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Lee thought he struck gold with the handsome, cool teen, but the public wanted the morose, neurotic teen.
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Mar 28, 2020 16:32
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Random Stranger posted:09876Strange Tales +-* Amazing that the one character beloved by fans wasn't the flashy Playboy that all the girls want, but the ugly, depressed guy with a heart of gold.
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Mar 28, 2020 16:34
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https://twitter.com/TomTaylorMade/status/1243935227325497344
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Mar 28, 2020 17:28
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Do we know if the Big Two will still be doing digital releases on Wednesday?
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Mar 28, 2020 20:20
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https://twitter.com/f_francavilla/status/1244008802845962240?s=20
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Mar 28, 2020 22:11
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From that amazing thread https://twitter.com/andykhouri/status/1243684304141422593?s=20
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Mar 28, 2020 22:28
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January 1996's Extreme books are a nine part crossover so this is going to be "fun". Something to mention is that Dan Fraga, an artist who has been penciling about a book a month for Extreme/Maximum for a while in my readings, just had a Extreme Destroyer Prologue - The credits page on this one promise me a trainwreck. Story by Liefeld and Eric Stephenson, script by Jim Valentino, pencils by seven people though Rob Liefeld gets his name in a bigger font, inks by six people. A fleet of alien vessels has surrounded the Earth. The aliens are the Keep, the ones that the NewMen were supposedly training to fight but were actually being prepared to serve even though we never saw any indication that they were being prepared for anything. Shepherd, golden cosmic powered guy, flies around the world commenting on how insignificant humanity is. Glory, Shaft, and a bunch of normal people have all been abducted by aliens off panel. They're shoved into a room with a general assortment of Extreme super characters and the aliens say that the abductees are "nu gene chattel". Glory mentions that the amazons and all the gods were seeded by the keep making them all nu gene positive, while Shaft is really angry at the implication that he has the nu gene. Cabbot and Battlestone are pulled out of the group for not belonging and someone says that's because they're zombies rather than nu genes, overlooking the fact that their dad is Meanwhile down on Earth, Youngblood and the former Bloodpool have been gathered to address the crisis. At the UN, a vampire addresses the general assembly about who the Keep are. Mythical creatures like vampires, fairies, and dragons were previous Keep experiments who were harvested. The Extreme Warrior, super merc not seen since he was the hot new villain of Extreme Prejudice two years ago, is fleeing the Keep trying to find help. Shepherd talks to his There's an announcement from Imperiator, boss of the Keep, who says they just want the nu gene people and if anybody interferes then they kill the planet. This makes the UN freak out at the vampire, but apparently nobody is going, "We hate those In the hands of a better comic book company, this wouldn't be a bad set up. The problem is that none of the groundwork has been laid for the interesting aspects of it because Extreme Studios relies on the characters and situations being cargo cult versions of other popular things. The nu gene was supposed to be their mutants but after a very brief moment where they were introduced, we haven't seen anything about "a world that hates and fears them". There should be people going, "Don't let the alien ship's airlock door hit you in the rear end on your way out," to them. That should be the central conflict here, but the NuMen have been so bungled that it can't happen even if they try it. There's also no demonstration of the Keep's power. They've got a hundred spaceships, but so what? Why can't Supreme just fly through all of them and end this in a second? People are freaking out at just the ships, with no real threat until the end of the comic. But the writing crew are following story beats that are in other stories, rather than building their own version of the story. And that ending is a weird beat. MaxiMage has had one appearance so far and she was a scared homeless runaway until the last three pages of that comic. So having her show up and say, "I'm going to lead you into kicking some alien rear end!" doesn't carry any weight. The crossover goes into her second issue next so maybe she does something or makes some discovery there... MaxiMage #2 - So what we know so far is that the weird guy who turned the woman into MaxiMage dealt with the Keep hundreds of thousands of years ago, and MaxiMage got hauled up into the sky to see the ships coming down. That's where we left off last issue. My first reaction was, "Hey, this script actually seems to be okay-ish and actually take into account all the things I thought they were going to gloss over like MaxiMage being a nobody who showed up at Youngblood and tried to take charge." I went back to double check the credits and the plot is a Liefeld/Stephenson joint again, but the script is by William Messner-Loebs. Just last night I was thinking I needed to read his Wonder Woman run and now I definitely think I'm going to do that. MaxiMage is using her cosmic awareness to know all about the people gathered at Youngblood headquarters; no, we were never told that she had cosmic awareness, she just does now. She tries to act like she's tough and in command of the situation, but Die Hard just wants to know how she got into their base. Probe, the woman who thought she was Supreme but is actually one of his daughters from the future in her brother's body which has mysteriously