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Skwirl posted:He wrote a bunch of pretty highly acclaimed and best selling stuff. You might not like them, but Long Halloween and Hush always show up on "Best Batman stories" lists, same with the Marvel Colors books. I think his Batman/Superman books were a perennial top seller. Then I remember people praising his work on Smallville getting them to embrace the wacky more super-hero side of the characters and getting them to do a proto-Justice League with it. Yeah hoots was just telling me about his previous DC stuff. I haven't read any of that, I've just been reading the ultimates line and his stuff in that is dire
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Apr 2, 2019 17:15
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site posted:Yeah hoots was just telling me about his previous DC stuff. I haven't read any of that, I've just been reading the ultimates line and his stuff in that is dire Chris Claremont has some pretty dire stuff later in his career and he wrote one of the greatest long runs in comics history.
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Apr 2, 2019 17:18
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Jeph Loeb stories are really good at an entry point level. I certainly started reading books after Batman Hush
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Apr 2, 2019 17:25
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Loeb's early Batman works are wonderful, as were the early color books from Marvel. Then Sam died and he spiraled. He fell hard and far and I said some horrible poo poo about him over the years. But man, his Nova arc. It was so good and you can tell he'd finally processed his grief. I don't know what all he has written since but he's definitely healed.
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Apr 2, 2019 17:37
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Some of Claremont's later work is definitely hokey, boring and bad, but it's hard to think of anything that comes close to the raw awfulness of Ultimates 3 or Ultimatum. Like, at his worst Claremont is usually just rambling about Psylocke or being inoffensively fetish-y.
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Apr 2, 2019 17:44
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Ultimatum is up there with Identity Crisis with me in terms of horrible comics. I was doing a full ultimate line read and gave up when I reached it. It just completely soured me on that universe.
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Apr 2, 2019 17:52
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Jordan7hm posted:Ultimatum is up there with Identity Crisis with me in terms of horrible comics. The only positive of Ultimatum was that it lead directly to one of the best Spider-Man/Jonah stories there is.
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Apr 2, 2019 17:57
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I just read the hulk annual by loeb where zarda fights hulk because he's not wearing pants and ends with them loving, now reading ultimates 3 where the incest is explicit and ultron is an incel horny for scarlet witch and then it's origins and ultimatum I'm ready
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Apr 2, 2019 17:59
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site posted:I just read the hulk annual by loeb where zarda fights hulk because he's not wearing pants and ends with them loving, now reading ultimates 3 where the incest is explicit and ultron is an incel horny for scarlet witch and then it's origins and ultimatum Honestly while Ultimatum is really bad, I think both that annual and Ultimates 3 are worse.
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Apr 2, 2019 18:02
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X-O posted:Honestly while Ultimatum is really bad, I think both that annual and Ultimates 3 are worse. You would think, but Site still has Ultimate Comics: Avengers to read and Millar transcends Loeb.
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Apr 2, 2019 18:20
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Mr Hootington posted:You would think, but Site still has Ultimate Comics: Avengers to read and Millar transcends Loeb. Eh, I don't think it's worse than Ultimates 3. I mean the Black Hulk one is bad sure, but it's not Ultimates 3 bad. And then there's the absolute worst book in the Ultimate line in my opinion and that's Ultimate Power. Nothing offensively bad, just an awful story with awful art that wastes what could have been a fun crossover.
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Apr 2, 2019 18:29
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X-O posted:Eh, I don't think it's worse than Ultimates 3. I mean the Black Hulk one is bad sure, but it's not Ultimates 3 bad. And then there's the absolute worst book in the Ultimate line in my opinion and that's Ultimate Power. Nothing offensively bad, just an awful story with awful art that wastes what could have been a fun crossover. It's hard to meet you halfway on that one, man. Ultimate Power is a sunny little piece of nothing that's mostly relevant now as an itemized list of why someone might not care for Greg Land's art. There's nothing in it as purely wrong-headed as, say, Blob eating Wasp.
