The BSS Q&A Thread: It's Time For Arkhamaniacs

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irlZaphod: Mar 26, 2004; Kiss the Joycon to Kiss Zelda

Travis343 posted:

I thought they took the baby and told MJ and Peter that it had died.

No, the baby died, but they made it look like she had just been kidnapped by Osborn.

# ? Jul 19, 2015 15:43

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# ? May 13, 2024 09:39

Unmature: May 9, 2008

Has there ever been a disaster on the level of Clone Saga? I guess New52 could count but a lot of people liked the first wave of those.

More than I thought, actually. I work at a bookstore that sells a lot of comic trades. It's overwhelmingly way way New52 that sells. Red Hood and the Outlaws and Batman are the highest sellers. I barely see any Marvel sell.

# ? Jul 19, 2015 16:23

irlZaphod: Mar 26, 2004; Kiss the Joycon to Kiss Zelda

Define "disaster"? As I understand, it sold really well (at the beginning, at least), and I think it was popular at first also. The problem was when they started drawing it out for longer and longer, and kept changing their minds about how it was going to end.

# ? Jul 19, 2015 16:26

DivineCoffeeBinge: Mar 3, 2011; Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

irlZaphod posted:

I know the Clone Saga was long, but I didn't think it was 12 tpbs long. I guess 4 books a month for several years all ads up.

Also I love how everyone forgets the single most stupid thing about the whole story. Norman Osborn kidnapped Aunt May and hired an actress to pretend to be her for an unspecified length of time. The actress was so into her role that even when she was on her loving deathbed she didn't break character. Osborn had literally no reason to do this considering he kept Aunt May alive the entire time.

That actually wasn't ever really a part of the Clone Saga, at least while the Clone Saga was being written.

Alison Mongrain stole Peter and MJ's baby and took it to her boss, who told her to make sure it was never seen again and that she should enjoy Europe. Said boss turns out to be Norman. We never actually see the baby on-panel, but at the time it was always intended that this was the final fate of the baby. From Life of Reilly:

quote:

I vividly remember all the little bits and story elements that Bob Harras absolutely insisted had to be in the "Revelations" story line. Among them was the sequence where the Parker baby is apparently delivered to Alison Mongrain, and Norman Osborn tells her to make sure it's never seen again.

Some of us on the editorial staff (myself included) absolutely disagreed with this sequence being included, because it raised a question that shouldn't have been raised. We strongly felt that the baby story line should have a clean, clear, definitive ending, and that there should be no lingering doubts or mysteries about the baby's status. If the baby's dead, then let's say the baby's dead and move on. I remember discussing this matter with Harras, and his response was that his way of ending the baby story line "gives hope to the readers who have been waiting for the birth of the baby, it lets them believe that the baby is still out there somewhere, alive, and maybe Peter will find her someday. It'll keep them coming back."

The problem with that was that there was NEVER going to be a resolution. In fact, Harras said that he didn't want the baby referred to again once the Clone Saga was over. He even wanted it established in the first post-Clone Saga issue, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #241, that six months had elapsed since the end of "Revelations, " so we could just skip over Peter and Mary Jane's mourning period and show that they were pretty much back to normal and Spider-Man was his old, wisecracking self again. Harras wanted the Spider-Man books to move on and away from the Clone Saga as quickly as possible� but he also wanted to play with readers' expectations.

When some of us editorial staffers privately discussed the situation, we agreed that Harras's approach was very unfair to the readers. Deliberately dangling a plot thread in front of the readers and then just as deliberately abandoning it, with absolutely no intentions to ever resolve it, just didn't seem like the right thing to do, but at that point, we knew better than to even try to talk our editor in chief out of something he obviously felt so strongly about.

Emphasis mine. The decision to undo Aunt May's death came later (apparently also at the edict of Bob Harras...), and it sort of directly contradicted some of the other things that had been published in the meantime.

quote:

I totally agreed with that edict. I didn't think Norman should be some god-like figure who controlled every facet of Peter's life from afar. I felt there were certain things he did control, and other things he did not. At times, fate would intervene and end up working in his favor, or fate would work against him and he would have to adapt. That's how I approached THE OSBORN JOURNAL when I began putting it together.

As a result, I established that Norman played no role in the death of Aunt May, but he benefited greatly from its occurrence.

Later on, when Bob Harras decided that Aunt May's death had to be undone, he wanted it established that Norman had faked her death and was keeping her hidden the whole time. Ralph and I pointed out to Harras that THE OSBORN JOURNAL had clearly established that Norman had no role in the Aunt May situation, and that the main reason I established that in the first place was to follow Harras's own edict that Norman should not be responsible for everything in Peter Parker's life. Violating that bit of continuity would also raise the question: WHY WOULD NORMAN LIE IN HIS OWN JOURNAL?!?!