changed to look like her original body, knows who MaxiMage is since she's famous in the future for saving the world. And now I'm sorry I praised the script: Badrock posted:And it especially don't make sense that Supreme's turned into a chick who claims to read the future! Supreme's a middle-aged guy... even if he's in a chick suit! That's not the end of it, either. If I was feeling generous I'd say it was intended to be Badrock being a shithead, but since nobody addresses it I'm going with just some out in the open transphobia. The weird guy who activated MaxiMage is checking in with other characters and offering to teach them more. Kid Supreme and the Extreme Warrior are his recruits and the Warrior finds a crashed space ship. In a hidden facility below the Hexagon (it's definitely not the Pentagon), Combat is being held prisoner. He gets released because nobody know he was down there except the devil and Die Hard who had been programmed not to say anything. Turns out that the Combat who has made all of the other appearances so far was a clone, so the Combat that got taken a few issues of Youngblood ago was the only Combat we've ever seen before and not a new clone like it was implied. Combat agrees to help despite being locked up for years because he's scared of the Keep. Shepherd appears above the Hexagon and MaxiMage goes out to fight him despite never using her abilities before. She gets into a zap fight with him where she his Shepherd over and over again. That does nothing and he hits her once. Then MaxiMage teleports away. With the resistance over, Shepherd sets the sky on fire. NewMan #1 - Oh god, no! Not a different NewMen spin off! From the cover, NewMan is a guy who had a one page subplot in the last issue of NewMen where he flew down from the sky and that was it. The cover also tells me that he has Luke Skywalker's original lightsabre. In the year 2080, NewMan is eighty years old and recounting his life. At some point he fought Neil Gaiman's (and definitely not Todd McFarlane's) Angela, Youngblood's Photon (who's conspicuously missing in this crossover), Demon Lord Chapel, and the WildC.A.T.s. Apparently he worked for the Keep or maybe against the Keep; it's kind of confusing at first since he talks like he's avoiding them in the narration but Shepherd thinks that NewMan was sent by the Keep when he appears. NewMan says he sent MaxiMage away and threatens to kill Shepherd if Shepherd won't talk to him. They vanish from Youngblood's screens so Youngblood starts arguing about what they're going to do. Then NewMan appears in their headquarters and gives pretty much the exact same line that MaxiMage did when she appeared in their headquarters. Youngblood attacks and NewMan effortlessly beats them all in one panel a piece demonstrating what a cool new character NewMan is and how when he's not around we should all be going, "Where's NewMan?" That's sufficient to get Youngblood on his side. Elsewhere, MaxiMage appears in the bar where Chapel is hanging out and she recruits him because another generic guy with a gun will definitely tip the balance here. On a Keep ship, the NewMen are reuinited and Kodiak has gone a bit feral. We get some Keep backstory now about how they come from a rocky planet bigger than Jupiter that existed in the universe that preceded the current one. They liked tech better than nature because that's an either/or proposition and that led them to make nu genes and collect them as slaves. No reason why is given, just accept it. Despite being thousands of years old, Troll has never noticed the Keep coming before. With this deep backstory provided (seriously, my summary covers all of the information given), NewMan is ready to implement his plan to destroy the Keep's technology from the inside. The flashback conceit in the storytelling is really annoying and I suspect it's going to continue for the rest of this series. It also means that none of the timeline makes any sense and I was expecting them to get around to sorting that out, but they've skipped right over it. You can't drop that many contradictions in and then not even go, "Oh, there's a reason for this." I don't have any reason to trust that the story will sort itself out (and Extreme has given me lots of reasons to think that it won't). Youngblood #4 - Vogue is collapsing under the enormity of the Babewatch crossover and this crossover and has gone off to cry like the woman. She's also worried about her relationship with Die Hard; since nothing has been seen about it for nearly two years she's concerned that he might be getting more distant. The group is interrupted by Mr. Dredd, who might be a government official but probably not a judge, because he's concerned about the current situation. On the spaceship, Cougar is one of the prisoners so his abilities are not due to him being half-human, half-half-cat-half-human. Cougar gives an inspiring speech to raise Shaft's spirits, but Shaft is broken by his nearly three hours of imprisonment. Elemental and Girth, NewMen villains, have their own plan since Elemental has a teleporter on him capable of getting two people out there. Back on Earth, Chapel and the Extreme Warrior are searching the crashed spaceship and there's no Keep survivors. There is, however, Battlestone and Cabbot locked up in pods. We also find out that The Youngblood raiding party is teleported up to the Keep ship. Vogue spends the time walking through empty corridors being worried about her relationship. They're finally attacked by the New Guard and the fight takes place in two double page spreads that are very poorly drawn. They might be losing, though. Something that occurred to me in this issue, in Vogue's miniseries they said that she's a nu gene carrier and that's why the superpower machine worked on her. In this crossover, she doesn't have the nu gene since she isn't abducted by the Keep. So it only took them one month to forget that plot point which I thought was setting something up for this crossover... We're reaching the halfway point in the crossover and I'm impressed at how inactive the villains are. They still have not done anything. If all of the actions