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It's a quiet denouement to the clone saga. As I feared, all of trauma regarding losing a child was just brushed aside and everything's back to normal. They try to justify it with a one month time skip and some really trite speeches, but it plays really poorly. This is very much a "We're putting everything back to normal and ignoring all the consequences" issue. I think I posted already about how the shittiest comics were the ones that tried explain bad continuity. The Osborne Journal is an entire book dedicated to trying to justify how it could have been Norman Osborne who did the clone saga. Naturally, its excuses are paper thin, don't make a bit of sense, and in the end don't really matter. Osborne killed a homeless guy outside the morgue and gave him a glider to the heart wound so no one would know the difference? Also, JJJ knows Norman Osborne is the Green Goblin (he even calls Norm in the costume that in the story arc), but Harry Osborne bribed the coroner to prevent anyone from finding out? And hey, a lengthy, "Here's why all of the exposition you got from people who had no reason to lie was actually all lies," section. So everyone is already familiar with the Life of Reilly web series that broke down the clone saga with way more detail than I did and included a lot of behind the scenes information on the editorial chaos involved (though it didn't take a clever reader to be able to spot that). Which meant I had already heard of a lot of the options for ending the clone saga presented in 101 Ways to End the Clone Saga, but having them laid out wasn't bad. Here's what I thought of each:
Now that it's really over I have to give some final thoughts on the clone saga: it's bad but not nearly as bad as its reputation. I'm sure it helps that I've been reading it for sixteen days now instead of as it came out and dragged on for years. If I had been reading it in the 90's I would have dropped the Spider-books hard early on in the process (actually, I dropped them about a year before the clone saga started because of how bad they had gotten then). The biggest problem with the clone saga is the first half really is as bad as the reputation. Just about everything up until Ben is Spider-Man is terrible. Dancing around Pete and Ben and which is the original, the eternal crossovers, the need to make the new versions of characters "better" than the old ones. Even the art was worse at that point showing the worst excesses of the "hire anyone with a sketchy style" 90's art. Trying to ride the clone saga as an event for almost a full year was a lovely thing to do to readers. Once Ben is Spider-Man, you still aren't getting great comics but they're more readable. A lot of the more toxic aspects of the books vanish and that helps. It never reaches the point where I'd say, "This is a comic that people should be reading," but I could see how someone might enjoy those issues. Well, until the resolution which I hated. I know hindsight is 20/20 and it's easy to be an idea guy, but the clone saga would have been better if they hadn't insisted on Peter being a clone. In my mind, the fun way to do this would be if for six months before the main event, Spider-Man was off in some issues. He fumbled encounters with people he knew, made easy mistakes, there might be scenes where Peter is talking with MJ about something that has some strange undercurrents. Then there's the big moment where Peter and Spider-Man are standing right next to each other in public, readers are going, "What the gently caress?" and then in private Spider-Man takes off the mask and it's also Peter. There's been two of them running around for six months and the big event is a flashback to the clone coming back for Aunt May's sickness and death, Pete and Ben deciding to work together, and some of the recent Spider-books have been about the clone. Then maybe Peter has to give up his spider-powers to save Ben's life and you've got a new, freewheeling Spider-Man running around, Pete still there as a supporting character, and it's reasonable to run with this for as long as they like. It gives both a big reveal for the clone while at the same time preventing the open hostility to the idea of a Spider-clone that there was at the time, especially since there's no need for readers to feel threatened that Peter Parker Spider-Man is gone forever. Basically, it lets Ben have a chance. Reading the creator's comments at the end of this last volume of the clone saga, it seems like a lot of them had an attitude of "any publicity is good publicity". And that's really the final word on the clone saga, it was a scream for attention which they got. And that attention was followed by drastically diminishing returns as they rapidly burned through any goodwill they had left. In the end all I can say is that I'm confident reading every single Spider-Man book released for a two year period was still better than reading every single X-book released at that same time (actually, scratch that. Age of Apocalypse took place during this period so there would be four months with readable X-books). Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Mar 21, 2019 |
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Mar 21, 2019 15:23
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This isn't a resolution, this is a set up to drag the story out further.
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Now go read the mini series that reimagines it.
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Mar 21, 2019 15:27
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Rhyno posted:Now go read the mini series that reimagines it. Way to spoil the twist ending, dude.
