# What Were They Thinking?  Worst Comic Ideas.



## Villano (Nov 22, 2003)

I know that there are more than a few comic readers (or former readers) out there.  I'm sure that, like me, more than once you've read a comic and wondered if the writers and editors were on crack when they came up with the story.  I have my list of "worst ideas", what's your's?

*John Byrne's Wonder Woman*

It certainly sounded like a good idea.  Bryne's a talented writer and artist (although, I prefer when others ink him), and I enjoyed his revamping of Superman and his comedic turn on She-Hulk.  However, something happened to Byrne in recent years.  He devolped the need to rewrite continuity.  Sure, his Superman reworking was excellent, but he's gotten the idea that other heroes needed their own origins tweaked, including Spider-Man and Wonder Woman.  I've never read the Spider-Man stuff, but have heard it was awful, and, from what I saw in Wonder Woman, I wouldn't doubt it.

Byrne decided that people really wanted the old, Silver Age WW back.  To that end, he had her discover an ancient alien race living under the arctic.  This race was so wonderous, the Egyptian gods worshipped _them_ and they are the ones that really built the pyramids.  

Firstly, how many hidden races are there beneath the arctic in DC?  Seriously, this isn't the first time a hidden civilization was under the ice.  Frankly, Marvel handles this sort of thing much better.  You can point to a spot on the map and know what's exactly there.  You don't have to worry about writers stepping on each other's toes (I won't even get into how many different aliens, time travelers, etc., "actually" built the pyramids in DC Comics).

Truthfully, I wouldn't have minded the aliens at all except for the fact that these aliens were the most ragged, lame excuses for aliens I've ever seen.  They supposedly had the gods in awe, but they were just scruffy, animal-headed guys with ray guns.  They wouldn't have been out of place on the Wendy & Marvin years of Superfriends.

Anyway, the aliens gave WW a glob of clear plastic.  This object could take any shape, including an invisible plane.  Wow, an invisible plane!  Too bad the modern WW can fly.  

But, you see, the plane really wasn't for her!  Bryne decided that folks really wanted the Golden Age WW back as well.  How could he do that, you ask?  Simple, Hippolyta, WW's mom and queen of the amazons, goes back in time to World War 2.  How?  Well, I bet you didn't know that Paradise Island, the amazons' home, could travel through time!

Yes, that's right, it's a time traveling island.  

Hippo becomes a sword-weilding, mini-skirt wearing, Nazi smasher!  We are also treated to the sight of the original Flash suddenly "remembering" her.  See, her time travel altered reality and now everyone on Earth can recall a previous WW!  Isn't that wonderful?! 

The stories dragged on and the modern WW eventually was transfigured into a goddess.  No joke, she became the Greek Goddess Of Truth.

After that, Byrne left, the Goddess thing was forgotten, and the following writers spent all their time trying to undo what Byrne had wrought.  They turned the invisible glob into a floating palace, then into an embassy, and finally destroyed it or sent it into space or something.  Paradise Isle and the queen weren't so lucky.  The Island was blown up and poor, old Hippo was killed off.

I stopped collecting after that.  The writers were a talented bunch, but I don't want to read a comic that's basically damage control.

*Martian Fire*

Okay, after that long rant, this next one is short and sweet.  Martian Manhunter is vulnerable to fire.  No, he isn't.  Yes, he is!  NO, he isn't!  YES, HE IS!  

He's been "cured" about a dozen times already and reverts back by his next appearance with no explanation.  How many time do I have to read this?  I've been displeased by the monotony of JLA for awhile (how many reality altering villains can you fight?), but the "we're curing Martian Manhunter again" was the last straw, so I dropped the book.

*Monarch*

Way back in the early '90s, DC got an idea for a series-wide crossover in their annuals.  They decided that a time traveler would come from the future to determine which hero would turn evil, adopt the identity of "Monarch", and conquer the world of his time.  

Interesting idea.  I'm not a big fan of "rogue heroes" nowadays (more on that in a moment), but I was a kid at the time and it sounded cool.  We were treated to different future visions of every DC hero.  I couldn't wait to see who Monarch would turn out to be.

It could have been interesting, except for one thing:  News leaked out to some people that Captain Atom was Monarch.  In order to keep the conclusion a surprise, they scrapped the year long story and cobbled together a last minute alternative; Hawk of Hawk and Dove was now the bad guy!

I have no idea who discovered the Capt. Atom finale, but I certainly never heard it.  I'm reminded of a story of a wrestling promoter who found out that a dozen people heard who was going to win the title in an upcoming televised show.  This was at a time when wrestling was "real", so, in order to fool 12 people, he changed things at the last minute, thereby destroying the wrestling storylines for the next year.

So, to fool a handful of people, DC slaps something together and we get football jock and college drop-out Hawk as DC's armored, Superman killing, world conquering Dr. Doom.  Needless to say, as a villain, he wasn't taken seriously and, after a short run under the new name "Extant", he's pretty much been swept under the rug.

*Peter Parker, son of James Bond*

Spider-Man has always been the quintessential everyman hero.  He's an orphan taking care of his sick aunt and struggling to pay the rent.  He's the superMAN amongst SUPERmen.

However, someone at Marvel decided that Spidey's parents weren't just ordinary folks who were killed in an accident.  No, they were superspies and were murdered by...the Red Skull!

Dad, can I borrow the flying car and freeze ray tonight?  I've got a hot date with Mary Jane. 

*The Amazing Spider-Clone*

Speaking of Spidey...  

Okay, back in the 60s or 70s, Spidey fought a villain called The Jackal.  Jackal was scientist who had perfected cloning.  He made a duplicate Spidey and Gwen (Peter's girlfriend who was killed by Green Goblin).  Spidey killed his double and Gwen wandered off.  

Not too great an idea, but easily forgotten.  Except, someone at Marvel realized that Jackal was just a high school teacher in his real identity.  How could a high school teacher make clones?, they asked.  In order to "correct" this, they revealed that the teacher didn't make clones, but altered the DNA of people to make duplicates.  Spidey "discovers" this, tracks down "clone" Gwen and restores her to normal.

Okay, but what about the Spider-Clone?  I mean, if he was just some poor schmuck, then didn't Spidey kill an innocent man?

Unfortunately, we never found out because the original clone wasn't dead.  In fact, forget about the DNA rewritting thing, they really were clones.  And, here's the kicker, the Peter Parker we know and love and have been reading about for the past 30yrs was that clone!  Dun-dun-dun!

Marvel, in its infinite wisdom, was planning to retire the original, er, not really original, er, Spidey we've been reading and replace him with the clone, er, original.  And that guy is now a blonde named "Ben Reilly".

Thankfully, the howls of the fans could be heard loud and clear and Marvel backtracked on this big time.  Spidey was Spidey, the clone was a clone, and that was that.  

But, still to this day, in comic shops around the country, you can say "Spider-Clone Saga" and send everyone within earshot into convulsions.

*Kingdom*

Back in the mid-80s, DC decided to streamline it's universe.  They had a multiverse, actually, with Earth 1, 2, X, Z, etc, etc, etc..  You couldn't turn around without tripping on one Superman or another.  From this chaos, DC compressed it all into one world in a series called Crisis On Infinite Earths.

Skip ahead.  DC decided to let Kurt Busiek and painter Alex Ross take their crack at a prestige format book detailing a world with heroes run amock.  It was titled Kingdom Come, and, while I was not overly impressed, the rest of the comic reading world was in love.

But, being a corporation, DC decided that this horse wasn't quite dead enough, so they proceeded to flog every last remaining dime out of it, in a process called Kingdom.

First, they hired Busiek and Ross to work on the book.  It was going to be an ongoing series, which would cover the events leading up to Kingdom Come.  We would see the new heroes introduced in the original mini-series and we would follow the rise of the original's villain, Gog.  However, DC had a falling out with Busiek and Ross, and the book was shelved.  Or, at least, it should have been...

Instead, we were given Kingdom, a mini-series which begins with Gog casually killing the Superman of Kingdom Come (we don't want the people who liked the original series to like this one) and progressively got worse, finally culminating in the introduction of "Hypertime".

What's hypertime?, you ask.  Well, remember that multiverse stuff I talked about?  Well, it's back!  Screw Crisis On Infinite Earths and say "hello" to Superman from Earth 2, 3, 4, 5, A, Z, X, M, Prime, $, R, *, #, 96....

Who needs continuity when we can have Super Rabbit?

*Batman = Good, Superman = Evil*

Speaking of Kingdom Come, when did the world decide that, if any hero would go bad and become a Nazi, it would be Superman?  Well, I suppose we can blame that on Frank Miller and Dark Knight Returns.  

Seriously, though, why is it that there are so many stories of Superman turning into a facist and Batman being the only one who can take him down?  I can imagine Batman going down that road long before Supes.  I mean, part of Bat's appeal is that he's psychotic.  He's an emotionally crippled, unbalanced guy who lives to terrify criminals.  The guy has issues.

I think it's all part of the need to justify Batman.  Every writer of Justice League has said that Batman is the only guy who could take down all the other Leaguers.  He could beat Green Lantern?  Really?  The Flash?  Don't even get me started on how he'd beat invisible, intangible, telepathic Martian Manhunter!

Hell, Bats has kryptonite to protect himself from Supes, but let's see what good it does him when Supes scoops up a battleship and tosses it on Wayne Manor from orbit.   

Is it some form of human defense mechanism?  Do we need to have the "normal" guy be more powerful than the aliens and metahumans?

Personally, I'm sick of it because it leads to my #1 choice for dumb comics idea:

*Evil Green Lantern*

From what I understand, even though the new batch of writers were doing a good job on the series and sales were up, DC decided that they needed a hip, edgier, Gen-X version of GL.  In order to make sure that the readers would have to accept the new GL, the editor approached writer Ron Marz and told him that they wanted the Hal Jordan GL gone from the series.  Not only that, but they wanted him dead and killed off in such a way that there would be no way to bring him back.  And they wanted the Green Lantern Corps gone, as well.

Oh, and he had 3 issues in which to do it.

What followed was Hal Jordan freaking out over the destruction of the city he used to live in, murdering all his former Green Lantern Corps friends, killing the Guardians Of The Universe, and absorbing the power of the Oan Power Battery (the source of the GLs power).  

An emotional breakdown and mass murder all in 3 issues.  I think that's a record.

What we got in exchange was Kyle Rayner, picked at random to wield the last remaining power ring as the new GL.

The fans hated it!  Over the course of 3 issues, the bravest, most honest superhero became a murdering nut.  Even the most rabid Kyle supporters thought the end of Hal Jordan was stupid.

DC then made the next logical step; they brought back Hal Jordan.  Well, they brought him back even crazier and now calling himself "Parallax".  Hal now had a god complex and decided that killing hundreds of people wasn't good enough.  No, now he was going to destroy the universe.

Needless to say, people thought this was even stupidier.

DC finally decided to "redeem" Hal by having him give his life to relight the sun after it was destroyed by an alien entity.  Of course, he had the power to destroy the universe previously, but now can't light a star, but we won't dwell on that because it's, well, stupid (I'm using that word alot in this description).

Not willing to leave well enough alone, they brought back Hal as the new Spectre. 

Bear in mind what the purpose was in turning Hal into a psycho;  to kill him off in a way that they would never have to bring him back.  Well, that worked.   

Oh, and they brought back the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians, for a net gain of zero versus the alienation of their fanbase.

Ironically, there's a moral to this story.  Shortly after this, the editor had some kind of public falling out with Erik Larson who was doing Aquaman at the time.  I don't know the details, but the editor apparently came across badly and alienated more fans.  He quit DC and left the entire comics industry due to this and the GL backwash.  

The moral is that if you try to _tell_ the audience what it wants instead of listening to them, you only end up hurting yourself.  If the audience isn't screaming for a hip, edgier GL, don't force one down their throats.  

So, there you have it.   This was my "comics dumbests moments list", what's your's?  Seriously, you'll feel better after you vent.


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## Alzrius (Nov 22, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> However, something happened to Byrne in recent years.  He devolped the need to rewrite continuity.  Sure, his Superman reworking was excellent, but he's gotten the idea that other heroes needed their own origins tweaked, including Spider-Man and Wonder Woman.  I've never read the Spider-Man stuff, but have heard it was awful, and, from what I saw in Wonder Woman, I wouldn't doubt it.




Now I have got to see his Spider-Man work! 



> _*Peter Parker, son of James Bond*
> 
> Spider-Man has always been the quintessential everyman hero.  He's an orphan taking care of his sick aunt and struggling to pay the rent.  He's the superMAN amongst SUPERmen.
> 
> ...




Now I recall some of this series. Personally, I didn't think it was that bad, mostly because the bottom line was that they were still nice and dead. If Spidey had ended up finding out that both of his parents were still alive all this time living in, say, the Red Skull's dungeon for all these years, then I'd have been somewhat annoyed.

Oh, and then we found out that they were, in fact, still alive. A mistake rectified later by finding out that they were really fakes created by (IIRC) the Chameleon at Harry Osborn's request just to get Peter. And I thought I had some issues with my parents! 



> _*The Amazing Spider-Clone*
> 
> Speaking of Spidey...
> 
> ...




This is one of those things I always wanted the straight dope on, but could never seem to find the answer. Thanks Villano!



> _*Batman = Good, Superman = Evil*
> 
> Speaking of Kingdom Come, when did the world decide that, if any hero would go bad and become a Nazi, it would be Superman?  Well, I suppose we can blame that on Frank Miller and Dark Knight Returns. _




Well, I wouldn't go that far...let's just say that he's getting in touch with the Superman inside.

I'm not sure when exactly, since Superman was a product of the 1930's, but there was at some point an idea (apparently of the creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) that Superman be a Nazi character! They (apparently) knew that Hitler's nazism was somewhat based on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, who talked about a race of supermen. However, they soon ran into the design flaw that it's hard to market a comic book about a recurring villain, especially during wartime! So, Superman became the quintessential anti-nazi, fighting them in WWII-era comics, and that was the beginning of the Supes we know and love today.



> _I think it's all part of the need to justify Batman.  Every writer of Justice League has said that Batman is the only guy who could take down all the other Leaguers.  He could beat Green Lantern?  Really?  The Flash?  Don't even get me started on how he'd beat invisible, intangible, telepathic Martian Manhunter!_




Amen to that. It seems no one has really forgotten that when Batman first applied to the Justice League, they wouldn't even validate his parking slip, let alone grant him membership. Ever since then, DC has been making absolutely sure Bats was compensated for any possible "super power envy".



> _Not willing to leave well enough alone, they brought back Hal as the new Spectre. _




Ugh, "Heaven's Ladder". This is the single mini-series of DC I own, making it comprise the majority of my DC collection. It's apparently as bad as its predecessors in the whole Hal Jordan thing were. Had I bought them one at a time instead of all at once, I probably wouldn't have completed the mini-series.



> _So, there you have it.   This was my "comics dumbests moments list", what's your's?  Seriously, you'll feel better after you vent.  _




Hrm, okay, I'll bite.

I recently finished with the "The Hunger" a Spider-Man mini-series about Venom (that, as usual, stretched across the various Spider-Man titles).

Now, before we continue, I just want to say that although this is about Venom, and its called "The Hunger", this is not to be confused with "Venom - The Hunger", which was one of the many, many mini-series about Venom that were published one right after another on the heels of Lethal Protector. Marvel, apparently, is finally beginning to run out of titles.

My first complaint right off the bat is the artwork. I'm sorry, but Humberto Ramos just can't draw in any manner that I find serious. His work on the symbiote itself looks pretty good, but this is far and away overshadowed by the fact that normal people look like monkeys. Seriously, I'm wondering if this guy learned how to draw from watching Samurai Jack. This lackluster art is only made worse by the fact that the storyline makes itself so angsty, heightening the disparity between what you see and what you read.

In this series, we find out that Eddie Brock and the symbiote are having a falling out...I mean again. Right there, the basis can't seem to be original. Don't get me wrong, I love the symbiotes most of pretty much all Marvel characters, but geez, the way Brock and the symbiote are together, then apart, then together, ad nauseum...I'm sorry, but will someone just sit them down with Dr. Phil so they can finally work all this out?

The suit is leaving Brock periodically and draining the adrenal glands of other people...which right off the bat makes me frown. The symbiote needing adrenaline? Where did this come from? Last I heard, it needed a chemical that could only be acquired in processed chocolate or human brains (and let's face it, with the choice of eating chocolate or brains, who wouldn't take the brains?).

Spider-Man investigates, and we find out that the suit wants him back...yeah, you've seen this before. What you haven't seen before is that we find out why the symbiote _really_ stuck with Eddie Brock so long...it's because Brock has terminal cancer, and always has, ever since he met the symbiote. This particular form of cancer is untreatable, and heightens his adrenaline-producing functions, so the suit has been using him as a living battery - the fact that they both hated Spider-Man was just icing on the cake, apparently.

Now, Eddie is in somewhat constant pain from his cancer (which is kept from killing him by the symbiote somehow), and the symbiote feels that, and it wants out...apparently those other times it rebonded with Brock when it didn't have to were just that it was feeling lonely (sarcasm there on my part). Seems it has something to do with the symbiote about to give birth - yeah, you read right, and no, I have no idea what it was talking about either.

The series ends with nothing being resolved, and quite a bit of Brock/Venom's motivations and some of his backstory screwed with. I just don't like the direction they're taking this guy in (and what the heck happened to Carnage?).


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## Jamdin (Nov 22, 2003)

The Martian Manhunter has a fear of fire. He can overcome it when he wants to.

I used to read the Flash and Green Lantern comics in the 1970s/1980s and I loved Barry Allen and Hal Jordan (I always greatly enjoy the Golden Age heros but that is another matter). I liked the fact that Barry died a hero in Crisis and I could understand having Wally West becoming the new Flash. I never liked the Hal Jordan as Parallax and then as the Spectre. I also thought it was a little lame that the current Green Arrow is actually a clone brought to life by Hal/Spectre. I have read some issues of the new series and enjoy them.


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## CrusaderX (Nov 22, 2003)

Worst.  Story.  Ever. 

Chuck Austen's craptacular "Holy War" story in Uncanny X-Men makes the Spider-Clone Saga look like Alan Moore's Watchmen in comparison.


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## Oni (Nov 22, 2003)

Well the whole Hal going nuts, did have the upside of giving us the new specter.  I absolutely loved that book and read it faithfully, it was the only DC book I read regularly, well until my local comic book store closed.  That kind of got me out of the habit of bying comics, but such is life.


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## Richards (Nov 22, 2003)

There was a run of Fantastic Four several years back where they had been captured by some enemy or another (I can't even remember who, now), and they spent something like six or eight consecutive issues _dreaming_.  No joke, each issue would start out with a close up of one of the Fantastic Four trapped in his/her glass cylinder restraint, and then it would go off into some "What If?" style dream for the rest of the entire issue.  None of it was real, none of the action really happened, it was just a full comic's worth of filler, and then next month it happened all over again with a different member of the captured Fantastic Four having a different dream.  What made it even worse was the terrible artwork, worthy of something you'd find in a 6-year old's coloring book.

As it turned out, the comic was just "treading water," waiting for the new creative team to take over.  I don't remember if this was when Walt Simonson started his fantastic run on the series or not (it's been awhile), but whoever it was, he began his first issue by walking "onstage" in the comic panel, freeing the Fantastic Four from their glass cylinder prisons, all the while apologizing to the readers and saying, "We're just going to pretend none of this happened, okay?"

Johnathan


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## reapersaurus (Nov 22, 2003)

CrusaderX said:
			
		

> Worst.  Story.  Ever.
> 
> Chuck Austen's craptacular "Holy War" story in Uncanny X-Men makes the Spider-Clone Saga look like Alan Moore's Watchmen in comparison.



Ohmygod, many of these testimonials are incredibly convincing, but this one takes the cake:







> "So she sets out to bring down the Church by - brace yourself, this is the good bit - creating an evil plan to instal Nightcrawler as the Pope under an image inducer, and then revealing him as the supposed Antichrist at the same time that she simulates the Rapture."
> 
> "You may also be wondering how the Church of Humanity plans to simulate the Rapture.  After all, that involves good Catholics being taken up to Heaven.  Well, they're going to disintegrate people using evil doctored communion wafers.
> 
> I'll just repeat that.  The villains are going to usurp command of Catholicism by installing Nightcrawler as the Pope and using murderous disintegrating communion wafers.  No, this is not meant to be a comedy story."



this had me rolling.
I'm so glad I haven't bothered with much comic book nonsense the last decade and a half.


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## Mark (Nov 22, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> I know that there are more than a few comic readers (or former readers) out there.  I'm sure that, like me, more than once you've read a comic and wondered if the writers and editors were on crack when they came up with the story.  I have my list of "worst ideas", what's your's?




Aluminum Foil Man and his sidekick Tinsel Boy...


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## Silver Moon (Nov 22, 2003)

In defense of "Peter Parker, son of James Bond", that story was first written by Stan Lee as a one-shot flashback in 1968's Amazing Spiderman Annual #5.  The story actually wasn't that bad, and had no real impact on continuity as his folks were clearly dead.  The mistake was when they decided to follow this up 25 years later with a multi-issue storyline with them now alive.

Now my vote for single worst storyline ever was:

*The Invincible Iron Boy*
Starting in Avengers, the Crossing and issue of Ironman, we have the brilliant idea that founding Avenger Ironman has now turned evil for no apparent reason and is killing other Avengers.   The only way to stop him is to time travel into the past and bring forward a younger Tony Stark.   The older IronMan then dies (and not even in his own book, but in the Avengers) and is then replaced by this kid.   Apparently the powers that be at Marvel thought that having a teenage IronMan would appeal more to younger readers.   The first run of the book ended after six issues of this garbage, and Kurt Busiek then used the "Heroes Reborn" to do a restart on the whole thing with the real Tony instead.   

Honorable Mention:

*You call these guys Avengers?"*
I'm referring to the Avengers #291 to 300 run.   this run featured the lamest Avengers team ever assembled.   Doctor Druid, She Hulk, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau version), Sub-Mariner, Subby's wife Marrina (from Alpha Flight), and the Black Knight.    And the run ends with bringing in Gilgamesh (a new-to-Marvel Hercules knockoff from Olympus) as well as Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman as members (and we knew they would not be staying long, as they continued to wear their FF costumes). 

Thor hung around for a few issues, primarily just to be picked on by Dr. Druiid, and Captain America eventually showed up as "The Captain", the costume eventually worn by U.S. Agent.   The storylines were awful, most having to do with the muti-racial Cross-time Council of Kangs (a Green Lantern Corps knock-off) and the evolution of Marrina into a sea monster.  A dying Jarvis was the highlight.  A few dialogue examples:

_"Oh my darling. Can it be that somewhere within this vast armored form... there yet beats the heart of the woman I loved...and still love?"-Namor

"The Avengers have a new leader. And the future is going to be much different than anyone expects!"-Doctor Druid

Mister Fantastic: "Anybody up for a nightcap of milk and cookies?"
Captain: "Only if you've got Tollhouse cookies."

"Thor is scarcely my equal!"-Doctor Druid_

At one point Thor utters the following dialogue, which all of us unfortunate readers certainly agreed with:

_"More and more do I sorely miss the steadfast company of my former teammates--Captain America, Iron Man and Hercules. -Thor_

Surprisingly, this run was written by the great Walt Simonson (whose work on Thor was legendary), and drawn by greats John Buscema & Tom Palmer.   How could such a great creative team give us this garbage?


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## Viking Bastard (Nov 22, 2003)

Nitpick: Mark Waid wrote Kingdom Come and the Kingdom, not Kurt Busiek.

.

As to biggest mistake, Byrne's WW all the way. *Ick!* At least the Clone Saga
and Emerald Twilight had *some* interesting concept behind 'em, even if the 
execution of both sucked monkey's arse, but c'mon! That was just *LAME*!!

.

Moving on to Hypertime...

Hypertime is more complex than that though, I once went to a lecture by Grant 
Morrison where he, among other things, explained what the whole Hypertime 
thing is (he designed the concept, I believe it was originally created for his and 
Mark Waid's Superman Revamp that DC editorial shelved in the last minute). 

Now, damned if I can explain it, but it sounded really kewl. He showed us how 
the DCU was connected to Marvel, non-DCU Vertigo series, Wildstorm, James 
Bond... the whole shebang. And it all makes perfect sense. The timelines are in 
constant flux (which explains continuity errors and sloppy retcons) and 'seed' 
each other with concepts and ideas. For instance, the main Wildstorm timeline is 
directly between the DCU and Marvel 616 universes, creating the endless supply 
of analogues for heroes and villains of other worlds in WS continuity.

Now, if I could just remember half of it, it was so high-concept-y. The closest 
explaination I've found is by Warren Ellis. But this is just the surface of the 
whole thingy.



> *Morrison's Hypertime*
> 
> If you visit Warren Ellis' message boards at his official website, you can read a discussion about Ellis' conversation with Morrison over Hypertime. Ellis was so impressed by Morrison's definition of the concept that he said, "I have seen the glory." While I wouldn't even go that far, here's what Ellis says about the concept, taken from his message board...
> 
> ...




I love that guy, Grant. Now, if DC would just see the light and let him do his 
whole Hypertime maxiseries so we can finally get a good explaination in print,
I'd be thrilled


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## Maraxle (Nov 22, 2003)

I've got two words for you - Savage Dragon.


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## Viking Bastard (Nov 22, 2003)

You don't like Savage Dragon?

But... it's FUN!


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## Aulayan (Nov 22, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> *Batman = Good, Superman = Evil*
> 
> Speaking of Kingdom Come, when did the world decide that, if any hero would go bad and become a Nazi, it would be Superman?  Well, I suppose we can blame that on Frank Miller and Dark Knight Returns.




Just want to defend KC here for a second.  In it, Batman's efforts at keeping the peace in Gotham and other towns he's now associated with is strongly shown as over the top.

Now, as to contribute to this topic.  The thing I find the most ridiculous and disgusting thing:

Multiple solo titles for one hero.  Batman has how many? Superman? Spiderman?  The writer of The Flash has some freedom to do things.  The writers of the first three I mentioned has none, cause if they want to do any type of shake up they've gotta run it through several other people instead of just the editors.

Then you get crazy continuity problems also, like in one Spiderman book MJ and Peter are living together, and in another they're not (or so I've heard, I don't read Spiderman).  Of course it's been explained that one takes place before the other, but it is sort of headachey.


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## Maraxle (Nov 22, 2003)

Savage Dragon makes me wretch.  It singlehandedly put an end to comic book collecting for myself and at least three of my friends.  After reading the first issue or two, we were all done with comics forever.


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## Kahuna Burger (Nov 22, 2003)

X-Factor. let me count the ways that this peice of tripe was wrong.

1) bringing back the original X Men... uh, guys, the original xmen were a failed series, and probably for good reason.

2) let the woman who missed it all make the moral judgements. Jean Grey comes back from the dead and has missed everything that lead up to the changes she sees before her. Rather than trying to explain what's happened, everyone just decides that her uninformed outrage is right and starts playing along with her.

3) Scott summers, adulterer, deadbeat dad and hero. This guy gets a call that his old girlfriend has returned from the dead, and walks out on his wife and son without a word of explaination. His behavior is never truely questioned, and the writers do a horrible retcon to make Maddy "always evil" as though that makes everything acceptable. This wouldn't be quite as bad if he hadn't pulled this stunt once already with (2?) other women when he thought jean was dead and lied about it afterwards.

4) good stuff = jean, bad stuff = phoenix. The dark phoenix saga was one of the coolest "power corrupts" stories marvel has ever done, and X factor managed to completely destroy any meaning from it by assigning every bad thing done to "the destructive nature of the phoenix" and every good thing to "jean's personality fighting through". Oh and since maddy was her clone, anything good maddy did was really jean too... and nathan is Jean's kid, we'll just look at maddy as a surrogate. 

5) amazingly powerful washed up superheroes. Iceman will always be lame. Always. He can be overpowered, underpowered, insane, good, evil, he's just LAME, ok? And that goes double for angel.

There's probably more, but I think thats enough to explain why I consider X Factor to be the worst X title ever concieved....

Kahuna burger


----------



## Silver Moon (Nov 22, 2003)

Maraxle said:
			
		

> Savage Dragon makes me wretch.  It singlehandedly put an end to comic book collecting for myself and at least three of my friends.  After reading the first issue or two, we were all done with comics forever.



Seems a bit extreme to me.  If you don't like a book just don't buy it.  Yes, Eric Larson's book was an acquired taste, as the book had a very different feel to it due in part to his notion of 1 year reader time = 1 year book time.   

Personally, I really enjoyed the first 75 issues, then didn't care for the change of direction and then dropped the title.  I picked it up again for a short run (issues 98-104) but then decided to drop it again.  


Now, back to "really bad concepts", a few more worth mentioning:

*Black Goliath* - Trying to capitalize on the hip black-power theme, Marvel created this awful book in the mid-70's.  It wasn't planned as a mini-series, yet it only lasted for 5 issues. 

*Crimson Plague* - The name says it all.  Although beautifully drawn by the great George Perez, this concept was a bad idea from day one.  A sci-fi saga that mixes the Aliens film idea with a lethal plague carrying person, the disease causing everyone to instantly bleed to death.  

*Moonknight - Fists of Konshu* - Moonknight was never meant to be more than a Marvel version of Batman, so why anybody thought that they should play up the Egpytian God aspect of his origin as the main thrust of the character is hard to imagine.  

*NFL Superhero* Marvel mixes professional football with comics for very dubious results.  I don't know if anyone ever bought this two-issue mess, as I see tons of copies in the bargain bins at comic shows.

*Crisis Knock-offs* Crisis on Infinate Earths was classic.  D.C. should have just let it be at that, but instead they tried to duplicate its success with one poorly conceived cross-continuity "Epic" maxi-series after another.   I don't remember the names of all of these off the top of my head, but there were at least six of them in the decade after Crisis.