they were going to do in this crossover is abduct people, then why has that not been the focus of the crossover? They don't feel like a threat because all they do is sit there. Glory #9 - Another familiar name popped up in the credits here: Ed Benes penciled some of this issue as part of "Deodata Studios". It's not quite his earliest work, he had penciled the Gunfire series at DC at this point, but it is pretty early in his career. Moments after the Babewatch crossover was resolved. Glory's mother fills her in on the secret origins of the amazons: they're all Over at that fight, Vogue says, "Things aren't looking good for the home team!" because they're losing, apparently not aware that Youngblood are the away team since they're invading the spacecraft. Shepherd joins the fight and finishes off the Youngbloods. But one of the New Guard went missing in the fight, Black Jack whose homeworld was Earth. The New Guard come in to take Glory away, she fights back as Shaft sits around not doing anything and the aliens overpower her. Then they haul her off to be branded. Dash of the New Men is also being prepared for branding as she gripes about it. Shepherd tells her that she'll get used to being a slave and Dash thinks about how noble Shepherd would be if not for all this slavery stuff. Vandal and Rumble are just hanging out while waiting for Glory to come back. Rumble disappears in the middle of this since he's another nu gene character. That's the cue for Super-Patriot to come in and say, "Hey, wanna go hang out with Youngblood?" and Vandal goes, "Yeah, let me get a shirt on." Dutch gets recruited by MaxiMage to drive from the US to Peru and pick up Chapel. Colonel Bravo, who still has the Cable cybernetic eye, hairstyle, and clothes but has lost the cybernetic left arm so there's definitely no reason for Marvel to sue, is watching events unfold in the distant future and he thinks the past is going to change the future so he has to go back in time to change the past and keep the future. Poor Glory is completely overwhelmed in her own book by this crossover. She's barely in this book and she doesn't get to do a whole lot. It really feels like a lot of wheel spinning is happening here. Knightstrike #1 - Oh boy, just what I wanted. A hero team consisting of all of the identical hardcore mercs with big guns. It's like they built a team out of every character I found to be the most boring. Dutch is still traveling with the widow of the guy he's accused of murdering (remember that plotline? I know it's been six months with absolutely no forward momentum in it but it's still going on). They're at the spaceship in Peru and Marla says she wants to wrap up the alien invasion quick so they can get Battlestone for killing her husband. That's the first time that's been mentioned. A time portal opens and Bravo and Link emerge on their flying motorcycles, Bravo has his cybernetic left arm back so Marvel's lawyers can get back to work. Bravo brings Dutch to the rest of the team: Chapel, Cabbot, Blonde Guy, and Battlestone. At the Non-Equilateral Pentagon, Kid Supreme is spoiling for a fight, MaxiMage is happy the team is coming together, and Probe is getting dressed down for not being around at the Shepherd fight. That's when there's an enormous attack of hundreds of ships filling the skies, bombarding the city in an incredible orgy of destruction!... off screen because everyone is reacting to these events unfolding on completely blank monitors. Probe and Vanguard head out to fight the aliens. Back at the crashed spaceship, Dutch and Battlestone get into a brawl and Battlestone has to be held back by two Blonde Guys, one of whom was definitely not there before and I think is a very badly misdrawn Cabbot. The ship starts to take off and flies back to the mothership on autopilot. Dash is returned to the NewMen who want to know what the mark on her is. This brand is especially amazing because it's completely invisible to the reader. There's some mind control involved as well as Dash tells the NewMen that they should be thrilled to be there and join the Keep's side. Then she goes off to meet with Shepherd while Byrd is upset because Dash is definitely in love with Shepherd. On the ship, the Generic Mercs come out guns blazing and effortlessly kill all the Keep soldiers there. MaxiMage contacts them and says they're there to free someone, so they all split up to go free prisoners. Marla follows Battlestone planning to shoot him in the back. As Battlestone is about to head through some guards, Probe punches her way through the ship blowing out the atmosphere. But the hole is plugged by The art in this comic is especially notable for everybody being badly off model. There's a lot of "Wait, who's that?" situations in this comic. I still don't know who Blonde Guy is, they just vanish halfway through the book and never have a line (it had to have been the Extreme Warrior looking completely different from previous issues). Supreme #35 - This issue is Extreme Destroyer Part 7, Changes Part 3. Apparently the Supreme storyline is trying to integrate multiple crossovers into it. There's another one next month, too, and I don't know if that's Changes Part 4... The figure floating in space after smashing through a Keep mothership has changed her mind. She is Supreme after all: Lady Supreme. She heads back to smash the ship up some more and is blasted by Shepherd in an amazingly bad panel. It looks like he shot her top off and Lady Supreme only has one breast, the right one. It's a real, "What the gently caress is this?" panel. Spoke too soon, when I turned the page Shepherd did shoot her top off, though she's drawn with two breasts on that page. The other half of the Youngblood team teleport to D.O.C.C., Prophet's Brother Eye. NewMan talks to Dr. Wells on a screen to try to recruit Prophet. NewMan has been using D.O.C.C. for teleportation and keeping the Keep from detecting it, so Wells sends Prophet to aid them. They teleport over to the Keep ship and effortlessly free the imprisoned heroes. In other recruitment news, Quantum says he's still going to try to take over the world, but for the moment