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Apr 2, 2019 18:37
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Rhyno posted:Loeb's early Batman works are wonderful, as were the early color books from Marvel. Then Sam died and he spiraled. He fell hard and far and I said some horrible poo poo about him over the years. But man, his Nova arc. It was so good and you can tell he'd finally processed his grief. I don't know what all he has written since but he's definitely healed. This right here. Anything between the end of Superman/Batman and Nova was bad, and felt like he was just trying to keep himself busy. He knocked that first arc of Nova out of the park, and then moved to his television role. Loeb’s good books always had a lot of heart, and were like little tours of the character, emphasizing their supporting cast and rogues gallery. Hush isn’t the best, but Jim Lee brought his A game, and got to draw every major Batman villain. The Catwoman romance was woefully underutilized in the pre Tom King era.
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Apr 2, 2019 18:37
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X-O posted:Honestly while Ultimatum is really bad, I think both that annual and Ultimates 3 are worse. I still remember how just... so touched Wasp is by the fact Wanda and Pietro are doing it. "They're... in love, Steve," she says, hand on heart like it's a basket of puppies or something.
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Apr 2, 2019 18:38
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X-O posted:Eh, I don't think it's worse than Ultimates 3. I mean the Black Hulk one is bad sure, but it's not Ultimates 3 bad. And then there's the absolute worst book in the Ultimate line in my opinion and that's Ultimate Power. Nothing offensively bad, just an awful story with awful art that wastes what could have been a fun crossover. Yeah fury had been an rear end in a top hat constantly through the ultimate line, but having him go literally Dr doom and just shrug off killing millions in Power was way too much imo, esp since he's back in 1610 and running things within like a year And of course, as mentioned, Greg land tracing women having orgasms for the art to an absurd degree
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Apr 2, 2019 18:42
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Loeb was like a sunnier, less cynical version of Mark Millar when he first 'hit it big'. Putting aside the kind of mysterious wilderness years between guy in the mid-1980s who sold several pretty big screenplays (Commando, Teen Wolf, okay also Burglar) and then didn't really do anything in Hollywood for the next 15 years, he came to prominence in the late 1990s when everyone was bringing back the worship of The Classics as a tonic against Image and Bomber Jacket Avengers/FF and Azrael and Mullet Superman and etc. etc. etc. This was the period where Mark Waid and Kurt Busiek (both way better writers than Loeb I think) were doing stuff like Kingdom Come and Marvels and Untold Tales of Spider-Man and etc. Loeb's big books in the 1990s/early 2000s were: 1. A murder mystery where Batman encounters all of your favorite villains 2. Another murder mystery where Batman (and Robin!) encounter all of your favorite villains 3. Let's do a classy movie style retelling of Superman's origin! 4. Let's do a classy movie style retelling of Spider-Man's origin! And Hulk's! And Daredevil's! 5. ANOTHER murder mystery where Batman (and Robin! and the other Robins! and Superman!) encounter all of your favorite villains Loeb (like Millar) ends up working with a lot of talented artists, though where Millar's hook is (was?) that he splits the licensing of all of the books and their pre-greenlit movie money with the artists 50/50, Loeb's thing is essentially the promise that you'll get to draw big iconic characters doing big iconic stuff and just sort of draw whatever you want. I see why this is appealing, but it's also a big part of why a lot of his stories -- especially the later ones -- a incoherent, because when asked about them Loeb frequently goes "well you know, the artist wanted to draw all of the Defenders in their 1970s costumes, and also wanted to draw some dinosaurs, and then the dinosaurs became tanks because the new artist wanted to draw a bunch of military hardware, and he likes doing big splash pages, so you know..." He also has the storytelling sense of Michael Bay, I think my favorite Loeb quotes that sort of summarize his storytelling philosophy (and I'm paraphrasing here, they were on Word Balloon podcasts) 1. "Geoff Johns was talking to me about his run on Justice Society and kept telling me how he was setting something up that would pay off huge in the third issue, and in the sixth issues, and in the twelfth issue and I just sighed and asked him "but Geoff, why can't you give the fans all those payoffs in the first issue? And he didn't have an answer for that." 2. "If you're an A-List author it doesn't make sense for you to waste your time with C-List characters. I would never waste my time writing a Luke Cage book, which is what separates me from guys like [Bendis]. Brian said he was sure I could write a great Luke Cage book and I thought about it, and I could, but it would have to be Luke Cage and Iron Fist on the run, and they're being tracked by Spider-Man and Captain America and the Avengers, and the Punisher, and Wolverine, and each issue they try to figure out if Kingpin or Doctor Doom or Magneto or Red Skull framed them, and it would have to be twelve issues or less because why make people read anything longer to get the reveal?" Also the "sunnier version of Millar" thing wore off when he sort of saw how the winds were blowing and went from Silver Age Circlejerk into full on "hey guys, every villain eats people now, and probably rapes them first, and heroes like to torture and incest. This is what the kids are into these days, right?" 2000 Edginess.