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Mar 21, 2019 15:28
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At the point that you covered a comic literally titled The Osborn Journal I was kind of hoping you'd finally remember how Nouraieouman Ousuybourney spells his name but hey
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Mar 21, 2019 18:24
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Edge & Christian posted:At the point that you covered a comic literally titled The Osborn Journal I was kind of hoping you'd finally remember how Nouraieouman Ousuybourney spells his name but hey do i even want to know
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Mar 21, 2019 18:25
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Edge & Christian posted:At the point that you covered a comic literally titled The Osborn Journal I was kind of hoping you'd finally remember how Nouraieouman Ousuybourney spells his name but hey Maybe it was Robert Osborne's journal and all his hard work cloning Peter Parker was just a roundabout way of bringing Joan Crawford back.
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Mar 21, 2019 18:26
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Alaois posted:do i even want to know   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Osborn Random Stranger posted:Oh my god, Norman Osborne is alive! Okay, time to get to this: I hate the revival of Osborne. Random Stranger posted:The Osborne Journal is an entire book dedicated to trying to justify how it could have been Norman Osborne who did the clone saga. Naturally, its excuses are paper thin, don't make a bit of sense, and in the end don't really matter. Osborne killed a homeless guy outside the morgue and gave him a glider to the heart wound so no one would know the difference? Also, JJJ knows Norman Osborne is the Green Goblin (he even calls Norm in the costume that in the story arc), but Harry Osborne bribed the coroner to prevent anyone from finding out? And hey, a lengthy, "Here's why all of the exposition you got from people who had no reason to lie was actually all lies," section. Random Stranger is hardly the only person who ends up talking about Norman Osborne and Harry Osbourne and the Osburne Family of Goblins but it's weird in that it happens so often. I guess you catch a Damien Wayne or Lex Luther once in a blue moon, but very few Ben Rileys or Gwynn Staceys or Nick Furie or Jimi Olsons or Jeanne Grays. And in this case again, "Osborn" was literally in the title of the book he was recapping. People get pissy about Spiderman or Ironman, I generally liked reading RS's whole revisiting of the Clone Saga but this is like that pebble in the otherwise comfortable loafers of a post.
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Mar 21, 2019 18:36
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Not even going to mention fan favorite X-Man Rouge?
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Mar 21, 2019 19:04
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Hilariously, in Steve Ditko's Mr. A, there's a villain called Count Rogue and fully half of the time it's spelled Rouge.
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Mar 21, 2019 19:14
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If I were the writer of X-Men I'd 100% introduce a mutant called Rouge with, I don't know, the power of apparently having great cheekbones always looking fresh-faced.
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Mar 21, 2019 19:20
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There was a bad guy in Ambush Bug named Villian The Villain and to this day I think that's the only reason I consistently spell that word correctly.
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Mar 21, 2019 19:30
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Edge & Christian posted:
okay i was bracing for another Bar-Torr post
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Mar 21, 2019 19:44
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So much teeth.
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Mar 21, 2019 20:03
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Your suggestion for how to handle the Clone Saga actually sounds a lot like how they ended the What If? Spider-Man's Clone Lived story from the 80s, Random Stranger. Maybe you should give that a look as well. And What If? #105, that feels like the denouement the Clone Saga really deserved. I seem to recall DeFalco actually intended to bring baby May back later in his run, dropping a lot of hints that were unceremoniously ejected when they took the book off him and gave it to Byrne, who insisted on bringing Aunt May back (despite the aforementioned Osborn Journal explictily saying that Norman had nothing to do with Aunt May's death/'death'). MJ doesn't even really react to finding out that Aunt May's alive (and that all of the information that indicated it was baby May being held prisoner were false) at all.
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Mar 21, 2019 20:22
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The era of Spider Man between the end of the clone saga and when Byrne took over was a pretty fun era I must say, at least I thought so when I was a kid...
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Mar 21, 2019 20:31
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All I remember from the post clone saga pre JMS days was the unceasing attempts to undo the marriage that never went anywhere because the fans loving hated it and every writer kept realizing it was impossible to write a love interest for Peter if MJ is just "maybe dead" instead of divorced or actually dead. Much like the whole clone thing, the editorial attempts to pretend the marriage never happened actively hampered the storytelling in a way that just confronting it would've solved.
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Mar 21, 2019 23:20
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Can someone help be figure out what I need to buy if I want to own everything related to Megg, Mogg and Owl that's published right now? I got Megahex and One More Year from the library, and there's a "Megg's Coven" book advertised in there, but I can't find that on Amazon. There's some really expensive paperbacks--but I don't know if those are included in one of the other editions or what. I really enjoyed them so I want to buy those two, but I don't really know what else to get. I see Megg and Mogg in Amsterdam and Bad Gateway--but then also a bunch of other ones, like Happy loving Birthday, Special K, Life Zone, Worst Behavior, Magical Ecstasy Trip, Maximal Spleen...are all of these unique content or are some of those already compiled in a different version with a different title? Like, I remember reading about Owl's birthday in one of the ones from the library--is Happy loving Birthday something else?
