I was confused.


That's amazing.

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Air Skwirl
May 13, 2007

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.
https://twitter.com/JHickman/status/1254322590954463234?s=20

https://twitter.com/JHickman/status/1254322626161508353?s=20

https://twitter.com/JHickman/status/1254322682830749696?s=20

https://twitter.com/JHickman/status/1254322721497976833?s=20

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Swan_(comics)

(It might not even be about the character he created)

IUG
Jul 14, 2007


Has anyone looked at the oldest set of these he posted and see if they match any comics he works on? I remember people freaking out about the first few times he did them, but don't recall if they led to anything.

Open Marriage Night
Sep 18, 2009

"Do you want to talk to a spider, Peter?"


He posted some Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey before the issues with the Brood.

danbanana
Jun 7, 2008

OG Bell's fanboi
Who got $300 bones?

https://www.comicsexperience.com/course/master-seminar-with-jonathan-hickman-the-art-of-writing-for-the-reboot/

KidDynamite
Feb 11, 2005


I just told my wife about this and she said happy early birthday. So I guess I’m spending Saturday learning how to write from Jonathon Hickman.

Open Marriage Night
Sep 18, 2009

"Do you want to talk to a spider, Peter?"


We want a full report.

I’d have done it in a heartbeat if my finances weren’t a quarantined mess right now.

danbanana
Jun 7, 2008

OG Bell's fanboi

Open Marriage Night posted:

We want a full report.


Definitely. Hickman's best skill is World-building in my opinion, and I'm wondering how much of this is just going to be his process for that.

Open Marriage Night
Sep 18, 2009

"Do you want to talk to a spider, Peter?"


Just bought a six pack of Two Hearted because of your avatar. Going to drink and read X-Men.

That original Proteus story is pretty hosed up for the time. Like some Alan Moore got injected into a super hero soap opera where the biggest threat they really faced, besides the Imperial Guard, was Moses Magnum threatening to sink Japan.

Next issue after Colossus is forced to kill Proteus, we’re introduced to Emma Frost and Kitty Pryde. Xavier is back from space, and Scott and Jean are back together. Next issue is Dazzler, and the Phoenix stuff is going to start ramping up after taking a backseat during all the globe trotting after the initial Shi’ar battle.

Open Marriage Night fucked around with this message at 00:25 on May 6, 2020

Heavy Metal
Sep 1, 2014

America's $1 Funnyman

Right on, good ol Claremont. I'm around issue 150 at the moment.

Open Marriage Night
Sep 18, 2009

"Do you want to talk to a spider, Peter?"


The Hellfire stuff is so good. Jean’s story reads like a Young Adult novel, and that’s not a bad thing at all. The Hellfire Inner Circle are great villains compared to the super villains people were used to at the time. Seeing the X-Men lay defeated at the feet of a bunch of Victorian era fancy lads is a good way to get attention.

Wolverine fighting the Hellfire guards is still really bad rear end, and Cyclops’ mind duel with Mastermind had me more invested than I expected.

Going to finish off the Dark Phoenix saga tonight. I feel like I know this story backwards and forwards from the few issues I already own, and second hand sources, so I’m more interested in seeing what happens next with the stuff I’m not as intimately familiar with.

Rochallor
Apr 23, 2010

ふっっっっっっっっっっっっck
The Dark Phoenix Saga is wonderful, but reading it in sequence really sheds light on why adaptations of it have failed. You can't have a Dark Phoenix saga without a Phoenix saga. Jean has to be Phoenix and not evil/gaslit for some time for it to work. The storyline with the M'Kraan crystal is really just as important an element to the whole story as the Hellfire Club or the fight on the moon, but that's not anywhere in the trade paperback.

JordanStiva
Jan 14, 2015
I'm also using quarantine to actually read Claremont's original Uncanny run and I'm around 157-158 and it's been firing on all cylinders non-stop. Also, it was a while back but there were some really interesting posts a ways back about the power struggles/shifts in Marvel in the late 80s/early 90s that were great for someone who isn't too clued in about the inner workings and inside history of comics. Are there any good books about the behind-the-scenes work on this X-Men run? I can see a general Marvel: Untold Story book but was wondering if there's anything X-Men/Claremont specific?