he'll help out with the Keep. Quantum frees the captured Youngblood and sends them back to Earth by magnetically building them a spaceship. Shepherd knew Old Supreme so he's mad at Lady Supreme for claiming to be Supreme. Lady Supreme tries to lay a mind whammy on Shepherd and Shepherd just knocks her out. Back on Earth, Rapist from the NewMen survived being willed to death by Shepherd on panel with only a slightly stiff neck and is back at their cabin with the vampire. Exit suddenly shows up and tells him that there's another downed ship. The rest of the NewMen are plotting their own escape from the Keep, but Byrd thinks he wants to stay with them. There's six pages of Supreme content in this issue of Supreme. I'm going to take a stand here and say crossovers like this, especially ones from the 90's, are bad. NewForce #1 - "Well, at least in the relaunched NewMen book, Rapist won't be in it," I said when I reached that last issue of NewMen. gently caress you, Eric Stephenson. Rapist, Exit, Fade, and that vampire are combing through the wrecking of a crashed Keep ship, looking for a way to go rescue the NewMen. But on an alien ship, the NewMen are arguing with Byrd that they should fight back. Byrd has got to be with Dash, though. Listening in on the argument is Sundance, a firy elf woman member of the New Guard who thinks about how if she had a second chance she wouldn't choose to be a slave. Shepherd comes in to get Dash but Dash is already gone. She's been taken by another of the New Guard who is trying to talk her out of being brainwashed with reasoned arguments. The brand is on Dash's face now, a line across an eye placed there by coloring effect rather than penciled in. Dash isn't having it, she wants Shepherd more than anything. The New Guard arguing with her takes his mask off to show her what has happened and Dash is horrified by something. The New Guard come to the cell because they're going to brand another of the NewMen. Which one will it be? If you guessed the only other female member of the team, congratulations for getting into the heads of Extreme Studios. Pilot was branded years before, though that just raises questions. While Bootleg is struggling to get away, a portal opens and the group from Earth emerges. Rapist somehow put the image of this room in Exit's head so he could teleport there. They effortlessly overpower the New Guard and Shepherd takes off running so he can find Dash. Dash finds him first and takes his staff away. While down on earth, all of the heroes are back and ready to fight alien ships. So the guy trying to talk Dash out of being brainwashed might be Black Jack Banning. But here's the thing, in a previous comic they mentioned him vanishing with the fight and there was another character who looked exactly the same that was there. They're saying, "Where could he be?" and the guy with the black face mask and body suit was standing right there with them. So I thought, "Oh, Black Jack is a different character." Given what a mess this is, I think it's an art mistake in the previous comic but who knows. Extreme Destroyer Epilogue - I'm at the end of this mess. Who will triumph? Will nothing ever be the same again? An army of Die Hard bots have been sent against the Keep as we get a recap that tells me a lot of things that weren't in the comics. There's been this guy in a green cloak kind of at the edges of scenes who talked to We get a lot of one or two panel bits of every single Extreme Studios character defeating aliens (who are not drawn on panel) or blowing up a ship. Out in space at the NewMen fight, they're effortlessly beating the New Guard. Dash is so horny for Shepherd while holding his cosmic rod that it triggers "the great change" in her: get becomes naked and covered in golden metal. And then they start making out. The ship starts crashing and the remaining New Guard minus an executed Black Jack and an attempting to change sides Sundance run off to try to save the computer that runs it. On Earth, Marla tries to shoot Battlestone in the back and Extreme Warrior takes the bullet for him. As they're standing over the dead warrior, a missile comes flying in and Cabbot takes the bullet for them. Battlestone says that his brother was a "good solder" as he looks stoically into the distance and a single tear rolls down his cheek. So this would be the second time that Cabbot has died in one of these crossovers. Dash makes an impassioned plea to Shepherd to turn against the Keep for the sake of their love. "What love?" you ask. Well, the love that Dash grew while she was being brainwashed, of course. Turns out Communion didn't matter at all since he (she?) is killed by Finally, Glory tells Shaft to get over himself and ends the plotline about Shaft's self-loathing over having the nu gene. So Dash doesn't just get Avengers #200'ed, she gets Avengers #200'ed twice. At least this time her rapist isn't living with her. I seriously do not know what they were thinking by trying to present Dash and Shepherd as romantic. There were four panels about it before they started making out in this issue and all of them were pretty heavily implied to have some brainwashing involved. It's pretty terrible. Edit: I was trying to work out the reading order of the next month's Extreme books, flipped open to page one of one of the comics, and immediately went, "Oooooooh nooooooooo." It's going to be a bad one. Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Mar 28, 2020 |
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Mar 28, 2020 22:31
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Random Stranger posted:NewForce #1 wait so they had a series called NewMen and followed it up with a series called NewForce? rob liefeld rules, extreme studios owns they didn't give a gently caress
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Mar 28, 2020 23:27
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DC Comics posted:To Direct Market retailers:
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Mar 28, 2020 23:29
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Man, if the 'rona kills Diamond, that's at least one positive out of this.