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Mar 21, 2019 23:27
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Finally encountered Mantis and her first real big story with the Avengers. Steve Englehart is fine, but holy poo poo this is awful. It’s like Deathstroke in Identity Crisis. Thor may be a god, but she knows martial arts!!!
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Mar 22, 2019 00:09
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Mantis was a truly horrible character until Abnett and Lanning fixed her in Guardians of the Galaxy.
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Mar 22, 2019 00:31
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So in 2009 DeFalco and Mackie took another crack at the clone saga, trying to rework it into something that fit six issues and did the concepts better. They both succeeded and failed. The biggest problem is that even pairing down the story, they're trying to fit too much into too little space. There's no room for any event to breathe, no room to focus on things, just dashing from one event to the next. This is less of a story and more of a story outline. On the other hand, there's a lot of things that are done right. There isn't two hundred pages of mutual antagonism between Ben and Peter. When the twist in the story comes, it's the Jackal who says Peter is the clone and Ben is the real one which makes it clear that it isn't necessarily to be trusted. And their response to the possibility that they've gotten it backward all these years is, "So what?" The transition from Spider-Peter to Spider-Ben was better. And Norman is just another clone. The final resolution didn't sit well with me. Norman may not have thought much of Harry but that's not enough reason for him to side with Peter against his son. Of all the emotional beats in the story, this one missed the mark the hardest. Okay, that's it. No more clones. My foot is down. Edge & Christian posted:At the point that you covered a comic literally titled The Osborn Journal I was kind of hoping you'd finally remember how Nouraieouman Ousuybourney spells his name but hey My braine just likes the letter "e", okaye? Jordan7hm posted:Finally encountered Mantis and her first real big story with the Avengers. This one is very sorry that you have to deal with Mantis. IIRC, you've got a few years before the Celestial Madonna saga wraps up as well so she'll be there a lot longer than you'd like.
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Mar 22, 2019 00:41
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A Strange Aeon posted:Can someone help be figure out what I need to buy if I want to own everything related to Megg, Mogg and Owl that's published right now? I have vague memories of Amsterdam containing Owls birthday. I think Amsterdam is part of the same comprehensive collection series that you have the first two books of. Not familiar with bad gateway.
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Mar 22, 2019 02:28
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Zachack posted:I have vague memories of Amsterdam containing Owls birthday. I think Amsterdam is part of the same comprehensive collection series that you have the first two books of. Not familiar with bad gateway. Yeah, it's kind of annoying trying to track the stuff down and I feel it shouldn't be. All it would take is some little blurb saying that the present work contains work x, work y, and work z in their entirety along with new work or whatever. I don't recall any actual visit to Amsterdam in the two I read, so it's like if the Amsterdam book contains stuff I've already read in a different book but also other new stuff too, that's really annoying. The only books on Fantagraphics's site are Bad Gateway, Megahex, One More Year, and Amsterdam, along with two mini ones called Minihex and Inessential Garbage. So I have no idea where all those other books on Amazon fit in.
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Mar 22, 2019 03:35
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A Strange Aeon posted:Yeah, it's kind of annoying trying to track the stuff down and I feel it shouldn't be. All it would take is some little blurb saying that the present work contains work x, work y, and work z in their entirety along with new work or whatever. Megahex, One More Year, and Amsterdam do not overlap.
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Mar 22, 2019 04:22
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My understanding is that Megahex/Amsterdam/One More Year are meant to be the 'complete' Megg and Mogg in the sense that Hanselmann has curated, revised, added to, rearranged, etc. all of the stories he's done 2010(?)-2017 into a "box set", but that there's a decent amount of one-offs and minicomics and other things that he didn't feel like collecting, hence the free-with-purchase minicomics with names like "Inessential Garbage". They're designed to be three parts of a series of collections so there shouldn't be any overlap between the three. Bad Gateway is (I think) the first Big Megg and Mogg Story Written To Be Read All Together In One Graphic Novel. It's described in the press release about it as "Megg's Coven Book One" so I'm guessing it just changed names between being mentioned in One More Year and now. Of the other books you mentioned, Life Zone and Worst Behavior were shorter limited editions that according to interviews are collected in full in One More Year. Maximal Spleen, Happy loving Birthday and Magical Ecstasy Trip are albums published in France (in French) that appear to be material collected in the three Fantagraphics editions. Special K is the same, except Italian. So basically getting the three (soon to be four) Fantagraphics books should be the most complete (and non-overlapping) way of reading everything, though you might be missing odds and ends.