Air Skwirl
May 13, 2007

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.
I don't know about an X-Men specific one, but Untold Story is a really, really good book.

Bonzo
Mar 11, 2004

Just like Mama used to make it!

Rochallor posted:

The Dark Phoenix Saga is wonderful, but reading it in sequence really sheds light on why adaptations of it have failed. You can't have a Dark Phoenix saga without a Phoenix saga. Jean has to be Phoenix and not evil/gaslit for some time for it to work. The storyline with the M'Kraan crystal is really just as important an element to the whole story as the Hellfire Club or the fight on the moon, but that's not anywhere in the trade paperback.

I had a very thick copy of the entire saga back in the mid 80s. I assume it's been broken up in to multiple volume or cut back to save on publishing.

I'm pretty sure it started when Banshee leaves the team

Minister of Sound
Jan 1, 2007

Damn, I wish I was your lett'rer!

JordanStiva posted:

Are there any good books about the behind-the-scenes work on this X-Men run? I can see a general Marvel: Untold Story book but was wondering if there's anything X-Men/Claremont specific?

They aren't books, but uncannyxmen.net's "Secrets behind the X-Men" articles are excellent.

Minister of Sound fucked around with this message at 20:56 on May 7, 2020

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

I've been planning to start a readthrough of Claremont's x-men run by getting those reissued omnibuses, but it looks like those are going to be pushed back a while and I'm limited to a bunch of 80s New Mutants comics.

danbanana
Jun 7, 2008

OG Bell's fanboi
Just checked again and you can find near-complete runs of the Classic X-men/X-Men Classic stuff on ebay on the regular. I actually recommend the first 3-4 years of those because they have the John Bolton-drawn backups that are mostly pretty great. Those were later collected in the X-Men: Vignettes books...

Likewise, I'm one of the few people who loved the Essential X-Men B&W collections that they did on newsprint. You can get the first 8 volumes cheap but I stopped buying after 8 and it turns out that when the Lee issues started getting included, the demand went through the roof. You can't find Vol. 9 for less than $50. Ditto Vol. 10.

Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

Reading the Claremont run is like watching someone perform alchemy. It's messy, occasionally explosive, but in real time you see these relics of a failed franchise forcibly transfigured into the world's most dynamic superhero team. So very worth reading.

Air Skwirl
May 13, 2007

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

danbanana posted:

Just checked again and you can find near-complete runs of the Classic X-men/X-Men Classic stuff on ebay on the regular. I actually recommend the first 3-4 years of those because they have the John Bolton-drawn backups that are mostly pretty great. Those were later collected in the X-Men: Vignettes books...

Likewise, I'm one of the few people who loved the Essential X-Men B&W collections that they did on newsprint. You can get the first 8 volumes cheap but I stopped buying after 8 and it turns out that when the Lee issues started getting included, the demand went through the roof. You can't find Vol. 9 for less than $50. Ditto Vol. 10.

Coincidentally that's not the worst place to stop reading. I like the early Jim Lee stuff, but the book is obviously changing into something else at that point

Air Skwirl
May 13, 2007

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.
https://twitter.com/AngstyX/status/1258462794502090756?s=19

Anybody able to DM Tini Howard or Marcus To?

Heavy Metal
Sep 1, 2014

America's $1 Funnyman

Gambit for every occasion, mon ami. Nobody can say Gambit isn't cool. Well they could, but it's not appropriate, chere.

Rick
Feb 23, 2004
When I was 17, my father was so stupid, I didn't want to be seen with him in public. When I was 24, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned in just 7 years.

Rochallor posted:

The Dark Phoenix Saga is wonderful, but reading it in sequence really sheds light on why adaptations of it have failed. You can't have a Dark Phoenix saga without a Phoenix saga. Jean has to be Phoenix and not evil/gaslit for some time for it to work. The storyline with the M'Kraan crystal is really just as important an element to the whole story as the Hellfire Club or the fight on the moon, but that's not anywhere in the trade paperback.

I read the graphic novel that my aunt bought me a million times which starts with them picking up Kitty, but yeah the arcs before that make it even better.