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Mar 28, 2020 23:42
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FilthyImp posted:From that amazing thread Breyfogle is my number one underrated Batman artist. Dudes use of angles and motion were unparalleled.
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Mar 29, 2020 00:05
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Here's some very  free reading for you:https://twitter.com/stjepansejic/status/1242668710697021442?s=21
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Mar 29, 2020 00:22
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Doctor Spaceman posted:(DC Memo) Does DC have a CEO? Whose making these choices?
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Mar 29, 2020 03:51
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lifg posted:Does DC have a CEO? Whose making these choices? DC is owned by Warners outright so they don't have a CEO. They do have a publisher who makes the final decisions on these things. Until a few weeks ago that position was actually split by Dan DiDio and Jim Lee, but DiDio was fired so...
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Mar 29, 2020 04:48
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Everyone please be safe and exercise good judgement. I have likely been exposed via a coworker. I'm not panicking, I'm very healthy and in good shape these days. I have no pre existing conditions that would make me more likely to be more vulnerable. I don't even know if I have been exposed but I spent the afternoon calling and messaging my family to keep them informed and warn them if I'd seen them recently. Please be safe. Wash your hands, stay at home.
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Mar 29, 2020 07:40
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Rhyno posted:Everyone please be safe and exercise good judgement. Be well, friend. 
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Mar 29, 2020 07:45
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https://twitter.com/ErikJLarsen/status/1244019356297658371?s=20 How does he not have any of his own art on his walls? No Savage Dragon or something from his early Spider-Man? Wikipedia says he's married with two kids, he never drew any of them?
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Mar 29, 2020 09:40
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Skwirl posted:https://twitter.com/ErikJLarsen/status/1244019356297658371?s=20 He probably has plenty of his art in his house, it's probably just all in storage rather than sitting out in the open
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Mar 29, 2020 09:47
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Rhyno posted:Everyone please be safe and exercise good judgement.
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Mar 29, 2020 09:47
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FilthyImp posted:poo poo man. Take care of yerself. Working on it. Thank you. Also didn't Erik Larsen have a really bad house fire?
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Mar 29, 2020 09:48
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drrockso20 posted:He probably has plenty of his art in his house, it's probably just all in storage rather than sitting out in the open He's been making comics for over thirty years, I've never heard of anyone in a creative field who doesn't have at least one piece of their own work, or a representation of it, hanging up on their walls. I don't think he should be making a shrine to himself or anything but it seems really weird he doesn't have the cover of Savage Dragon #1 up or something.
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Mar 29, 2020 09:59
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Rhyno posted:Working on it. Thank you. That was before the mini series even launched. It means he lost all of the books and art he did as a kid, but I think he has everything since. On the kayfabe episode I linked here last week they talk about Larsen not selling much of his original art. Also, fingers crossed that you weren’t infected Rhyno. And everyone.
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Mar 29, 2020 14:14
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Rhyno posted:Everyone please be safe and exercise good judgement. Stay safe and remember to socially distance yourself but posting on this forum to let us know how you are doing
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Mar 29, 2020 16:22
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I don't want any of Erik Larsen's art on my walls either, so I totally understand where he's coming from.
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Mar 29, 2020 16:45
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Skwirl posted:https://twitter.com/ErikJLarsen/status/1244019356297658371?s=20 You'd think his wife would've put some of his art on the fridge.