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Mar 22, 2019 04:33
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Edge & Christian posted:My understanding is that Megahex/Amsterdam/One More Year are meant to be the 'complete' Megg and Mogg in the sense that Hanselmann has curated, revised, added to, rearranged, etc. all of the stories he's done 2010(?)-2017 into a "box set", but that there's a decent amount of one-offs and minicomics and other things that he didn't feel like collecting, hence the free-with-purchase minicomics with names like "Inessential Garbage". They're designed to be three parts of a series of collections so there shouldn't be any overlap between the three. Thank you!! That's like the best possible answer, I was getting depressed that there were random comics that were like over a hundred dollars I wouldn't be able to read. It looks like if I order from Fantagraphics directly I can get the mini comics too!
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Mar 22, 2019 04:38
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Random Stranger posted:
Maybe Osborne was ye Greene Gobline of 1602?
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Mar 22, 2019 05:20
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Esplanade posted:Maybe Osborne was ye Greene Gobline of 1602?
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Mar 22, 2019 19:09
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Principal Hellmann posted:The era of Spider Man between the end of the clone saga and when Byrne took over was a pretty fun era I must say, at least I thought so when I was a kid... It varied. DeFalco's Amazing and Mackie's Peter Parker were kind of blah (especially the latter), but 'Ringo and DeZago on Sensational were aces, and DeMatteis and Luke Ross on Spectacular were pretty cool too. (That run on Spectacular has maybe my favorite MJ story, the one where she literally beats Peter's secret identity out of Chameleon's brain with a baseball bat.)
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Mar 22, 2019 23:40
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I need this 1 shot in my life. https://twitter.com/kierongillen/status/1109128579324018688?s=19
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Mar 23, 2019 00:06
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Oh, and this is pretty cool. https://twitter.com/davaja/status/1109019692835000320?s=19
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Mar 23, 2019 02:38
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So -- You Want to Collect Comics? posted:My intention here is to put together a basic list to give the new collector some idea of what comprises a well-rounded collection. So -- You Want to Collect Comics? posted:Superman #2 - This was the best issue. So -- You Want to Collect Comics? posted:Batman #4 - Easier to get than some of the earliest ones, and has some fine art by Bob Kane. So -- You Want to Collect Comics? posted:Capt. America #1 thru 10 - More Simon and Kirby. Be careful, though; these two gave up ol' Cap after issue #10. Only one of these is needed, but you'll probably want more after seeing it. So -- You Want to Collect Comics? posted:Marvel Comics #1 thru 20 - Try to get at least 4 or 5 of these. From a 1962 fanzine in which a starter collection consists of books that would total around a million dollars today as a low end estimate.
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Mar 23, 2019 03:13
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https://twitter.com/TomKingTK/status/1109134168221315073
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Mar 23, 2019 05:22
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Bloody hero taxi driver.
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Mar 23, 2019 08:33
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Tag yourself (Thread) https://twitter.com/KellyKanayama/status/1109536897108459520?s=19
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Mar 24, 2019 14:44
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Jokes on you, I've never read a Grant Morrison comic
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Mar 24, 2019 15:33
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Huh, what should your favorite Grant Morrison comic be? I confess I've never really been blown away by anything he's done except All Star Superman.
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Mar 24, 2019 16:11
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I really liked his JLA run.
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Mar 24, 2019 16:21
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JLA and DC One Million are some of the only things I can think of off the top of my head that I really like by Morrison. I'm just not a Morrison fan. I like All Star Superman in a different way. It's a great love letter to Superman history but it's not something I think of immediately as an all time great Superman story.
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Mar 24, 2019 16:30
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We3 (And shut-up, my cat's not ugly) His New X-Men was also probably the best X-Men run since Claremont, though I don't like how it treats Magneto at the end. It's all just in good fun, I found the thread through Warren Ellis tweeting this https://twitter.com/warrenellis/status/1109804166153678850?s=19
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Mar 24, 2019 16:48
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I had frosted tips at the height of their popularity, thank you VERY much. < >https://twitter.com/KellyKanayama/status/1109580547867754496
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Mar 24, 2019 17:22
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