And it would raise another question as well: If he lied about that, what ELSE in the journal did he lie about? Can the journal as a whole even be believed anymore? What had once been enthusiastically accepted by Ralph as totally canonical was now about to have its entire credibility called into question.

Harras's response was that we couldn't be hampered by one line of dialogue that didn't even appear in one of the core books. He also argued, "Norman didn't lie in his journal. He said he wasn't responsible for Aunt May's death, and he wasn't, because she never really died." I felt that was just a fast rationalization that didn't even begin to take into account what I actually wrote and the context in which it was written. I even offered an alternative solution on how to bring back Aunt May while preserving the integrity of THE OSBORN JOURNAL, but it was dismissed. As far as Harras was concerned, the matter was closed.

So, yeah. As monstrous a fuckup as "oh, May's just been in a Turkish prison or whatever" was, that's one of the few problems that can't be laid at the feet of the folks responsible for the Clone Saga.

As for the parcel that everyone thought was the baby? Later it turned out to be some kind of magic thingie that was used in the storyline that gave rise to the Mattie Franklin Spider-Girl. Baby? What baby?

:negative:

Anyways, calling the Clone Saga a 'disaster' is really only viable in hindsight. At the time it sold like hotcakes. When Marvel broke up its publishing into five separate 'groups,' each with their own EiC, the only group hitting its sales goals was the Spider-Man group (admittedly, I suspect the X-books were given artificially inflated sales goals to try and reach...). Sales on the Spider-Man books were strong - and rising - throughout the entire first half of what became the Clone Saga, at a time when sales on every other book, even ones with an X or a Bat or an S-shield on them, were falling.

That trend reversed and Spider-Man sales fell into line with the rest of the industry as the story rolled on, because it got dragged out and dragged out and the end goals kept changing and three different editors were in charge of it at various points and it was essentially a prime example of 'how to gently caress up while making comics,' and then marketing guys and Bob Harras came in and said 'stretch it out another six months, we don't want the end to this story to have to compete with Onslaught.'

Essentially, given the mountains of poo poo that fell upon that story from on high, I think it's a damned miracle that it was as good as it was (and a lot of it was better than people think).

# ? Jul 19, 2015 16:46

Wheat Loaf: Feb 13, 2012; by FactsAreUseless

That's surprising (that Harras wanted it ignored) because more than one person who worked at Marvel in the 1990s (e.g. Mark Waid) have said that his entire approach to plotting was, "Make everything as byzantine and needlessly complex as possible."

# ? Jul 19, 2015 17:08

DivineCoffeeBinge: Mar 3, 2011; Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

Wheat Loaf posted:

That's surprising (that Harras wanted it ignored) because more than one person who worked at Marvel in the 1990s (e.g. Mark Waid) have said that his entire approach to plotting was, "Make everything as byzantine and needlessly complex as possible."

He might have been less inclined to sweep the whole drat thing under the rug like that had any of the actual Clone Saga planning been his doing, but he was the third of the three EiCs who had a hand in the story; the Clone Saga was originally conceived at a time when Tom DeFalco was EiC and Danny Fingeroth was the Spider-Man editor. Not long afterwards, though, "Marvelution" happened.

"Marvelution," for those not in the know, was a genius plan by someone or other to split the EiC duties among five 'group Editors-in-Chief;' Harras was the X-group EiC, for instance. The Spider-Man Group EiC was Bob Budiansky, who hadn't really been involved in the planning - and might have said no if he had been, because he never seemed really sold on the whole Clone Saga to begin with. As the story went on, he developed a habit of vacillating back and forth on what he thought the major story beats should be, and it was a shitshow. Mary Jane's pregnancy, for example, had been Tom DeFalco's idea, and everyone could go ahead and start working it into their books because it's not like anyone would overrule DeFalco, he was the Editor-in-Chief. Only then he wasn't, and I get the impression that had Budiansky been in charge he would have said 'gently caress you no, Spider-Man is not gonna be a dad,' but since he inherited the books at a time when that story had already been introduced, he was left in charge of a story he wasn't all the in favor of in the first place, with predictably erratic results.

Still, he got the books out the door and they were meeting their sales targets, so when he got laid off not long after Harras became EiC and suddenly Harras was the one giving the yea or nay, the Clone Saga had already gone several months past its originally-planned expiration date and it was just getting worse.