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Mar 29, 2020 16:47
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https://twitter.com/DashKwiatkowski/status/1244327577742913538?s=20 hope you did not, in fact, get it rhyno
site fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Mar 29, 2020 |
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Mar 29, 2020 20:09
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Welcome to February 1996, land of mystery. Here's the thing, this month there is a crossover for some of the Extreme Studios books called "Hate". The thing is, I can't find a reading order or if it's like Babewatch where the story is in one or two comics and then the rest of them just demonstrate the impact of that story on those characters. Weirdly enough, searching for "hate rob liefeld" brings up way too many hits  . I've checked the first and last pages of a few books and didn't see anything like "Continued in New Factor #3". So at the point I'm writing this introduction, I'm just listing all the books with "Hate" on the cover, and picking an order based more on the mood I'm in than anything else.Youngblood #5 - This was the one where I looked at the first panel of the first page and put it down. Over a panel depicting a burning city, a newscaster in a caption box says Newscaster posted:...And the violence continues in Los Angeles tonight, following the reading of a guilty verdict in the murder trial of African American[sic] actor D. B. Harris. If you think for a second that Extreme Studios is going to be able to handle race relations in Los Angeles well, even after the first thing they did is reference the then current O. J. Simpson trial, you have not been paying attention to these posts. Also, all of the people in that first page are all young black men engaged in violence. So, you know, leaning into it right off the bat. Youngblood arrives to put down the rioters. And they comment about how it's not about right or wrong, "it's about hate". That caption on a panel of a rioter beating an Asian man. So far the only non-African-Americans in this comic are that guy and the Youngblood members. Sentinel, who is African-American gets a gleam in his eye and says he's on the wrong side for supporting a corrupt system and turns on the rest of Youngblood. Which even when this turns out to be a supervillain that does it, it's portraying the non-white characters as the weak minded, irrational ones. Back at the mountain fortress of the Pentagon, Battlestone is getting yelled at by Lord Dredd, not Mr. Dredd, for Psi-Fire getting out. He doesn't want excuses, he wants results! Also, Battlestone calls him Lord Dredd in front of Youngblood's government liaison which you'd think would be a problem for an undercover villain. Psi-Fire hasn't gone far, though. He's in yet another secret prison below the Pentagon (I think this is the fourth or fifth they have down there). Psi-Fire is hooked up to a machine that amplifies his abilities and makes him transmit hatred, then an alien monster that escaped the Keep drinks all the released hatred back up. The alien's name is Sith and there is only one of them. Back in LA, all of Youngblood starts being affected by hate rays. Bedrock uses an old-timey racial slur as he thinks about how he feels kind of bad for beating people up. The rioters flee Youngblood and decide to instead burn down a hospital because they treat [a more current racial slur] better. Youngblood turns on each other leading to one of the weirder lines I've encountered as Masada says to Riptide: Masada posted:Just like a Catholic to prance around like a twenty dollar hooker. And then Riptide goes into some real Protocols of the Elders of Zion style stuff that's less amusingly weird. During the Psi-Fire hunt briefing, Shaft drifts off and thinks about how pretty Vogue is and how much it disgusts him that she's with Die Hard (seriously, that one is text). Die Hard, on the other hand, is the only Youngblood not affected by the hate waves and he rallies the LA group to stop the hospital from being burned down. Getting them working together counteracts that the hate. Sentinel gives a speech about how they have to confront their own prejudices and that's the end of the story except an epilogue. The epilogue is something special. Not for the story, it's four pages of Shaft brooding and some guy named Jeriko who can apparently hear the narration saying he's coming. What's special here is that these four pages were penciled by Rob Liefeld. He never pencils any more story pages for Image comics. I have one more comic with some pages that Liefeld penciled to go after this, but we won't see it for a while. As for this comic, holy poo poo was that tone deaf garbage from that family of anti-racism media that is also pretty drat racist. If we're starting out here, I'm wondering how bad this can get. New Force #2 - This is a book that's nominally about prejudice (and just like the real X books, spent years where the only sign of it was an occasional comment about a world that hates and fears them). Surely they'll have an interesting take on someone fanning the flames of hatred. Right off the bat, the New Men have burned down their house. Now that might seem extreme to you or me, but they wanted to get out of Proctor's place and I'm sure they've already got a plan for what they'll do next. Oh wait, they actually say that they're now homeless so they didn't think about it. There's some people who look like they're watching their house burn from the road, but they're actually dragging a guy from his car and beating him. And that's when the racism kicks in as the New Men interfere and everyone gets really racist. Then they use the exact same double page spread that I saw in Youngblood to explain what's going on. So that was odd. The New At this point I think I've come to a conclusion about this crossover: it was a terrible idea. Possibly worse than Babewatch. They're putting incredibly racist poo poo in the mouths of their characters and the implication is that they're always thinking it. At the end when they no longer act out on it, that's supposed to make the reader go, "It's okay now," but it really is not. Even if they didn't imply that all their characters are pretty racist, they're expressing things that go