----------



## Piratecat (Nov 22, 2003)

Viking Bastard said:
			
		

> I love that guy, Grant.




The day has finally come when I've disagreed with you. I think Grant Morrison is a lousy storyteller. He may have interesting ideas, but he can't communicate them in any way I find compelling or fun. For me, The Invisibles was a big waste of money and time.

Garth Ennis, though? If I could, I'd chain Ennis in my attic and make him write me more Preacher/Hitman in exchange for smelly fish heads once a day. He's great.


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## stevelabny (Nov 22, 2003)

take into acccount that my current financial situation has left me new comicbook less for the past year. previously, i would buy just about everything.

from the original list:
the evil green lantern story made sense to me.
hal jordan was always crazy (almost as much so as batman)
seeing him snap and go on a rampage was cool and logical.
saying all the fans hated it is just wrong.
the only fans who hated it were those who considered hal jordan their favorite character. the rest of us were just fine with it. and LIKED it even.

john byrne hasnt written anything of value since his Next Men series flopped. He is bitter at the fans and is purposely trying to sabotage the marvel and dc universes. The man is an idiot. When i was stating my displeasure with the concept of the ultimate line before it debuted,and some other retcons around the marvel and dc universe (including his own slop) he called me the "worst kind of comic book fan". i told him if  every fan that spends 200-300 a month on comics is the worst kind of fan and we all stopped buying, he'd be unemployed. I then offered to send him back every comic I own that he wrote for a refund. He declined my offer. He deserves every evil thing that can happen to a person to happen to him three times. 

from the later additions:
avengers 291-298 was supposed to be the downfall of the Avengers.
the story of them all dying/leaving was done very well.
(especially loved namor using black knight's cursed sword to kill marinna, causing black kngiht to turn to stone) 
Unfortunately, the "new team" in 300 was brutal and the avengers never recovered until the current series #1.

my own additions:
LETTING DRUG-ADDLED BRITISH WRITERS OUT OF THE VERTIGO IMPRINT AND INTO THE MAINSTREAM MARVEL AND DC UNIVERSE, I'M LOOKING AT YOU GRANT MORRISON:
This guy completely ignored DC continuity and any semblance of story that could be understood in JLA, so MArvel asked hiim to write X-Men. GAH!
I only read the very beginning of his X-Men run, but I don't need to see the rest to know how brutal it is. I say again GAH!

Not Renumbering Legion after the re-boot following Zero Hour: 
And DC wonders why the Legion fanbase never grows. 
a continuity reboot is the only good time to renumber a series...AND THEY DIDNT DO IT.  GAH!
(as a side note, they randomly renumbered it later)

X-Man Nate Grey:
GAH! As if all the timeline-crossing X-Men like Phoenix, Bishop, and Cable werent enough, Now we're gonna take an alternate version of a Cable from another timeline and try to make him a character too?  GAH!!!!!

Marvel's "Ultimate" line of comics:
Marvel Executive #1: "I've been told some of our books suck. My son can't read good but he told me the problem is he can't figure out the past of our characters because theres so many back issues"
Marvel Executive #2: "Should we release a new Marvel Universe Handbook? OR a mini-series to explain Marvel's history so far?"
MArvel Executive #1  "I was thinking we trash everything and hire good writers and artists to make a NEW universe with modern versions of the characters."
Marvel Executive #2 "Why not just use the good writers and artists on the books in the orgiinal universe?"
Marvel Executive #1: "That would NEVER work.We still have all the old continuity, a new universe wouldnt have any, so EVERYONE could understand it. Even me. I wont have to remember the characters pasts or powers"
Marvel Executive #2: "But won't the new universe get its OWN ridiculous convoluted comic book continuity thats just as hard to understand?"
Marvel Executive #1: "Shut up! You confuse me and make my head hurt! You're fired, and I'm gonna make the ULTIMATE marvel universe.BWAHAHAHHA"
GAH!!!!!!!!!!


I'm sure I'm forgetting oodles and oodles of bad decisions and terrible stories, but for now I'll just jump ahead to the absolute worst things in comics.

NOT HAVING TIME PASS!
there is absolutely NO good reason to not have time pass in the Marvel and DC universes. There is no good reason for the "icons" to not get old and die, and pass on their mantles. There is no good reason for characters not aging, but celebrating christmas regularly. There is no good reason for Dick Grayson (and other teen heroes)  to have grown up, graduated college, graduated police academy, and aged about 15 years while the adults havent aged a day. The idea that fans are against their favorite characters growing and evolving and changing is ridiculous. It happens in real life, and in every live-action television show and movie series. These "icons" are now "out of touch" with both the next generation of kids, and their original fans.  This is the #2 reason why comic books are the bastard child of pop-culture instead of favorite son. 
The Valiant universe tried having a strict timeline and was sucessful. Unfortunately, its unexpected sucess led to the evil "speculators" destroying the Valiant universe and comic book industry as a whole.  When the dust settled, the first thing to go at Valiant was the time-keeping, and the door closed on the whole company soon after.

Wait, thats only #2? Whats #1?

NOT ADVERTISING.

The comic book industry is the only industry on the planet that doesnt advertise outside of itself. Nothing. Not television ads, print ads, radio ads, NOTHING!
the ridiculousness of this one speaks for itself, so I'm gonna go play D&D.


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## Mog Elffoe (Nov 22, 2003)

Maraxle said:
			
		

> Savage Dragon makes me wretch.  It singlehandedly put an end to comic book collecting for myself and at least three of my friends.  After reading the first issue or two, we were all done with comics forever.




I'm sorry, but that's got to be the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time.  So if you watched a couple bad movies, like say 'Leonard Part Six', or 'Freddy Got Fingered', you'd swear off all movies for the rest of your life?  Huh?  Or how about this one--"The smell coming from this one particular rotten thing made me wretch, so now I've decided to quit breathing altogether."  Pretty extreme, but it's the same kind of logic.


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## WayneLigon (Nov 22, 2003)

One of the #1 worst ideas anyone ever had was letting Giffen anywhere near the Legion of Super-Heroes. In an effort to give us 'darker, more adult' stories they deconstructed the Legion to the point where it was almost unrecognizable. Add to that the entire confusing time travel/Time Trapper/Glorinth Realilty mess along with terribly bad blocky art. I was never go glad for a total reboot of everything in my life.

#2. Well, I guess this isn't as bad an idea as I think it is; at least, I can only suppose this because it's been done this way three or four times and apparently I'm the only one that hates it. Peeve #2 are the second-generation Who's Who and Secret Files books, and Marvel's second and third generations of their Marvel Universe books. I guess I'm the only guy in the universe that loved the idea of a 12+ issue maxi-series filled with text describing history, back story, appearances, lists of powers and weaknesses, etc. They each did that ONCE, then decided to go the other way. DC now will have normal comics stories, plus one page entries (75% illustration) on a character; never on an HQ, a city, a bit of equipment or anything else. Marvel had this horrible MU series with one illustration and a list of appearances on the back, then followed it up with this 'Encyclopedia' series. Bleah, bleah, bleah.


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## Mog Elffoe (Nov 22, 2003)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> The day has finally come when I've disagreed with you. I think Grant Morrison is a lousy storyteller. He may have interesting ideas, but he can't communicate them in any way I find compelling or fun. For me, The Invisibles was a big waste of money and time.
> 
> Garth Ennis, though? If I could, I'd chain Ennis in my attic and make him write me more Preacher/Hitman in exchange for smelly fish heads once a day. He's great.





I fully agree with you on Grant Morrison.  Some of his high concept ideas are pretty darned cool, but the execution is nearly ALWAYS lacking in the stuff that I've read.  Flex Mentallo is probably the best example of this to my thinking--tones of high-concept, potentially great ideas, but a story that just cannot be followed.  Also, when I read his New X-Men it seemed to me that he just didn't LIKE the X-Men characters and was bent on making them unlikable to everyone else as well.

Garth Ennis is really hit or miss with me.  I'm a big, big fan of Preacher, Hitman, and about 60% of his stuff on Punisher, but his other stuff tends to simply feel gratuitous and writen solely for shock value.

Speaking of Hypertime, the best representation of Hypertime, I think, is right in Warren Ellis' Planetary books.  The big glowy crystal computer thing in issue number one that the alternate Justice League pops out of to fight Doc Brass and company? That represents Hypertime.  A bunch of the themes and concepts in Planetary follow the whole Hypertime concept and philosophy, especially, IMO, the Planetary/Batman.  I personally dig the idea of Hypertime quite a bit.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Nov 22, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> Marvel's "Ultimate" line of comics:




The Ultimate line is GREAT. Some of the best of Marvel's characters are just getting VERY old...the best thing to do is to revitalize them by telling thier story in the world WE live in. Why should younger comic readers have to read stuff that's supposed to be in the year 2003, but LOOK like the late 70s?


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## Mog Elffoe (Nov 22, 2003)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> One of the #1 worst ideas anyone ever had was letting Giffen anywhere near the Legion of Super-Heroes. In an effort to give us 'darker, more adult' stories they deconstructed the Legion to the point where it was almost unrecognizable. Add to that the entire confusing time travel/Time Trapper/Glorinth Realilty mess along with terribly bad blocky art. I was never go glad for a total reboot of everything in my life.




Oh, man...   I couldn't disagree with you more there.  I'm sorry you didn't like that period of LSH, but I personally LOVED it.  Loved the stories, loved the artwork (especially the nine panel per page layouts), loved being introduced to Jason Pearson's art later on, loved everything...  Those were the comics that got me interested in Legion of SuperHeroes in the first place.  Went back and bought the Great Darkness saga, and a bunch of great LSH back issues because of these.  I can understand why anyone might not have liked that particular run, because it was VERY different, but I really dug it.  Don't blame Giffen for the whole Time Trapper thing, though.  He had to change his own storyline radically due to editorial decisions concerning DC Post-Crisis continuity.  I'm not saying that you would've liked what he really did have planned any better, but that particular bit wasn't exactly his fault.


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## WayneLigon (Nov 22, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> NOT HAVING TIME PASS!



You do realize that having time pass at anything resembling a normal rate just isn't going to work in a monthly magazine format? If a multi-part story takes place over seven or eight issues, maybe only a week of time has passed maximum. Characters would get old much too quickly and be phased out. And for the most part, characters do age; they just do so slowly. It's a lot better than it used to be, at least; In general the 'rule of thumb' is that times passes roughly at one year in the comics for every 5-7 years real time. Robin started out at about 14; now, ten+ years later, he's just celebrated his 16th birthday.


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## Mog Elffoe (Nov 22, 2003)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> The Ultimate line is GREAT. Some of the best of Marvel's characters are just getting VERY old...the best thing to do is to revitalize them by telling thier story in the world WE live in. Why should younger comic readers have to read stuff that's supposed to be in the year 2003, but LOOK like the late 70s?




I can understand some folks' gripes concerning Marvel's Ultimate line, but when all is said and done, if they hadn't started the Ultimate line I wouldn't be able to read Ultimate Spider-Man each month, and that would be a crying shame.  I *like* Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates, but Ultimate Spidey is THE best superhero book on the market today as far as I'm concerned.  I am totally in love with that book.


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## Mog Elffoe (Nov 22, 2003)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> You do realize that having time pass at anything resembling a normal rate just isn't going to work in a monthly magazine format? If a multi-part story takes place over seven or eight issues, maybe only a week of time has passed maximum. Characters would get old much too quickly and be phased out. And for the most part, characters do age; they just do so slowly. It's a lot better than it used to be, at least; In general the 'rule of thumb' is that times passes roughly at one year in the comics for every 5-7 years real time. Robin started out at about 14; now, ten+ years later, he's just celebrated his 16th birthday.





I personally don't see a need for time to pass for ANY ongoing fictional characters.  Why should they?  Spider-Man should be older just because *I'm* older?  That's not right.  The Spider-Man I love is a young guy either still in school or still in his twenties, and there's no reason to change that.  I'm all for stories like Dark Knight Returns, Days of Future Past, and Kingdom Come and whatever else that show where these characters may end up, but in their own ongoing books no aging is required.  Peanuts never aged, Simpsons never aged, and by the same token comic book characters don't age.  Simple as that.


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## Particle_Man (Nov 22, 2003)

A recent one:  Superman/Thundercats crossover.
An old one: Spiderman/Transformers crossover.

When we see the Justice League/Smurfs crossover, the apocolyse will have arrived.


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## Silver Moon (Nov 22, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> avengers 291-298 was supposed to be the downfall of the Avengers.



Er, think I'll have to disagree with you on this one.  When has taking something loved by the fans and intentionally making it awful and then totally destroying it been a good idea?

A few other bad comic concepts off the top of my head:

1)  Having Daredevil take on Hypnotist Uri Geller; 
2)  Putting Bruce Wayne in a wheelchair;
3)  Killing off Aunt May, and then bringing her back three issues later;
4)  Having Spiderman and Sandman join the Avengers;
5)  X-Men/Star Trek the Next Generation crossover comic & novel


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## Mog Elffoe (Nov 22, 2003)

Here's my list of comics' worst ideas:

Wonder Woman by Byrne--gotta agree with everyone here.  There are a few moments when he hits the right chord, but mostly it's missteps.  I actually DID like have Hippolyta become the Golden Age Wonder Woman.  I had no problem with that at all, but the way he reworked the Demon's origin in that--Geez!  I can't even begin to explain that.  Mostly, I didn't like how *weak* Wonder Woman appeared spiritually in Byrne's run.  She breaks down and openly cries on the shoulder of a MAN that she had met only days before in the first story arc.  THAT bugged me.  Sure, she had good reason to cry at the time, but how much more effective would it have been if she had stood strong and proud with a look of steely resolve on her face along with those tears?  To me, that could've totally DEFINED the Wonder Woman character.  I do like SOME of the stuff that Byrne does nowadays.  I've greatly enjoyed each of his Generations series, and I am looking forward to seeing what he and Claremont do with JLA.  I just saw that Jerry Ordway is going to be inking over Byrne's pencils.  That ought to be a definite improvement.  Their styles should blend nicely.

Spider-Man Clone Saga--I think everyone already knows why this didn't work.

Aliens and Predator crossovers with Superheroes--Okay, I *did* like the three Batman vs Predator and both of the Aliens vs Superman books, but the Superman/Predator, JLA/Predator, Batman/Aliens 1&2, Green Lantern/Aliens, and whatever else is out there just don't do it for me.  I didn't buy the second Batman/Aliens or Green Lantern/Aliens, but man did the Superman/Predator and JLA/Predator and Batman/Aliens books stink.  Painful reads for me.

Obsidian Age in JLA--This storyline made me drop JLA from my monthly reading list.  I actually picked up many issues afterwards, but this is where I started actively disliking JLA.  When Joe Kelly started getting political it was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back with me.  Not that I disagree with his politics or anything like that (even though I DO) but that those stories were just really, really bad.  The Fantastic Four has just recently become a 'political' book and I'm extremely interested to see where it goes.  From interviews I've read with Mark Waid, the writer on FF, I don't really agree with him politically, but he's writing a very effective story that I'm extremely interested in following.  Joe Kelly's JLA stuff just grates on me in a BIG way.

Taking away Wolverine's adamantium, and then giving him BONE claws--What were they thinking here?  This stunned me.  STUNNED.  It's like taking Superman's flight, invulnerabilty, and super strength away from him, and not just for a single story or story arc--but for YEARS.  Crazy.

I'm sure there's more, but overall, I'm pretty forgiving.  I may drop a book sometimes but I usually give it LOTS of second chances before I do.


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## Kesh (Nov 22, 2003)

Madelyne Pryor. 'nuff said.


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## Villano (Nov 22, 2003)

First, thanks, everyone, for the feedback.  I was afraid that I spent all that time writing my long list and no one would respond. 

I'm actually surprised that no one mentioned "explain my continuity to me" Hawkman.  Geez, he's been revamped a dozen time since Crisis.



			
				Silver Moon said:
			
		

> In defense of "Peter Parker, son of James Bond", that story was first written by Stan Lee as a one-shot flashback in 1968's Amazing Spiderman Annual #5.  The story actually wasn't that bad, and had no real impact on continuity as his folks were clearly dead.  The mistake was when they decided to follow this up 25 years later with a multi-issue storyline with them now alive.




That was the story that made me stop collecting Spider-Man, which was the first comic series I ever bought.  I was collecting it on autopilot for about a year by that point as none of the stories had really been grabbing me.



> Honorable Mention:
> 
> *You call these guys Avengers?"*
> I'm referring to the Avengers #291 to 300 run.   this run featured the lamest Avengers team ever assembled.   Doctor Druid, She Hulk, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau version), Sub-Mariner, Subby's wife Marrina (from Alpha Flight), and the Black Knight.    And the run ends with bringing in Gilgamesh (a new-to-Marvel Hercules knockoff from Olympus) as well as Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman as members (and we knew they would not be staying long, as they continued to wear their FF costumes).
> ...




Oh, I loved those issues as a kid!  Gilgamesh has actually been around for awhile under the name "The Forgotten One".  He fought Thor a bunch of times.  They finally killed him off in a rather lame fashion.  I think he was strapped to a table and offed by one of Kang's henchmen.  I don't think the killer was even given a name.

Anyway, I liked the fact that they were like the B team of the Avengers.  Of course, West Coast Avengers was my favorite Avengers title. 



			
				Viking Bastard said:
			
		

> Nitpick: Mark Waid wrote Kingdom Come and the Kingdom, not Kurt Busiek.




Ah, you're right.  I thought Busiek did both Kingdom Come and Marvels.  It makes Waid's fumbling of Kingdom seem much worse.   



			
				Aulayan said:
			
		

> Now, as to contribute to this topic.  The thing I find the most ridiculous and disgusting thing:
> 
> Multiple solo titles for one hero.  Batman has how many? Superman? Spiderman?  The writer of The Flash has some freedom to do things.  The writers of the first three I mentioned has none, cause if they want to do any type of shake up they've gotta run it through several other people instead of just the editors.




Two words for you: Superman Weekly.  That was the term the DC editors used when they decided they were sick of some people buying only Superman or Adventures and not picking up Action or Man Of Steel and hooked the series together with one continuing story, forcing consumers to purchase all the books to know what's going on.  I'm not joking about that, either.  They actually said they wanted people to buy all the books, not just one or two, so this was their way of forcing them to.

I used to collect Superman and, occassionally Adventures, but I dropped it after a month or two of Superman Weekly since it was just too damn expensive.



			
				Mog Elffoe said:
			
		

> Obsidian Age in JLA--This storyline made me drop JLA from my monthly reading list.  I actually picked up many issues afterwards, but this is where I started actively disliking JLA.  When Joe Kelly started getting political it was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back with me.  Not that I disagree with his politics or anything liek that (even though I DO) but that those stories were just really, really bad.  The Fantastic Four has just recently become a 'political' book and I'm extremely interested to see where it goes.  From interviews I've read with Mark Waid, the writer on FF, I don't really agree with him politically, but he's writing a very effective story that I'm extremely interested in following.  Joe Kelly's JLA stuff just grates on me in a BIG way.




As I said before, I haven't enjoyed JLA for a good while, but Kelly has been the worst writer of the bunch.  I hate it when comic writers try to get political.  First, you run the risk of turning off your readership, and, secondly, Alan Moore once said that he regretted some of the influence he had on current comics since he felt that he gave them a weight they weren't meant to carry.  I think that applies here.

Whenever anyone tries to bring "realism" to comics, it fails.  You may want to do a story about babies with AIDS, but the guy in the cape with his underwear on the outside of his pants greatly diminishes your message.

You also end up quickly becoming trite and dated.  There's a movie website that had a little article about a comic character from when he was a kid in the 70s called "Hell Rider".  The cover screamed, "The NOW Superhero!".  When describing the book, everytime the comic had a moment when someone said something about "sticking to the man!", the author added a snide "Wow, how 'now' can you get?!".


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## Mistwell (Nov 22, 2003)

A few comments:

Giffin's run on Legion: I thought it was great.

Ultimate line: Best sales Marvel has seen in decades.  It was a brilliant idea.

Byrne: The man is an ass, plan and simple.  He wasn't always this way.  I've met him several times over the years.  He's a total jerk now...but I still love my page of Fantastic Four 214 that is framed on my wall.

Savage Dragon: Meh.  It was funny.

My contribution to this thread: Jim Shooter's second attempt at making his own company.  The name escapes me now, but I recall Plasm was one of it's core titles.  Every title they put out was well-written and fairly original, and yet the entire idea that he would make yet another company without proper financial backing and reasonably written stock documents resulting in the company going backrupt in the first year is just astonishing.

And, in that same vein, Crossgen is another company with some good ideas bad horrible behind-the-scenes stuff.  Mark Aliessi is an ass, and his company is going to go down in flames.


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## Piratecat (Nov 22, 2003)

Mog Elffoe said:
			
		

> ...if they hadn't started the Ultimate line I wouldn't be able to read Ultimate Spider-Man each month, and that would be a crying shame.  I *like* Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates, but Ultimate Spidey is THE best superhero book on the market today as far as I'm concerned.  I am totally in love with that book.




Too bad, buddy! It loves ME best, and no amount of two-bit romancing on your part is going to part me from the comic I love. Loooove. I agree; Ultimate Spiderman is astonishing.


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## Villano (Nov 22, 2003)

Just as a side note to something I mentioned earlier during my complaints about "Evil Green Lantern", I did a search to find out more the Larsen and Dooley (GL editor) feud, and I found this press release by Larsen:



> AQUAMAN #62 will be my final issue of Aquaman.  There were great many things that I had hoped to accomplish in this book but month after month,
> this became a wrestling match between the editor and me. "Creative
> differences" is the phrase Peter David used when he left the title and it
> certainly applies in my case as well. I found the process working on this
> ...




Dooley seems like the worst type of editor (I've heard similar horror stories about Marvel's X line of books) and it certainly explains the GL situation.


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## Silver Moon (Nov 22, 2003)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Ultimate Spiderman is astonishing.



Yeah, I've read and enjoyed my sister's copies of the book.   And for _her_ to pick up and rave about a book from Marvel really takes some doing, as she dropped the brand well over a decade ago, sticking to just D.C. Vertigo and a select few independent titles.  

And I agree about weeklys being a bad idea overall, it can't be sustained with any continuity without limiting the authors too much.  

Also agree with the prior comment about Batman/Predator having been great, but they went back to the well way too many times with that concept.

Now a few more "bad ideas" that have come to mind:

6) Secret Wars II  (is an explanation even needed?)
7) Comic Book adpatation of the "Howard the Duck" movie.
8) Having a new "Bucky" and making him a black man, without any thought that the derogatory term "Buck".
9)  Rom #50 - "Let's do an issue where we brutally kill off every single supporting cast member we've put in this book for the past four years!  I'm sure that people will continue to buy it only for the emotionless main character based on a toy." 
10) Sachs & Violens - a "mature" comic from Marvel a decade before the MAX line came into being.  Peter David & George Perez do great work, but who really enjoys reading stories about snuff flim victims and pedophiles?


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## Viking Bastard (Nov 22, 2003)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> The day has finally come when I've disagreed with you.



Well, we both knew it had to happen eventually, right? At least, now, 
it's out of the way and we can keep on doin' the agreeing thing.



> I think Grant Morrison is a lousy storyteller. He may have interesting ideas, but he can't communicate them in any way I find compelling or fun. For me, The Invisibles was a big waste of money and time.



I don't consider him to be the greatest storyteller ever, either, but he 
always keeps me interested. His New X-Men is the 3e of the X-Universe, 
brought me back after many years of absence and he got what the JLA
was all about (something the DCU editorial just didn't seem to get), the 
Big Seven kickin' interstellar butt and having cosmic adventures. His 
writing is like a strange mix of 70s and 80s New Age ideas mixed with
Silver Age DC storytelling, focusing on the pure power of imagination 
rather than the Marvel style of over characterization.

Plus, he doesn't work well with all artists, which has been somewhat of a 
problem with his New X-Men 

I've always preferred Silver Age DC to Silver Age Marvel myself. I like to
read old Green Lantern and JLA stories, but I just can't get into the SA
Spidey and Co. (with the exceptions of the Kirby Hulk and the post Stan 
Lee Avengers).

But I disgress, The Invisibles is one of those rare bodies of work I seem to
be able to read again and again without gettin' bored (others include Hitman
Transmetropolitan, DKR, Groo and more).



> Garth Ennis, though? If I could, I'd chain Ennis in my attic and make him write me more Preacher/Hitman in exchange for smelly fish heads once a day. He's great.



Well, lately, he's been loosing punch for me. Post-Hitman/Preacher, his
stuff has been a bit *too* aimless for me. He's recycling his jokes. His
Punisher rawks (mostly) but his Nick Fury (and more) leaves a lot to be
desired.


----------



## Viking Bastard (Nov 22, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> Dooley seems like the worst type of editor (I've heard similar horror stories about Marvel's X line of books) and it certainly explains the GL situation.



Do you know if he's still with DC? I know he lost favour with Paul Levitz
some time ago and was having trouble at the company.

Anyway, it seems like Hal Jordan will be coming back nexy year. Being back
by none other than Grant Morrison himself, although it hasn't been officially
announced yet. Only that HJ fans will be happy with the new GL revamp.

.

I'm actually having a hard time finding stuff to vent about in this thread, 
simply because usually when I don't like something, I just don't read it.


----------



## Villano (Nov 22, 2003)

Viking Bastard said:
			
		

> Do you know if he's still with DC? I know he lost favour with Paul Levitz
> some time ago and was having trouble at the company.
> 
> Anyway, it seems like Hal Jordan will be coming back nexy year. Being back
> ...




He's back again?  LOL!  Are they bringing him back as a GL or the Spectre?

And Dooley quit DC after the Aquaman thing (I think his last issue was the same one as Larsen's), and then left the entire comics industry.  I don't know what he's doing now.


----------



## Kahuna Burger (Nov 22, 2003)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> You do realize that having time pass at anything resembling a normal rate just isn't going to work in a monthly magazine format? If a multi-part story takes place over seven or eight issues, maybe only a week of time has passed maximum. Characters would get old much too quickly and be phased out. And for the most part, characters do age; they just do so slowly. It's a lot better than it used to be, at least; In general the 'rule of thumb' is that times passes roughly at one year in the comics for every 5-7 years real time. Robin started out at about 14; now, ten+ years later, he's just celebrated his 16th birthday.




problem is that there's no continuity... The rue of thumb doesn't work across the board, and you can't explain everything away by how long it takes the books to come out. The continuity gap exists without reference to outside time, even within a single book or group of books.

take a random example from X men. Kitty Pryde turned 14 in space during the brood saga. They came back. Scott gets married. His wife has a child. He leaves his wife. The mutant massacre takes place at the same time across comics. Various other stuff happens. A reference is made to it being a yaer since the mutant massacre. The fall of the mutants happens across comics. Its summer. Everyone has a chrismas episode (within the continuity of their stories). Inferno happens across comics. Its summer. Kitty Pryde turns 15 and scott's baby apears about 6 months.... I know that one cause I liked the character, but there are plenty more where that came from.

Time is what stops everything from happening at once. Comics to not have to age at the same rate we do (though they should really stop making current political remarks) but when time passes, let it pass. 

Personlly, I LIKE stories where folks age and even get phased out. I've seen it done well in good, story based comic strips (neither penuts nor the simpsons actually had a STORY, and wanting comics to be like that is relegating them to a less mature form of writing, IMHO) where the characters do age, evolve, change and even die. I might still be reading comics now if the characters had actually grown isntead of just getting new costumes, different team affilations and progressively dumber backstories.   

Kahuna burger


----------



## Silver Moon (Nov 22, 2003)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> Kitty Pryde turned 14....Scott gets married. His wife has a child....Its summer. Kitty Pryde turns 15 and scott's baby apears about 6 months



What?  You don't buy the fact that the mutant child is just growing at a faster rate?  Heck, that baby (Cable) is now about about 30 years older than its father!      \

Seriously though, aging in the Marvel Universe has never been consistent.  Franklin Richards has gone from 6 to 10 and then back to 6 more times than I can count.   And time references change too, Ben Grimm once fought in WWII and Ironman was originally created during the Vietnam War.   You just have to suspend disbelief some.  

Now for a few more bad ideas:

11)  The Champions!  Lets put two former Avengers, two former X-Men, and a supernatural demon hero together.  They'll work well! 
12)  Hey, now that we've gone to the work of establishing a new Robin let's kill him.


----------



## Kahuna Burger (Nov 22, 2003)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> Seriously though, aging in the Marvel Universe has never been consistent.  Franklin Richards has gone from 6 to 10 and then back to 6 more times than I can count.   And time references change too, Ben Grimm once fought in WWII and Ironman was originally created during the Vietnam War.   You just have to suspend disbelief some.




uh, I think the point is that sometimes you don't. Sometimes you get tired of suspending belief, or you find that the story isn't worth it. Sometimes you want MORE from a story, and if you don't get it, you grow out of it and move on to stories that give you more. (I also think this is stretching the use of suspension of disbelief, but thats probably another conversation).

Hey, if the episodic feel of a story without strong contiuity is what you expect or like out of comics, thats fine, but the whole "thats just the way it is" style of response isn't very meaningful. Its sort of insulting, really, especially on a thread started to rant about things we don't like in comics...   

Kahuna burger


----------



## Skade (Nov 22, 2003)

I'm not familar with Valiant, having only bought two issues related to their Image crossover years ago, so I know nothing about their efforts at keeping a stong continuity.  Would their plans have worked in the Marvel and DC Universe?  

It seems to me that while possible, the sheer volume of material would make it difficult to keep track of not only time, but every backstory and offhand comment in every comic, and have these crossreferenceable for the writers and editors.  This is a lot of work.

I'm not making an excuse for continuity errors.  One of the reasons I stopped reading several years ago was this very problem as it related to the X-men, and Wolverine in particular.