Had Harras been in charge from day one there probably would have been seventeen more Parker clones all masquerading as each other, I grant you, but by the time he took over a lot of the Byzantine plotting had already happened, and it wasn't Byzantine in the way he would have done it - so it all sucked and should just get swept under the rug ASAP.

# ? Jul 19, 2015 18:13

ecavalli: Nov 18, 2012

To move away from our collective eye-rolling at all things Clone Saga, I've got a question about JLA/Avengers: Is it ever explained why Superman is such a massive dick throughout that crossover?

A number of the Avengers and JLA members were written a bit uncharacteristically to accommodate the crossover's core gimmick (that is, huge brawls between two rival publisher's biggest superhero teams), but throughout the series Superman is constantly making GBS threads on Marvel's heroes and their dimension, to the point where other Justice League members are actively weirded out by what a tool he's being. Even before the reality-warping confusion toward the middle of the series, Superman is constantly harping on how terrible Marvel's heroes must be (largely because Flash was unsuccessfully attacked by a mob of human bigots for defending a random mutant), and how their world must be horrible and technologically backwards (because Metropolis, in Marvel's reality, is an idyllic field "somewhere off I-95").

# ? Jul 19, 2015 21:21

Open Marriage Night: Sep 18, 2009; "Do you want to talk to a spider, Peter?"

You'd think everyone would figure out Peter is Spider-Man after everyone he knew had been replaced by robots (parents), actors(aunt), and clones(himself), or just straight up went missing (MJ) during the nineties.

# ? Jul 19, 2015 21:40

Rhyno: Mar 22, 2003; Can't post for 10 years!

ecavalli posted:

To move away from our collective eye-rolling at all things Clone Saga, I've got a question about JLA/Avengers: Is it ever explained why Superman is such a massive dick throughout that crossover?

A number of the Avengers and JLA members were written a bit uncharacteristically to accommodate the crossover's core gimmick (that is, huge brawls between two rival publisher's biggest superhero teams), but throughout the series Superman is constantly making GBS threads on Marvel's heroes and their dimension, to the point where other Justice League members are actively weirded out by what a tool he's being. Even before the reality-warping confusion toward the middle of the series, Superman is constantly harping on how terrible Marvel's heroes must be (largely because Flash was unsuccessfully attacked by a mob of human bigots for defending a random mutant), and how their world must be horrible and technologically backwards (because Metropolis, in Marvel's reality, is an idyllic field "somewhere off I-95").

Both Superman and Captain America were somehow noticing the constant reality incursions and it was making them angry and paranoid. I think it's explained in #3?

# ? Jul 19, 2015 21:47

Wheat Loaf: Feb 13, 2012; by FactsAreUseless

ecavalli posted:

To move away from our collective eye-rolling at all things Clone Saga, I've got a question about JLA/Avengers: Is it ever explained why Superman is such a massive dick throughout that crossover?

It's him and Cap; Cap's less obvious because he went off with Batman to solve the mystery, but when he sees stuff like the Flash museum he assumes the DC heroes are fascists who demand the worship of the public. He thinks the DC heroes do too much while Superman thinks the Marvel heroes do too little. It's because Captain America and Superman are meant to be the hearts of their respective teams and universes, so they're the most ill-at-ease when they cross over into each other's reality.

# ? Jul 19, 2015 21:57

ecavalli: Nov 18, 2012

Ah. That makes sense.

I guess Captain America's personality change seems a bit more in character too, given his history. If your defining moment is punching Hitler in the face, you're probably not going to be too keen on seeing statues of a nigh-godlike entity whose name is an English translation of �bermensch.

# ? Jul 19, 2015 22:05

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

Die Laughing posted:

You'd think everyone would figure out Peter is Spider-Man after everyone he knew had been replaced by robots (parents), actors(aunt), and clones(himself), or just straight up went missing (MJ) during the nineties.

I bet that's pretty common in the Marvel version of New York, though. There must be hundreds of people with secret identities running around, and villains must make mistakes sometimes. I'm sure accidental identification as superhero is covered by insurance, plus all the people who get replaced by robots because they work at a physics lab, or a bank, or live next door to SHIELD or something.

Rents must be really cheap in Marvel New York. Explains why anybody would want to live there.

# ? Jul 19, 2015 22:58

Chinaman7000: Nov 28, 2003

ecavalli posted:

Ah. That makes sense.

I guess Captain America's personality change seems a bit more in character too, given his history. If your defining moment is punching Hitler in the face, you're probably not going to be too keen on seeing statues of a nigh-godlike entity whose name is an English translation of �bermensch.