JordanStiva
Jan 14, 2015

Minister of Sound posted:

They aren't books, but uncannyxmen.net's "Secrets behind the X-Men" articles are excellent.

These look perfect, thanks!

danbanana
Jun 7, 2008

OG Bell's fanboi

Skwirl posted:

Coincidentally that's not the worst place to stop reading. I like the early Jim Lee stuff, but the book is obviously changing into something else at that point

It's not the best period, but it is still the most insane to me: between mid-'89 and the Adjectiveless launch, the best selling monthly comic in the world was a team book where there wasn't a team. Almost 2 years of stories where the main characters were turned into amnesiac artists or amnesiac ninjas or amnesiac children and for a while Jean Grey- someone who starred in another book!- had tentacles. "I hope you like Forge and Banshee!" Claremont thought as his comic sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

It's loving crazy.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

I have been reading the x-men epic collection that collects some of those stories, and I have to wonder whether they will make more sense when I am able to read all the issues in order. Longshot decides to leave the team and then actually leaves during a dream on a single page, and the Havok shoots the computer in their mysterious Australian base and it mysteriously and magically repairs itself in an ominous way, but then an issue later the X-Men all leave Australia forever. And they do that because Psylocke decides at the last moment that they should do that rather than fight the reavers, which is communicated to the reader by Wolverine figuring it out and narrating aloud as he has a hallucination replaying those events.

It definitely feels very rushed, as compared to his earlier work. You'd think some of those moments would get a little space.

Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

The end of the Claremont run is, yeah, pretty much a fever dream. Some of it's good, other parts not so much. I'm not clear on how much of that was caused by a return to stories being artist-lead, and how much was just fatigue.

danbanana
Jun 7, 2008

OG Bell's fanboi

Antifa Turkeesian posted:

I have been reading the x-men epic collection that collects some of those stories, and I have to wonder whether they will make more sense when I am able to read all the issues in order. Longshot decides to leave the team and then actually leaves during a dream on a single page, and the Havok shoots the computer in their mysterious Australian base and it mysteriously and magically repairs itself in an ominous way, but then an issue later the X-Men all leave Australia forever. And they do that because Psylocke decides at the last moment that they should do that rather than fight the reavers, which is communicated to the reader by Wolverine figuring it out and narrating aloud as he has a hallucination replaying those events.

It definitely feels very rushed, as compared to his earlier work. You'd think some of those moments would get a little space.

No, it's about that confusing.

The self-healing computer monitor... was that before Inferno? In my head, I thought that was related to Maddie's demon issues.

Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

Yeah, the computer thing was lead-in to Inferno, so without Inferno it's just a non sequitur.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Android Blues posted:

Yeah, the computer thing was lead-in to Inferno, so without Inferno it's just a non sequitur.

It's in 249, which is right before they leave Australia and all get amnesia--a few years after Inferno, although Havok does think about Maddie and how she's dead right before it happens.

Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

Oh, whoa. I must have been thinking of an earlier moment!

Saoshyant
Oct 26, 2010

:hmmorks: :orks:


Sounds more like a plot point that got dropped fast. I don't know if anyone ever bothered to compile a list of those, but I imagine there's several like those even before the final years of his run. I recall one specifically before the Jim Lee takeover of some bullshit with Super Skrulls taking over the Shiar empire except they weren't really Super Skrulls and thus were supposedly quite mysterious and oh, whoops that's all the time we got, see you next issue.

danbanana
Jun 7, 2008

OG Bell's fanboi

Android Blues posted:

Oh, whoa. I must have been thinking of an earlier moment!

I'm glad I'm not the only one!

Thinking about it more, was there a scene with N'astirh showing up in the video screen to Maddie pre-Inferno? Maybe the self-healing thing was a hint for a possible return to Inferno demons?

Air Skwirl
May 13, 2007

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.
There are a lot of great post "Fall of the Mutants" stories, some of my favorite characters from the Claremont era don't even exist at that point (Jubilee, Gambit, Probably a third one) but it's also a really good stopping point for Uncanny X-Men. They save the world despite having been shat on completely by it and get to walk through a portal into a new life where all the people who hate and despise them have no idea who the gently caress they are. That moment right there is the closest thing to happiness the X-men had ever had as a group.