----------



## Kahuna Burger (Nov 22, 2003)

Skade said:
			
		

> I'm not familar with Valiant, having only bought two issues related to their Image crossover years ago, so I know nothing about their efforts at keeping a stong continuity.  Would their plans have worked in the Marvel and DC Universe?
> 
> It seems to me that while possible, the sheer volume of material would make it difficult to keep track of not only time, but every backstory and offhand comment in every comic, and have these crossreferenceable for the writers and editors.  This is a lot of work.




Yes, but at marvel at least, there were a lot of people working on each book. Not just the writer (or writers in some cases) but editors and assistant editors. If someone at the company decided that they actually cared about (time) continuity, it would have been trivial to say that one of the assistant editor jobs was to keep a calendar of the storyline and regularly submit it to the continuity editor. They would keep a cross world calendar and occassionally send memos to writers whose timeline was either lagging or excessively accelerated to do some catchup or downtime. It *could* be done, but probably wouldn't be because nitpicking time freaks aren't a big enough segment of their audience for it to matter.    It would also work better in a comics universe completely divorced from the real world in terms of places, famous people and technological advances.

Now backstory is another issue entirely.     To solve those kind of problems you basically have to have a writer have "ownership" of his charcters so other writers don't get it into their heads to mess with them, or a writer has to create in essence a character sheet and full background for every character he introduces and other writers have to have access to that if they are going to use the character in their stories... since we know that many characters are created on the fly with no idea of what the backstory would be (when new mutants was being perverted into the new X force, the artist basicly drew a bunch of characters and the writer tried to find places for them and make up personalities...) this wouldn't work without an overiding vision of the universe the different stories took place in.

I can certainly see how a new comics company/universe starting from scratch could make continuity work, but it would require a plan from the begining, IMHO.

Kahuna burger


----------



## Viking Bastard (Nov 23, 2003)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> I can certainly see how a new comics company/universe starting from scratch could make continuity work, but it would require a plan from the begining, IMHO.



CrossGen.


----------



## Mistwell (Nov 23, 2003)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> 7) Comic Book adpatation of the "Howard the Duck" movie.




Umm..wasn't it the other way around? I thought the movie was an adaptation of the comic book, which came first. Howard the Duck comic was 1976-1980, and the movie was 1986.


----------



## Villano (Nov 23, 2003)

Mistwell said:
			
		

> Umm..wasn't it the other way around? I thought the movie was an adaptation of the comic book, which came first. Howard the Duck comic was 1976-1980, and the movie was 1986.




It's kind of like when Bram Stoker's Dracula came out.  The novelization wasn't Dracula, by Bram Stoker, but Bram Stoker's Dracula written by Fred Sabrehagen.  I always keep that in mind when someone asks what the definition of "irony" is.


----------



## DarkSoldier (Nov 23, 2003)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> What?  You don't buy the fact that the mutant child is just growing at a faster rate?  Heck, that baby (Cable) is now about about 30 years older than its father!



Well, when time travel's involved, all sorts of wonky stuff can happen.



> Seriously though, aging in the Marvel Universe has never been consistent.  Franklin Richards has gone from 6 to 10 and then back to 6 more times than I can count.   And time references change too, Ben Grimm once fought in WWII and Ironman was originally created during the Vietnam War.   You just have to suspend disbelief some.



It's not possible to reconcile Marvel Time with real time, especially if you have characters connected to historical events.



> 12)  Hey, now that we've gone to the work of establishing a new Robin let's kill him.



The "Death in the Family" story was a fan decision; DC had a phone-in campaign for their readers to decide Jason Todd's fate (50-cent surcharge to discourage ballot stuffing), and the results were narrowly in favour of Robin's death. The creative team wrote two different stories for that issue: one where Robin lived, and one where he died, depending on the result of the poll.


----------



## Dagger75 (Nov 23, 2003)

For me was the old GI Joe comics.  Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes teamed up on some renagade mission inside Cobra HQ.  In the end Storm Shadow was killed by the Baroness. A few months later Storm Shadow came back from the dead and was a good guy.  I always wondered what they were thinking. I don't collect comics very much


----------



## theburningman (Nov 23, 2003)

> Taking away Wolverine's adamantium, and then giving him BONE claws--What were they thinking here? This stunned me. STUNNED. It's like taking Superman's flight, invulnerabilty, and super strength away from him, and not just for a single story or story arc--but for YEARS. Crazy.




I have to agree with this one.  I was a rabid X fan for years.  For me, the moment when Magneto removes Wolverine's adamantium was an incredibly powerful moment.  Then he goes into the Danger Room to try to get back on the horse.  He went through something that had to be unimaginably painful, and lost something that was part of his _identity_ for cripes' sake, but there he was, ready to battle through it.

Then out pop the bone claws.


What the f@#%?


Okay, calm down, everything will be back to normal in a few months.  It's just a character-building story arc.  But it didn't go back to normal in a few months.

I stopped caring about comics for a lot of reasons soon after that, and I don't even know if Wolverine ever got his adamantium back.

But I had a _huge_ smile on my face when I saw the X-Men movie and saw the old adamantium claws in all their glory.


----------



## Tom Cashel (Nov 23, 2003)

The problem with Grant Morrison is that his stories make you have to use your brain.  Take that as you will.  At least half of his DC/Marvel work (which I didn't care for) was designed to make fanboys and fatbeards froth at the mouth.  _The Invisibles_ was aces, baby, and the Wachowskis stole everything in _The Matrix_ from that comic. 

Preacher was great, but Garth Ennis is a wanker.

_Power Pack_.  Now there's a lousy idea.

_1603_ is pretty dumb as well.


----------



## Khynal (Nov 23, 2003)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> ...(when new mutants was being perverted into the new X force, the artist basicly drew a bunch of characters and the writer tried to find places for them and make up personalities...)




That would be Rob Liefeld, I presume.


----------



## Samnell (Nov 23, 2003)

Khynal said:
			
		

> That would be Rob Liefeld, I presume.




Who was credited for months for writing X-Force when he really had no part in doing so aside from the afore-mentioned drawing random characters that all just happened to look exactly alike. I'm just going to list employing Liefeld period as my worst comic idea.

A close second is the out of hand killing of Cypher from New Mutants. Easily the best point of view character ever created, with no combat-useful powers that just kind of fell into it and tried to do his best. Shot by a jackass in a ratty animal skin because the new writer didn't know what to do with him. And then his so-called friends start off talking about how they're sorry he die and end up playing dress up and getting new outfits, which just happened to be totally out of character for all of them.

I'll second the bringing in of high concept hack storyteller Grant Morrison to write any mainstream book, and I also hate the recent practice of replacing costumes with uniforms so all the heroes look exactly alike all the time, and they never take them off.


----------



## Villano (Nov 23, 2003)

Samnell said:
			
		

> I'm just going to list employing Liefeld period as my worst comic idea..




What?  Employing Liefeld was your idea?  Damn, you!   

What's funny is that I was reading an old article today at quarterbin.net (a pretty cool comic website) about Rob which had this great line:

"My research hasn't caught him doing anything more important than comic books. And come on, folks; while even Adolf Hitler has sites on the web that say he's a cool guy, I can't find anything that Liefeld didn't compose himself that suggests that he might be less evil than the Prince of Darkness."

I seriously considered making this my sig.


----------



## Maraxle (Nov 23, 2003)

Mog Elffoe said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, but that's got to be the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time.  So if you watched a couple bad movies, like say 'Leonard Part Six', or 'Freddy Got Fingered', you'd swear off all movies for the rest of your life?  Huh?  Or how about this one--"The smell coming from this one particular rotten thing made me wretch, so now I've decided to quit breathing altogether."  Pretty extreme, but it's the same kind of logic.



No, it's not that at all.  It's kind of like that last GI Joe figure (or whatever your favorite toy line was) that you bought right before you realized that you were too old to be playing with GI Joes anymore.  I'm not suggesting that anyone here is too old to read comics, but Savage Dragon #2 had the unfortunate distinction of appearing on the scene at the exact time that my friends and I lost interest in comics.  Looking at it gives me the same feeling as poor Tigerforce Roadblock.


----------



## Ghostwind (Nov 23, 2003)

I quit collecting about 10 years ago, so I'm not up on all the bad stories since then, but I have to say that out of the many dangling plotline X-Men stories that Claremont penned, one of the worst in terms of execution and explanation has to be when the X-men saved the universe and then stepped through some portal set up by Roma only to emerge changed (kinda) and no longer registering to electronic equipment. This was the time when Besty Braddock went from armor wearing telepath to ninja knife psi-blade wielding oriental girl/assassin. If I recall correctly, Storm was brought back as a very young girl only to battle the Shadow King again and wind up back to her proper age. There were plenty of other changes to team members that made no sense (except for Wolverine). And as typical Claremont, as the issues moved forward over the next couple of years suddenly it was like nothing had happened. The X-men were now registering again and no one seemed to recall that Betsy was really English (even her brother). Neat concept overall, but really bad follow through.

The single worst comic idea, however, has to be the continual relaunch of Marvel series with new numbers and lame explanations. How many times have we seen a Hulk, Thor, Spider-Man, or X-men series relaunch? Seems like once a comic goes past 100 issues it's time to realunch as a new number 1. Seems like an idea that has foundations in the 90's gimmick cover boom.


----------



## Alzrius (Nov 23, 2003)

I haven't read nor bought this, so if I'm off-base here, someone please correct me, but one especially dumb comic idea I heard of was *Superman: Peace on Earth* - as it was described to me, that graphic novel (which for some unknowable reason was made too large to fit on any bookshelf) can be summed up with the catchphrase, "Superman faces his greatest foe ever: world hunger!"

I keep seeing it at the store, but I shan't be buying it!


----------



## garyh (Nov 23, 2003)

Particle_Man said:
			
		

> An old one: Spiderman/Transformers crossover.




As a Transformers fan, let me elaborate on that one...

Originally, the TF comic was going to be a silly 4 issue limited toy tie in.  So, Marvel figured, no harm slapping Spidey on the cover of TF#3.  But then TF sales soared, and it ended up reaching issue #80...  not bad for a toy-based comic (though not up to GI Joe's 140-something).  Marvel couldn't have giant alien robots running around the main Marvel Universe, and the Spidey appearance was made non-canon.  So, for the next six years, the TF editors would explain on the letters page every few months that Spidey didn't _really_ fit into the TF universe.  

An interesting tangent, though, was that there was a GI Joe / TF crossover (logical, as both were toys made by Hasbro with comics done by Marvel.).  Through the transitive property, if the Spidey/TF crossover _did_ happen, I've always thought it'd be a kick to see a GI Joe / S.H.I.E.L.D. crossover...  Nick Fury and Duke saving the day!


----------



## garyh (Nov 23, 2003)

Dagger75 said:
			
		

> For me was the old GI Joe comics.  Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes teamed up on some renagade mission inside Cobra HQ.  In the end Storm Shadow was killed by the Baroness. A few months later Storm Shadow came back from the dead and was a good guy.  I always wondered what they were thinking. I don't collect comics very much




See, Stormshadow came back from the dead because he was revitalized after being used as the physical template for Serpentor, the Cobra Emperor created by cloning a fusion of the greatest military minds of history.

And then Stormshadow ended up being a good guy because, as it turned out, he had only joined Cobra to find out who killed his uncle (who headed their family ninja clan).  The killer turned out to be Zartan, employed by Cobra Commander to kill Snake-Eyes, whose family was involved with CC's brother in a no-survivors car crash as Snake-Eye's family was going to pick him up at the airport upon his return from service in Vietnam.  Zartan ID'ed Snake-Eye's through a mystic ninja hearing technique, but the man he shot was actually Stormshadow's uncle, who was teaching Snake-Eyes a mystic ninja technique of altering one's heartbeat and breathing to sound like another person!

So, um, yeah, that's the story behind that.


----------



## blackshirt5 (Nov 23, 2003)

garyh said:
			
		

> See, Stormshadow came back from the dead because he was revitalized after being used as the physical template for Serpentor, the Cobra Emperor created by cloning a fusion of the greatest military minds of history.
> 
> And then Stormshadow ended up being a good guy because, as it turned out, he had only joined Cobra to find out who killed his uncle (who headed their family ninja clan).  The killer turned out to be Zartan, employed by Cobra Commander to kill Snake-Eyes, whose family was involved with CC's brother in a no-survivors car crash as Snake-Eye's family was going to pick him up at the airport upon his return from service in Vietnam.  Zartan ID'ed Snake-Eye's through a mystic ninja hearing technique, but the man he shot was actually Stormshadow's uncle, who was teaching Snake-Eyes a mystic ninja technique of altering one's heartbeat and breathing to sound like another person!
> 
> So, um, yeah, that's the story behind that.



 Dear god.  I now know Horror.

And what's up with these Transformers/GI Joe comics that I saw yesterday at the comic shop?


----------



## Randomninjareborn (Nov 23, 2003)

Humph! Pretty good(bad) stuff here I admit. But top this.........

 Ya see, in the 90's there was an amazingly fresh, hip, and all around brilliant character known as the Ferret. Had his own comic, starring role, the whole schebang. The ferret wasn't one of those loser reporters, photographers or college preppies either. Nah, he was so cool, he had his own edgy and happening rock band. With groupies. Oh yeah,  you heard me. As if that wasn't cool enough, he had all sorts of mind-blowing FERRET powers. Damn straight. Ain't nothing scarier than a ferret, except maybe a scrawny white rocker that thinks like one eh?

  Having the awesome ferret power of being scrawny, wasted-looking, and ill-tempered was just the start. I don't have time to get into overwhelming powers like "unbreakable ferret grip" and "I can hear your heartbeat" Just give you nightmares to hear the details anyway. Now I know what you're all thinking. 

"But Randomninja" you say, "You can't tell how good someone is by looking at their powers on paper. It's who they fought that counts"

Not to worry all, I've got the goods. You see, early in the Ferrets run, he had a friendly sparring match with a certain big name character from the brutal Street Fighter Universe.....................Yeah, you know where I'm going with this, give it up for E. HONDA, Yo! Thats right, when you think of Street Fighter and winners in the same sentance, it doesn't get any better than the Fat guy named after a car company.

I don't want to spoil it for those pitiful fools who haven't read this amazing book, but.......................Well ok, Honda kicked his ass. Bad. But he took it like a man and thats all that counts right? Right?


----------



## LightPhoenix (Nov 23, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> Anyway, I liked the fact that they were like the B team of the Avengers. Of course, West Coast Avengers was my favorite Avengers title.



The west coast team was great!  It sucked that they put an end to them, but they really didn't keep continuity with the main title.  The grey-alien guy from Force Works was pretty cool too, but I can't remember his name.


----------



## blackshirt5 (Nov 23, 2003)

I was talking to a buddy of mine who's far more into comics(Chris V), and he just said to say:

Scarlet Spider

And you'd all know what it was.  Anybody care to elaborate, he shuddered when he said it.


----------



## Villano (Nov 23, 2003)

blackshirt5 said:
			
		

> I was talking to a buddy of mine who's far more into comics(Chris V), and he just said to say:
> 
> Scarlet Spider
> 
> And you'd all know what it was.





Go back and read my first post, the one that started this thread.  The Scarlet Spider was the Amazing Spider-Clone.  Now you can understand the horror of it.



> Anybody care to elaborate, he shuddered when he said it.






> But, still to this day, in comic shops around the country, you can say "Spider-Clone Saga" and send everyone within earshot into convulsions.




See, your friend was actually going into convulsions just remembering it.  I'll bet people out there thought I was joking when I said that!  No, it's true, see!


----------



## Silver Moon (Nov 23, 2003)

I had a friend of mine who manages a comic shop take a look at this thread.  He had the following to say:

_Best tread lightly on the Clone Saga as well as Avengers 291-300, as 
each has rather vocal fans online. Yes, as scary as the thought of people out there who loved Ben Reilly (*gag*), the Gilamesh fans are not to be toyed with either. Luckily, everybody, and I do mean EVERYBODY, hates Teen Tony_

So based on that, I'll stand behind my original nomination of the IronBoy saga.

BTW, I loved the West Coast Avengers book.   Even the John Byrne run on that book was excellent.


----------



## Aulayan (Nov 23, 2003)

Hm, here's one that pisses me off to this day.  

I quit reading comics when I was still a young teen because of this.  Malibu created a new universe, the writers worked together to establish a continuity and try to make everything work.  Now it had it's problems, but it was a nice new addition.

Marvel buys Malibu, and totally destroys their universe.


----------



## Black Omega (Nov 23, 2003)

Randomninjareborn said:
			
		

> "But Randomninja" you say, "You can't tell how good someone is by looking at their powers on paper. It's who they fought that counts"
> 
> Not to worry all, I've got the goods. You see, early in the Ferrets run, he had a friendly sparring match with a certain big name character from the brutal Street Fighter Universe.....................Yeah, you know where I'm going with this, give it up for E. HONDA, Yo! Thats right, when you think of Street Fighter and winners in the same sentance, it doesn't get any better than the Fat guy named after a car company.
> 
> I don't want to spoil it for those pitiful fools who haven't read this amazing book, but.......................Well ok, Honda kicked his ass. Bad. But he took it like a man and thats all that counts right? Right?



I kinda like Malibu during this period.  Really, Honda showed up to help promote the Street Fighter II comic that in only two issues got it's license pulled.  Heh.


----------



## blackshirt5 (Nov 24, 2003)

He brought up Teen Tony as well.  Also:

Rob Liefield; I think that's the guy; he's the one who can't draw feet worth crap, right?


----------



## Tarrasque Wrangler (Nov 24, 2003)

blackshirt5 said:
			
		

> Rob Liefield; I think that's the guy; he's the one who can't draw feet worth crap, right?



 Big big big thighs, little tiny feet, and guns the size of industrial refrigerators. And he was considered the creme de la creme of artists for a year or two.

 I can't believe no one's mentioned Marvel's New Universe! Kickers Inc.? StarBrand? Pittsburgh blown off the map? The big MU crossover with everyone's favorite hero, Quasar?


----------



## blackshirt5 (Nov 24, 2003)

Tarrasque Wrangler said:
			
		

> Big big big thighs, little tiny feet, and guns the size of industrial refrigerators. And he was considered the creme de la creme of artists for a year or two.
> 
> I can't believe no one's mentioned Marvel's New Universe! Kickers Inc.? StarBrand? Pittsburgh blown off the map? The big MU crossover with everyone's favorite hero, Quasar?



 Heyheyhey; what's wrong with Quasar???


----------



## Aaron L (Nov 24, 2003)

I'd have to say the worst I have heard about is the origin story they gave Wolverine.  Talk about lame.  The editors for the X-books recently have gotten so bad someone should put them in a mental hospital.  

And the whole New X-Men series is a joke.  

In Spider-Man a few issues back a dimensional portal opens up in Times Square and thousands of mindless ones start pouring out, and within 5 minutes Thor, Iron Man, Cyclops, the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man are there fighting them.
And Doctor Strange.  Doctor Strange is RAD.

In New X-Men, Magneto walks into New York and takes it over OFF CAMERA!  Apparently the Avengers and FF moved or something.

LAME.

The stuff that was done to the Punisher.  Killing him and making him undead?  Making him an angel?  



I liked the Spider-Man Transformers crossover!  I still remember Starscream yelling "What kind of human can do this?!"


----------



## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Nov 24, 2003)

Aaron L said:
			
		

> In Spider-Man a few issues back a dimensional portal opens up in Times Square and thousands of mindless ones start pouring out, and within 5 minutes Thor, Iron Man, Cyclops, the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man are there fighting them.
> And Doctor Strange.  Doctor Strange is RAD.




...Doctor Strange is my ALL TIME FAVORITE Marvel character.


----------



## Tarrasque Wrangler (Nov 24, 2003)

blackshirt5 said:
			
		

> Heyheyhey; what's wrong with Quasar???



 Seriously? In my day, he was considered the definition of "craptacular". Now I haven't read a comic in a while; maybe today's Quasar is the new Wolverine. 

 But I felt it was more a statement on the New Universe than on Quasar. I mean, the New Universe sucked so bad that the Living Tribunal had to seal it off from the Marvel Universe-at-large to keep its suckiness from infecting everthing else.

 Incidentally, have they ever tried to bring NU back? I know the only rule in Marvel for a long time was "Only Bucky stays dead" but writers past and present have found all kinds of stupid ways around that. But I haven't heard any clamor to find out what Spitfire or DP7 have been up to all this time. So maybe the new rule should be "Please do not feed the New Universe".


----------



## Villano (Nov 24, 2003)

Aaron L said:
			
		

> I'd have to say the worst I have heard about is the origin story they gave Wolverine.  Talk about lame.




Oh, what is it?  I've heard they gave him a definitive origin, but I stopped collecting Marvel by this point.  Is it the "Sabretooth is his father in the old west" thing?  Or the "Raised by wolverines" one?  

Boy, that speaks volumes about the problems with Marvel right there, doesn't it?


----------



## LightPhoenix (Nov 24, 2003)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> ...Doctor Strange is my ALL TIME FAVORITE Marvel character.



Doctor Strange is the best!

And yeah, the whole Malibu/Marvel thing totally blew.  I stopped collecting seriously a long time ago, but when I heard that I just shook my head.


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## d4 (Nov 24, 2003)

well, i don't have anything pertinent on comics to add, but this thread has definitely helped me know what to stay away from when i'm working on my Mutants & Masterminds campaign! 

[OT] hey Villano, you're in Mansfield? i went to college there for a few years long time ago. nice little town, if a bit isolated...


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## Aaron L (Nov 24, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> Is it the "Sabretooth is his father in the old west" thing?  Or the "Raised by wolverines" one?





You wish the origin was that good  

This sums it up better than I can.  

http://www.lostsoulwolverine.com/origin.htm

A lot of people seem to like it.  

I don't.  

Of course, I think the idea that his claws are natural is a joke, and thought that when he had the adamantium ripped from his body was the worst kind of ratings plea.  Thats right about when I stopped reading comics.  Didn't start again til this year, but now all the X-books suck.


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## WayneLigon (Nov 24, 2003)

Aaron L said:
			
		

> I read an interview with the guy who wrote this "origin" and in it he said he wasn't a fan of the character, didn't know anything about him, and that he didn't care what character he wrote about. Sounds like a great guy to put in charge of an origin story to me.



Ah, sounds like the old 'I have a story I want to write and I'll shoehorn it into the next thing I can get a contract on' ploy. 

Seriously, how do people that make statements like that in interviews stay employed? Or ever get offered a second job?


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## danzig138 (Nov 24, 2003)

garyh said:
			
		

> who was teaching Snake-Eyes a mystic ninja technique of altering one's heartbeat and breathing to sound like another person!



And at the time, I thought that was the absolute coolest plotline in a comic. I was like "No! He killed the cool old guy who took the street thug's gun apart in the blink of an eye to demonstrate that you didn't need violence once you mastered violence!" Whenever I see that part in Lethal Weapon 4 where he disables the gun, I think of that issue of G.I. Joe.


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## danzig138 (Nov 24, 2003)

Tarrasque Wrangler said:
			
		

> I can't believe no one's mentioned Marvel's New Universe! Kickers Inc.? StarBrand? Pittsburgh blown off the map? The big MU crossover with everyone's favorite hero, Quasar?



I can't go there with you. Yeah, Kickers Inc and Spitfire sucked big time, but I loved DP7, Nightmask, Justice, and Star Brand. Unfortunately, I went broke and had to quit collecting them, and then I had to sell my comic collection, but I've been slowly trying to get all the New U again (on the cheap). I don't know about the Marvel crossover; I've seen some things about it, but I never read it.


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## Psychotic Dreamer (Nov 24, 2003)

danzig138 said:
			
		

> I can't go there with you. Yeah, Kickers Inc and Spitfire sucked big time, but I loved DP7, Nightmask, Justice, and Star Brand. Unfortunately, I went broke and had to quit collecting them, and then I had to sell my comic collection, but I've been slowly trying to get all the New U again (on the cheap). I don't know about the Marvel crossover; I've seen some things about it, but I never read it.




I gotta agree with you on some of that.  DP7, Starbrand (early issues) and Psi-Force were some great comics.  Interesting characters and in a hell of a setting.  And Pittsburg getting blown to kingdome come...  Wonderful.  The fact it carried over through all the comics?  Even better.  It's amazing how the New Universe had some of the best and some of the worst comics.


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## TiQuinn (Nov 24, 2003)

1) Wolverine has all the metal ripped from his body only to reveal that he has, GASP......bone claws?  LAME-O.  I stopped reading X-Men and comics in general shortly thereafter.

2) Crisis on Infinite Earths.  The story made no sense, and was born out of some overriding need to explain why there's a golden age Flash and a silver age Flash, golden age Superman and silver age Superman, etc., etc.  The end result?  Huh?  Who cares?  John Byrne comes along and rewrites the history of Superman anyways so the whole point is moot.

3) Annual crossover stories at Marvel.  It's not like they could write decent story arcs in the 9 other months of the year, but every summer Marvel would crank out a massive story arc that spanned every comic it had.

Acts of Vengeance, Secret Wars II, Evolutionary War, Atlantis Attacks, Infinity War, Infinity Crusade, and on and on and on.

All of them, pretty horrible.

Of course, the X-Men always had to have their little party that would be billed as the biggest fight of all time..Mutant Massacre (actually pretty cool), Inferno, X-Tinction Agenda, X-cutioners Song, etc., etc.

In the end, they were all mostly confusing messes that just mucked up everyone's stories for the sake of having something "BIG" happen.


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## Macbeth (Nov 24, 2003)

(I think Crisis was great, same for Morrison's JLA, and Origin. Just my two bits.)

Worst Comic Idea EVER:
Not a story idea, but a general comic idea: Multiple Alternate Super Shiny Metallic Platinum Limited Edition Collect-Me-Or-Die Covers. 'Nuf Said.


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## TiQuinn (Nov 24, 2003)

Macbeth said:
			
		

> (I think Crisis was great, same for Morrison's JLA, and Origin. Just my two bits.)
> 
> Worst Comic Idea EVER:
> Not a story idea, but a general comic idea: Multiple Alternate Super Shiny Metallic Platinum Limited Edition Collect-Me-Or-Die Covers. 'Nuf Said.




Not to mention special bagged first issues.

DON'T OPEN IT! DON'T OPEN IT!  It won't be worth anything if you open it!

Along these lines:

The Death of Superman....granted, DC didn't know it was going to spark a frenzy of wannabe baby-boomer collectors paying $30 each to get the book, but they knew exactly what they were doing when less than a year later came The Return of Superman.

Image comics.  The whole stinking line.

On the flip side...Valiant Comics aka good writers....what's an artist?


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## MarauderX (Nov 24, 2003)

Cynical Man anyone?  

How about any of those other starving-artist comics out there?


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## Macbeth (Nov 24, 2003)

MarauderX said:
			
		

> How about any of those other starving-artist comics out there?



Except some of those are good. take a look at Generic Comicbook. Or "So you Want to be a Supervillan..." Just because the are starving dosen't mean the work isn't good, it just means its not mass media friendly.


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## WizarDru (Nov 24, 2003)

TiQuinn said:
			
		

> Image comics. The whole stinking line.



Baby.  Bathwater.

Or to put it another way:  3 Geeks.  Powers.  Rising Stars.  Bone.  Astro City.  Age of Bronze.  Planetary.  The Authority.  Ellis' Stormwatch.  Barry Ween.


They still put out tons of drek, but they did grow up some.


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## Macbeth (Nov 24, 2003)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Planetary.  The Authority.  Ellis' Stormwatch.



Unless I'm missing something, these are from Wildstorm, which has nothing to do with Image, but is related to DC in some way (as a imprint I believe)


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## Numion (Nov 24, 2003)

I don't read comics, but this thread makes me thank god (or the producers) they've not stayed _too_ true to the source materials when making the movies X-men 2 and spider-man. While I don't read the comics, I'm a huge fan of the movies, especially those two.


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## WizarDru (Nov 24, 2003)

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Unless I'm missing something, these are from Wildstorm, which has nothing to do with Image, but is related to DC in some way (as a Imprint I believe)



You missed something.   Wildstorm used to be a part of Image, before they had various fallouts.  DC eventually picked Wildstorm up, but they were originally a part of Image.


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Nov 24, 2003)

This all makes me think I haven't missed much since giving up comics 6-7 years ago.  I don't think I would have the slightest clue as to what was what if I picked up a title today.   I kind of liked The Dark Knight II series, but I only read that becuase I loved DK1 way back when.  

So Image Comics broke up?  Some good art, some horrible art, and almost universally horrible storytelling.   

Is the Legend crew still doing non-mainstream stuff?  Or are they all back on Marvel and DC titles?   Miller, Byrne, Chadwick, Mignolia, and Adams were the members If I remember.   Next Men was a great book and too bad nothing else ever came out of it.


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## Sherlock (Nov 24, 2003)

I always thought that killing off the orginal _Captain Marvel_ was a bad idea. Yeah it might make for one good story but why destroy a beloved superhero just for shock value.


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## Mistwell (Nov 24, 2003)

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> This all makes me think I haven't missed much since giving up comics 6-7 years ago.  I don't think I would have the slightest clue as to what was what if I picked up a title today.   I kind of liked The Dark Knight II series, but I only read that becuase I loved DK1 way back when.
> 
> So Image Comics broke up?  Some good art, some horrible art, and almost universally horrible storytelling.
> 
> Is the Legend crew still doing non-mainstream stuff?  Or are they all back on Marvel and DC titles?   Miller, Byrne, Chadwick, Mignolia, and Adams were the members If I remember.   Next Men was a great book and too bad nothing else ever came out of it.




MOST of this thread is about comics FROM 6-7 years ago.  It almost seems like a thread of ex-comic-collectors.  That's why it sounds like you have not missed much...

The last several years has seen a revolution in comic books.  Graphic Novels and Trade Paper Backs now sell so well that there are entire stores devoted just to them.  Superheros (which seems to dominate this thread) no longer dominate comic books in general.  The Eisner's are now dominated by stuff that, frankly, hasn't even been mentioned in this thread.


