|
She's still Prestige as of the last time they bothered to use her mutant name.
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2021 14:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 01:09 |
|
|
Endless Mike posted:She's still Prestige as of the last time they bothered to use her mutant name. Interesting. I thought they just did the thing like they do with Jean and just call her by her name. I was also shocked to find Rachel has gone through way more costumes than I thought in the 00's.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2021 16:39
|
|
|
I think a full on kiss on the lips is pretty straightforward but I guess I get what you mean, since that scene it would be hard to argue that Duggan has been explicitly engaging with Kate's queerness unless you count some light flirting with Tempo a few months ago. The generous part of me wants to say that the book has been pretty busy between X of Swords, the Gala, and wrapping up the Verendi and Madripoor stuff before launching into Storm and Arakko-centric plots, but there have also been issues that felt like killing time or engaging with minor beats in which, yes, Duggan could have followed through a bit. I think I also feel confident because Kate's going to be written by Steve Orlando quite soon, a writer very much unafraid to write out and proud characters. I don't mind a slow burn-- in fact one of my pet peeves is the tendency of writers to have a character come out and then immediately lock them into milquetoast long-term relationships with total nothing characters (sorry Kyle). I'm ok with Kate not settling down but yes I do wish that if they're going to commit to writing her as bi they'd actually write her as bi. I still wouldn't call it "queer baiting" unless I'm totally misunderstanding the term (which I very well might be). I think of queer baiting as writers leaving themselves a certain amount of deniable plausibility. "Oh, they're just close friends. Oh that hug sure lingered though didn't it. Hmmm...!" Kate just walks in and plants one on a lady's lips as the climax of a story about her reassessing her priorities and deciding to just go full tilt towards her desires-- and it's not like Duggan could show her buying a Subaru, she already has a boat. Another issue here is that I feel like Duggan structured Marauders so that Kate was the unambiguous protagonist of the first year, and then he broadened out to focus a bit more on Emma and Storm. Which means, for better or worse, that Kate has become a bit more static. I think the kiss worked wonderfully as the culmination of Kate's arc for that "season" from the standpoint of just structuring those twelve issues as a kind of bildungsroman for a character stuck in a holding pattern for years. How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Oct 15, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2021 17:07
|
|
|
i don't think you're wrong in that i don't think it would technically count as queer baiting, but having one off kiss with a disposable character and then doing nothing with it feels like a very "here, queer readers, we did the thing. are you satisfied? maybe some day, years hence, someone might even bring this up again if you're lucky" move. it is in the spirit, if not the letter, of the law, you might say
site fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Oct 16, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2021 17:45
|
|
|
ToxicFrog posted:This reminds me of a question that's been lurking at the back of my mind for many years now: who was The Hobgoblin? Someone, probably E&C did a big in depth post on this a month ago or so, either in here or the marvel thread.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2021 21:30
|
|
|
site posted:i don't think you're wrong in that i don't think it would technically count as queer baiting, but having one off kiss with a disposable character and then doing nothing with it feels like a very "here, queer readers, we did the thing. are you satisfied? maybe some day, years hence, someone might even bring this up again if you're lucky" move. it is in the spirit, of not the letter, of the law, you might say This is basically what I was getting at but worded more clearly, yes. It's the same with Wonder Woman. Every few years we get a passing reference to the fact that the Amazons aren't all hetero, and oooh, Diana's an Amazon. If we're lucky, maybe we even get an implicit reference to her having had a partner on the island. But I think you can literally count on one hand the number of women or NB people to actually express interest in her. And most of them are unrequited or just straight up crushes from afar, which could just as easily be expressions of attraction for a straight woman for all the reciprocity we're given. I know it's reductive and even a little offensive to imply that bi/pan characters should be depicted in a relationship with someone of the same gender to 'prove' it, but if it's supposed to be part of a character's identity, it should come up at least as often as their preference for cream or sugar in their coffee.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2021 01:33
|
|
|
Gaz-L posted:It's the same with Wonder Woman. Every few years we get a passing reference to the fact that the Amazons aren't all hetero, and oooh, Diana's an Amazon. If we're lucky, maybe we even get an implicit reference to her having had a partner on the island. But I think you can literally count on one hand the number of women or NB people to actually express interest in her. And most of them are unrequited or just straight up crushes from afar, which could just as easily be expressions of attraction for a straight woman for all the reciprocity we're given. A lot of the earlier stuff I'd be willing to give the benefit of the doubt on because DC's editorial was... well, bad. Like if you told me Greg Rucka had plans for it or something but somebody told him no, sure, I'd buy it. I think the closest we get is Catwoman. Didn't Selina date the Japanese Catwoman for a while when she was a mob boss?