unchallenged except by implication that the hate rays is the only reason that they'd think that while simultaneously implying the exact opposite. This is about as wrongheaded as you can get. I also am getting the impression that Eric Stephenson, who did the script for Youngblood and this comic, really wanted to use the n-word and had to be talked down to something less instantly provocative but still a slur. He didn't avoid any other slurs, though. Supreme #36 - Here's the book in the crossover that Stephenson didn't script. Jim Valentino handled this one so maybe it's better? Hopefully? Please? To answer my question from last time, yes, this is Changes Part 4, making it the third comic in this so far four part Supreme story arc that overlaps with a crossover. Shepherd punched Lady Supreme all the way to Mars and she's feeling not so supreme since she wasn't very invulnerable. The knowledge that Old Supreme is out there somewhere makes Lady Supreme choose to abandon earth and go look for him. Back on earth, the first line out of Kid Supreme's mouth this issue is a slur. There's a riot at his school that he's flying into when he thinks, "Hey, maybe there's some mind control going on?" And then we get the exact same double page expository spread I've now seen twice. He rushes back into the fray where there's a woman wearing half of a dominatrix outfit who has a glowing energy fist and has a teacher in her grasp. Kid Supreme charges in and she kills the teacher. Then the hate rays end and Kid Supreme knocks her to the ground and walks away. Kid Supreme realizes that if he had been in control he might have saved his teacher. He has learned that with great power there must also come -- great responsibility. The woman, however, has learned that she should probably kill Kid Supreme. On the planet that looks kind of like Earth, Even Older Supreme and Not John Constantine have captured Old Supreme and discovered that Old Supreme and Even Older Supreme are both Supreme. Constantine gets a snipe in at the clone saga as they discuss possible reasons why that is. Even Older Supreme lacks even the toned down superpower that Old Supreme has on that planet where Old Supreme has been reduced to leaping tall buildings in a single bound. The one thing Even Older Supreme still has is his supreme intellect which let him build the machines that are holding Old Supreme. And with those machines Even Older Supreme starts his plan to escape the planet and he transfers his mind into Old Supreme's body. Okay, this was better on the Hate part mainly because they did almost nothing with it. There's no moralizing that the hate rays just released what they really thought, so Kid Supreme walks away going, "That was some hosed up poo poo." The emphasis was on hate screwing everything up without dragging all the characters down. It's still on the "Very Special Episode" level of tackling racism, but that's still a huge step up from the first two books I read. NewMan #2 - The first issue of this comic did not leave a good impression. There wasn't any context for anything and NewMan isn't a really interesting character. Also, I need to point out that X-Man was being published by Marvel at that time. We start with a recap that gives useful information missing from last month's crossover. The Keep had done their harvests in secret before but decided not to this time because they were practicing for an invasion of another planet. NewMan was supposed to be going to ancient Egypt for the Keep and arrived in 1996. Also, the Keep's goal was a new homeworld. Finally, NewMan is officially a deserter and even though he's a time traveler who will be 80 in the year 2080, he was born in 2000, so I guess he decides to rejoin the normal timeline. NewMan senses the hate rays as stands atop the tallest building in New York and tries to think about major events that could affect New York in the period of roughly 1996-2001. Then he remembers the exposition we've seen, though for NewMan it's redrawn and has different captions. Those captions tell me NewMan is a telepath which is something that hasn't come up before; so far as we've seen he flies and shoots energy. He decides to get help from WildC.A.T.s and confronts a group of characters I've never seen before but I guess are the WildC.A.T.s of 1996 (Ladytron? Really?). NewMan knows Mr. Majestic, though Majestic hasn't seen him in centuries, and NewMan tries to convince the former villain that he should just fix this problem. NewMan could fix the problem normally, but his powers have been weakened. As Majestic is briefing the rest of his team, one of them pulls a gun on the rest of them. NewMen restrains the brawling team members with his psychic powers and then they go outside to find everything already resolved. The end. On the one hand, that had absolutely nothing to do with the crossover concept. On the other, that might actually be an improvement. There was an assumption of familiarity with the Wildstorm line here with people getting angry over oblique references to events that I haven't seen. This feels like it should have been the WildC.A.T.s issue of the crossover since NewMan was completely superfluous. MaxiMage #3 - The last part of the crossover I'm reading is actually the central book. I know this before reading it since the double page spread that's appeared in all of the other comics told me to check out this one for the story. The first page tells me that this one is going to tackle sexism. I'm sure I won't be seeing any mixed messages here. West Hollywood is the site of the battle of the sexes where a woman in an evening gown waves a broken bottle at a man carrying a pitchfork. The two sides should extremely cliched things at each other like "Football!" and "Soap operas!" (word balloons that are actually part of this). A couple argues over stopping for directions until they go off a cliff and MaxiMage catches the car. Then she gets the same double page exposition spread that everyone except NewMan got. MaxiMage finally sees the rioting and the way she resolves it is turning everything that people are brandishing at each other into toads. That fixes everything forever since they definitely will not find another weapon three seconds later and continue trying to kill each other. Then she spots a lesbian couple