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## Macbeth (Nov 24, 2003)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> You missed something.   Wildstorm used to be a part of Image, before they had various fallouts.  DC eventually picked Wildstorm up, but they were originally a part of Image.



Ahhh. Thanks for that catch, sorry I doubted anything.


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## Klaus (Nov 24, 2003)

Worst Comic Book I ever tried to read:

Dark Knight Strikes Again (aka DK2):

Lousy Art, Craptastic writing, totally untrue to the masterpiece it supposedly continues.

Obsidian Age. I enjoyed Grant Morrison's run on JLA, and Mark Waid's was lukewarm at best (although having Bryan Hitch drawing sure does help), but Joe Kelly has simply killed this title for me. And Doug Mahke doesn't help either.


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## stevelabny (Nov 24, 2003)

wanted to jump back in with a few mor comments about other people's comments. 

erik larsen: well besides having artwork thats a little too cartoony for me and being responsible for savage dragon, his biggest problem is the infamous "name withheld" letter where he basically says that comic books are about the art and the artists dont need writers because "anyone can write a comic book". 
except you apparently. dolt. liefeld and mcfarlane got the most heat, but this is the schmuck who deserve the be slapped first.

giffen's lsh: i liked it. i havent read EVERY old legion story (although its on my things-to-do-list) but he seemed to do a pretty good job of keeping with previous continuity and told some ineresting stories. so its ok by me.

west coast avengers: this was a great series. john byrnes run on this title was amazing and the last good thing he did. force works was an incredibly stupid idea. Killing off Wonderman (again) mere weeks after he found out he was basically immortal and couldnt die because hes an energy being was ridiculous. replacing him with grey-skinned alien with fighting staff Century was even worse.  oh well, all good things come to an end.

the ultimate line: without ever spending a dime, ive read the first issue or ultimate spiderman and first six issues of ultimate x-men. theyre awful. a lot of people swear by ultimate spider-man now, but this simple fact remains,  if its a good spiderman story, they couldve just used it in the REGULAR series and there was no reasont o create the ultimate line. period.

aging characters: saying that the simpsons or peanuts dont age so its ok that superheroes dont age is easily the least thought out reasoning ive EVER heard. 
the reason it doesnt matter for those characters is because they just exist for jokes. there is no DRAMA. in order to have dramatic tension, the characters need to change and grow. if the characters dont evolve, and only exist for "cool superhero battles" then i'm not interested. 

wolverine's claws: i've never seen so much outrage about this subject. back in the day, when marvel mutants were only allowed ONE mutant power, wolverine's heightened senses and healing power were grouped together under some sort of "feral" label  and fanboys used to wonder if his claws were real or not. it was a natural porgression. having Magneto rip his adamantium out was an amazing visual. popping bone claws was another great visual that revealed more about wolverine that actually MADE SENSE. The story arc of wolvy having to get used to life without the adamantium was actually a character defining moment. which is impressive for a character who is already an icon and usually a bad parody of himself. i really dont understand how anyone coul dhave thought this was lame or stupid.

dkr2: was awful. absolute garbage.

and as for what numion said about being grateful that the movie producers dont stick too true to the material. you couldnt be more wrong.
the reason the spidey and xmen movies are so great is because they are VERY CLOSE to the source material.
and as much bad stuff that has come out of the comics industy in the past 60 years, there has been more good stuff than television, movies, or books have produced. when it comes to best medium, comics wins easy.


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## Macbeth (Nov 24, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> if its a good spiderman story, they couldve just used it in the REGULAR series and there was no reasont o create the ultimate line. period.



No. They couldn't have. They can't tell these stories in the 'normal' continuity. Why? Because they already have, in a way. The Ultimate line gets to re-do the greatest stories, and use some great characters without the baggage of years of disconitinuous stories. And, obviously, tere was a need to make the ultimate line. I had never picked up Spiderman. Why? Even if I had read it since childhood there would have been a multitude of stories I had missed, and so much background I didn't know. I had no interest in jumping into that and trying to make sense of it. There have been so many revisions and rewrites (take the Spiderclone, for example) that I had no interest in the jumble. But Ultimate Spiderman takes the things that I want, as a new Spiderman reader (the classic Spidey style, good writing, a good jumping on point, conitnuity) and got rid of the years and years of junk. I do not read a single Marvel comic beside the Ultimate series. I think that if the Ultimate series can attract new readers who otherwise wouldn't touch Marvel with a ten foot pole, then they are needed.


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## buzzard (Nov 24, 2003)

While it appears that my submission doesn't hold a candle to much of what has been mentioned, I would submit the Millenium series from DC back in the early 90s. They rather arbitrarily wipe out a whole host of characters in different books my making them agents of the evil androids. Of course nobody had every noticed any of this in teh past. For example, Laurel Kent, a LSH minor character who had been a distance descendent of Superman with invulnerability, is now an evil android. Sure. Why not? 

And to think I kept collecting comics for a couple years after that travesty. When they finally screwed Hal Jordan over, I bailed. 

buzzard


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## stevelabny (Nov 24, 2003)

Macbeth said:
			
		

> No. They couldn't have. They can't tell these stories in the 'normal' continuity. Why? Because they already have, in a way. The Ultimate line gets to re-do the greatest stories, and use some great characters without the baggage of years of disconitinuous stories. And, obviously, tere was a need to make the ultimate line. I had never picked up Spiderman. Why? Even if I had read it since childhood there would have been a multitude of stories I had missed, and so much background I didn't know. I had no interest in jumping into that and trying to make sense of it. There have been so many revisions and rewrites (take the Spiderclone, for example) that I had no interest in the jumble. But Ultimate Spiderman takes the things that I want, as a new Spiderman reader (the classic Spidey style, good writing, a good jumping on point, conitnuity) and got rid of the years and years of junk. I do not read a single Marvel comic beside the Ultimate series. I think that if the Ultimate series can attract new readers who otherwise wouldn't touch Marvel with a ten foot pole, then they are needed.




Can we PLEASE logically think this through. You jumped in with the new Ultimate universe. Its already been around for a few years and has plenty of backstory of its own. But what about in another 5 or 10 years? Should Marvel keep starting new universes? Should they continue to maintain all the old ones? or should they just abandon the original universe/ then the ultimate line after that? 

I'm sorry, but thousands of comic fans had no problem jumping into the pre-existing universe in the middle. its not brain surgery, and if millions of kids with comics and housewives with soap operas can jump into a story and figure it out, i'm sure the average potential-geek off the street can too.

The correct way to attract new readers scared by continuity into the mix is simple. If the characters actually aged and evolved, there would be obvious jumping in points and non-offensive renumberings of series when someone new takes over. Plus, there are always new characters or new series being started.

EVen without that, its still ridiculously easy to pick up in the middle. I started reading comincs in the 80s and had no problems understanding what was going on. After a year or two I understood just about every reference or nuance that was a nod to history that I never read.

So I dont buy the "So much has happened already" excuse. there are back issues, trade paperbacks, other fans to talk to, and this new invention called the internet if you absolutely need to know everything. Nobody wanders into a comic book store by accident and is afraid to pick up a book because of its history. They are brought their by family or friends and givien recommendations and EVERY recommendation comes with an open-ended invitation to show off our geek knowledge. On the ocacasions that my GF reads any of my comics, you can be SURE that I will gladly rant endlessly about "what has gone before" People read the ultimate series because they are curious and believe or are told that it will be EASIER for them.  

it cant be argued that having two seperate versions of the same characters is eating away at your own profits. its ridiculous. and having to explain the difference between trhe regular MU and the ultimate MU is even harder and more confusing than explaining any necessary backstory in the first place.

and if the ultimate universe has really stooped to re-telling the old stories thats even more abominable than i could have imagined.


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## Aaron L (Nov 24, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> wolverine's claws: i've never seen so much outrage about this subject. back in the day, when marvel mutants were only allowed ONE mutant power, wolverine's heightened senses and healing power were grouped together under some sort of "feral" label  and fanboys used to wonder if his claws were real or not. it was a natural porgression. having Magneto rip his adamantium out was an amazing visual. popping bone claws was another great visual that revealed more about wolverine that actually MADE SENSE. The story arc of wolvy having to get used to life without the adamantium was actually a character defining moment. which is impressive for a character who is already an icon and usually a bad parody of himself. i really dont understand how anyone coul dhave thought this was lame or stupid.





Because having the adamantium removed somehow made him lose control of his rage and go feral?  Becuase he should have been darn happy to have the traumatic and painful junk removed, instead of mopy and depressed about it?  Because it had been well established that the blades were artifical and he had washers and various things to keep the skin seperated when they were retracted?

And greatest of all, because arbitrary drastic changes to popular characters solely to drive up sales is the worst type of writing?


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## stevelabny (Nov 25, 2003)

Aaron L said:
			
		

> Because having the adamantium removed somehow made him lose control of his rage and go feral?  Becuase he should have been darn happy to have the traumatic and painful junk removed, instead of mopy and depressed about it?  Because it had been well established that the blades were artifical and he had washers and various things to keep the skin seperated when they were retracted?




i dont pretend to have read every comic wolverine has appeared in (just a lot of them) or remember every detail of the ones i read. But I do know for sure that NOTHING about his past was "well-established". NOTHING. that's why there were always so many discussions about him.  Whether the bone claws were always there or grafted on was still unknown. i dont recall the washers or how they work, but they would probably simply cause him less pain as the blades go in or out. As for any odd reaction to the loss of adamantium, hed still be upset because he just discovered he still is an animalistic beast WITHOUT the adamantium. He used to blame the adamantium and the guys who did "it" to him for a lot of his probelms but that clearly isnt the case. Plus, his life is different now, as an x-man/hero/person with lots of enemires he has become used to having the adamantium to help him fight and proect him. he had grown to depend on it. and now its gone.



			
				Aaron L said:
			
		

> And greatest of all, because arbitrary drastic changes to popular characters solely to drive up sales is the worst type of writing?




hmm, this seems to be the root of the problem. Either you were aginst them changing your favorite character or you are one of those that rebels against anything that is financially sucessful on some silly principle.

there was NOTHING arbitrary about it.  Magneto is MASTER OF MAGNETISM. he controls metal. Wolverine's entire skeleton is made of metal. It makes PERFECT LOGICAL SENSE for Magneto to rip the greatest advantage out of one of his most dangerous foes. The only flaw is ...why didnt he do it SOONER? 

From dictionary.com: 
arbitrary: adjetermined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle

Magneto had a reason and a need to do what he did.
There was no strange plot twist. There was no new power. 
And since the story made sense and was exciting,  the writer did his job too.

Arguing EVERY big story is just done to sell comics is pointless. EVERY comic (and book) is written with SALES in mind. Without sales there will be no book. As long as they dont betray the characters as they  do it, there is no way that sales should ever enter the arguement.


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## billd91 (Nov 25, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> wanted to jump back in with a few mor comments about other people's comments.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...




Vive le difference, I guess. I haven't seen a view toward the comix that may be more opposed to my own (in general) than the postings that you have contributed to this thread. 

I think the continual retooling of Wolverine has been awful, and the bone claws is just the capper on a festering pile of crapulence. In my opinion.

As far as the Ultimate line goes, I haven't been spending much time on Spiderman and X-men, but the Ultimates perfectly rocks. Coolest Avengers stories in a LONG time. 

I will agree that West Coast Avengers was very good, particularly Byrne's run on it. But then, Human Torch was always one of my favorite characters. Invaders was one of my favorite titles as a kid.

Aging characters, can be good for some books but not for all of them. It works for "For Better or Worse". But most monthly comics might not work too well. Actually both systems create potential problems. Never aging leads to major continuity problems as characters get retooled, elements of character are forgotten, and they build up goofy baggage (bone claws, seriously?). On the other hand, over the course of 40 years, how many generations of X-men should we have seen? What if there's a particular mix of the characters that everyone just prefers and they're all now too damn old to be a bunch of superheroes? In many ways, it's the special miniseries that do best in portraying possible storylines outside of the regular timeline.

And I think we really SHOULD be grateful that movies don't stick too closely to the comix in all cases. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But treading too closely from time to time could be really disappointing. The X-men movies could be heading for serious trouble on the Jean Grey front because the original story (much abused by subsequent events in X-Factor) was so damn good. Still the highwater mark for the X-men in my opinion. Just think how bad you'll think the movie is if it doesn't come close to the same emotional feel of the original.
Look at the Dark Knight Returns. Now imagine them making a movie of it. The comic is so good, with brilliant cinematic imagery, that an adaptation of it that comes too close would probably suck like Van Sant's version of Psycho, a shot-by-shot redoing of the original.  Ugh. The whole thought sickens.

Other stuff I've considered so bad as to be mind boggling in the history of comics:

Elementals Porn
Contest of Champions
Cargo costumes for characters who DON'T carry stuff in them ... like Thor's costume at this time. Blech.
X-men, c 1989 with their extended and boring stay in the Outback
Just about anything Cerebus "Reads" and later
Storm in punk style - I still cringe
Retconning Apocalypse into Cyclops's past


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## Aaron L (Nov 25, 2003)

Capper on a festing pile of crapulence sums up my feelings pretty well   I'm not really concerned about it, I just wanted to explain why someone WOULD think it was lame or stupid


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## Villano (Nov 25, 2003)

d4 said:
			
		

> [OT] hey Villano, you're in Mansfield? i went to college there for a few years long time ago. nice little town, if a bit isolated...




LOL!  Small world.    I moved here a few years ago when my parents got sick and I needed to be closer.  It's a nice town (if you don't count the occasional snowstorms in May).




			
				Aaron L said:
			
		

> You wish the origin was that good
> 
> This sums it up better than I can.
> 
> ...




Oh.  My.  God.   




			
				TiQuinn said:
			
		

> 2) Crisis on Infinite Earths.  The story made no sense, and was born out of some overriding need to explain why there's a golden age Flash and a silver age Flash, golden age Superman and silver age Superman, etc., etc.  The end result?  Huh?  Who cares?  John Byrne comes along and rewrites the history of Superman anyways so the whole point is moot.




I think you are misunderstanding something here.  Crisis in essense rebooted the DC universe.  That's the _reason_ Byrne revamped Superman.  All the heroes got a rewrite (major or minor) in the months that followed...well, except Hawkman, which led to mucho confusion when they reinvented him in the 90s, screwing up the continuity of many titles where the old Hawkman appeared.  This partly led to Zero Hour.

Like I said in my first post, it had to do with all the alternated Earths (with a bunch of redundant heroes) out there, not to mention a lot of overpowering and storytelling baggage, particularly Superman.  Pre-Crisis, Supes could push planets, fly through time, hear a pin drop in another galaxy, and blow out a star.  Plus you had Kryptonite in every shade of the rainbow.  

Also, there was a problem that Byrne pointed out so well when he started the revamping:  It seemed like the only people who died when Krypton exploded was Superman's parents and a few of their close neighbors.   He wasn't kidding.  You had dozens of Phantom Zone villains, Supergirl, Superboy, Krypto the Superdog, Comet the Superhorse, Streaky the Supercat, and a SuperChimp whose name I can't recall.  I think there was even a Supermouse.  Plus you had the entire bottled city of Kandor.  



			
				Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> Is the Legend crew still doing non-mainstream stuff?  Or are they all back on Marvel and DC titles?   Miller, Byrne, Chadwick, Mignolia, and Adams were the members If I remember.   Next Men was a great book and too bad nothing else ever came out of it.




Mignola is still doing Hellboy.  I'm not sure what Adams has been doing, but I miss Monkeyman & O'Brien.   




			
				Mistwell said:
			
		

> The Eisner's are now dominated by stuff that, frankly, hasn't even been mentioned in this thread.




Weel, I hope the good series aren't mentioned.  This thread is for terrible ideas.   



			
				stevelabny said:
			
		

> aging characters: saying that the simpsons or peanuts dont age so its ok that superheroes dont age is easily the least thought out reasoning ive EVER heard.
> the reason it doesnt matter for those characters is because they just exist for jokes. there is no DRAMA. in order to have dramatic tension, the characters need to change and grow. if the characters dont evolve, and only exist for "cool superhero battles" then i'm not interested.




As others have pointed out, comic characters do age.  Spidey was in high school in the 60s and now is in his mid-20s.  Frankly, as others have pointed out, the way a 4 issue arc may represent only two days in comic time, not 4 months, any attempt to work out a scale would be a headache.  

Also, I honestly don't want to read about a 55 year old Spider-Man.    

I'm a fan of the Rex Stout *Nero Wolfe* mystery novels.  Stout started them in the 30s or 40s and continued until his death in, I believe the late 70s or early 80s.  During that time Wolfe's legman, Archie Goodwin, didn't age a day.  e could still run and fight and charm a young lady (which would be hard to do as a 68 yr old).  So, you see, novel series do the same thing.

I think you're in the minority on this one.




			
				billd91 said:
			
		

> Elementals Porn




What now on the what what?



> Storm in punk style - I still cringe




Dude, don't dis punk rock Storm!  That's the way she looked when I first started collecting X-Men.  I loved her!   

I once saw an altered pic of Halle Berry as punk rock Storm.  It was great!  LOL



> Retconning Apocalypse into Cyclops's past




That didn't bother me as much as Cyclops' dad being revealed to be a space pirate.  That's just wrong, man.


Oh, and for you Teen Tony anti-fans, I found a story on the net about why that came about.  I haven't been able to find anything to verrify it, but supposedly writer Len Kaminsky insisted on Tony becoming evil and being replaced because he couldn't in good conscience write a comic with a capitalist as a hero.  

If that's true, that is one of the stupidest things I've heard.  Apparently, it escaped his notice that he is being paid by a corporation to write mindless entertainment for people with disposable incomes.    

I shudder to think of what he'd do to poor Batman if he wrote it.  He'd probably have Bruce arrested for molesting Robin or something.


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## buzzard (Nov 25, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> from the original list:
> the evil green lantern story made sense to me.
> hal jordan was always crazy (almost as much so as batman)
> seeing him snap and go on a rampage was cool and logical.
> ...




Where did you get this? Hal Jordan crazy? Did you ever read GL stories with Hal in them? Did you ever hear of The GL/GA series? Hal was about the most level-headed hero around (hence the choice to use him as offset by Green Arrow). I have to say that this particular claim stands out as the most ill-founded comment of yours among what I considered a wealth of ill-considered opinions. 

buzzard


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## Kesh (Nov 25, 2003)

Good god. I've seen fanfiction origins for Wolverine I'd rather have made official than that. >.<


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## Piratecat (Nov 25, 2003)

buzzard said:
			
		

> I have to say that this particular claim stands out as the most ill-founded comment of yours among what I considered a wealth of ill-considered opinions.




What we have here is a fine example of a sentence that should have been truncated. C'mon, Buzzard... you know about being snarky and picking fights with people. You don't have to agree with a guy, but please stay away from personal insults.


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## Tarrasque Wrangler (Nov 25, 2003)

I just remembered another one (yes, I'm another one of these guys who quit reading comics 5 years ago).  Magneto getting mindwiped by Prof X was pretty cool.  Magneto mysteriously coming back as a younger, amnesiac do-gooder version of himself was not so cool.  Having that guy turn out to be a clone or something of the real Magneto who just magically gets his mind back was laaaaaaame.  Not that I missed Joseph (Worst.  Codename.  EVAR.) but they couldn't find a cooler way to bring back Magneto?


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## Psychotic Dreamer (Nov 25, 2003)

On the subject of characters aging in a more realisitc fashion.  Personally I wouldn't want to see this.  First off it would render many popular characters/titles dead after 10-20 years.  If Spider-Man aged in a realisitic fashion his comic would have been dead 10-15 years ago.  Spider-Man is about a young man trying to find his place in the world.  Trying to balance being a super-hero and paying the bills and when married about trying to balance all that with a family.  Unless you'd want to see other people picking up the Spider-Man mantle, be it imposters or his child or what not.  The Fantastic Four is another title that would be severly hurt by this type of thing.  Let's face it the Fantastic Four is truely about Reed Richards, Sue Storm-Richards, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm.  Basically the FF is about family.  Titles like the Avengers, X-Men and others would be able to survive more in a realisitic aging style since they have had majorly changing rosters over the years.

Secondly this would also require comic book writers to create many more original charatcers and somedays it seems they have trouble creating original characters as interesting and compelling as ones from the past.  Quite often we end up with ones who are just altered versions of someone else or just plain silly.  I've picked up a few issues of X-Men recently and it would appear all the new mutants to appear recently are begining to look less and less human and more and more silly.


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## stevelabny (Nov 25, 2003)

buzzard said:
			
		

> Where did you get this? Hal Jordan crazy? Did you ever read GL stories with Hal in them? Did you ever hear of The GL/GA series? Hal was about the most level-headed hero around (hence the choice to use him as offset by Green Arrow). I have to say that this particular claim stands out as the most ill-founded comment of yours among what I considered a wealth of ill-considered opinions.
> buzzard




Piratecat... I'm not considerign that a personal attack. He's basically just saying my opinions are wrong. Which is what I'm gonna say about his opinions too.  As long as we keep the subject on comic books and not personal lives or mommas we should be ok. 

Buzzard, I'm glad you used GL/GA as an example, because I havent read a lot of old Hal stories and I was basing my opinion almost entirely on the gl/ga series, the first 50 issues of the current green lantern series and emerald dawn which is the new "official" origin of hal. it was clear to me that hal was not in touch with reality at all. (hence the choice to  have the real world explained to him by GA) Anyone who can't see that Hal was so far out of touch with reality is probably gonna try to convince me that Batman is sane too.

Hal never looked into anything for himself. he was oblivious, then took GA's spoon-feedings. follow the guardians, follow GA, follow the league. The man defined himself by his surroundings constantly. So when one of the places he considers "home" is destroyed it, and the woman with who  he has an unhealthy relationship that he calls love  is presumed dead...he snapped. Everybody has their breaking point. ALmost anyone wouldve snapped in the same situation. Hal was definately NOT above snapping. the idea that he is the greatest hero ever is a joke. he is a sad little clay man with vast cosmic power who will fight whatever evil you point him at and nothing more.


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## stevelabny (Nov 25, 2003)

Psychotic Dreamer said:
			
		

> .  If Spider-Man aged in a realisitic fashion his comic would have been dead 10-15 years ago.  Spider-Man is about a young man trying to find his place in the world.  Trying to balance being a super-hero and paying the bills and when married about trying to balance all that with a family.  Unless you'd want to see other people picking up the Spider-Man mantle, be it imposters or his child or what not.  The Fantastic Four is another title that would be severly hurt by this type of thing.  Let's face it the Fantastic Four is truely about Reed Richards, Sue Storm-Richards, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm.  Basically the FF is about family.




Spider-man started as being about a "nerdy" high school kid given super-powers and how it didnt immediately clear up all his problems. The premise of the story is "with great power comes great responsibility" thats it. You can apply that to any person with spider-like powers under the mask. And if after one or two or three people wear the mask and there is no good way way to continue the story...the title ends. there will be newer heroes to take his palce. Spider-man will become a LEGEND.  
As it is, spidey has graduated high school, gone to college, been in a few serious relationships, got a job, GOT MARRIED, had a kid, and progressed through his 20s to the point where he was CLEARLY about 30 years old. the writers panicked and de-aged him. Marriage? over. kid? kidnapped, presumed dead. dead aunt? brought back to life in the most retarded way possible to once again give Peter the "adult figure" in his life, reverting him back to 23.and they will probably do this again ina  few years.
This is infintely more ridiculous, insulting and NOT fun than if he aged normally, had a kid, becomes a cripple (like in spidergirl) ,the spider-clone or some other character took over the suit for a while and the kid actually DID grow up and become spider-girl living in her dads footsteps. Peter eventually returns to action one last time for his blaze of glory and the spider-man mythos ENDS but lives on in legend amongst the other super-heroes.
Of course ANYTHING is better than what they did to de-age poor petey.

As for FF, yes, its about family. Absolutely. And replacing any of the orgiinal four with other characters for anything more than one or two issues DOESNT work.Because theyre not part of the FAMILY. But lets look at a real family. Is your relationship with your brothers/sisters/parents the same now as it was when you were all younger.  We've already had 500 issues of the other three treating johnny like a little brother. and 300 (?) issues of franklin being 4 1/2 (except when he was 6 and when he was kidnapped to the future and returned as an 18 year old like every silly sci-fi series with a baby). So Franklin aged 3 1/2 years then stopped. The Power Pack kids have aged since they hung out with him but he hasnt and this is why the whole thing is silly.
One of the keys of FAMILY in the real world is how it changes and evolves from generation to generation. we are doomed to NEVER see this in the FF.  Imagine the possibilities if Johnny Storm, the former hothead was leading his nephew Franklin, a niece , and a boy named Grimm into battle as the FF. Imagine the emotional impact of seeing the foursome grow into an actual full-sized family. And all the many different relationship themes and cliches the writers would be able to play with. But no, we sit stuck in neutral for 500 more issues.

Some people are completely against my idea for characters aging and evolving, but there are plenty who would love it. How do i know? 
The what if? concept, Earth X,  Elseworlds, alternate dimensions, even the ultimate line to some degree are sucessful because the characters are stuck in neutral.  Things can happen, characters can die, relationships can actually suceed happily  or fail without having to be dredged up every year, mantles can be passed for longer than a story-arc. the status isnt quo.

CHANGE IS GOOD. and change, mr anderson , is inevitable.


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## Psychotic Dreamer (Nov 25, 2003)

> CHANGE IS GOOD.




Yes Change is good.  I'm not saying it's not.  I'm saying realistic aging characters would not be good.  Characters can change and grow without having to age in a realistic manner.


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## Tauric (Nov 25, 2003)

Worst ideas IMHO:

DK2

Superman Blue/Red- I mean, really, electric powers?  containment suit?  two Supes?

The current Uncanny X-Men, Nightcrawler as the son of Satan, and Archangel appears to actually be an angel.  Come on.

Magneto on drugs, New X-Men.  I would have thought M was more intelligent than that, not to mention unwilling to cloud his mind.

Also, the "darkening" of comics.  In New X-Men recently, Cyclops has impressed Wolverine with his ruthlessness.  One of the best things about X-Men was the interaction of Logan's agressive recklessness and willingness to kill, and Scott's restraint and determined non-lethality.  By making Cyclops (and others, such as Beast) more grim and gritty, the writers are messing with what made the team interesting, because the only difference is now the powers, not the personalities.  (And I don't buy the rationale that it is a response to the demands of a more violent reality that I've heard bandied about my LCBS.  It would be better to have the villains get more violent, and the heroes prevail without sinking to the level of "kill 'em all, God will know his own").


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## garyh (Nov 25, 2003)

blackshirt5 said:
			
		

> Dear god.  I now know Horror.
> 
> And what's up with these Transformers/GI Joe comics that I saw yesterday at the comic shop?




With new TF and Joe comics all the rage, it was decided to do two more limited series, one by Image/Devil's Due (who handles the Joe comics) and one by Dreamwave (who handles the TFs).

The two limited series are not in the same universe, and neither take place in either the TF or Joe "official" universes.


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## garyh (Nov 25, 2003)

Aaron L said:
			
		

> I liked the Spider-Man Transformers crossover!  I still remember Starscream yelling "What kind of human can do this?!"




I think it would have been great fun to merge the TF and Marvel Universes...  the editors at Marvel, however, did not.    

As a side note, partway through the '80s TF series, the TF writers came up with their own team of government-sponsored human superheroes who intereacted with the TFs.


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## Macbeth (Nov 25, 2003)

Okay, one more try for defending the Ultimate series: they are good stories. Obviously, VERY MANY people enjoy them emmensly.  It dosen't matter if they are needed in contintuity or not, anything that produces stories this good is fine with me. I don't care if the stories are good enough to fit into the main story line or what not, as long as I get good stories (it helps that I don't have to wade thourgh years of junk to get it. the only very old character I ever really got into the continuity of was Superman, and that proved to me that years of history are not good if they don't make sense). I don't understand why you just can't let the Ultimate series be. Sure, you may not like them, but saying that they are pointless just because of that is not right. 

Also, a bit of trivia that escaped somebody earlier: the Superchimp (or Supermonkey, as I recall him being called) was named Beppo. Yes, that is not a typo, Beppo. THAT is why Crisis was needed.


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## Aaron L (Nov 25, 2003)

garyh said:
			
		

> As a side note, partway through the '80s TF series, the TF writers came up with their own team of government-sponsored human superheroes who intereacted with the TFs.





Was that the paraplegic lady who invented circuitry pasties to wear all over her body to let her move, but they found out it also let her fly and fire lightning bolts and control machines and stuff?  That was kinda neat 


God, that was like '84 or '85.  I was 8.  Yeeesh.


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## garyh (Nov 25, 2003)

Aaron L said:
			
		

> Was that the paraplegic lady who invented circuitry pasties to wear all over her body to let her move, but they found out it also let her fly and fire lightning bolts and control machines and stuff?  That was kinda neat
> 
> 
> God, that was like '84 or '85.  I was 8.  Yeeesh.




You're refering to Circuitbreaker, and yes, she was on the team, though she was actually introduced about 30 issues before they decided to make a team.  She was the sole superhuman in the TF universe for a while.  Circuitbreaker was actually made parapalegic after being caught in the crossfire between Autobots and Decepticons.  That's why she hated the Cybertronians so much.


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## Aaron L (Nov 25, 2003)

Wow that RAD!!!  I haven't seen that in forever!


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## Tonguez (Nov 25, 2003)

billd91 said:
			
		

> Elementals Porn




Hey I use to enjoy that Elemental porn - the water chick making out with a dolphin well mmmmmmm

oops sorry talking about elementals and porn has anyone mentioned the _demise_ of the Swamp Thing?

You know that stoopid storyline where he travels through back through time to plant the first seed in the garden of eden and his heart is the holy grail or something - I lost interest so didn't really follow...