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Apr 2, 2019 18:43
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How was Jeph Loeb's X-Force? Nobody really talks about it but then again nobody really talks about any of 90s X-Force after Rob left.
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Apr 2, 2019 19:02
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Alaois posted:How was Jeph Loeb's X-Force? Nobody really talks about it but then again nobody really talks about any of 90s X-Force after Rob left. At the time, it was my favorite X title. I loved the goofy Askani lore Loeb was building across XF and Cable, he was doing fun stuff with the whole team. Like every single member had ongoing subplots to flesh out their lives, something you rarely see anymore. Adam Polina's artwork was really nice back then as well.
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Apr 2, 2019 19:13
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Jeph Loeb's Xforce is pretty good taking in what a mess the X-men line was in those years. Still don't know why he wrote Caliban like he did though
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Apr 2, 2019 20:52
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Did Loeb write them going to Marvel's version of Burning Man or was the guy after?
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Apr 2, 2019 21:57
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I thought Loeb’s X-Man was the best part of Age of Apocalypse as a kid.
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Apr 2, 2019 22:13
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His continued series post AoA was such a mess.
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Apr 2, 2019 22:16
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Dawgstar posted:I still remember how just... so touched Wasp is by the fact Wanda and Pietro are doing it. "They're... in love, Steve," she says, hand on heart like it's a basket of puppies or something. I remember that and specifically where she tells Cap "it's just your 1941 brain not understanding" as though now in our enlightened culture we've become totally cool with incest and he's the one with the problem.
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Apr 2, 2019 23:00
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okay just finished ultimatum and yeah while killing off janet was bad, and doing it the way they did was particularly mean spirited and lovely, on the whole i'd have to agree ultimates 3 was worse. may be tied with power but it doesnt have the land art soooo
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Apr 2, 2019 23:02
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Dawgstar posted:Did Loeb write them going to Marvel's version of Burning Man or was the guy after? Loeb wrote X-Force basically from after Age of Apocalypse to Onslaught, at which point he left the X-Office to focus on making Rob Liefeld's Captain America and Avengers books the legends that they were.