being dragged out of their new age bookstore by an angry mob shouting slurs. She saves the couple by freezing all the men, then the couple want her to kill them. That leads MaxiMage to discover the hate rays and she heads east, leaving the mob of helpless men with a pair of women who want to kill them. MaxiMage follows the hate rays to the Sith's hideout where there's a mob protecting it. She goes a bit nuts blowing things up before she remembers fear leads to anger leads to hate and restrains herself. Inside she finds Sith, punches him once, Sith goes, "You're too strong," and just dies. MaxiMage reads Psi-Fire's mind and learns she needs to take him back to Youngblood. And that's the end of the crossover. Legitimately good representation moment: at the new age bookstore, MaxiMage rescues a woman and then she goes, "Save my moms!" I wanted to point that out because these comics have been doing so many things wrong lately that doing something right stood out. The LA geography in this book is pretty bad, though it's mainly neighborhoods and directions that are off so I won't really make fun of them for that. It's not like they keep putting the Pentagon in the Rocky Mountains. I was going to read more today but these books made me feel pretty gross so I'm going to just stop with the crossover complete. Also, there's another small crossover next month. This one involving Spawn, but it'll be a few posts before I get to that.
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Mar 29, 2020 22:57
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Rhyno posted:Everyone please be safe and exercise good judgement. Be safe and healthy. Is there any way to work from home from now on?
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Mar 29, 2020 23:06
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Take care of yourself Rhyno, I want to see Guy Gardner's shining face around here for years to come.
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Mar 29, 2020 23:46
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Rhyno posted:Everyone please be safe and exercise good judgement. Holy poo poo, man. Have you gone to try to get tested? How are you feeling now? Please take care of yourself.
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Mar 30, 2020 02:32
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Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:Holy poo poo, man. Have you gone to try to get tested? How are you feeling now? Please take care of yourself. America is only testing those who have to be admitted to a hospital. By going to a doctor or hospital at this time Rhyno would be exposing himself or others further and the hospital or doctor would just turn him away. Mr Hootington fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Mar 30, 2020 |
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Mar 30, 2020 02:53
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I am feeling fine so far. I work in medical supply production so I am unable to work from home. There is an emergency meeting at 8am so I will hopefully have more information then.
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Mar 30, 2020 04:13
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At least they told you. My boss told me one of our coworkers tested positive, but that our district manager is supposed to be letting people know, so I need to pretend that I'm only then finding out. That was Friday.
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Mar 30, 2020 04:24
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I am very far behind but I will say that the arming of the hero is one of the most common staples of western fiction dating back to the Illaid. It's mostly likely born from Bards trying to appease children by going at length at all the cool weapons and gear the heroes would wear and use. There is a reason so many stories use the "suit up" scene as it is either an examined or unexamined trope of western storytelling. I remember reading paragraph after paragraph about how Achiles donned his shield and rose his spear. It was actually a little cool. I mean, gear is cool. One of the only things I remember of Sir Gaiwan and the Green Knight is the cool idea of a man in pure green armor able to just walk off a beheading. That and the b.s. way that he got out of getting his head chopped off. Totally unrelated, but did anyone ever read Grendel? It's a really good book. Has nothing to do with anything else I said, but I highly recommend it to people look for a fantastical existentialist novel written very competently.
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Mar 30, 2020 15:42
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I've read nearly every Grendel comic.
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Mar 30, 2020 15:58
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I can't believe Mike Mignola doesn't appreciate Pigmon https://twitter.com/artofmmignola/status/1244458323123953665?s=20
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Mar 30, 2020 16:02
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Rhyno posted:I've read nearly every Grendel comic. I meant Grendel the book by John Gardner.
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Mar 30, 2020 16:10
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Covok posted:I meant Grendel the book by John Gardner. I KNOW WHAT YOU MEANT I JUST WANTED TO BE A PART OF THE ADULT CONVERSATION
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Mar 30, 2020 16:13
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Rhyno posted:I KNOW WHAT YOU MEANT I JUST WANTED TO BE A PART OF THE ADULT CONVERSATION We got two weeks of this poo poo still to come. Buckle in BSS post more
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Mar 30, 2020 16:17
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I'm not home confined yet. So we know who it is and the company is pushing very hard for him to be tested and if he does have it I was definitely exposed because we went over specs on an order so I was in his immediate vicinity. We're just waiting to see if my employer can compel them to test him.
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Mar 30, 2020 16:21
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