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## TiQuinn (Nov 25, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> I think you are misunderstanding something here.  Crisis in essense rebooted the DC universe.  That's the _reason_ Byrne revamped Superman.  All the heroes got a rewrite (major or minor) in the months that followed...well, except Hawkman, which led to mucho confusion when they reinvented him in the 90s, screwing up the continuity of many titles where the old Hawkman appeared.  This partly led to Zero Hour.
> 
> Like I said in my first post, it had to do with all the alternated Earths (with a bunch of redundant heroes) out there, not to mention a lot of overpowering and storytelling baggage, particularly Superman.  Pre-Crisis, Supes could push planets, fly through time, hear a pin drop in another galaxy, and blow out a star.  Plus you had Kryptonite in every shade of the rainbow.
> 
> Also, there was a problem that Byrne pointed out so well when he started the revamping:  It seemed like the only people who died when Krypton exploded was Superman's parents and a few of their close neighbors.   He wasn't kidding.  You had dozens of Phantom Zone villains, Supergirl, Superboy, Krypto the Superdog, Comet the Superhorse, Streaky the Supercat, and a SuperChimp whose name I can't recall.  I think there was even a Supermouse.  Plus you had the entire bottled city of Kandor.




I figured Byrne started on Superman a couple of years after Crisis.  The relation between Crisis and rebooting the line didn't click in my mind.

Regardless, my point is worrying about any of that was silliness in and of itself.  I didn't understand the overwhelming need to retcon history in a comic book, as if said history actually mattered.  Streaky and Comet could've just as easily never been mentioned again, and in a couple of years, nobody would remember them save the geekiest of fanboys.  There did not need to be two Supermans (Golden and Silver), two Batmans, two Flashes, etc.  Crisis on Infinite Earths was an ugly attempt to appease the continuity gods.  Besides that, it was just painful to read which is really the main offense.


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## Numion (Nov 25, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> there was NOTHING arbitrary about it.  Magneto is MASTER OF MAGNETISM. he controls metal. Wolverine's entire skeleton is made of metal. It makes PERFECT LOGICAL SENSE for Magneto to rip the greatest advantage out of one of his most dangerous foes. The only flaw is ...why didnt he do it SOONER?




Just speculating here, but wouldn't it actually be _safer_ for Magneto to have Wolvie keep the adamantium? Because he is, as you put it, MASTER OF MAGNETISM. Wolverine with no metal in his body is very very dangerous to Magneto, because he can't control it. Wolverine with metal in his body is basically helpless before magneto, as portrayed in the movie X-men. 

Just a thought, don't know if this was actually described in the comics.


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## WizarDru (Nov 25, 2003)

TiQuinn said:
			
		

> Regardless, my point is worrying about any of that was silliness in and of itself. I didn't understand the overwhelming need to retcon history in a comic book, as if said history actually mattered. Streaky and Comet could've just as easily never been mentioned again, and in a couple of years, nobody would remember them save the geekiest of fanboys. There did not need to be two Supermans (Golden and Silver), two Batmans, two Flashes, etc. Crisis on Infinite Earths was an ugly attempt to appease the continuity gods. Besides that, it was just painful to read which is really the main offense.



 Actually, it was a rampantly successful attempt to garner sales and new readers.  Crisis received generally good acclaim for both writing and art (as opposed to most huge 'crossover' events that would follow).  I'm not a huge fan of Crisis, but let's be honest here...at the time, it was very big deal.  The core readership was thrilled to see all the toys come out of the box in a way that had never been done before.  

 As for Superman, his rewrite was long overdue.  Sales had diminished for DCs most recognizable character...and this only a few years after two very successful movies (and around the time of one terrible one).  Superman had become too anachrnostic and silly, and DC was carrying the weight of 40 years of haphazard continuity on it's back.  Comic readers lapped up Byrne's 'Man of Stee'l miniseries, which not only gave Superman a fixed continuity but also made him an interesting and limited character again.  It was a very visible way to attract new readers, clean the slate and move on.  The redefinition of key relationships within the DCU, most notably Batman and Superman, was the key to DC staying viable.  

 Oh, and Numion, concerning Wolvie being safe from Magneto if he doesn't have his adamantium skeleton?  That all depends on the writer.  Movie Magneto would have big problems, but comic Magneto has had not problem tossing people around like ragdolls due to the 'iron content of their blood'.  It really all depends on which writer and what mood he's in, I think.


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## TiQuinn (Nov 25, 2003)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Actually, it was a rampantly successful attempt to garner sales and new readers.  Crisis received generally good acclaim for both writing and art (as opposed to most huge 'crossover' events that would follow).  I'm not a huge fan of Crisis, but let's be honest here...at the time, it was very big deal.  The core readership was thrilled to see all the toys come out of the box in a way that had never been done before.




I'm not saying it wasn't successful.  Spiderman #1 with the bagged multiple variant covers was successful.  Youngblood, Savage Dragon, and Wildcats were successful too.  So were a lot of the spinoff crossovers that resulted from Crisis' success.  It's just that, IMHO, like these, it wasn't that good.  It also wasn't such a necessary step to acheiving the goal of continuity-nirvana as some want to make out.


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## Aulayan (Nov 25, 2003)

Numion said:
			
		

> Just speculating here, but wouldn't it actually be _safer_ for Magneto to have Wolvie keep the adamantium? Because he is, as you put it, MASTER OF MAGNETISM. Wolverine with no metal in his body is very very dangerous to Magneto, because he can't control it. Wolverine with metal in his body is basically helpless before magneto, as portrayed in the movie X-men.
> 
> Just a thought, don't know if this was actually described in the comics.



 IIRC, he did it in a moment of anger.  Wolverine got close, slashed at him.  Didn't actually pierce the skin, but there were 3 intersecting X's in Magneto's shirt from Wolvies claws. 

So Mags saw how close Wolverine came, got angry, and tore the adamantium out of Logan.  Probably hoping it would kill him.


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## garyh (Nov 25, 2003)

Aaron L said:
			
		

> Wow that RAD!!!  I haven't seen that in forever!




Glad you liked it!  Those images came from Cosmic Rust, so pop over there to see more.  They've got a HUGE gallery of TF cover art for all the different comic lines that have been done.

EDIT:  While I'm thinking of it, here's the infamous Spidey issue as well:


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## Particle_Man (Nov 25, 2003)

I wasn't a big fan of "traitor" ideas.  Hal Jordan as insane, Hawk as a supervillain.  Bleh.

And didn't the Silver Age Hawkman turn out to be a spy working for Thangar, and his human wife Hawkgirl found out during the Invasion! crossover maxiseries, so he killed her, and the Martian Manhunter covered it up to preserve his heroic status, and then I don't know what happened to that Hawkman.  Was he ever punished?  Or did he just remain in limbo until he merged with all the other "hawkmans" during Zero Hour?  Anyone know?


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## Klaus (Nov 25, 2003)

During Invasion!, Hawkman fought alongside the JLI against the thanagarians. Later, when Hawkman was re-inserted into DC Continuity, it was established that the Hawkman that fought alongside the JLI was (and had always been) the Golden Age Hawkman, Carter Hall (even though he was supposed to be with the JSA fighting Ragnarok)...

When Tim Truman did the masterful Hawkworld series, instead of saying that it took place some years in the past, DC opted to have Hawkworld be a totally fresh start for the Hawks, and had Katar Hol and Shayera arrive on Earth in the present. Of course, that goes against all established continuity, in which the thanagarian heroes were present on Earth for years (even after Superman's reboot).

A similar thing happened with Wonder Woman. After the George Perez reboot, DC opted to have the Amazon meet the JL for the first time during Legends, invalidating all that came previously and forcing authors to re-imagine the foundation of the JLA with Black Canary taking WW's place...


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## Kahuna Burger (Nov 25, 2003)

garyh said:
			
		

> You're refering to Circuitbreaker, and yes, she was on the team, though she was actually introduced about 30 issues before they decided to make a team.  She was the sole superhuman in the TF universe for a while.  Circuitbreaker was actually made parapalegic after being caught in the crossfire between Autobots and Decepticons.  That's why she hated the Cybertronians so much.




huh, she showed up in secret wars II to show the beyonder the importance of the spark of life... I thought she didn't fit in with the universe he was currently taking over for some reason...

Kahuna Burger


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Nov 25, 2003)

Does Wolverine have admantium in his skeleton anymore in the normal Marvel universe?


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## Villano (Nov 25, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> Buzzard, I'm glad you used GL/GA as an example, because I havent read a lot of old Hal stories and I was basing my opinion almost entirely on the gl/ga series, the first 50 issues of the current green lantern series and emerald dawn which is the new "official" origin of hal. it was clear to me that hal was not in touch with reality at all. (hence the choice to  have the real world explained to him by GA) Anyone who can't see that Hal was so far out of touch with reality is probably gonna try to convince me that Batman is sane too.
> 
> Hal never looked into anything for himself. he was oblivious, then took GA's spoon-feedings. follow the guardians, follow GA, follow the league. The man defined himself by his surroundings constantly. So when one of the places he considers "home" is destroyed it, and the woman with who  he has an unhealthy relationship that he calls love  is presumed dead...he snapped. Everybody has their breaking point. ALmost anyone wouldve snapped in the same situation. Hal was definately NOT above snapping. the idea that he is the greatest hero ever is a joke. he is a sad little clay man with vast cosmic power who will fight whatever evil you point him at and nothing more.




I think you're alone on your views of this one, too.

Oh, and I also remembered a few other bad ideas in comics:
*New Character, Major Changes*

Who finally killed Superman?  Was it Luthor?  Brainiac?  Darkseid?  Nope, it was a brand new character, Doomsday.

Who broke Batman's back?  New guy, Bane.  Who did Batman turn over the cape to while he was crippled?  Another new guy called Azrael.

What villain cost Aquaman his hand?  Charybdis.  Never heard of him?  Join the club!  I think it was his first appearance.

If you want to tell a story that is supposed to have a deep emotional impact on the reader, why have it be done by a character that has absolutely no emotional attachment for the reader?  

Speaking of new characters...

*Meaningless Canon Fodder*

I absolutely hate when a writer casually kills off a character around for decades to show that a (usually new) villain is evil.  Three or four members of the original JSA were wiped out in one panel by Extant during Zero Hour.  Several heroes, including Kid Eternity and the golden age Sandman, were killed by Mordru when the new JSA series began.  And Justice League Europe was murdered the new Mist in what has to be the most complicated and ridiculous trap in comics.  

The JLE deaths really stand out since they were the European branch of the Justice League, but fell prey to a single woman whose powers were limited to turning into steam and shooting people with a gun.   We can save Europe from alien invasion, but we can't handle one half of the Wonder Twins.


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## buzzard (Nov 25, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> Buzzard, I'm glad you used GL/GA as an example, because I havent read a lot of old Hal stories and I was basing my opinion almost entirely on the gl/ga series, the first 50 issues of the current green lantern series and emerald dawn which is the new "official" origin of hal. it was clear to me that hal was not in touch with reality at all. (hence the choice to  have the real world explained to him by GA) Anyone who can't see that Hal was so far out of touch with reality is probably gonna try to convince me that Batman is sane too.
> 
> Hal never looked into anything for himself. he was oblivious, then took GA's spoon-feedings. follow the guardians, follow GA, follow the league. The man defined himself by his surroundings constantly. So when one of the places he considers "home" is destroyed it, and the woman with who  he has an unhealthy relationship that he calls love  is presumed dead...he snapped. Everybody has their breaking point. ALmost anyone wouldve snapped in the same situation. Hal was definately NOT above snapping. the idea that he is the greatest hero ever is a joke. he is a sad little clay man with vast cosmic power who will fight whatever evil you point him at and nothing more.




I absolutely have to disagree here. You are implying that people can be focused on everything at once. Hal Jordan was rather occupied with threats on a scale that left the issues presented in the GL/GA series as inconsequential. He did have them brought to his attention, and then he dealt with them. He also dealt with them in a matter far different from GA's method. You did read those books right? The dichotomy of how the two characters interacted with society and it's laws is the core concept. You make Hal sound like some kind of robot, which he certainly wasn't. 

As for Emerald Dawn, well I do my best to ignore that. It was lousy. It consisted of some author slamming GL for being "the man without fear". I would describe it as a bout of 'Marvelitis' where the character must be made flawed to be interesting. Feh. Instead of being Hal after the end of that series, he was transformed into a reckless, but lucky doofus. Don't mind the 20+ year history of the character as established. 

I read GL for about a solid 15 years(~78-93). I think I have a reasonable claim that I knew how Hal Jordan was protrayed as a character. Emerald Twilight would not have happened had they been describing Hal Jordan. 
Must have been an evil clone (belay that- I better not start giving them even worse ideas...). 

buzzard


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## billd91 (Nov 25, 2003)

buzzard said:
			
		

> I absolutely have to disagree here. You are implying that people can be focused on everything at once. Hal Jordan was rather occupied with threats on a scale that left the issues presented in the GL/GA series as inconsequential. He did have them brought to his attention, and then he dealt with them. He also dealt with them in a matter far different from GA's method. You did read those books right? The dichotomy of how the two characters interacted with society and it's laws is the core concept. You make Hal sound like some kind of robot, which he certainly wasn't.
> <snip>
> 
> buzzard




If I remember correctly (I have a more limited experience with the title), GL/GA sometimes dealt with and worked through certain thorny and real social issues. If GL was being clueless, it also served as a literary device so that the reader was drawn in and could make the same revelations as the character as the story progressed. An effective story-telling technique, especially if the writer is making a point.
I think we'd do well to remember that these are not real people but are literary characters and are thus subject to literary devices like a normal person would not be.


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## stevelabny (Nov 25, 2003)

TiQuinn said:
			
		

> Regardless, my point is worrying about any of that was silliness in and of itself.  I didn't understand the overwhelming need to retcon history in a comic book, as if said history actually mattered.





I wonder how prevalent this thought process is throughtout this thread.
People seem to be holding comic books to a lower standard than other forms of storytelling entertainment. Or maybe they hold them to low standards to. And I take all of my televisions shows/movies/comics/ novels VERY seriously.I strive for things to make sense and be dramatic and be exciting. not just be a couple of minutes of mindless action that looks cool.


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## Skade (Nov 25, 2003)

I don't so much hold them to a lower standard, as much as I recognize that they will rarely meet my standards.  very few things do, though, so this is not puttin comics down at all.  

The main problem being that there are simply far to many people involved with a title over the years, with conflicting ideas and goals, and often no interest in researching what has been before.


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## Black Omega (Nov 25, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> I think you're alone on your views of this one, too.
> 
> Oh, and I also remembered a few other bad ideas in comics:
> *New Character, Major Changes*
> ...



Luthor is the iconic Supers villain.  But if he could have killed Superman, he'd have done it years before.  He's failed so many times already, a 'and this time, Luthor finally gets lucky, proving if you just try enough times...' storyline wouldn't have been too impressive.  Darksied could have worked, but where's the motivation?  Or emotional connection?  It's not like Superman is his arch enemy, or he's obsessed with killing Superman.



> Who broke Batman's back?  New guy, Bane.  Who did Batman turn over the cape to while he was crippled?  Another new guy called Azrael.




I admit to a certain fondness for Bane.  He was basically a dark side Doc Savage.  Complete with a similar supporting cast.  Your idea of new characters isn't totally true with Azrael.  Unless you mean to say a character around for two years is still considered 'new'.

But then, if anyone was going to beat Bats it's someone he doesn't know.  Batman plans obsessively and knows all his usual foes so well.


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## Villano (Nov 25, 2003)

Black Omega said:
			
		

> Luthor is the iconic Supers villain.  But if he could have killed Superman, he'd have done it years before.  He's failed so many times already, a 'and this time, Luthor finally gets lucky, proving if you just try enough times...' storyline wouldn't have been too impressive.  Darksied could have worked, but where's the motivation?  Or emotional connection?  It's not like Superman is his arch enemy, or he's obsessed with killing Superman.




Following what you said, why bother using the classic villains since they never defeated Superman in the past, they can't in the future.  

Darkseid isn't really one to obsess over enemies since he considers himself above everyone else.  However, Superman is a thorn in Darkseid's, er, side.  Eliminating him as part of a larger plot would make sense.  Perhaps Lois is one of the humans who has part of the key to the Anti-Life equation?



> I admit to a certain fondness for Bane.  He was basically a dark side Doc Savage.  Complete with a similar supporting cast.  Your idea of new characters isn't totally true with Azrael.  Unless you mean to say a character around for two years is still considered 'new'.




I like Batman series, both in his wrestler look and S&M style.

As for Azrael, 2 yrs in real time means that Bats knew him about a month in comic time.     Seriously though, the character was only in a couple of story arcs and then was thrust into the role of Batman.


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## WizarDru (Nov 25, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> I wonder how prevalent this thought process is throughtout this thread.
> People seem to be holding comic books to a lower standard than other forms of storytelling entertainment. Or maybe they hold them to low standards to. And I take all of my televisions shows/movies/comics/ novels VERY seriously.I strive for things to make sense and be dramatic and be exciting. not just be a couple of minutes of mindless action that looks cool.



 Comics _*are*_ held to a lower standard, by necessity.  Individual arcs or independent titles can enjoy that luxury, perhaps, but it's neither fair nor logical to try an hold a several hundred issue run of a title to the same standards as a novel.  Consider that even on the few titles that manage to keep the same writer for the length of their run (such as James Robinson on Starman or Neil Gaiman on Sandman), the format causes inherint problems.  The art is almost never consistent over the course of the series, and a variety of demands make themselves known, such as publisher issues.  I sincerely doubt Robinson originally envisioned being asked by an editor to include a crossover with a character who didn't exist when he started writing his series (namely the new star-spangled girl...Star, is it?).

 Now look at X-men, a victim in many ways of its own success.  When Claremont got ahold of them in the mid-70s, they already were saddled with some ridiculous continuity and back-pedalling ("Prof X isn't dead, he's been hiding out, preparing for an alien invasion!  Thanks for letting us nearly get killed multiple times in your absence, sir!")  Now over the course of his run, he's got to incorporate large crossover events, ranging from Secret Wars to some of his creation, like the Mutant Massacre or Inferno.  Editorial decisions eviscerate his best contribution to comics, namely the Death of Jean Grey, and writers in unrelated titles get to write story elements that he has to adapt into his own title.  How can that be held to the same literary standard?

 Never mind that several rules governed comics for decades, such as the idea that their core audience would outgrow the material and so they could thematically repeat themselves, even contradict themselves, as no one would notice.  A well-known DC stategy was to creat a cover ("_Zowie!  How did Superman become a watermelon?"  Find out in Curse of the SuperMelon!_) and then toss it to an artist, who had to make a story out of it and make a page count in a few weeks.  It was in the mid-60s that Marvel changed all that, and raised the bar.  Suddenly, a comic line appeared with intelligent writing and a consistent, persistent world.  Since Stan Lee was writing or editing everything, all 16 or so titles meshed together.  Spiderman dropped in on the Fantastic Four in Spiderman #2, and the FF commented on it in FF #10, which might have come out a couple weeks after Spidey's issue.  Nick Fury blows up an AIM base in Strange Tales #75, and the AIM agents show up trying to set up a base in the Avengers #26, where Fury contacts them to tell them about what happened in ST #75.

 Add to that the fact that a company policy or editorial change can completely change the face of a title, and you have even more problems.  Look at the line up of X-factor, the New Mutants, the Avengers, the Justice League, Batman and other titles.  Hell, look at half of the ideas discussed in this thread.  How can you hold the Monarch travesty up to the light of day?  In three hurried pages, they killed off Hawk & Dove, one of the best comics at that time, and simultaneously killed off my good will towards their brand for years to follow.

 Different comics can be held to different standards.  I would hold Midnight Nation to a different standard than Cerebus or X-Factor or Powers.  They have different constraints, and different standards.


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## Alzrius (Nov 26, 2003)

garyh said:
			
		

> Glad you liked it!  Those images came from Cosmic Rust, so pop over there to see more.  They've got a HUGE gallery of TF cover art for all the different comic lines that have been done.
> 
> EDIT:  While I'm thinking of it, here's the infamous Spidey issue as well:




This is incredibly geeky, but I can't stop myself:

I notice that on the above cover, Spider-Man is in the black costume. What I want to know is, is that the actual living symbiote that later went on to form Venom, or is it the normal cloth costume that the Black Cat made for him later?


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## Alzrius (Nov 26, 2003)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Comics _*are*_ held to a lower standard, by necessity.




I disagree...there is no necessity in the fact that comics are held to a lower standard. The only grain of truth in that statement is that the comics of today deliberately do not aim higher because to do so would be to create a product that falls outside the range of what is expected of the omic format...which would, almost by definition, be something that would be lacking in profit to such a large degree that it could not survive.

Needless to say, that's a very sad state of affairs (which is what prompted Scott McCloud's excellent books, "Understanding Comics" and "Reinventing Comics" which I recommend to everyone)!

Comics are, at their core, just another communication medium. There is nothing truly inherent in them, anymore than there is in television of radio. The largest problem comics face is that somehow, over the course of time, we've come to expect them to have nothing but superheroes...making it, as I said, a self-fulfilling prophecy that anything beyond that tends to fail.

The bottom line is that it isn't that comics are any sort of lower grade art form/medium...it's that we need to be more broadminded in regards to them.


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## TiQuinn (Nov 26, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> I wonder how prevalent this thought process is throughtout this thread.
> People seem to be holding comic books to a lower standard than other forms of storytelling entertainment. Or maybe they hold them to low standards to. And I take all of my televisions shows/movies/comics/ novels VERY seriously.I strive for things to make sense and be dramatic and be exciting. not just be a couple of minutes of mindless action that looks cool.




I don't see it as holding comics to a low standard.  Not at all.  Comics are held to unrealistic expectations of continuity.  Superman, Batman, Capt. America, Green Lantern, and so many others have been around for 60 or 70 years.  The Marvel line has been around for 40 years.  Their writers and artists have changed countless times.  Name a television show, novel, or movie that has had to try to uphold some sort of continuity for this long a time?  Star Trek, perhaps?  But then, Star Trek had numerous casts spread out over different points of time.


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## WizarDru (Nov 26, 2003)

Alzrius said:
			
		

> I disagree...there is no necessity in the fact that comics are held to a lower standard. The only grain of truth in that statement is that the comics of today deliberately do not aim higher because to do so would be to create a product that falls outside the range of what is expected of the omic format...which would, almost by definition, be something that would be lacking in profit to such a large degree that it could not survive.



 While I respect Scott McCloud, I tend to think of him as something of a idealistic dreamer.  That said, I think there are loads of problems with holding comics to the same standard as straight literature.

 For one, it's unfair to do so.  How can one hold Brian Michael Bendis' Torso to the same standard as Claremont and Byrne's Dark Phoenix Saga?  Which is better: James Kochalka's Little Mister Man, Jeff Smith's Bone, Wolfman and Perez's Teen Titans: Judas Contract, Gruenwald and Starlin's Warlock, Moebius' Blueberry or Dave Sims' Cerebus: Church and State? 

 A big part of the problem is that we neither have a standard by which to judge, and no established form of criticism, something that every other medium has in spades.  The only existing legitimate critical body that exists for comics is the Comics Journal, a biased and fairly flawed magazine that often tries to distance itself from it's own medium as much as possible.  This problem is made worse by the fact that comics are rarely the product of one person, so it becomes more difficult to review and judge.  Was the comic's failures those of Warren Ellis, or Frank Quitely?  That's assuming you can even make those distinctions.  In the Lee/Kirby days, Lee would give a base idea, Kirby would plot and draw the issue with suggestions for dialogue or concept, and then Lee would create the actual dialogue.  How do you separate the contributions for critical review?  Lee would often rewrite whole sections of dialogue, sometimes in defiance of Kirby's original idea, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.  Kirby did similar things, vis a vis the Silver Surfer.  And since they were working on a time schedule, there was no way for Lee to commision new pieces without the surfer...he was stuck with him.  

 Which is not to say that I don't understand what stevelabny is saying about the readership forgetting...I'm just not sure that it holds true, anymore.  Kids aren't reading comics anymore.  Readership is down, distribution is a mess and precious few titles are of a sort that I would approve for my kids to read until they're considerably older...and since they're so expensive, few kids can afford them, regardless.  Therefore, a vicous circle emerges: kids can't afford to buy comics, so they don't read them.  The core market of adults that comics are currently catering to create the sort of environment which perpetuates the situation.  The few exceptions to this rule are, ironically, comics based on the animated versions of the comics, such as Batman Adventures.

 That's why the ultimate line has proven to be such a success.  It's the Marvel universe, without all the clutter.  Imagine a new reader trying to jump in to Spiderman during the 'spider-clone' nonsense.  Free comics day is certainly a turn in the right direction, but I don't think my kids will ever enjoy comics the way that I did/do...and that's a shame.


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## Arken (Nov 26, 2003)

Sorry but I've neer collected comics, however like a dutiful geek Iknow most of the story lines/watched the TV versions/picked up on the stories without actually reading the comics. However quite a few years ago (maybe 6 or 7 I think) I visited a cousin over the summer that did collect comics and so I'd just like to contribute...

What ON EARTH was that thing where Magneto and Prof X fused into one super powerful evil being that resulted in an all marvel crossover and eventually opened a rift in space and time and then (for who knows what reason) all of the superheroes present decided that teh only way to fix the rift was to jump into it(Captain america, spiderman, X-men, Hulk, Fantastic four and some others I think).

Then it got all weird and it collided with the DC universe or something and Robin was dating Jubilee and Peter Parker was asking out Lois Lane and then it got stranger still and Wolverine was fused with the character of Batman as a single entity, and the same happened with Captain america and Superman and others.
I only managed to read the end of the marvel side of whatever was going on and didn't actually get to read any of the crossover stuff (just adverts for what was coming) but it did all seem very strange...


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## danzig138 (Nov 26, 2003)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> but I don't think my kids will ever enjoy comics the way that I did/do...and that's a shame.



My son, about 9, has absolutely no interest in comics. My daughter, 8, has shown some slight interest, but it seems to be an on/off thing. I'm working on making it a family activity, or at least a father/daughter bonding thing, reading comics together, but I can't seem to spark her interest any more than it is. Both children are good readers, but superheroes and the like don't appeal to them. I'm trying to figure out why. . .what's so different in their experience from mine. I loved superheroes. . .


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## Taren Seeker (Nov 26, 2003)

danzig138 said:
			
		

> My son, about 9, has absolutely no interest in comics. My daughter, 8, has shown some slight interest, but it seems to be an on/off thing. I'm working on making it a family activity, or at least a father/daughter bonding thing, reading comics together, but I can't seem to spark her interest any more than it is. Both children are good readers, but superheroes and the like don't appeal to them. I'm trying to figure out why. . .what's so different in their experience from mine. I loved superheroes. . .




Probably because when you were 8, you would read comics, talk about how awesome they are, and then pretend to be superheroes with your buddies, which is cool.

Whereas your son/daughter are reading them, talking about them and pretending to be a superhero with their DAD, which is lame.   

Seriously though, my nephews are the same. We can talk about videogames, Lord of the Rings, cool cartoons, but comics? Their friends aren't into them, neither are they.


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## stevelabny (Nov 26, 2003)

TiQuinn said:
			
		

> I don't see it as holding comics to a low standard.  Not at all.  Comics are held to unrealistic expectations of continuity.  Superman, Batman, Capt. America, Green Lantern, and so many others have been around for 60 or 70 years.  The Marvel line has been around for 40 years.  Their writers and artists have changed countless times.  Name a television show, novel, or movie that has had to try to uphold some sort of continuity for this long a time?  Star Trek, perhaps?  But then, Star Trek had numerous casts spread out over different points of time.




Youre looking at the lack on continuity AFTER the fact and deeming it impossible. There would have been NOTHING difficult about it if it was done from the beginning, or if it was done after "Crisis" or "Zero Hour" or the still-to-come Marvel mega-crossover of the same type. 
I cant speak for the Golden Age. Haven't really read anything more than the original stories of supes and bats. I dont know how well Golden Age continuity was kept, so I'll jump straight to the sixties and the Silver Age.
Marvel had something very close to perfect continuity (since most were written by the same guy) , even if the characters werent aging in real-time, you could still tell they were slowly maturing and getting older. DC on the other hand already had its hands full trying to explain why some golden age characters were completely different people and others were the same but with changing personalities, so they invented Earth Two.
This was the first sign that even lowly comic editors had realized that "the jig was up" comic fanboys were apparently gonna stick around a little longer than previously expected, comic newbies were a little bit more intelligent than expected, and there was clearly a call for things to MAKE SENSE even if the stories were "JUST ABOUT" stupid superheroes
By the time comics got to the 1980s, both universes were fraying.
Marvel retconned a few origins and just kindve ignored their problems.
DC, carrying the extra 20 years and Earth 2 baggage opted for something more severe. Crisis. This was supposed to completely  remove all continuity problems BUT in a complete WTF moment, they rebooted some titles but NOT all of them. Some books seemingly started over, some seemingly wiped their past clean but continued normally, some just kep going as if nothing changed at all. 
How they thought Crisis would be a good idea WITHOUT every editor and writer onboard,i dont know. 
But this failure led to more time-spanning mini-series trying to fix continuity until they got to Zero Hour which actually made a strict 10 year time frame for the DC Universe. From the origins until Zero Hour was ONLY TEN YEARS.  All of the original characters are 10 years older, all the rest have aged depending on where their first appearance was in the new official timeline. and the legion of super-heroes future timeline was completely wiped out as a side-effect. oh well.
Since Zero Hour, wonky aging has continued. some characters age, some characters dont,  and christmas happens at least 4 times a year.
Marvel can't make up its mind how to deal with the porblem. They know individual ret-cons annoy people, but they see how Crisis and Zero Hour failed and are afraid of that route too. So they introduce the ultimate line as a pseudo-solution and try to please everyone.

So, its CLEAR that DC and Marvel both admit that there is a problem.If they would have planned this out logically in the BEGINNING this problem wouldnt exist. If they wouldve "fixed" the problem and then stuck by their fix, it would have worked. 