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Apr 2, 2019 23:39
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Didn’t Loeb write that Red Hulk run where he was explicitly sexist and beat up a ton of female heroes (who just inexplciably started grouping up together) for no reason other than he was sexist? And that one run where he had him act like such an unlikeable dick that the next writer on the book spent arcs just giving Rulk his comeuppance for it? I might be mashing some stuff together in my brain there but I remember Loeb touching Hulk books being a particularly bad time. Nilbop fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Apr 3, 2019 |
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Apr 3, 2019 01:24
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so, lol that the red skull is apparently steve's kid in the ultimate line
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Apr 3, 2019 02:24
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Nilbop posted:Didn’t Loeb write that Red Hulk run where he was explicitly sexist and beat up a ton of female heroes (who just inexplciably started grouping up together) for no reason other than he was sexist? And that one run where he had him act like such an unlikeable dick that the next writer on the book spent arcs just giving Rulk his comeuppance for it? It was fall 2005 and Marvel was having one of its Creators Summits in NYC and Mark Millar for whatever reason invited everyone on his message board to a bar in midtown Manhattan after the summit. They were planning the Big Event of 2006 and Jeph Loeb and JMS were pushing really hard for it to be World War Hulk, with the Hulk being shot into space but then conquering all of space and coming back to Earth with every alien race in the history of the Marvel Universe as his soldiers. It was going to be a big event that focused on like the X-Men vs. the Shiar, Daredevil vs. the Badoon, Spider-Man vs. the Galadorians, Thor vs. the Saturn Rock Men, Iron Man vs. the Rigellians, etc. etc. As various Marvel creators filtered in, everyone who wasn't Loeb (who was there) and JMS (who I don't think came) was talking poo poo about how this was going to be a boring continuity porn event because who really cares about excavating an alien race that Namor fought in 1966 and making a four issue mini-series about the Thunderbolts saving Australia from them. Mark Millar and Brian Michael Bendis convened the next morning and pieced together the plot for Civil War and counter-pitched that, at which point Loeb/JMS lost all interest in doing World War Hulk as a lesser non-event, and abandoned the idea. But Millar/Bendis had plotted out the whole Civil War/Illuminati/etc. arc with Hulk shot into space so someone needed to do it, and so the whole Planet Hulk gig trickled down to Greg Pak, who had at that point written a handful of incredibly superfluous mini-series (a 2004 Warlock revamp, Phoenix Endsong, Nemesis: The Imperfects, a House of M tie-in, an issue of What If). Pak and his art collaborators managed to turn Planet Hulk into an actually popular series, and World War Hulk turned into its own little mini-event helmed by Pak in 2008. This was the point that Jeph Loeb walked back in and decided that his A-List talents were worthy of Hulk again, and snatched the book from Pak. Never mind that Pak had written the first actually popular Hulk story in like a decade, and turned a discarded idea into an bonafide hit, Loeb saw that Hulk was a popular book suddenly and was therefore worthy of the Jeph Loeb Magic Touch. This came hot on the heels of Ed Brubaker and company taking Captain America from a C-list book into another hot book with the whole Winter Soldier storyline, once that reached its first big crescendo with the Death of Captain America and Bucky taking over as Cap, Loeb suddenly found himself interested in writing a big event mini-series about everyone coping with Captain America's death (guest starring Wolverine, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, etc.) that amongst other things took the stirring eulogy for Steve Rogers that Ed Brubaker deliberately left out of his Captain America comic and recycled Jeph Loeb's eulogy for his deceased son having Anyway, Greg Pak was shunted off to a Hercules series while Jeph Loeb turned Hulk into a Murder Mystery that guest-starred Iron Man, Thor, Sentry/Moon Knight as Superman/Batman, Galactus, Silver Surfer, the Avengers,She-Hulk, Storm, Black Widow, Spider-Woman, Spider-Man, the Defenders, Wolverine, Punisher, Deadpool, Elektra, Doctor Doom, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Black Panther, etc. etc. etc. because that's the only way that Jeph Loeb knows how to tell a story. And then yes, at the end of his run Loeb revealed that Red Hulk was Thunderbolt Ross (and Red She-Hulk was Betty Ross) in all defiance of logic or continuity, at which point Jeff Parker wrote another two years of the book trying to make coherent sense of the previous 25 issues. Also I cannot remember all of the details of who was at the Marvel Bar Meet-Up a decade later, in part because some dude from Wizard kept buying all of us shots, but the end of the evening definitely involved CB Cebulski/Akira Yoshida trying to convince me and Garth Ennis and the last people standing that we should all go to strip club. Edge & Christian fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Apr 3, 2019 |
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Apr 3, 2019 05:14
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I just remember people got real mad when he had Rulk grab Thor, jump into space, and then wield Mjolnir because oops no gravity means it can't get stuck on the ground and be super-heavy. Which... makes sense, but is still also kinda dumb.