KidDynamite
Feb 11, 2005

This Hickman seminar was good. Less technical than expected saved by him going over pitch docs for New Avengers/ Avengers and Secret Warriors. Lots of stuff learned on dealing with poilitics if you actually get to write at the level he's at. Some fun stories and info that's not commonly available. Good stuff imo. We were asked not to share the nitty gritty details so Jonathan and future guests would feel comfortable sharing stuff.

graybook
Oct 10, 2011

pinya~
Sounds like a heck of a time. I'm glad you were able to experience it straight from the man!

Metalshark
Feb 4, 2013

The seagull is essential.
Related to the Claremont run:

https://twitter.com/ClaremontRun/status/1259083688744226821

Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

That's absolutely one of the ways in which the Claremont run is fantastic not just by the standards of its time, but in comparison to contemporary comics.

Like, Claremont's often horny, but his writing actually cares about the interiority and personhood of women. It radiates off the page that a) Claremont thinks Storm is hot and b) Claremont writes Storm as a person, rather than a narrative prop or a foil or a love interest.

For my money, cheesecake in modern comics isn't groan-worthy because it's horny, but because it's usually exploitative: it uses female characters as brain-dead props who are secondary to the men until it's time for them to be tied up by a bondage monster, or mind controlled by a villain, or taking a shower, or etc. Even books with female protagonists often see their leads written as complete tools who repeatedly stumble head-over-rear end into whichever fetish scenario the writer has planned for them next, all the while giving the impression that their writer learned about women's interiority from half-watching three episodes of Ally McBeal.

Claremont's women get into BDSM predicaments often enough, but they're also written as people who have agency in the story. More, that agency usually comes first, with the fetish-y predicaments being incidental. And his men are occasionally written into horny peril scenarios too, which I think ameliorates things as well.

How Wonderful!
Jul 18, 2006


I only have excellent ideas

Android Blues posted:

That's absolutely one of the ways in which the Claremont run is fantastic not just by the standards of its time, but in comparison to contemporary comics.

Like, Claremont's often horny, but his writing actually cares about the interiority and personhood of women. It radiates off the page that a) Claremont thinks Storm is hot and b) Claremont writes Storm as a person, rather than a narrative prop or a foil or a love interest.

For my money, cheesecake in modern comics isn't groan-worthy because it's horny, but because it's usually exploitative: it uses female characters as brain-dead props who are secondary to the men until it's time for them to be tied up by a bondage monster, or mind controlled by a villain, or taking a shower, or etc. Even books with female protagonists often see their leads written as complete tools who repeatedly stumble head-over-rear end into whichever fetish scenario the writer has planned for them next, all the while giving the impression that their writer learned about women's interiority from half-watching three episodes of Ally McBeal.

Claremont's women get into BDSM predicaments often enough, but they're also written as people who have agency in the story. More, that agency usually comes first, with the fetish-y predicaments being incidental. And his men are occasionally written into horny peril scenarios too, which I think ameliorates things as well.

For sure, Claremont is horny in a way that acknowledges that sexuality and desire are part of adult life for most people and that it doesn't need to be and probably shouldn't be excluded from serious genre fiction for adults. I think as paraphilic as a lot of stuff in his work reads it's an honest attempt to think through how all of this would function differently in a world of super-powers and aliens, and how a group of people excluded genetically from the nuclear family would reimagine friendship and relationships.

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Open Marriage Night
Sep 18, 2009

"Do you want to talk to a spider, Peter?"


Up through the Dark Phoenix saga at least, the most fleshed out characters are Storm, Phoenix, and Cyclops. Even Moira is a more complex character than some of the X-Men.

I’m currently taking a break from the sequential issues, and reading the back up stories from Classic X-Men. I know a lot of reading lists say to just read Classic X-Men to cover the early part of Claremont’s run, but I think that kind of messes with the flow of those books. I’m enjoying just reading them as little vignettes that happened between those older issues. The Jean/Storm story, and Nightcrawler/Wolverine stories really stand out as great character pieces.

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