Heres how I would do it....
Why is Earth so importnat in the universe? Why are there so many super-powered beings? Why has the timeline been all screwed? 
Spend a year or two...drop some hints, make some prophecies, show off SOMEONE wondering why nightwing had aged so much more than other dc characters or how kitty pryde got old enough to do "adult" things (like sleep with pete wisdom) but somehow reverted back to 16. (making pete wisdom what exactly?) Whether its a robot questioning his logic circuits or dr.strange feeling the ripple of deja vu, or a brand new character with "the sight"  doesnt matter... start going out of your way to point out the inconsitencies.

Then bring the crossover into play. Simply put...  the mainstream Marvel or DC timeline has been tweaked by a time-guy (pre-existing hero or villain preferably)
so that these people, with these powers would wind up HERE AND NOW.
it doesnt have to be any more convoluted than that.  The more ridiculous your timeline is (hawkman, i'm looking at you) the more important the role you play.
All of a sudden we know WHY these people have been so messed up.
At the end , the time-guy says his work is done, and tells the heroes that time will return to normal.

Now we go behind the scenes to the editors. they have to decide how this is going to work. Does EVERYONE age naturally. Do only some people age? These people ARE super-powered. You can easily say that any/all of them age slower or not at all. The problem is with the all to human supporting casts.  So I wouldnt slow all the heroes aging and have them watch their friends get old and die. But i would do it in certain circumstances (Captain America for one)

Then you hire a "continuity editor". His job is to read every comic the company releases and keep a database of every characters whereabouts and to make sure the timeline is running smoothly.  No more unexplained "6 month jumps" in one title unless theyve fallen 6 months behind the others. Have a longer or shorter story-arc than usual? no problem. just work it out with the continuity editor first.

You ask how many tv shows have to deal with continuity this long...and again I point out the obvious answer DAYTIME SOAP OPERAS. And they keep themselves fresh and exciting by letting go of characters when they need to. Holding on to "young" Peter Parker for because "old" Peter Parker isnt interesting is insulting to the writers. How can you predict how exciting Peter's kids will be? They might be more interesting, they might be less interesting... but you work these things out as they come, and each generation will surely pick their own favorites. Just like on daytime soap operas.

It CAN be done, it HAS been done, Marvel and DC are just too fond of the word "iconic" like if it means something to non-comic readers. Non-comic readers dont care if its bruce wayne  or peter parker behind the mask or if its someone else. Suprisingly enough all the liscenses that are sold are for the mask, not the man behind it.


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## Silver Moon (Nov 26, 2003)

Taren Seeker said:
			
		

> Whereas your son/daughter are reading them, talking about them and pretending to be a superhero with their DAD, which is lame.



I'm going to disagree with you on this one, my 5-year old loves running around with a towel as a cape and I encourage it!   I've been reading Teen Titans to my kids (ages 5, 8 and 10) for a few months now, and we are all enjoying it.  I started with the original 1960's and 70's series.  We are now into the excellent Wolfman/Perez run in the early 80's.     And since I have a collection of around 12,000 comics it is probably good that they enjoy reading them.


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## stevelabny (Nov 26, 2003)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> While I respect Scott McCloud, I tend to think of him as something of a idealistic dreamer.  That said, I think there are loads of problems with holding comics to the same standard as straight literature.
> 
> For one, it's unfair to do so.  How can one hold Brian Michael Bendis' Torso to the same standard as Claremont and Byrne's Dark Phoenix Saga?  Which is better: James Kochalka's Little Mister Man, Jeff Smith's Bone, Wolfman and Perez's Teen Titans: Judas Contract, Gruenwald and Starlin's Warlock, Moebius' Blueberry or Dave Sims' Cerebus: Church and State?
> 
> A big part of the problem is that we neither have a standard by which to judge, and no established form of criticism, something that every other medium has in spades.  The only existing legitimate critical body that exists for comics is the Comics Journal, a biased and fairly flawed magazine that often tries to distance itself from it's own medium as much as possible.  This problem is made worse by the fact that comics are rarely the product of one person, so it becomes more difficult to review and judge.  Was the comic's failures those of Warren Ellis, or Frank Quitely?  That's assuming you can even make those distinctions.  In the Lee/Kirby days, Lee would give a base idea, Kirby would plot and draw the issue with suggestions for dialogue or concept, and then Lee would create the actual dialogue.  How do you separate the contributions for critical review?  Lee would often rewrite whole sections of dialogue, sometimes in defiance of Kirby's original idea, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.  Kirby did similar things, vis a vis the Silver Surfer.  And since they were working on a time schedule, there was no way for Lee to commision new pieces without the surfer...he was stuck with him.  .




Um, this baffles me. Comics shouldnt be critically reviewed as straight literature, they should be reviwed as a tv show or movie. Both of which have numerous people contributing to the finished product in different ways. And all other mediums, including novels span multiple genres so YES you can review Church and State the same way you review the Dark Phoenix Saga.



			
				WizarDru said:
			
		

> Which is not to say that I don't understand what stevelabny is saying about the readership forgetting...I'm just not sure that it holds true, anymore.  Kids aren't reading comics anymore.  Readership is down, distribution is a mess and precious few titles are of a sort that I would approve for my kids to read until they're considerably older...and since they're so expensive, few kids can afford them, regardless.  Therefore, a vicous circle emerges: kids can't afford to buy comics, so they don't read them.  The core market of adults that comics are currently catering to create the sort of environment which perpetuates the situation.  The few exceptions to this rule are, ironically, comics based on the animated versions of the comics, such as Batman Adventures.
> 
> That's why the ultimate line has proven to be such a success.  It's the Marvel universe, without all the clutter.  Imagine a new reader trying to jump in to Spiderman during the 'spider-clone' nonsense.  Free comics day is certainly a turn in the right direction, but I don't think my kids will ever enjoy comics the way that I did/do...and that's a shame.




and quite simply, this comes down to advertising. cant want what you dont know exists. yes, comics in the golden and silver age got by without it, but they were in every corner newstand and there were aa LOT less things vying for the kids attention. many of the people i know who got into comics in the 80s  (like me) were first introduced to them through the gi joe comic... which had commercials on tv.

Free comic book day is a FAILURE. nobody knows it exists outside of comic fans. and even knowing that the industry isnt going to advertise it, local stores couldnt be bothered to hire a kid for a day to stand out front of the movie theatre showing spidey or x2 and hand out flyers to the mainstream. GAH


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## Kesh (Nov 27, 2003)

Black Omega said:
			
		

> I admit to a certain fondness for Bane.  He was basically a dark side Doc Savage.  Complete with a similar supporting cast.  Your idea of new characters isn't totally true with Azrael.  Unless you mean to say a character around for two years is still considered 'new'.
> 
> But then, if anyone was going to beat Bats it's someone he doesn't know.  Batman plans obsessively and knows all his usual foes so well.




Bah. I couldn't stand Bane when he was introduced, because it took one of my favorite Batman stories and made it silly.

_Venom_ was a storyline from the Legends of the Dark Knight comic. LotDK was one of the first 'adult' titles DC did (non- Comic Code), and all the stories were essentially "What If...?" concepts. They didn't happen in the continuity, because quite often they involved material that was either supernatural or just too graphic to include as part of his history.

They violated that with Bane. _Venom_ was a story about Bruce Wayne being tricked into using a new kind of steroid, when he found he wasn't strong enough to save a child's life. Of course, it was highly addictive and increased aggression... turned out to be part of a rather nasty 'super soldier' program being developed by unscrupulous people. The story was one of Bruce dealing with addiction, his own obsessive nature and the violence inherent in being a vigilante.

The writers of the main titles then took this, and gave us Bane. They declared _Venom_ to be a canon story, and Bane was pumped up on the drug. Instead of the way it was portrayed in LotDK, it became this weird serum that made Bane a hulking, inhuman thing that was just rediculous.


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## Holy Bovine (Nov 27, 2003)

Coming in late on this (and no I haven't read all 6 pages of the thread but I want to play too!) but my least favourite comic book moment was the ill-fated 'New Universe' put out by marvel in the mid-80's.  About a dozen titles were launched simutaneously and some many of them were complete crap.  Only 2 ever stood out to me as somewhat impressive;

  Star Brand (a man is given a powerful weapon in the form of a tattoo from a dying alien - the weapon gives him super strength, flight but now other aliens want it for a great war - actually better than I'm making is sound here)

DP-7  (Stands for Displaced Paranormals - 7) a group of average people suddenly find themselves developing strange abilites after a 'White Event' in which the entire earth is bathed in a white light for a brief moment.  The powers were interesting in that they all had real drawbacks.  The 'speedster' of the group had to eat constantly as his accelerated metobolism put a tremendous drain on his body.  The 'muscle' guy was occasionally wracked by pain as new muscles suddenly grew in.  I liked it and it lasted the longest at 36 or so issues.

Some of the crap included;

Kickers Inc - ex-football players go around beating up computer hackers.  Bland, boring and poorly drawn & written.

Marc Hazzerd - Merc - ex-football player turned mercenary (actually I'm not sure if he was a football player but everything I said about Kickers goes double for this)

Spitfire & the Troubleshooters - the true dregs.  Big, crappy robot designed by a high school cheerleader's dad before he is killed in the first issue is almost stolen but fortunately the 'Troubleshooters' save the day (and the big, clumsy, crappy robot that sinks 2 feet into soft ground when it moves - whoops guess daddy wasn't quite the genius he's made out to be!).  The TS are more high school computer geeks (maybe they were the same ones Marc Hazzerd was going after?).  


Another, more recent, crappy comic is Dark Knight 2.  Now I love Frank Miller's work.  Art, writing, characterization - he does have talent.  So what happened here?  The story is all over the road - fashion as the 'weapon'? Batman's having an affair with a 16 year-old?  _Horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE_ art!  Gah!  I actually bought all three issues of this (because I'm either stupid or a glutton for punishment) hoping, _praying_ it would get better.

It didn't.


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## Khynal (Nov 27, 2003)

Alzrius said:
			
		

> This is incredibly geeky, but I can't stop myself:
> 
> I notice that on the above cover, Spider-Man is in the black costume. What I want to know is, is that the actual living symbiote that later went on to form Venom, or is it the normal cloth costume that the Black Cat made for him later?




*sigh* Couldn't stop myself.

I remember that he concentrated and it changed from his normal clothes, so I'm guessing the symbiote?

As for Circuit Breaker, she she showed up before issue 10 and kept popping up into the 20s. Died off after that for a while, but she showed up in the grand finale issue 75 to, um, briefly fry the circuits of the planet-sized Transformer/dark god, Unicron.


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## Silver Moon (Nov 27, 2003)

Holy Bovine said:
			
		

> ....the ill-fated 'New Universe' put out by marvel in the mid-80's.  About a dozen titles were launched simutaneously and some many of them were complete crap.



Ah yes, I remember that.   Mediocre art and stories at best.  And I recall that Marvel kept publishing all titles for a full year before they started to drop them.   I believe that DP7 was the most successful, running for almost three years.    

A friend of mine still gets devilish pleasure in reminding his brother of what said brother did at the time.  On speculation he kept buying up a dozen copies of each issue, predicting that the "New Universe" would be a huge success, and copies of Mark Hazzard, Merc #1 or Kickers Inc. #1 would one day be worth the same as a copy of Fantastic Four #1 or Amazing Fantasy #15.   Didn't quite work out that way.


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## Taren Seeker (Nov 27, 2003)

Many of my dark moments have already been listed, but I had forgotten about something till Steve reminded me.

The "rekidification" of Kitty Pride. The girl was 14 or 15 for 20 years then FINALLY Warren Ellis matures her, probably to 18 or 19. She became a confident, funny, mature woman, an interesting character. She told Colossus where to go, FINALLY after all the crap he put her through. (Oh yeah, lemme add in the Colossus/Alien Healer "romance" from Secret Wars...) She met a cynical bitter ex-spy (Pete Wisdom), liked him, and GOT him. After watching her constantly mooning after various folks like some 9 year old with a crush, we saw Kitty in an adult relationship.

Warren Ellis leaves the book and immediately the next team strarts turning Kitty on him. IIRC Claremont came back to an X book and rumors online said he flipped out over the changing of his precious Kitty. He immediately regressed Kitty back to 15 or so, making Wisdom Marvel's 1st Statutory Rapist Superhero. (I dunno if he qualifies as an actual paedophile, but maybe that too. An historic 1st!)

Whee.

Add the "Spawnification" of Dr Strange to my list as well as Rob Liefield, Heroes Reborn, Teen Tony Stark, Secret Wars 2, Any Infinity mini series except the 1st one.

Oh hey, I'm preempitively calling one: The return of Hal Jordan. Like it or not, his story has been told. Let him RIP.


----------



## Taren Seeker (Nov 27, 2003)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> Ah yes, I remember that.   Mediocre art and stories at best.  And I recall that Marvel kept publishing all titles for a full year before they started to drop them.   I believe that DP7 was the most successful, running for almost three years.
> 
> A friend of mine still gets devilish pleasure in reminding his brother of what said brother did at the time.  On speculation he kept buying up a dozen copies of each issue, predicting that the "New Universe" would be a huge success, and copies of Mark Hazzard, Merc #1 or Kickers Inc. #1 would one day be worth the same as a copy of Fantastic Four #1 or Amazing Fantasy #15.   Didn't quite work out that way.



 I remember Starbrand wasn't too bad...I think the art was by John Romita Jr?


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## WayneLigon (Nov 27, 2003)

Arken said:
			
		

> Then it got all weird and it collided with the DC universe or something and Robin was dating Jubilee and Peter Parker was asking out Lois Lane and then it got stranger still and Wolverine was fused with the character of Batman as a single entity, and the same happened with Captain america and Superman and others.
> I only managed to read the end of the marvel side of whatever was going on and didn't actually get to read any of the crossover stuff (just adverts for what was coming) but it did all seem very strange...



You're probably talking about AMALGAM, where Marvel and DC characters fused into one concept (lots of homages on both sides; we got some pretty cool characters out of it like Spider-Boy (Superboy/Spider-Man)). It's pretty much a stand-alone thing.


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## WayneLigon (Nov 27, 2003)

danzig138 said:
			
		

> Both children are good readers, but superheroes and the like don't appeal to them. I'm trying to figure out why. . .what's so different in their experience from mine. I loved superheroes. . .



I can't remember where my love of them came from, but I'm almost sure that TV was a major factor in exposing me to comics. _Batman_ was on in prime time at the time I was 5, and saturday morning cartoons had all kinds of superheroes. The last ten years or so? Nothing, really; there's not even a Saturday Morning anymore. Nick and Cartoon Network barely have anything, save for Justice League and Teen Titans, and the Batman/Superman reruns. Movies exist, but movies don't have that repetative quality that seeing a show every week does. 

Maybe that has something to do with it.


----------



## Villano (Nov 27, 2003)

Holy Bovine said:
			
		

> Coming in late on this (and no I haven't read all 6 pages of the thread but I want to play too!) but my least favourite comic book moment was the ill-fated 'New Universe' put out by marvel in the mid-80's.  About a dozen titles were launched simutaneously and some many of them were complete crap.  Only 2 ever stood out to me as somewhat impressive;
> 
> Star Brand (a man is given a powerful weapon in the form of a tattoo from a dying alien - the weapon gives him super strength, flight but now other aliens want it for a great war - actually better than I'm making is sound here)
> 
> ...




There was also Psi-Froce, the only NU title that I collected.   It was about a group of psychics, each possessing a single power (telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, etc), who were able to merge their powers to manifest a being that resembled their deceased mentor.  I was only a kid at the time, but I remeber liking it quite a bit.

Actually, in concept, it was a lot like Captain Planet (only nowhere near as preachy and crappy).

I got a few of the other titles as part of those comic packs they used to sell in supermarkets.  I know I got an issue of Kickers, Inc (which was so bad I didn't even read it), Strikeforce: Moruturi (or something like that...the tagline was "We who are about to die"), and one or two others.  Wasn't there a title called "Nightmask" or something like that?


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## Alzrius (Nov 28, 2003)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> While I respect Scott McCloud, I tend to think of him as something of a idealistic dreamer.  That said, I think there are loads of problems with holding comics to the same standard as straight literature.




See, and therein lies your error (as I see it): Who said anything about holding comics to the same standards as literature?

I think McCould was right in his premise that comics are not a subset of an existing medium. Comics are not a subtype of literature, nor radio nor television. They should not be held to those standards. They have their own strengths and weaknesses, their own way of expressing communication. Comics should be held to the standards of comics as art.



> _For one, it's unfair to do so.  How can one hold Brian Michael Bendis' Torso to the same standard as Claremont and Byrne's Dark Phoenix Saga?  Which is better: James Kochalka's Little Mister Man, Jeff Smith's Bone, Wolfman and Perez's Teen Titans: Judas Contract, Gruenwald and Starlin's Warlock, Moebius' Blueberry or Dave Sims' Cerebus: Church and State? _




So you're saying you can't compare "Call of Cthulhu" to "Catcher in the Rye"?

Just because works in the same medium deal with different genres, that doesn't make them incomparable. And even if it does, there's nothing inherently "unfair" about it. This is not a reason why comics can't be art. 



> _A big part of the problem is that we neither have a standard by which to judge, and no established form of criticism, something that every other medium has in spades._




I disagree with both of these. We have plenty of comics that could be entailed as "high art", its just that they become obscure almost immediately. It's killing me that I can't recall the examples, but they're in McCloud's book.

Likewise...an established form of criticism? What established form? Criticism is people saying what they think and feel. There is no "established form" for that.



> _The only existing legitimate critical body that exists for comics is the Comics Journal, a biased and fairly flawed magazine that often tries to distance itself from it's own medium as much as possible._




The fact that its flawed and tries to distance itself from its subject matter (which is your opinion), doesn't really mean much. Every other art form has people who are just like that.

That said, we don't need any sort of official body to tell us what art is and is not. I can't imagine some group trying to definitively stating exactly what paintings were actually art and which weren't. They'd be laughed out of existence. Art doesn't require authoritative legitimacy.



> _This problem is made worse by the fact that comics are rarely the product of one person, so it becomes more difficult to review and judge.  Was the comic's failures those of Warren Ellis, or Frank Quitely?  That's assuming you can even make those distinctions._




The same could be said for the fact that editors often make large changes to novels. And cinema? Don't even get me started. The actors, the director(s), the producer(s), and on and on. So, the whole multiplicity of people angle doesn't hold up.



> _Kids aren't reading comics anymore.  Readership is down, distribution is a mess and precious few titles are of a sort that I would approve for my kids to read until they're considerably older...and since they're so expensive, few kids can afford them, regardless._




And yet comics still appear in the newspapers, for one. Likewise, graphic novels still sell very well, and they're just comics in a thicker form. And webcomics...well, their time has just begun! 

Likewise, I don't exactly see the portrait business as booming. After all, portraits are expensive, and you just don't see as many people doing that nowadays...and yet you never see anyone saying that portraits are on the verge of disappearing forever.

This isn't a transient art form that only appeared recently, and it isn't limited to the 32-page, stapled-together, for-sale-monthly format.



> _I don't think my kids will ever enjoy comics the way that I did/do...and that's a shame._




I don't think you're giving your kids enough credit. That's like saying they'll never enjoy movies like you do...it's too widely-encompasing of a statement to be taken seriously. Comics are so ubiquitous, and cover such a diverse range of genres, that its impossible to rule them out so completely like that. 

Comics are here to stay, in one form or another. I just feel that they deserve the same recognition we give to the rest of art.


----------



## TiQuinn (Nov 28, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> Youre looking at the lack on continuity AFTER the fact and deeming it impossible. There would have been NOTHING difficult about it if it was done from the beginning, or if it was done after "Crisis" or "Zero Hour" or the still-to-come Marvel mega-crossover of the same type.
> I cant speak for the Golden Age. Haven't really read anything more than the original stories of supes and bats. I dont know how well Golden Age continuity was kept, so I'll jump straight to the sixties and the Silver Age.




I'm not saying that continuity is impossible, but I'm saying the attention paid to continuity borders on ludicrous.  Comic books shouldn't have to explain why Peter Parker took 15 years to get through high school and college.  It shouldn't have to explain why Batman never ages, yet Robin got older and became Nightwing.  Their first mistake was ever addressing it to begin with it.

There was only an inkling of continuity in the Golden Age.  If the Joker was killed in Detective Comics #40 and returned in Detective Comics #58 (and I don't know if Joker appeared in these issues or not, it's just an hypothetical), maybe the writers would come up with a story about how he survived....but maybe not.  It wasn't as great a concern at that time.



			
				stevelabny said:
			
		

> By the time comics got to the 1980s, both universes were fraying.
> Marvel retconned a few origins and just kindve ignored their problems.
> DC, carrying the extra 20 years and Earth 2 baggage opted for something more severe. Crisis. This was supposed to completely  remove all continuity problems BUT in a complete WTF moment, they rebooted some titles but NOT all of them. Some books seemingly started over, some seemingly wiped their past clean but continued normally, some just kep going as if nothing changed at all.
> How they thought Crisis would be a good idea WITHOUT every editor and writer onboard,i dont know.
> ...




This is exactly my point.  Crisis was not only a failure in terms of what it was trying to do, it was IMO a poorly thought out, poorly written mess.  The fact that they went to all this trouble for the sake of continuity was silly.  Marvel may get slammed for its ret-cons and for just ignoring some of the things that have happened before, but it was able to avoid that mess as a result.  Also, I don't see the Ultimate line as a attempt to solve the continuity problem.  Ultimate came out at a time when interest in the Marvel superhero line was waning considerably.  I figure that reboots are less about cleaning up house, as they are providing a starting point for new readers, and to let writers rehash old stories perhaps with a new twist and some new characters.

As for what I'd do, I'd simply ignore age.  Nobody cared that Aunt May was 115 years old.  You don't ask why James Bond looked about 40 years old in the 1960's, and doesn't look a day older 40 years later.  Have the editors maintain a storyline for each comic along with a list of what dangling threads haven't been tied up.  The worst problems occur when some little secret is revealed in issue #210 of X-Men and then fails to be discussed again until issue #289.  If they take care of these threads, the stories will be better and continuity problems will be minimized or possibly even non-existant.



			
				stevelabny said:
			
		

> You ask how many tv shows have to deal with continuity this long...and again I point out the obvious answer DAYTIME SOAP OPERAS. And they keep themselves fresh and exciting by letting go of characters when they need to. Holding on to "young" Peter Parker for because "old" Peter Parker isnt interesting is insulting to the writers. How can you predict how exciting Peter's kids will be? They might be more interesting, they might be less interesting... but you work these things out as they come, and each generation will surely pick their own favorites. Just like on daytime soap operas.




Funny...daytime soap operas handle their continuity in a way not unlike comics.  Go to IMDB.com and pull up the cast listing of Days of Our Lives or General Hospital.  Notice how many characters are listed as Jason Quartermaine #1, Jason Quartermaine #2, #3 and so on.  How about Hope Brady #5?  They've had no problem keeping several characters the exact same age for 20 or 30 years.  Plus a soap opera hardly ever "lets" characters go.  There's always an evil twin somewhere.  Of course none of this has stopped people from watching these things religiously for years.  No cries of messed up continuity from the audience.


----------



## WizarDru (Nov 28, 2003)

Alzrius said:
			
		

> See, and therein lies your error (as I see it): Who said anything about holding comics to the same standards as literature?



 I'm responding specifically to this: 



			
				Stevelabny said:
			
		

> People seem to be holding comic books to a lower standard than other forms of storytelling entertainment. Or maybe they hold them to low standards to. And I take all of my televisions shows/movies/comics/ novels VERY seriously.I strive for things to make sense and be dramatic and be exciting. not just be a couple of minutes of mindless action that looks cool.





> I think McCould was right in his premise that comics are not a subset of an existing medium. Comics are not a subtype of literature, nor radio nor television. They should not be held to those standards. They have their own strengths and weaknesses, their own way of expressing communication. Comics should be held to the standards of comics as art.



 I don't disagree with that.  I also believe that, right now, outside of comics fans, most folks don't agree or care.  Most people still think of comics in the pop-art form of Lichtenstein and have a idea in their mind what comics are, regardless of how divorced from reality that image is.  And with a few noticable exceptions, in the U.S., there is little to dissuade them.  Comics is considered an artistic ghetto.  "Maus" is considered closer to performance or traditional art than comics, despite Art Spiegelman's desire to the contrary.  I'm not saying comics can't be great art.  They can, just that so far, they're rarely viewed as such.  Will Eisner once said it best: "_Comics are just word and pictures.  There's nothing you can't do with word and pictures._"




> So you're saying you can't compare "Call of Cthulhu" to "Catcher in the Rye"?



 I'm saying you can't fairly compare them with the same criteria...any more than I'd compare a New Jedi Order book against "For whom the Bell Tolls".  They have different goals, not just different genres.  To paraphrase Homer Simpson: "Barney's film is deeply moving, but Moe's film has a man getting hit by a football in the crotch."  
 To me, it's nonsensical to claim that the first issue of Justice Society of America, from 1940, should be held to the exact same critical criteria that Maus should.  



			
				Alzirus said:
			
		

> That said, we don't need any sort of official body to tell us what art is and is not. I can't imagine some group trying to definitively stating exactly what paintings were actually art and which weren't. They'd be laughed out of existence. Art doesn't require authoritative legitimacy.



 I didn't say that.  Critics don't get to determine what art is, but they get to recommend what they think is, in their opinions, *good* art.  And even then, it's just opinion.  The Cat in the Hat movie has gotten horrible reviews...but it still debuted to a strong opening.  People take critical commentary with a grain of salt...but they do take it.   Critical review beyond "I don't like it." is non-existent in the comics world.





> The same could be said for the fact that editors often make large changes to novels. And cinema? Don't even get me started. The actors, the director(s), the producer(s), and on and on. So, the whole multiplicity of people angle doesn't hold up.



 It's not the mulitplicity of people...it's the lack of unified involvement.  When a novelist is edited, the author is still the author.  The editor does not usually rewrite the work without the author's knowledge and consent (however grudging).   It's not a question of reviewing 'Superman: The Movie' versus a run of Wolverine....it's a question of reviewing all four Superman movies (and future ones) as one piece versus every Superman issue ever written.  Stevelabny seems to imply that DC, 60 years ago, should have been writing with an eye toward continuity...something that seems to ignore a great deal of real world history.





> And yet comics still appear in the newspapers, for one. Likewise, graphic novels still sell very well, and they're just comics in a thicker form. And webcomics...well, their time has just begun!



 Strip comics are another argument, entirely, IMHO.  Graphic novels *are* selling well...often to the same folks who bought the original issues.  Total circulation is still way down.   In the mid-80s, Uncanny X-men was selling close to 450,000 issues a month....now they're lucky if they're clearing 100,000.  The only reason comics are still keeping their heads above water (and some years only barely) is because the cheapest comics are now $2.25, instead of .50.  And so far, I've only seen two webcomics that are supporting their creators full-time with any sort of real income...so I'd say they've got a while to go, yet.



> Likewise, I don't exactly see the portrait business as booming. After all, portraits are expensive, and you just don't see as many people doing that nowadays...and yet you never see anyone saying that portraits are on the verge of disappearing forever.



 But that's not really an apples-to-apples, is it?  A professional oil painter doesn't just do portraits exclusively, he does other artwork, as well.  I've never met or seen anyone who exists exclusively on portrait painting...not even the caricature artist at the local mall.  I don't think comics will disappear, but I think the comics I enjoyed when I was younger are rapidly disappearing...and that the industry is due for another implosion.



> I don't think you're giving your kids enough credit. That's like saying they'll never enjoy movies like you do...it's too widely-encompasing of a statement to be taken seriously. Comics are so ubiquitous, and cover such a diverse range of genres, that its impossible to rule them out so completely like that.



 I don't think you got my point, because I don't think I made it clear.  My kids will never enjoy comics like I do because I _can't share them with them_.  When the Hulk kills people without thinking, the Ultimates have wife-beating rapists on their team, the X-men have psionic adultresses blurbing more sexual innuendo than a Jeremy Bruckheimer TV show, the Avengers have death camps, and Superman's greatest enemy becomes president, it's just not appropriate for younger readers.  You may feel differently.  I appluad that comics are now written for an older audience...but I wish that there were titles for a younger one.

 My son loves Superman and Batman...and yet I can't let him see their current incarnations.  The Joker gunning down Commisioner Gordon's fiancee in No Man's Land is fine for me...but I'm not letting a 3.5 year old even see the pictures.  Comics decided to mature with it's audience...but left no provision for growing a new one.


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## Klaus (Nov 28, 2003)

Wizardru, you might want to check out the comic-book versions of the Superman, Batman and Justice League cartoons (the "Adventures" comics). Those would be comics I'd let a child read (or read for them).


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## WizarDru (Nov 28, 2003)

Klaus said:
			
		

> Wizardru, you might want to check out the comic-book versions of the Superman, Batman and Justice League cartoons (the "Adventures" comics). Those would be comics I'd let a child read (or read for them).



Yeah, at present those are about the only ones that I'm actually considering getting for my son to read to him.  Do they have TPB collections of them?


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## TiQuinn (Nov 28, 2003)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Yeah, at present those are about the only ones that I'm actually considering getting for my son to read to him.  Do they have TPB collections of them?




You could also pick up copies of older comics (80s, early 90s) if there's a store near you that has a back issue selection.  In most cases, they're even cheaper than the new books.


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## Villano (Nov 28, 2003)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Yeah, at present those are about the only ones that I'm actually considering getting for my son to read to him.  Do they have TPB collections of them?




You can also check out Barnes & Noble if you have one nearby.  They're releasing softcover versions of the Marvel Masterworks books for $12.95 each.   The first 2 volumes of Spider-Man and the first volumes of Hulk, Daredevil, Avengers, Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, X-Men, and Uncanny X-Men (which features the new team with Wolverine, Colossus, Storm and the others) are all out.   I've heard that Thor is supposed to be released at some point, but I'm not sure when.