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Apr 3, 2019 05:35
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The other absolutely perfect Loeb thing from a WordBalloon after the Red Hulk reveal was him getting really pissy and defensive about how if people are mad that Thunderbolt Ross has a mustache as a regular human and then no mustache when he's the Hulk is to go "well if you're mad at me I suggest you write an angry letter to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, because Ben Grimm has hair when he's a human and no hair when he's the Thing. Maybe they're hacks and they're stupid and you want to curse the name of Jack Kirby, but he drew Ben Grimm with hair and the Thing with no hair. So if you want to be mad at me, you'd better be mad at The King Jack Kirby." "But Bruce Banner has had a shaved head as a human and then was bald as the Hulk, or he grew a beard as a human and had a beard as the Hulk?" "ARE YOU SAYING JACK KIRBY SUCKS? IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO TELL ME?"
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Apr 3, 2019 05:49
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Getting drunk in a bar and talking about comics with Mark Millar and Brian Bendis right before Civil War was actually written would have been the best thing ever. Also, while I know they are basically knock offs of Superman and Batman, using Sentry and Moon Knight as stand ins for them directly is such a dumb concept I almost want to read Red Hulk (almost).
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Apr 3, 2019 06:01
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Edge & Christian posted:No, that is a pretty classic Loeb story too that I was a Zelig for. This is so drat fascinating and explains a lot. Illuminati were such MASSIVE assholes, I was rooting for Hulk to literally punch Tony into the Sun for doing what they did to Bruce.
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Apr 3, 2019 06:57
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TwoPair posted:I remember that and specifically where she tells Cap "it's just your 1941 brain not understanding" as though now in our enlightened culture we've become totally cool with incest and he's the one with the problem. You go to the Supernatural fandom (or just certain parts of the internet) and you'll find people who are totally cool with that.
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Apr 3, 2019 08:16
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Jiro posted:This is so drat fascinating and explains a lot. Illuminati were such MASSIVE assholes, I was rooting for Hulk to literally punch Tony into the Sun for doing what they did to Bruce. I remember posting on places like Herochat and CBR's forums at the time. And there were a lot of people who felt that way. All throughout the run on Planet Hulk people were like "this story rocks! But I can't wait for Hulk to get back to Earth and smash the Illuminati!!!" Then the previews to World War Hulk and Planet Hulk ends with that pure van art shot of Hulk on a stone ship flying through space with a huge sword and people were like  "Let the Smashing begin!!! Then they read World War Hulk and the overwhelming response was... "But the heroes are saving people. And Hulk and his army are wrecking New York. And when I see the Illuminati getting smashed , I am not enjoying it!  This violence was supposed to be righteous anger. Instead I'm just left with the feeling that violence and anger are ugly, destructive things. This is not what I'm supposed to be getting from my superhero stories!! "It was an interesting thing to see play out at the time.
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Apr 3, 2019 08:31
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Jiro posted:This is so drat fascinating and explains a lot. Illuminati were such MASSIVE assholes, I was rooting for Hulk to literally punch Tony into the Sun for doing what they did to Bruce. I remember one of the things Dwayne McDuffie did when he came on FF was try and give some context to why Reed - who already has his moments - played that way. Sadly he got kicked off the book because Millar decided he wanted to write the FF with Hitch drawing and make it a BIG EVENT book and blah blah blah.
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Apr 3, 2019 14:28
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Right, didn't he come up with the Foundation-esque motivation for Reed Richards being pro-Registration after that awful issue somewhere else where Reed just talks about how his uncle was wrong to not testify before HUAC?
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Apr 3, 2019 14:39
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Yeah, essentially Dwayne had Reed do the Reed thing of listening to the numbers over his heart.
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Apr 3, 2019 15:04
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I'm here for TNC putting together a new covert ops A-Force team
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Apr 3, 2019 15:58
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site posted:I'm here for TNC putting together a new covert ops A-Force team Is this in his Captain America? Is America Chavez there?
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Apr 3, 2019 18:04
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yeah this is in cap. im not entirely sure who the whole crew is, but the ones i can identify are natasha, jessica drew, bobbi morse, sue storm, toni ho, misty knight, uhh whoever the white tiger is (i think), and then a couple others i dont readily recognize
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Apr 3, 2019 18:20
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