Now I want Invaders/JSA. Except they are all old and just hanging out reminiscing.

# ? Jul 19, 2015 23:01

Was Taters: Jul 30, 2004; Here comes a regular

Chinaman7000 posted:

Now I want Invaders/JSA. Except they are all old and just hanging out reminiscing.

It'd just be this thread, in print.

# ? Jul 19, 2015 23:06

DivineCoffeeBinge: Mar 3, 2011; Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

Was Taters posted:

It'd just be this thread, in print.

Dibs on being Ted Knight.

# ? Jul 19, 2015 23:10

bobkatt013: Oct 8, 2006; Youâre telling me Peter Parker is ...... Spider-man!?

Was Taters posted:

It'd just be this thread, in print.

Dibs on Jay

# ? Jul 20, 2015 01:24

Rhyno: Mar 22, 2003; Can't post for 10 years!

Red Bee over here.

# ? Jul 20, 2015 01:27

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

When you do it, be sure to say something racist about those god-damned Irish taking over the whole country, and how like Iron Man and Barry Allen keep acting like you're saying something bad when you're just telling it like it is!

# ? Jul 20, 2015 01:41

Madkal: Feb 11, 2008; Fallen Rib

Wildcat over here.

# ? Jul 20, 2015 01:51

WickedHate: Aug 1, 2013; by Lowtax

Stargirl.

# ? Jul 20, 2015 02:44

Air Skwirl: May 13, 2007; Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

Chinaman7000 posted:

Now I want Invaders/JSA. Except they are all old and just hanging out reminiscing.

Was Taters posted:

It'd just be this thread, in print.

I'd be Namor, actually scratch that. Dibs on Jim Hammond, that way anytime some one disagrees with me I can just say, "oh yeah, well I killed Hitler, so shut the gently caress up."

# ? Jul 20, 2015 02:51

CapnAndy: Feb 27, 2004; Some teeth long for ripping, gleaming wet from black dog gums. So you keep your eyes closed at the end. You don't want to see such a mouth up close. before the bite, before its oblivion in the goring of your soft parts, the speckled lips will curl back in a whinny of excitement. You just know it.

Superman for me, obviously.

# ? Jul 20, 2015 03:09

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

Skwirl posted:

I'd be Namor, actually scratch that. Dibs on Jim Hammond, that way anytime some one disagrees with me I can just say, "oh yeah, well I killed Hitler, so shut the gently caress up."

"You see how many dogs and barrels the kids have these days? It's ridiculous!"

# ? Jul 20, 2015 03:11

Lurdiak: Feb 26, 2006; I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.

I guess I can be Toro, and constantly have to remind people who Toro is.

# ? Jul 20, 2015 03:43

purple death ray: Jul 28, 2007; me omw 2 steal ur girl

BSS is now LARPing in two separate threads. Somebody flip the killswitch.

# ? Jul 20, 2015 03:45

A Tin Of Beans: Nov 25, 2013

Lurdiak posted:

I guess I can be Toro, and constantly have to remind people who Toro is.

Did you know he's an Inhuman now

# ? Jul 20, 2015 03:47

Unmature: May 9, 2008

Did they ever do anything with the whole Plastic Man being the most powerful member of the JLA and immortal thing? I know there was that one joke in Kyke Baker's PM run, but was he ever called in for something world shattering after Martian Manhunter went all kaiju?

# ? Jul 20, 2015 05:34

3D Megadoodoo: Nov 25, 2010

Jack Gladney posted:

And Aunt May was completely unaffected by her years spent in European prison? That sounds slightly worse for her heart condition than the shock of learning that Peter is Spider-Man.

Since I don't know what "European" means here I'm just going to guess her heart condition would be better off after years of prison in Europe than it would be after years of no prison in the US :smugmrgw:

# ? Jul 20, 2015 07:34

Air Skwirl: May 13, 2007; Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

Jerry Cotton posted:

Since I don't know what "European" means here I'm just going to guess her heart condition would be better off after years of prison in Europe than it would be after years of no prison in the US

Die in a fire.

# ? Jul 20, 2015 07:39

ecavalli: Nov 18, 2012

Jerry Cotton posted:

Since I don't know what "European" means here I'm just going to guess her heart condition would be better off after years of prison in Europe than it would be after years of no prison in the US

Oh, gently caress off.

She was literally in a prison in Europe. Your nationalist chest-thumping is unnecessary and annoying. Don't we get enough of that poo poo outside of our comic book threads?

ecavalli fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Jul 20, 2015

# ? Jul 20, 2015 08:05

3D Megadoodoo: Nov 25, 2010

ecavalli posted:

Oh, gently caress off.