I can't speak for Daredevil since I don't own it, but the 2 Spidey books are definitely kid friendly, and the art by Ditko gives it that simplistic "animated" look.  The others, especially, Avengers and FF, are also pretty good (although, you may have to explain why Storm is running around naked on and off in Uncanny X-Men   ).

The Hulk might be confusing, though, since, in his first appearances which this volume covers, he's kind of mean...and grey.  He's not at all like the Hulk your child may be used to.


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## Viking Bastard (Nov 28, 2003)

Kesh said:
			
		

> ...and all the stories were essentially "What If...?" concepts.



No they weren't. Most of LotDK is in continuity, just not 'current' continuity. 
Basically, they take place sometime during his career (mostly early on), but 
free from whatever is happening in the main titles at the moment. They are
still 'canon'. 

Still, some of the LotDK stories have been Elseworlds, But a very small minority, 
and more often than not, have been retconned from 'canon' rather then been
thought of as such from the beginning. Whether 'Venom' was or not, I don't 
know.


----------



## CrusaderX (Dec 1, 2003)

We have a new contender for "worst story ever", and once again it's an Uncanny X-Men issue written by the absolutely talentless Chuck Austen.

The X-Axis review of Uncanny X-Men #433 

_The nice thing about having more than one title for the X-Men is that readers are offered an alternative.  For example, on New X-Men, Grant Morrison writes intelligent, entertaining stories that have reinvigorated the characters.  And on Uncanny X-Men, Chuck Austen offers an alternative.

"The Draco" has three separate plotlines, all very loosely linked by the idea of parents - the Juggernaut visits Sammy Pare in Canada, Polaris continues to bitch, and Nightcrawler meets his father Azazel.  With two issues to go, Austen belatedly realises that only the first of those three arcs was heading anywhere remotely resembling a climax - and the Polaris arc wasn't heading anywhere at all - and finally sets about explaining what Azazel is up to.

Now, pay attention, because this doesn't make any sense.

Azazel gives the usual explanation that the references to Satan in the Bible are all actually about him.  Quite why we're meant to care about any of this is beyond me.  Austen seems to be setting up the idea that Christianity is wrong and all the angels and demons are actually just mutants.  This isn't a desperately interesting idea to start with, and even if it was, it has nothing to do with the plot.

According to Azazel, he used to rule the world, but was banished to another universe by mutants who resembled angels.  Fortunately for Austen's imagery system, his dimension of banishment happens to resemble Hell.  How desperately convenient.  Anyhow, Azazel is looking for "the means to return."  According to Azazel, his aim was to open a portal back to earth so that he could go home and rule the place.  But it's not possible to open a portal from his dimension, since you need somebody on the other side as well.  With me so far?

Now, here's where it gets really stupid.

Azazel needs people on Earth, right?  Right.  So he breeds with human women, and gives birth to a load of mutant teleporters.  Then he can control them from the Hell dimension, "through our genetic connection", and make them gather together to open the portal from the other side.  Which is what he was trying to do at the beginning of the storyline.

The astute among you will immediately spot the logical hole.  How does Azazel breed with the human women?  Quite simple - as we saw back in the Prologue, he travels to earth.

WELL, IF HE CAN TRAVEL TO EARTH TO BREED WITH THE WOMEN, WHAT DOES HE NEED THE F*CKING PORTAL FOR?

Given the number of teleporters who turned up at the beginning of this arc, and the fact that Azazel had a working cover identity in the Prologue, it's clear that he's been making a string of regular visits to Earth.  Which means that he's not trapped at all.  Which means that he doesn't need to open some ridiculously elaborate portal to get back.  Which makes his entire scheme pointless.  Is anyone actually reading this nonsense before sending it on to the artist?

I'm reminded of something which, I think, was one of the Baron Munchausen stories.  The Baron is going out hiking.  He's fully equipped for the mountains.  But alas, he's so busy looking at the mountains that he doesn't see where he's going, and he falls down a well.

He tries to get out by throwing his grappling hook up to the top of the well, but the well is too deep and the hook won't reach.  He tries to climb the walls, but they're too slippery.  And he cries for help, but nobody hears.  Finally, having exhausted every other option, he goes home and gets a ladder.

That, in substance, is the plot of "The Draco."  Except the Draco isn't supposed to be funny.

Utterly dreadful.  If you like this comic, you are objectively wrong.  I can prove it with graphs._


----------



## Aaron L (Dec 1, 2003)

How can they let this crap be put into writing, anyway?  Do they not have editors?  I've been reading this storyline for the past year, and it just gets worse with every issue.


----------



## WizarDru (Dec 1, 2003)

Aaron L said:
			
		

> How can they let this crap be put into writing, anyway? Do they not have editors? I've been reading this storyline for the past year, and it just gets worse with every issue.



It gets worse.  My wife and I just sat down last night and watched X2.  Immediately after the movie, we browsed the extras disc, to see what goodies were there.  One of them was 'Nightcrawler REBORN!'.  Since Nightcrawler has always been one of my favorite characters, I immediately made a beeline for it....to get a long, LONG interview with Chuck Austen.  No history of the character, no discussion of the difference between comic and film versions, and no analysis of challenges of bringing him to film.  Instead, the interview primarily focused on Austen's Nightcrawler movie-prelude comic and Austen being 'the writer on the X-men'.  He was quite proud of how he was 'fixing' Nightcrawler and 'bringing him back to his roots'.  

Interspersed with the interview are twirling, constantly rotating pictures of the line art from the comic...mostly scanned pictures of Cockrum and Byrne art, clearly scanned from the Marvel Masterpiece collections...and all evoking memories of much better writers and stories, when they aren't giving you motion sickness.  He explains how "they" made Nightcrawler more and more involved in his faith, eventually making him a priest, and how he got him away from all that.  Ironic comments, considering how Brian Singer emphasizes all that in the movie.  The glimpses of the comic that we do see don't seem to even notice or mention Nightcrawlers tattoos, or really have much to do with anything, other than a weak connection to the movie.

Feh.  Who knew a time would come when a movie adaption would be more faithful than the comics, themselves?


----------



## Kesh (Dec 1, 2003)

Viking Bastard said:
			
		

> No they weren't. Most of LotDK is in continuity, just not 'current' continuity.
> Basically, they take place sometime during his career (mostly early on), but
> free from whatever is happening in the main titles at the moment. They are
> still 'canon'.
> ...




Originally, they weren't supposed to be canon. The entire point was that writers could put Batman in any story they wanted, regardless of when it happened, or even if it was possible according to canon. _Venom_ got dragged into canon, as did the issue with the origin of the Joker. It wasn't until after that when the series was retconned into true continuity.

Still, my favorites would fit rather easily into canon. _Venom_, _Prey_ and _Heat_ are some of the best Batman stories I've ever read.


----------



## Scarbonac (Dec 1, 2003)

CrusaderX said:
			
		

> We have a new contender for "worst story ever", and once again it's an Uncanny X-Men issue written by the absolutely talentless Chuck Austen.
> 
> [[snip][/i]





I so desperately want someone to hit Chuck Austen in the face with a large, blunt object.


I know that someone in this thread has mentioned Valiant, but I don't think that anyone has brought up the ill-considered "rebooting" of the Valiant Universe...y'know, where Turok is a college student with a magic Bag Of Holding Anything That I Want, and Magnus comes from a future time where there's a creepy robot religion, some of the robots "eat" human flesh and 1-A is named The Good Shepherd"...?


I didn't read the other books that they did that to, but I rather imagine that they were just as feculent...


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## TiQuinn (Dec 2, 2003)

Scarbonac said:
			
		

> I know that someone in this thread has mentioned Valiant, but I don't think that anyone has brought up the ill-considered "rebooting" of the Valiant Universe...y'know, where Turok is a college student with a magic Bag Of Holding Anything That I Want, and Magnus comes from a future time where there's a creepy robot religion, some of the robots "eat" human flesh and 1-A is named The Good Shepherd"...?
> 
> I didn't read the other books that they did that to, but I rather imagine that they were just as feculent...




Ugh, thank god I didn't read any of those.  I remember when the Valiant line first came out.  People were spending huge amounts of money for the early issues of Harbinger and Magnus.  I read a couple of newer issues and while the stories weren't bad, the art was extremely lame.  And then the stories suddenly stopped being quite so interesting as well, yet every week a new Valiant book would come out, sell out, and then suddenly reappear in stores with a $10 price tag.

There was a vast amount of absurdity being spread around in the early 90's when it came to comics.


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## Klaus (Dec 2, 2003)

Waitasec..!

Wasn't it determined that Nightcrawler was 



Spoiler



Mystique and Sabretooth's son


?


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## stevelabny (Dec 2, 2003)

TiQuinn said:
			
		

> I remember when the Valiant line first came out.  People were spending huge amounts of money for the early issues of Harbinger and Magnus.  I read a couple of newer issues and while the stories weren't bad, the art was extremely lame.  And then the stories suddenly stopped being quite so interesting as well, yet every week a new Valiant book would come out, sell out, and then suddenly reappear in stores with a $10 price tag.
> There was a vast amount of absurdity being spread around in the early 90's when it came to comics.




Um, well what happened to Valiant wasnt Valiant's fault so much as the speculators. The universe debuted. It was good.  Demand exceeded supply slightly. Orders went up. Back issue prices went up. Then the speculators decided that this was even easier money than POPULAR comics. They scarfed up mulitple copies of  every issue of any of the Valiant titles and created a false demand. People unwittingly paid the high prices because Valiant didnt bother releasing TPBs in a timely fashion and nobody realized just how much of the demand was false. Valiant and the comic stores kept raising the supply but the specualtors kept pace for a while. When Valiant tried to cash in themselves (remember boys and girls, comic companies get NO money from back issue sales)  by releasing gimmick covers it got worse until they whole thing exploded with Turok #1. I believe you can still find cases of it unopened in comic stores around the country.  The REAL valiant fans were either chased off by the speculators or the departure of Shooter, the speculators left when the cow ran dry and the company folded soon after. Valiant was killed by being a great new company at the exact wrong time. Go figure.
As for the art being lame? It wasnt flashy like the Image jumbled messes, but it was almost always good to great. A lot of the artists Valiant "discovered" have then went on to be big names at the big two later in their careers.


----------



## stevelabny (Dec 2, 2003)

Klaus said:
			
		

> Waitasec..!
> 
> Wasn't it determined that Nightcrawler was
> 
> ...




Do we really need to spoiler plotlines never actually ANSWERED from random issues of comic books that are years old?  I can understand spoiler warnings for the climax of certain big storylines that people cn easily go buy a TPB for, but this? I'll skip it.

I believe 'Crawler was all but revealed to be Mystique's son.
BUT not Sabretooth's.
Sabretooth and Mystique did apparently mate, but the result was Graydon Creed, the anti-mutant psycho who ran for president before being killed by a mystery assassin later revealed to be Mystique in one of those random months where the x-editors decided to tie up a bunch of loose ends at once.
She spits them out and kills them on an equal basis i think.

Mystique actually being Kurts mom (cuz hey, they both have blue skin they must be related)  and Mystique and Sabretooth previously mating (cuz theyre both psychos, they must know each other) should probably both be added to the WORST IDEAS EVER list.


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## TiQuinn (Dec 2, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> Demand exceeded supply slightly. Orders went up. Back issue prices went up. Then the speculators decided that this was even easier money than POPULAR comics. They scarfed up mulitple copies of  every issue of any of the Valiant titles and created a false demand. People unwittingly paid the high prices because Valiant didnt bother releasing TPBs in a timely fashion and nobody realized just how much of the demand was false. Valiant and the comic stores kept raising the supply but the specualtors kept pace for a while. When Valiant tried to cash in themselves (remember boys and girls, comic companies get NO money from back issue sales)  by releasing gimmick covers it got worse until they whole thing exploded with Turok #1.




Hmmm....overexpansion of the entire line, the aforementioned gimmick covers, emphasis on story to the detriment of art.  Funny this last one, since I remember that the simplistic artwork was actually considered a "feature" by the marketing wizs at Valiant and fans at the time.  Valiant was even called the Anti-Image at that point.  In the end, they made most of the same mistakes that companies like Image and Marvel made at that time as well.  

There was hubris to spare at that point, and Valiant played its part.


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## GMVictory (Dec 3, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> I got a few of the other titles as part of those comic packs they used to sell in supermarkets.  I know I got an issue of Kickers, Inc (which was so bad I didn't even read it), Strikeforce: Moruturi (or something like that...the tagline was "We who are about to die"), and one or two others.  Wasn't there a title called "Nightmask" or something like that?





Nightmask was about a kid who could get into people's dreams.

Strikeforce: Moritouri wasn't part of the New Universe.  I thought it wasn't too bad for an alien invasion story though.

There was the not so good "Justice."  A guy who could create a energy shield to protect himself and an energy sword.  A vigilante type.

Nth Man was another title.  About some gaijin uber-ninja.


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## Villano (Dec 3, 2003)

GMVictory said:
			
		

> Nth Man was another title.  About some gaijin uber-ninja.




Nth Man, the Ultimate Ninja.  That wasn't part of the NU though.  It was set in an alternate world in which a crazy psychic, in order to bring about world peace, used his powers to make all nukes disappear.  With no nukes keeping countries in check, the USSR and China start invading their neighbors and end up at war with each other.  With Japan and Europe threatened, the US and UK get involved.  Enter World War 3.  Good job there, chief.   

Anyway, as you can tell, the psychic can do pretty much anything (kind of like one of those god-like aliens on Star Trek).  Nth Man was sent by the US to assassinate the psychic.

I actually have one issue of it.  I can't speak for the series, but the issue I have isn't very good.  For a story about a ninja, he didn't actually do anything.  He and two other people just walked and talked about his mission.

Oh, and the psychic turned 50 ft tall and destroyed some jet fighters.


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## Kahuna Burger (Dec 3, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> Mystique actually being Kurts mom (cuz hey, they both have blue skin they must be related)




IIRC, mystique having some prior knowlege of Kurt was indicated on their first meeting ever. And he was known to be adopted from his introduction. So her "actually" being his biological mother qualifies to my mind as one of the only cases of the Xmen tying up a dangling plot line in the fashion it had always been aluded to, and thus a very good thing...

It was by no stretch just a random retcon based on them both having blue skin, it was hinted at from the VERY start.

As for sabertooth and mystique having hooked up at some point... he doesn't seem like her type, but he was (at last origen I heard) a government operative, and she'd been faking government clearance for some time when first introduced, so its not as bad a backstory as many of the "and everyone on the planet knows wolverine" stories.  

Kahuna burger


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## Kahuna Burger (Dec 3, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> Nth Man, the Ultimate Ninja.  That wasn't part of the NU though.  It was set in an alternate world in which a crazy psychic, in order to bring about world peace, used his powers to make all nukes disappear.  With no nukes keeping countries in check, the USSR and China start invading their neighbors and end up at war with each other.  With Japan and Europe threatened, the US and UK get involved.  Enter World War 3.  Good job there, chief.




I never read that book, partly cause I knew it could never measure up to the "Its the right thing to do, right?" description of the begining that I saw in an editors forum. (or maybe that was still when Marvel Age existed.) It was deliberately set up as a situation where everyone was doing the right things, but probably degenerated into cookie cutter good guys and bad guys early on.     There was a bizare Excalibur crossover when that title was degenerating...

Kahuna burger


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## Richards (Dec 4, 2003)

I have the entire run of _Nth Man, the Ultimate Ninja_, and it wasn't all that bad - up until the end, when the series was cancelled and the writer (Larry Hama, I think, wasn't it?) had two issues or so to "wrap everything up."  So all of a sudden we're two years in the future (I even think the title of that issue was something like "Two Years Later..."), and a whole lot has happened that we have to catch in a quick recap.  It was a pitiful way to end the series, but the writer did manage to come full circle at the end with the origin of the "ultimate ninja" and the "super psychic" (whose name was Alfie O'Meagan - "Alpha Omegan," get it?).

And as I was a missile launch officer at the time I was reading _Nth Man, the Ultimate Ninja_, I knew that Alfie's great idea to disable all of the world's nuclear devices at once was a bad one...    

Johnathan


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## Villano (Dec 4, 2003)

Richards said:
			
		

> I have the entire run of _Nth Man, the Ultimate Ninja_, and it wasn't all that bad - up until the end, when the series was cancelled and the writer (Larry Hama, I think, wasn't it?) had two issues or so to "wrap everything up."  So all of a sudden we're two years in the future (I even think the title of that issue was something like "Two Years Later..."), and a whole lot has happened that we have to catch in a quick recap.  It was a pitiful way to end the series, but the writer did manage to come full circle at the end with the origin of the "ultimate ninja" and the "super psychic" (whose name was Alfie O'Meagan - "Alpha Omegan," get it?).




I suppose it would be too much to ask how it ended?


----------



## Silver Moon (Dec 4, 2003)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> Mystique having some prior knowlege of Kurt was indicated on their first meeting ever. And he was known to be adopted from his introduction. So her "actually" being his biological mother qualifies to my mind as one of the only cases of the Xmen tying up a dangling plot line in the fashion it had always been aluded to, and thus a very good thing...she'd been faking government clearance for some time when first introduced



One of my co-workers is a Nightcrawler fan, and we've talked about this at length.   I fully agree with you on both counts.   From that first Uncanny X-Men annual it was already implied that there was some type of relation.   And Mystique's very first appearance in the Ms. Marvel series (written by Claremont) had her working for the Government.   

Back to the subject of "What were they thinking?"   Hank McCoy now looking like a blue cowardly lion I'll file under the category of Bad Idea.


----------



## Aaron L (Dec 4, 2003)

Mystique being Nightcrawlers mother isn't a problem for me... as has been said, it's been hinted at for a while.  What IS a problem is the whole mutant demon/angel thing.  The X-books aren't in a vacuum, but recent writers seem to think they are.  How many different beings have been presented as being the origin of demons and angels?  This is a tired old plot that has been done to death. 

The tinkering of the celestials has been established as the reason for the superpowered mutancy in humanity, and also as somewhat of an origin for angel legends.  Not to mention the Deviants and Inhumans and whatnot.  And where does this mutant demon vs mutant angel war fit into Marvel history?  I'm sure that the Asgardians and Olympians would have been involved.  And would have said something upon seeing either Angel OR Nightcrawler.  How many times has Thor fought alongside of Angel?  The New Mutants spent quite a while in Asgard itself for crying out loud!  It's just poor and ill advised writing, and a severe lack of editorial oversight.

This Azazel character better hope that Mephisto doesn't find out that he's stealing his thunder, of there will be a big pile of dead mutant demon wannabes.  The idea that Mephisto is trying to impersonate a human mutant is ludicrous.


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## Richards (Dec 4, 2003)

_Nth Man: the Ultimate Ninja_ ends as follows: 



Spoiler



The Nth Man (I've completely forgotten his name, other than his dentist ninja trainer always called him "Peachy") and Alfie O'Meaghan end up devolved back to babies and thrown back in time to when they were first left on the doorstep of an orphanage.  In fact, there's this lady - a friend of the adult Nth Man who was also sent back in time - who knows what each one will become, but who has no idea which one is which as they both look pretty much the same as babies.  So she delivers them to the orphanage with the warning that "one of these babies is very, very good, and one is very, very bad" - which was one of the "opening scenes" at the beginning of the comic.  So basically, the Nth Man and Alfie O'Meaghan are living in a time loop, destined to repeat the same actions over and over again.



I'm not sure if the spoiler space was necessary for a book that's been out of print for well over a decade, but you never know.

Johnathan


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## Turgenev (Dec 5, 2003)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> IIRC, mystique having some prior knowlege of Kurt was indicated on their first meeting ever. And he was known to be adopted from his introduction. So her "actually" being his biological mother qualifies to my mind as one of the only cases of the Xmen tying up a dangling plot line in the fashion it had always been aluded to, and thus a very good thing...




It was my understanding that Claremont's original plan was to reveal that Mystique was Nightcrawler's *father*, not his mother (after all, she is a shapeshifter). Can't remember where I read this though... either online or in one of the X-Men Companion books from the earlier 80s.

Cheers,
Tim


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## blackrazor49 (Dec 5, 2003)

I have to say I loved the old X-Men and New Mutants (especially X-Men annual #9 and NM Special Ed #1 where they are all on Asgard).  It's basically when I started collecting and I ended up getting all the back issues of New Mutants.  Sure they had some dumb moments (what title doesn't) but then they do two things that just killed me...
1.  Who the hell came up with Birdboy?
2.  And after not being able to keep a decent artist on the New Mutants they have Bret Blevins draw it for over 2 years...AARRRRGG!!!! (His stuff was ok on Ghost Rider but he was AWFUL on the New Mutants.  After looking at his stuff for over 2 years straight I quit collecting comics until like 2 months ago LOL!

Oh and one more thing... Magik with that dark attitude rocked!

(Sorry about the artist comments but I've had repressed anger on that for like 10 years now.)

Mike


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## Dr. Harry (Dec 5, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> I know that there are more than a few comic readers (or former readers) out there.  I'm sure that, like me, more than once you've read a comic and wondered if the writers and editors were on crack when they came up with the story.  I have my list of "worst ideas", what's your's?




First off, thank you.  This is one of the most cathartic threads I've read in a long time.  It's nice to know I'm not alone.  Plus, I'm learing the goofy outcome of plotlines that I bailed on long, long ago.



			
				Villano said:
			
		

> *Monarch*
> 
> It could have been interesting, except for one thing:  News leaked out to some people that Captain Atom was Monarch.  In order to keep the conclusion a surprise, they scrapped the year long story and cobbled together a last minute alternative; Hawk of Hawk and Dove was now the bad guy!




  Well, I liked Captain Atom, so I think this would have been in the "stupid" list in any event, but the writing on the Armageddon (or some such name) miniseries that brought Captain Atom & "Monarch" back was terrible.  Forget DC continuity, the real world continuity was blown as well.  According to the series, the age of dinosaurs was a thousand years before the Roman Empire, and it just got worse from there.



			
				Villano said:
			
		

> *The Amazing Spider-Clone*




Yeah, this knocked me clean out of comics for while.



			
				Villano said:
			
		

> *Evil Green Lantern*
> 
> From what I understand, even though the new batch of writers were doing a good job on the series and sales were up, DC decided that they needed a hip, edgier, Gen-X version of GL... [?QUOTE]
> 
> Geez, I had at least hoped that sales were down.  You know, I was going to comment on the DC attitude "Hal Jordan's a decent guy, so that makes him boring.  We need a superhero with a psychoses or at least a dark, terrible instance in his past."  Which they got by killing off Kyle's girlfriend straight off the bat, but as she was mentioned maybe twice after that, it didn't really have an efffect.  I didn't have the stomach to get any deeper into this ... stupidity.


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## Phasmus (Dec 6, 2003)

I'd never been much of a comic reader, but I used to pick up an occasional issue of Spiderman if the plot looked interesting.

...

Then the bat-snitches killed Dr. Octopus, one of my favorite Marvel villains.  As a result, as childish as it may sound, I no longer buy Marvel comics.

...

It wasn't a dignified death.  I could have tolerated that.  But he was a casualty of 'We need to kill someone off to show how bad this -new- villain is!' syndrome.  So they had 'Kain' (who turned out to be some irksome tangent of the clone saga, as I recall being told) kak the doctor.

Misery.

Then later, I am made to understand, they brought Doc-Ock back to life via a lame plot device of some sort.

Misery and woe.


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## Nellisir (Dec 6, 2003)

Holy Bovine said:
			
		

> ...my least favourite comic book moment was the ill-fated 'New Universe' ... a dozen titles were launched simutaneously and some many of them were complete crap.  Only 2 ever stood out to me as somewhat impressive;
> 
> Star Brand (a man is given a powerful weapon in the form of a tattoo from a dying alien - the weapon gives him super strength, flight but now other aliens want it for a great war - actually better than I'm making is sound here)
> 
> ...




It should be a consolation that Marvel apparently felt something like you did -- Kickers Inc; Marc Hazzard, Merc; and Spitfire were 3 of the 4 titles that were cancelled after 12 issues.  Marc Hazzard was, IIRC, killed in his finale.  The other cancelled series was Nightmask -- a series I enjoyed.

StarBrand was not cancelled, but went bi-monthly or something.  Lasted 19 issues.

3 series went 32 issues: Justice, Psi-Force (the best series, IMO, and the closest to standard superhero stuff -- penned by Fabian Nicieza), and DP7.

This site has a pretty good rundown of New Universe history, including Quasar http://www.geocities.com/tensen2099/New_Universe/new_universe_history_1.html

Cheers
Nell.


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## Nellisir (Dec 6, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> Strikeforce: Moruturi (or something like that...the tagline was "We who are about to die




Strikeforce: Morituri...I still think that was one of the coolest concepts.  I wonder why I stopped buying it?

It wasnt' either a NU or Marvel universe comic, though it came out around the same time.  In a slightly advanced future, aliens known as the Horde were invading earth, and the only hope was a process that created superhumans -- and guaranteed they'd die within 12 months.

A cure was discovered by the end of the series, and a 4(?) issue miniseries set a few years later featured the last members of the Morituri.

Cheers
Nell.


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## Skade (Dec 6, 2003)

My comic purchases are sporadic at the moment, only the prospect of a new New Mutants series brought be back, and though that series has been fine, it is involved in this Higher Learning crossover, which includes the Emma Frost title, so I pick it up.  

First off the covers are painted and gorgeous, if a little oversexed (Emma actually wears less clothes as a good guy, which is impressive considering her original White Queen outfit).  

Anyway, it turns out that the series is basically her past, showing what it was like for a society brat to discover her mutant powers and develop from the only half-adjusted person in her dysfunctional family to the evil witch we all know and love.  Its a good idea, I think, and a surprising turn.  

Then it just annoyed me.  There are little references to things like Melrose Place and other contemporary events.  This is supposed to be Emma as a teen, and since she is currently a teacher at Xavier's, and very recently headmistress for both that school and the Hellions, why on earth would her teen self be watching Melrose Place?  At the very least she would have been watching Cheers or something from the 80's.

I realize the character was actually developed in the first Claremont period, but I'm willing to accept not having 30 year old characters who have been around for 20 years not talking about watching petticoat Junction.  Still, its a little silly to make her a mature adult in one title, and barely an adult by the information presented in another. 

I know the Ultimates line does this also, but they can almost get away with it since they have thrown continuity out for their own timeline.  This is not an ultimate title.  I really don't think such references should be made when at all possible.  Why date the book more than you have to?


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## WizarDru (Dec 6, 2003)

Phasmus said:
			
		

> Then later, I am made to understand, they brought Doc-Ock back to life via a lame plot device of some sort.
> 
> Misery and woe.



I hadn't known that he'd been killed off, since I'd been away from Spiderman for a long, loooong time.  However, bringing him back, however they did it, was a good thing, since it allowed me to see him written properly, by JMS.  The more recent story where someone stole Doc Ock's design (while trying to kill him) and turning himself into a new, "deadlier" villain, and then Doc Ock schools him, showing him that a newer design is no match for age and skill.


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## Aaron L (Dec 6, 2003)

JMS rawks, and is why I read Spider-Man now.


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## Ratenef (Dec 6, 2003)

*Age of Apocalypse*

I must state the the absolute worst idea that I have ever come across was the Age of Apocalypse idea that Marvel decided to push through the X books in the early ninties.

That series, its lead up, its conception and its delivery, just reaked of MARKETING!

"Hey guys, lets play around with the idea of What if the world was lead by Apocalypse all caused by Prof X dying in the 60's trying to protect Magneto's life." "Think of all the money we'll make."

The day I stopped collecting comics (for an 8 year gap) was the day that I picked up the last issue of the X-Men (now called the New X-Men) prior to this series. It was the last straw for bad summer crossover ideas. I was so disgusted by this series that I gave away my 1500 comic collection (except the good bits (i.e. Dr. Strange, Sandman, V for Vendetta, etc.)).

I recently began collecting again because of their being some series that are worth reading (Jim Starlin's The End & Thanos, Ultimate X-Men, 1602, Fantastic Four (the new stuff is really good), Dr. Fate and Transformers Armada (for my son who's 6).

I was glad to see in reading this Thread that there are a few Dr. Strange fans out there.

I also agree that the new Beast (who the hell came up with that idea) looking like a upright lion is just screwed up.

Also, how did Angel get his wings back after his stint as the Archangel with his cool razor wings.

And what I find truly funny is that despite the fact that most people will think of Hal Jordan when they think of Green Lantern the figure they decide to use for Hero Clicks is John Stewart. Heck, there isn't even a Guy Gardner!!!

Thanks for listening,


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## Mog Elffoe (Dec 6, 2003)

Nellisir said:
			
		

> Strikeforce: Morituri...I still think that was one of the coolest concepts.  I wonder why I stopped buying it?
> 
> It wasnt' either a NU or Marvel universe comic, though it came out around the same time.  In a slightly advanced future, aliens known as the Horde were invading earth, and the only hope was a process that created superhumans -- and guaranteed they'd die within 12 months.
> 
> ...





Man, Strikeforce: Morituri was COOL!  They really need to put that series out in trade paperback.  Mainly, because I only have two or three issues of it myself--I read a friend's issues back in the day.


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## Allensh (Dec 6, 2003)

*The Secret of Clark Kent's Glasses*

THE worst comic book idea I have ever seen came about in 1979, in the pre-Crisis days of DC. They published an issue of Superman that purported to explain how Supes could disguise himself as Kent with just a pair of glasses. The story postulated that because his glasses were made from the glass of his Kryptonian rocket, they projected this unconscious illusion to everyone around Clark that made them see him as this balding, wimpy dweeb. I don't remember too much else about it, but I clearly remember thinking that this was the single stupidest idea ever in comics up to that time. (and since then, as far as I am concerned). I heard a rumor that the fan reaction was so bad that they actually retracted the entire story in the next issue letter column but I don't know if that's true or not...but they should have!

Allen


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## Silver Moon (Dec 6, 2003)

Allensh said:
			
		

> THE worst comic book idea I have ever seen came about in 1979, in the pre-Crisis days of DC. They published an issue of Superman that purported to explain how Supes could disguise himself as Kent with just a pair of glasses....



I actually remember that issue!   It was the same year that they also had a story where Clark Kent interviewed Superman on television, the theory being that he could move so quickly that he kept changing clothes on camera switching places back an forth so fast that everyone saw him in both places simultaneously.  (Of course, that was in the old pre-VCR freeze-frame days).


----------



## DarkSoldier (Dec 6, 2003)

Ratenef said:
			
		

> Also, how did Angel get his wings back after his stint as the Archangel with his cool razor wings.



They grew back. Yet another reason to hate pretty much everything comics unconditionally.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Dec 6, 2003)

I've ALWAYS liked Angel better...as...well, ANGEL and not the metal Archangel.


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## Villano (Dec 6, 2003)

Richards said:
			
		

> _Nth Man: the Ultimate Ninja_ ends as follows:




Thanks.  Good thing I didn't continue collecting it.  I would have hated that ending.   



			
				Allensh said:
			
		

> THE worst comic book idea I have ever seen came about in 1979, in the pre-Crisis days of DC. They published an issue of Superman that purported to explain how Supes could disguise himself as Kent with just a pair of glasses. The story postulated that because his glasses were made from the glass of his Kryptonian rocket, they projected this unconscious illusion to everyone around Clark that made them see him as this balding, wimpy dweeb.




One of the many reasons why we _needed_ Crisis.   



			
				Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> First off, thank you.  This is one of the most cathartic threads I've read in a long time.  It's nice to know I'm not alone.  Plus, I'm learing the goofy outcome of plotlines that I bailed on long, long ago.




You're welcome.   

I know what you mean about finding out the conclusions of stories...and being thankful that I didn't waste any more money to find out!

Speaking of wasting money, anyone else remember Marvel 2099?  I remember there was a Spider-Man, Doom, Punisher, Ravage (an original character), X-Men, Hulk, Ghost Rider, and another series (2099 Unlimited?).  There were a few good issues, but, mostly it was a terrible marketing gimmick.  If they wanted to do a future of Marvel line, they should have taken a cue from DC and just did a single "Legion Of Superheroes"-type series.


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## Alzrius (Dec 7, 2003)

DarkSoldier said:
			
		

> They grew back. Yet another reason to hate pretty much everything comics unconditionally.




The way I understood it, they didn't grow back, but rather, had been there all along; Apocalypse hadn't cut off his original wings and added metal ones in their place, but rather put a metal covering over his wings...which recently came off.


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## Alzrius (Dec 7, 2003)

Villano said:
			
		

> There were a few good issues, but, mostly it was a terrible marketing gimmick.  If they wanted to do a future of Marvel line, they should have taken a cue from DC and just did a single "Legion Of Superheroes"-type series.




The closest Marvel came to this was that after all the 2099 series had closed off, they released a trade paperback titled "2099 Finale" or something like that. The gist of it was that there was some sort of dome around the Earth separating it from the rest of the universe. They found the original Captain America in stasis, and he (using Thor's hammer) lead the attack to break it. It took the Watcher commiting suicide to bust it open though. Then there was some stuff were we see all the way ahead to 3099, and find that Cap is still around (he was apparently lost in space for a while), and is now heading to the frontier of space to bring justice there.


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## Klaus (Dec 7, 2003)

Add "Guy Gardner is an alien" to the list of worst ideas ever...


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## grigori776 (Dec 7, 2003)

Ratenef said:
			
		

> I must state the the absolute worst idea that I have ever come across was the Age of Apocalypse idea that Marvel decided to push through the X books in the early ninties.




The Age of Apocalypse was good in a kind of What If ... kind of way. Just think of it as a mini-series. Since only, I think at least, 3 characters came out of that universe into the marvel "standard" universe and next to no one remembered the event happening, those four issues may as well have been a imaginary tale. Although I understand you problems with the X-men, 4 years ago I got tired of changing writers not reading the previous writer's work, thus ignoring what had gone before. I just look at that series now and shake my head being thankful I got out when I did.



			
				Mog Elffoe said:
			
		

> Man, Strikeforce: Morituri was COOL! They really need to put that series out in trade paperback.




I hearily second this. I have all of the series and the mini-series and I would still buy a TPB. Also, when these heroes died they stayed dead. They were lucky if they survived for 12 months. By the end of the series, the book was onto the third group of heroes. Which were the ones who received the cure and were in the mini.

Now my pick for worst comic book Ideals.
1. At the conculsion of the clone saga, MJ gave birth to a daughter. The child was stolen from her, and she was told that her daughter, May, had died. The nurse who help deliver May had taken the girl. A couple of issues later Joe Robertson was vacationing Europe, and had a contact who knew something important about May Parker. Joe mets the women. Surprise it's the nurse delivered May, only now she drops the revelation that Aunt May is alive, not mentioning the baby. Moments after Joe leaves the boat woman was (still?) in blows up. In following issues Aunt May is reunited with Pete and no mention is made of the baby. After this I could not read Spider-Man anymore and have not to this day, even going so far as to sell all my spideys off.

2. Right after everyone else went through the Siege Perilous and lost their memories Wolverine started going crazy. He saw and interacted with phantasmal versions of Nick Fury and Ms. Marvel. These hallucinations even helped him to free Psylocke from the Hand by shoting people. Psylocke used her psy-knife on Wolvie, making her able to see the phantoms. Jump about 15 issues into the future, the Shadow King has just been defeated and now Wolvie and Psylocke both are A ok. The King had nothing to do with their dementia, it just was not brought up again.


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## Staffan (Dec 7, 2003)

Alzrius said:
			
		

> The way I understood it, they didn't grow back, but rather, had been there all along; Apocalypse hadn't cut off his original wings and added metal ones in their place, but rather put a metal covering over his wings...which recently came off.



But he *did* lose his wings during the Mutant Massacre. He was captured by some Marauders, who had some fun with tearing holes in his wings. He was rescued by Thor (I think, I know Thor was involved a little anyway), but his wings had taken too much damage so they had to be amputated. This made him so depressed that he got into an airplane, flew off and blew it up (and was rescued by Apocalypse who gave him the metal wings).


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## Turgenev (Dec 7, 2003)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> I've ALWAYS liked Angel better...as...well, ANGEL and not the metal Archangel.




Yes! Give me the *real* Angel anyday over the Wolverine wannabe with wings.

Cheers,
Tim


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## Taren Seeker (Dec 7, 2003)

Turgenev said:
			
		

> Yes! Give me the *real* Angel anyday over the Wolverine wannabe with wings.
> 
> Cheers,
> Tim



 Eh...I always found Angel interesting as a character, but man he was pretty useless with the feather wings. They basically had to either make him a taxi service or add low powered opponents to enemy teams that he could tangle with.

He was good in the original team because he was the only real flyer. Once other mutants came in who could fly and, y'know, do other stuff Angel lost his spot.


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## Turgenev (Dec 7, 2003)

Taren Seeker said:
			
		

> Eh...I always found Angel interesting as a character, but man he was pretty useless with the feather wings. They basically had to either make him a taxi service or add low powered opponents to enemy teams that he could tangle with.
> 
> He was good in the original team because he was the only real flyer. Once other mutants came in who could fly and, y'know, do other stuff Angel lost his spot.




I can see where you are coming from, but Angel is only useless if you judge him by his powers alone. What about his financial resources, his contacts (business/political/superhero), his training as a team member (after all, the X-Men should fight as a team not as a bunch of individuals), etc?* For me, what makes a character interesting is not just what powers they have, but their personality/history/relationship with others/etc. I'm more interested in a more rounded character than someone wearing a flashy costume with cool powers.  Course I also recognize the fact that one person's turd may be another's treasure... especially true when it comes to comics. 

* Course all of these factors depend on which continuity you are talking about.  I have no idea what the surrent status quo is for Angel, let alone most of Marvel mutant characters. I gave up on Marvel, and DC, a while ago. Don't get me wrong, I don't want Marvel to turn back the clock or anything like that. I wish them the best of luck with all of their endevours. I'm just not interested in what they are producing anymore (with the exception being the JLA vs. Avengers book - George Perez is a fantastic artist and Kurt Busiek is a decent writer also ).

Cheers,
Tim


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## Vocenoctum (Dec 8, 2003)

Turgenev said:
			
		

> * Course all of these factors depend on which continuity you are talking about.  I have no idea what the surrent status quo is for Angel, let alone most of Marvel mutant characters. I gave up on Marvel, and DC, a while ago.




I looked at XMen in the store today, Angel's in there and it said he had "healing" power too... not sure what that is.

Can't say as I thought it was very well drawn, and they seem so much "thinner" than they were before, but maybe that's just childhood memories.


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## Aaron L (Dec 8, 2003)

Vocenoctum said:
			
		

> I looked at XMen in the store today, Angel's in there and it said he had "healing" power too... not sure what that is.





Apparently Angel really is an angel, and Nightcrawler really is a demon.


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## Silver Moon (Dec 8, 2003)

Aaron L said:
			
		

> Apparently Angel really is an angel, and Nightcrawler really is a demon.



And Beast really is an animal, and Pheonix really did rise from the ashes, and Cyclops really only has one eye in the center of his head.


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## Aaron L (Dec 8, 2003)

Hey, I'm just saying what has been in the comics over the past few issues!


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## Taren Seeker (Dec 8, 2003)

Turgenev said:
			
		

> I can see where you are coming from, but Angel is only useless if you judge him by his powers alone. What about his financial resources, his contacts (business/political/superhero), his training as a team member (after all, the X-Men should fight as a team not as a bunch of individuals), etc?* For me, what makes a character interesting is not just what powers they have, but their personality/history/relationship with others/etc.




Which is why I said I liked him as a character, but I thought his powers became superfluous. I appreciate what he brought to the book in terms of personality and resources, but it's a superhero book. In a superhero book, you need to beat up the bad guys. He was well trained, but all the X-Men had that. He really wasn't even the best flyer once Storm came along. Warren Worthington was great for the book, Angel was not. It's probably why they dropped him from the book except as a supporting character who would show up when Claremont needed to throw money at a problem 



> I'm more interested in a more rounded character than someone wearing a flashy costume with cool powers.  Course I also recognize the fact that one person's turd may be another's treasure... especially true when it comes to comics.
> 
> * Course all of these factors depend on which continuity you are talking about.




Oh I'm talking about the original Angel days, before he lost his wings. I honestly don't think I'm alone in my opinion of his powers and contribution in a fight; after all, it was Claremont who originally dropped him from the X-Men, took away his wings and created Archangel. Unfortunately he changed his personality WAY too much along with the power change, and you're right, he became too much a second rate Logan.

But Claremont being Claremont, I guess he figured he could take 5 or 10 years to have Warren get back to his playboy self 

All that being said, Angel==a REAL Angel????


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## Turgenev (Dec 9, 2003)

Taren Seeker said:
			
		

> Which is why I said I liked him as a character, but I thought his powers became superfluous. I appreciate what he brought to the book in terms of personality and resources, but it's a superhero book. In a superhero book, you need to beat up the bad guys. He was well trained, but all the X-Men had that. He really wasn't even the best flyer once Storm came along. Warren Worthington was great for the book, Angel was not. It's probably why they dropped him from the book except as a supporting character who would show up when Claremont needed to throw money at a problem




I see where you are coming from and you could well be right. I can't say for sure what Claremont was thinking when he was writing X-Men at the time.  One thing though, since the relaunch of the X-Men dealt with the "All-New, All-Different" team, I have a feeling that Angel's departure may have been more an editorial decision (after all, at this point Angel was scheduled to appear in the Champions series with Iceman) than a writer dropping the character because he was "superfluous". In other words, the "new" team got the spotlight while the other characters went off to explore different alternatives (the Beast was in the Avengers, Angel and Iceman were in the Champions and Jean Grey would return to the X-Men in issue 97). And for the record, Claremont didn't have a free reign over the X-Men in the early days of the relaunch. He had co-plotting/scripting duties for the most part (X-Men 94 was co-plotted by Len Wein, who was also the editor at the time and X-Men). IIRC, he didn't gain full-plotting chores until X-men 97 or so (I could be wrong here... I'm working from memory). 

Warren/Angel did rejoin the team (some time after his Champions stint) from issues 139 to 148 (that's 10 issues, close to a whole year's worth). That's not a bad run for a "supporting" character. Considering Claremont's love for character interaction and character driven stories, couldn't it also be possible that he eventually wrote out Angel because that's the way the story unfolded? Angel refused to remain on the same team that had Wolverine as a member. Angel saw him as being too dangerous and a psychopath. Angel returns again around 169/170 where he was kidnapped by the Morlocks (I will conceed that he was more a plot device in this appearance than his earlier stint with the team  ). 



> Oh I'm talking about the original Angel days, before he lost his wings. I honestly don't think I'm alone in my opinion of his powers and contribution in a fight; after all, it was Claremont who originally dropped him from the X-Men, took away his wings and created Archangel. Unfortunately he changed his personality WAY too much along with the power change, and you're right, he became too much a second rate Logan.




For the record, it was Louise Simonson who wrote the X-Factor issues where Angel lost his wings (X-Factor 14 & 15), not Claremont. I don't have my X-Factor issues handy where Angel becomes Archangel but I believe that was Louise Simonson's doing also. I don't know and can't say how much influence Claremont had with the decision. Who knows? Maybe it was Bob Harris' decision (the editor at the time) since editors love to dictate how stories should turn out. 

I guess I'm saying that without asking those directly involved with the actual comic, all we can do is speculate on the "real" reason (course someone could always email Louise Simonson and ask her). You have your theory and you could very well be right. I'm just keeping my mind open since I see this whole issue as being slightly more complex than just a power issue. I guess I'll agree to disagree and leave it at that. 



> But Claremont being Claremont, I guess he figured he could take 5 or 10 years to have Warren get back to his playboy self




Heh, the way he writes these days it would probably take 10 to 20 years to get back to the character that we all know and love. 



> All that being said, Angel==a REAL Angel????




A real Angel?!?! When did this happen? I stopped collecting Uncanny X-Men around issue 300 so I've been out of the loop for a while. I tried Morrison's take on the X-Men for a bit but found myself not interested in the current versions of the characters.

Cheers,
Tim


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## Mog Elffoe (Dec 9, 2003)

Hey, clearly some of you are reading the current X-Men comics--I have a question for you.  What's the deal with Juggernaut now?  I understand that he's a member of the X-Men and all which I don't have too much of a problem with, but I also read that he's been depowered.  What's up with that?  I always liked the version of Juggernaut that could take a hit from Thor's 'Unfettered Might' strike with Mjolnir and not even budge (as long as he has his force field up anyway.)  Why/How was he depowered, and what sort of power level is he at now?  Thing-level or lower?


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## grigori776 (Dec 9, 2003)

How is Warren rich again? Back in X-Factor he was declared legally dead and his estate was divided among the original X-men and Cameron Hodge.


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## Aaron L (Dec 9, 2003)

Juggernaut, the avatar of Cyttorak!  Here's what I've been able to dig up :

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/cyttor.htm


And about Angel being a real angel: apparently, our legends of angels and demons are based on wars between ancient groups of winged and barbed tailed MUTANTS*, and the leader of the demon mutants was named Azazel, and was imprisoned in another dimension (Hell, apparently)



* The writer apparently doesn't quite get that, if there is such a substantial group of "mutants" they aren't mutants, they are a seperate race.  The writing has gotten quite pathetic, really.  I want Mephisto to find out about this guy pretending to be him.


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## ColonelHardisson (Dec 9, 2003)

My pick for worst idea: Image never finishing up Alan Moore's splendid "1963" miniseries with the promised 80 page annual. Instead, we get a Shadowhawk issue in which the 1963 characters show up. Instead of the very cool Kirby-esque art by Veitch and Gibbons, we get rather crude art that _looks_ like someone trying to combine the styles of Ditko and Kirby, but failing to evoke the energy of either, and instead of Alan Moore, we get an OK-but-not-great Jim Valentino script. I guess the 1963 characters appeared in Big Bang Comics 35, also by Valentino, but I never saw it.


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## stevelabny (Dec 10, 2003)

just found out that the previously mentioned return of hal jordan could quite possibly happen the green lantern series that byrne is working on. 

when will they learn?

i also found out that although the first issue of hte new shonen jump series sold over 500,00 copies, less than 4% of that was sold through the direct market.

as an industry, five more years, tops.


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## Mog Elffoe (Dec 10, 2003)

Aaron L said:
			
		

> Juggernaut, the avatar of Cyttorak!  Here's what I've been able to dig up :
> 
> http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/cyttor.htm
> 
> ...


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## Mog Elffoe (Dec 10, 2003)

>deleted double post<


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## Mog Elffoe (Dec 10, 2003)

>deleted double post<


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## Mog Elffoe (Dec 10, 2003)

>deleted double post<


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## Mog Elffoe (Dec 10, 2003)

D'oh!  Stupid slow browser!


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Dec 10, 2003)

I like seeing that there are SOME other people out there who like Angel. He is definatly my favorite of the X-Men, and I love the old stuff. Though its funny to tell people Angel's my favorite because then it becomes a "Nooo...NOT Archangel." and "What? He had real wings?" over and over again.

...pfft. Kids these days.


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## Silver Moon (Dec 10, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> as an industry, five more years, tops.



Have to disagree with you there Steve.   While the recent string of hit Marvel movies have not yet translated into a corresponding success in comic book sales what it is doing is exposing these heroes to a new audience.  The familiarity will probably lead to future sales at some point.   

I'd agree that right now the major companies seem to be shooting themselves in the foot more often than not, but I think there will continue to be an audience for the product in the long run.    What I do predict is that the number of titles will probably be reduced over time.  An optimal format, size and price will also have to be determined to assure profitability of the market but affordability of the audience.


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## WizarDru (Dec 10, 2003)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> Have to disagree with you there Steve. While the recent string of hit Marvel movies have not yet translated into a corresponding success in comic book sales what it is doing is exposing these heroes to a new audience. The familiarity will probably lead to future sales at some point.
> 
> I'd agree that right now the major companies seem to be shooting themselves in the foot more often than not, but I think there will continue to be an audience for the product in the long run. What I do predict is that the number of titles will probably be reduced over time. An optimal format, size and price will also have to be determined to assure profitability of the market but affordability of the audience.



Well, that theory has been put forward before, and it's never panned out.  I think stevelabny's wrong that the industry only has five years left in it...but I do think that they're on the way towards a major shrinkage if something doesn't change.  Movies have never translated into increased sales, even when Marvel or DC makes some weak overtures to capitalize on it.  Usually, they only benefit the industry as a property, fueling merchandising sales and character usage.  Spiderman was a phenomenally popular movie, but it didn't register in a change in Spiderman sales.  Most of the audience had some idea of who Spiderman was before they walked in the door.  That doesn't equate to a sudden influx of readers.  The same is true of the X-men and Spiderman cartoons.  Comics are still being made for current comic readers.  Many are difficult to get in to, and not written for a new audience.  

Kids today are not going to drop $50 a month on comics.  Or if they are, they won't be doing it until they're in their mid-teens.  Consider this: Shonen Jump costs $4.95 for 288 pages or so.  A 32-page comic, with supporting advertisements, costs $2.25 to $4.95 or more.  Where do you see a kid with a limited budget putting his money?  I know that I never would have been reading the new X-men in their golden days if they had been as relatively expensive.

The comics industry has been in a crisis for years, by it's own admission.  I used to get Comic Buyer's Guide Weekly, and it was no secret that readership had been steadily declining for years.  The move in the industry in the past five years has been to collections and graphic novels, and its pretty clear how many titles are now being written and edited with the expectation of a collection occuring.  Comic book distribution has maimed the industry, and new readers have to extend considerable effort to become new readers.  When I was young, you could get comics almost _everywhere_.  Drug Stores had spinners, newstands carried them, supermarkets, bookstores and departments stores all sold them.  Now, with some rare exceptions, it's only at comic retailers.  In a large city like Philadelphia, there are maybe five or six large shops, and a single spinner at Borders.  The industry needs to find some solutions, or an implosion is due.

Consider this:


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## Vahktang (Dec 10, 2003)

> X-Factor. let me count the ways that this peice of tripe was wrong.



Ditto on that one.


> NOT ADVERTISING.
> 
> The comic book industry is the only industry on the planet that doesnt advertise outside of itself. Nothing. Not television ads, print ads, radio ads, NOTHING!
> the ridiculousness of this one speaks for itself, so I'm gonna go play D&D.



Never thought of that.
Good point.


> And then Stormshadow ended up being a good guy because, as it turned out, he had only joined Cobra to find out who killed his uncle (who headed their family ninja clan). The killer turned out to be Zartan, employed by Cobra Commander to kill Snake-Eyes, whose family was involved with CC's brother in a no-survivors car crash as Snake-Eye's family was going to pick him up at the airport upon his return from service in Vietnam. Zartan ID'ed Snake-Eye's through a mystic ninja hearing technique, but the man he shot was actually Stormshadow's uncle, who was teaching Snake-Eyes a mystic ninja technique of altering one's heartbeat and breathing to sound like another person!
> 
> So, um, yeah, that's the story behind that.



You're making that up.
It didn't happen that way.



My own $.02:

Phoenix saga.
After she died and they bring her back.
But not her, someone else.
And the clone
Or something.

So bad.

More later,

Vahktang


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## Silver Moon (Dec 10, 2003)

Lots of good points Wizardru, and thank you also for the picture.  I had a lot of fun trying to guess what year it taken was based on the titles displayed.   (I've now checked an Overstreet Guide to confirm).  Any guesses?


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## garyh (Dec 12, 2003)

Vahktang said:
			
		

> You're making that up.
> It didn't happen that way.




Swear to god.  I have the first 120 issues of the original Joe comic.


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## Taren Seeker (Dec 12, 2003)

garyh said:
			
		

> Swear to god.  I have the first 120 issues of the original Joe comic.



 You were MOSTLY right.

You made 1 mistake tho.


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## garyh (Dec 12, 2003)

Taren Seeker said:
			
		

> You were MOSTLY right.
> 
> You made 1 mistake tho.




Okay, then, where was I off?


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## Vocenoctum (Dec 12, 2003)

garyh said:
			
		

> Okay, then, where was I off?




He identified the Hard Master as Snake Eyes, so shot the Hard Master. He did it with a big microphone on a bow IIRC.


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## garyh (Dec 12, 2003)

Vocenoctum said:
			
		

> He identified the Hard Master as Snake Eyes, so shot the Hard Master. He did it with a big microphone on a bow IIRC.




Big microphone could be.  I just remember everything in that stretch of GI Joe being mystical and ninja-ish.


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## stevelabny (Dec 12, 2003)

Still hating on Hal Jordan gone bad?

NEW interview with Ron Marz at CBR...

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=3059

read the whole thing and see that even HE takes a snipe at John Byrne.


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## WizarDru (Dec 12, 2003)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> Lots of good points Wizardru, and thank you also for the picture. I had a lot of fun trying to guess what year it taken was based on the titles displayed. (I've now checked an Overstreet Guide to confirm). Any guesses?



Well, let's see here: there's an Airboy visible, so that means the late 40s/early 1950s, I'll guess. There's a Batman, too, and a TerryToons. TerryToons would put it later in the 1940s/50s, Roy Rogers comics, which was from 40s through to the 50s, at least. Several of the titles there appear to be from Marvel's precursor, Timely Comics. I don't see any signs of the CCA logo, either.

Real Clue Crime Stories looks to be there, Joe Palooka, and Buzzy. This was tough, but the presence of Marvel Comics and Tessie the Typist helped limit it down.

I'm going to guess that this image was from 1949.


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## WayneLigon (Dec 12, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> Still hating on Hal Jordan gone bad? NEW interview with Ron Marz at CBR...read the whole thing and see that even HE takes a snipe at John Byrne.



Good interview. I'm a huge, huge fan of Kyle as GL and it's good to see that Marz is going to bring him back to Earth. And I certainly don't mind seeing the Byrne sniping. I like almost everything Byrne's done, but that one thing was really just terrible. To utterly change a character's entire life and direction in a single phonecall (And after the thing with Terry, I doubt Kyle will ever take a phonecall at his Mom's house again...) was just... eh, unappealing, and all because he wanted to use the character.


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## Taren Seeker (Dec 13, 2003)

garyh said:
			
		

> Big microphone could be.




Ding!

I didn't mean to leave you hanging this long, but then the boards went away


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## Taren Seeker (Dec 13, 2003)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> Good interview. I'm a huge, huge fan of Kyle as GL and it's good to see that Marz is going to bring him back to Earth. And I certainly don't mind seeing the Byrne sniping. I like almost everything Byrne's done, but that one thing was really just terrible. To utterly change a character's entire life and direction in a single phonecall (And after the thing with Terry, I doubt Kyle will ever take a phonecall at his Mom's house again...) was just... eh, unappealing, and all because he wanted to use the character.



 would someone be able to give a little more detail on this?


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## stevelabny (Dec 13, 2003)

Taren Seeker said:
			
		

> would someone be able to give a little more detail on this?




Donna Troy aka WonderGirl aka Troia aka one of the Darkstars had spent time floundering around the DC Universe mostly with the various incarnations of the Titans, somehow she had become the "motherly" figure with the Titans and lost her appeal as a character. 
Marz (or his editor)  looked around the DCU for a hot interesting chick to use as new Green Lantern Kyle Rayner's love interest and chose Donna. The relationship with Donna and Kyle was built up pretty normally (for a soap opera, or insanely well for a comic book) and they did numerous cute comic-book romance things including Kyle giving her a necklace with a little green-lantern-powered charm so she would know if she ever left his mind (because it would disappear if part of him wasnt concentrating on it) 

Then John Byrne got the job of destroying...sorry i mean WRITING Wonder Woman. He immediately threw his weight around the editorial offices to get Donna into HIS book. The editors of course let Byrne, the bigger name, get his way and just like that POOF Donna was out of GL. Completely underming the relationship that Marz had built up and leaving the GL offices scrambling.

Byrne has a huge problem doing things like this. He think "Byrne knows best" and will instantly destroy anything a previous writer has done that he disagrees with even if it doesnt make sense. He did the same thing when he returned to the Spidey books for a very short time and  got his hands on the Sandman. Sandman had been a long-time Spidey villain who multiple writers had slowly walked down the path to becoming a good guy. He had joined forces with Silver Sable, with Spidey and even with the AVENGERS. (the epitome of good in the MU) But Byrne didnt like the idea of Sandman as a good guy and instantly reverting him back to a villain spoiling years of character development.
The man is insane and needs to be stopped.


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## Villano (Dec 13, 2003)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> Then John Byrne got the job to take destroying...sorry i mean WRITING Wonder Woman. He immediately threw his weight around the editorial offices to get Donna into HIS book. The editors of course let Byrne, the bigger name, get his way and just like that POOF Donna was out of GL. Completely underming the relationship that Marz had built up and leabing the GL offices scrambling.




I can't believe I forgot to include the Donna Troy stuff in my write up about WW at the beginning of the thread!  I guess I subconsciously blocked this horror out. 

Just to add to what stevelabny said, Byrne had Donna revealed to be WW's magical twin sister who was condemned to lead tragic lives across the multiverse or some such nonsense.  Really terrible stuff.  Byrne needs to stop doing comics.   

And did Byrne kill off her ex-husband and kid or was that Marz?


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## stevelabny (Dec 13, 2003)

pulled this off a fan site since I couldn't remember...
fan site: http://www.titanstower.com/source/whoswho/dtroyfam.html

Wonder Woman #121 [1997]: While driving along the New England Coast, Terry, Robert and Jennifer Long try to drive through a raging storm. Unable to see, their car plunges off a cliff, killing all three of them. Death of Terry, Robert and Jennifer Long.

So, if this is accurate, you can blame Byrne for this too. Probably because he knows that husbands and kids ruin the continuity bubble. 

Of course speaking of continuity again, this is also a good place to mention that although after Crisis, Wonder Woman was re-introduced as a NEW character who didnt know anyone in the DCU... Donna Troy aka Wonder Girl WASN'T. Which led to years of nonsense that I can't even try to explain because I didn't read all the stories.

The actual continuity of the Marvel and DC universes would be so much easier to comprehend...if they had just kept continuity in the first place. And this "too late to start now" excuse is pointless, since they dont claim to be ending the universes at any point and it will just get WORSE. Sigh.


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## Taren Seeker (Dec 13, 2003)

OK, thanks for the background info (although why I should say thanks for bad news like that is beyond me ), but what about this part?



> To utterly change a character's entire life and direction in a single phonecall (And after the thing with Terry, I doubt Kyle will ever take a phonecall at his Mom's house again




Just wondering how they handled the actual breakup and what that comment about Terry and Kyle's mom's house meant. I read a few issues when their relationship was developing (and I think I have their first kiss, a Christmas issue) and I thought it was REALLY well done, balancing Kyle's natural enthusiasm, desire, and sense of loss over Alex. PFAH on Byrne. Go back to Next Men.


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## Silver Moon (Dec 14, 2003)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Well, let's see here...I'm going to guess that this image was from 1949.



Very, very close guess.   The key to answer is the copy of Sun Girl, which according to Overstreet was only a three-issue run in 1948.   Incidently, I had never heard of this character, although the back-up stories in the book featured Miss America and Blonde Phantom, both of whom later turned up in the modern Marvel Universe. 


And as to Donna Troy.  I've been reading Teen Titans to my kids.   We started with the 1960's series and are now up to the early issues in the Wolfman/Perez run.   The potential problem here is that both of my daughters like Wonder Girl as their favorite character.   I guess I'm safe for awhile, but am not sure how they will react once we get into the more recent D.C. universe.   I could probably gloss off the Byrne stuff, but the recent Wincik "Titans-Young Justice Graduation Day" was just plain awful.   Not the way to treat an iconic character.  Heck, my kids even like the Lilith (Omen) character!


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