Those scare quotes are entirely your own. She was literally in a prison in Europe.

They're not scare quotes you loving idiot; I don't know where in Europe she was in prison.

EDIT:

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

So, yeah. As monstrous a fuckup as "oh, May's just been in a Turkish prison or whatever" was, that's one of the few problems that can't be laid at the feet of the folks responsible for the Clone Saga.

Make that "didn't know". (Sorry about the scary quotes again.)

3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 08:10 on Jul 20, 2015

# ? Jul 20, 2015 08:07

Synthbuttrange: May 6, 2007

ecavalli posted:

Oh, gently caress off.

She was literally in a prison in Europe. Your nationalist chest-thumping is unnecessary and annoying. Don't we get enough of that poo poo outside of our comic book threads?

Maybe if America didnt have such terrible health care options. Also the devil buying marriages.

# ? Jul 20, 2015 08:10

ecavalli: Nov 18, 2012

Jerry Cotton posted:

They're not scare quotes you loving idiot; I don't know where in Europe she was in prison.

Defensive!

Had you read the comic (or the link posted two pages back: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2013/02/14/abandoned-love-whatever-happened-to-peter-and-mary-janes-baby/) you'd notice that "European prison" is all the information we were given, more or less verbatim. Nobody was making GBS threads on the subcontinent, he was merely restating what the comic (and Brian Cronin's latter-day look at it) initially said.

But hey, politicizing stuff is fun. I get it.

EDIT: Before mods point it out, this is the stupidest damned derail. I can't stop you from responding with Internet-typical outrage at someone insulting you, but let's get back to making fun of comic books, not one another's respective countries of origin. This whole discussion is beneath us, and I'm sorry I ever jumped in.

ecavalli fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Jul 20, 2015

# ? Jul 20, 2015 08:13

3D Megadoodoo: Nov 25, 2010

ecavalli posted:

I can't stop you from responding with Internet-typical outrage at someone insulting you

Hmm yes I totally remember the bit where I was outraged.

Skwirl posted:

# ? Jul 20, 2015 08:29

ecavalli: Nov 18, 2012

Okay then.

Getting back on topic: Do the Nextwave heroes appear anywhere outside of Warren Ellis' miniseries in their Nextwave incarnations? I know Captain Marvel and a few of the others were relatively minor characters prior to Warren Ellis making them interesting, but do they remain interesting elsewhere?

# ? Jul 20, 2015 08:37

hadji murad: Apr 18, 2006

The U.S. outsources torture to European prisons so what I'm saying is you're all awful

# ? Jul 20, 2015 08:58

irlZaphod: Mar 26, 2004; Kiss the Joycon to Kiss Zelda

ecavalli posted:

Okay then.

Getting back on topic: Do the Nextwave heroes appear anywhere outside of Warren Ellis' miniseries in their Nextwave incarnations? I know Captain Marvel and a few of the others were relatively minor characters prior to Warren Ellis making them interesting, but do they remain interesting elsewhere?

They haven't retained any of Ellis' changes in subsequent appearances. The only character he really changed was Machine Man anyway. Also while they weren't really A-list characters, Monica Rambeau led the Avengers for a while, Tabitha was in New Mutants/X-Force for a long time, and Machine Man had several solo series before Nextwave. And it's not like they've exploded in popularity thanks to Nextwave, a series which did not sell very well, and which most people have forgotten about.

# ? Jul 20, 2015 11:56

Aphrodite: Jun 27, 2006

The Elsa in the Secret Wars Marvel Zombies stuff seems to be the Nextwave Elsa.

# ? Jul 20, 2015 13:25

redbackground: Sep 24, 2007; BEHOLD!
OPTIC BLAST!; Grimey Drawer

ecavalli posted:

Okay then.

Getting back on topic: Do the Nextwave heroes appear anywhere outside of Warren Ellis' miniseries in their Nextwave incarnations? I know Captain Marvel and a few of the others were relatively minor characters prior to Warren Ellis making them interesting, but do they remain interesting elsewhere?

Ellis' take on Machine Man was the star of Marvel Zombies 3, the best Marvel Zombies.

Elsa had a pretty cool Legion of Monsters mini afterwards.

# ? Jul 20, 2015 14:54

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# ? May 13, 2024 09:39

muscles like this!: Jan 17, 2005

Machine Man was also a supporting character in the Reed run of Ms Marvel and he mostly had his Nextwave personality.

# ? Jul 20, 2015 15:01

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > The BSS Q&A Thread: It's Time For Arkhamaniacs

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