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2021 03:12
|
|
|
Dawgstar posted:A lot of the earlier stuff I'd be willing to give the benefit of the doubt on because DC's editorial was... well, bad. Like if you told me Greg Rucka had plans for it or something but somebody told him no, sure, I'd buy it. Rucka's actually responsible for a couple of the crumbs I mentioned there (which probably is as much as he could manage, yes), with the blacksmith character Io clearly having a huge crush on Diana and Wonder Woman Year One having a brief mention of her having a lover on the island before she left. But yes, I suppose even that is impressive given things like Gail Simone not even being allowed the vaguest hint that Black Canary wasn't 100% into the D.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2021 03:17
|
|
|
Gaz-L posted:Rucka's actually responsible for a couple of the crumbs I mentioned there (which probably is as much as he could manage, yes), with the blacksmith character Io clearly having a huge crush on Diana and Wonder Woman Year One having a brief mention of her having a lover on the island before she left. Yeah, I also remember in the Rucka run Diana's holding a Q&A and she picks the first reporter and they ask if she currently has a boyfriend and she says no, or a girlfriend, and isn't really looking right now. Didn't even know Gail wanted to make Dinah bi, which I guess goes to show how much they squashed it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2021 03:27
|
|
|
Dawgstar posted:Yeah, I also remember in the Rucka run Diana's holding a Q&A and she picks the first reporter and they ask if she currently has a boyfriend and she says no, or a girlfriend, and isn't really looking right now. It was basically a tiny joke in like one issue of BOP about her not being totally straight and it got nixed.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2021 03:28
|
|
|
Open Marriage Night posted:Thor has his classic Juggernaut fight, and the introduction of the New Warriors. Amazing Spider-Man has cosmic Spidey clown on the likes of Graviton, Magneto, Gray Hulk (with Todd coming back for one last issue), and the Tri-Sentinel! The Captain America book where Magneto throws Red Skull into a basement with some water and no escape is pretty good for that scene alone, also Daredevil hits Ultron with a truck in his book. There's a lot of good poo poo in the event, it's just you don't gain anything from reading comics involving characters you don't give a poo poo about.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2021 09:37
|
|
|
bessantj posted:One problem I did have is there are several Spider-Man titles and I don't have access to all of them so plot points that appear in issues of The Amazing Spider-Man suddenly disappear. This reminded me I never did learn how MJ's cousin's eating disorder was resolved.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2021 13:48
|
|
|
Senior Woodchuck posted:This reminded me I never did learn how MJ's cousin's eating disorder was resolved. MJ stood up to Kristy's awful parents and said she'd look out for her now since her parents were too busy going to Europe or whatever, although of course Kristy wasn't really a big presence in the book after. She did show up in Going Big a couple of years ago, apparently her bulimia's under control and she has lunch with Mary Jane once a week so that's nice.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2021 14:02
|
|
|
Senior Woodchuck posted:This reminded me I never did learn how MJ's cousin's eating disorder was resolved. they put her in the hospital for a couple issues and then she became Harry Osborne's kid's babysitter and then I think she basically ceased to exist when Gerry Conway left the book.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2021 14:17
|
|
|
Karma Tornado posted:they put her in the hospital for a couple issues and then she became Harry Osborne's kid's babysitter and then I think she basically ceased to exist when Gerry Conway left the book. Yeah. The Going Big one-shot I mentioned was written by guess who.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2021 15:26
|
|
|
There's sort of a clear narrative line in Acts of Vengeance (dealing with the formation and spoilers, dissolution, of the Evil Illuminati Type Group that organizes all of the villain trading) that runs mostly through the Avengers family of books. They were differentiated by the 'core' books having a big ACTS OF VENGEANCE banner, and the standalone books having a little corner tag. You can see it here, on all of the books that Marvel put out in the first month of the event: Avengers, Avengers Spotlight, Avengers West Coast, Captain America, Damage Control, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Quasar, Thor: Big Banner indicating the main story advances Alpha Flight, Cloak and Dagger, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Incredible Hulk, Moon Knight, New Mutants, Punisher, Spider-Man, Wolverine, X-Men: little banner indicating you can just appreciate it as "well I guess Ultron is trying to kill Daredevil for some reason!" Also this month might be the peak of Dwayne McDuffie's output at Marvel, and he uses that time to write stories turning Thunderball and Chemistro into sympathetic antiheroes/complex villains I have spent the past thirty years being mad about showing up in random BIG GANG OF MURDEROUS THUG montages. And Count Duckula met Geraldo.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 03:21
|
|
|
Edge & Christian posted:Also this month might be the peak of Dwayne McDuffie's output at Marvel, and he uses that time to write stories turning Thunderball and Chemistro into sympathetic antiheroes/complex villains I have spent the past thirty years being mad about showing up in random BIG GANG OF MURDEROUS THUG montages. Really? This is fascinating to me. I always think of the Wrecking Crew as tough jobbers that heroes have to defeat to prove they can handle serious threats, but then the Crew always -- eventually -- get defeated. I vaguely recall Thunderball being the smart(er) one (not sure how or when that happened), but don't recall him being sympathetic or complex. And Chemistro? I barely remember him at all, but that's wild. He definitely seems like a background goon, like when The Hood united a bunch of jobber villains in Bendis' first (good) New Avengers run.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 04:58
|
|
|
Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:Really? This is fascinating to me. I always think of the Wrecking Crew as tough jobbers that heroes have to defeat to prove they can handle serious threats, but then the Crew always -- eventually -- get defeated. I vaguely recall Thunderball being the smart(er) one (not sure how or when that happened), but don't recall him being sympathetic or complex. And Chemistro? I barely remember him at all, but that's wild. He definitely seems like a background goon, like when The Hood united a bunch of jobber villains in Bendis' first (good) New Avengers run. [Chemistro's origin in Hero for Hire #12 by Englehart/Tuska/Graham, March 1973]  [Thunderball's origin in Defenders #19 by Wein/Buscema/Jansen, September 1974]  They were both brilliant scientists who invented something that was stolen by white/corporate America, they took it, and were branded as criminals. In Thunderball's case, he ended up in jail with the Wrecker and a couple of other lunkhead thugs, but took the opportunity to escape when they did and ended up getting mystically bonded to them via the Norse enchantments on the Wrecker's magic crowbar. Writers sporadically remember that out of the four Wrecking Crew members, Thunderball is a doctor and physicist who isn't particularly thrilled to be tied to the other three guys, though that mostly amounts to bickering and him talking kind of like Bouncing Blue Beast, all grandiloquent multilingual banter. McDuffie brought him back as a supporting character in Damage Control. Chemistro accidentally disintegrated his own foot in his first appearance, went to jail, and later turned up in Luke Cage helping him stop his ex-cellmate who had stolen his gun. McDuffie pulled him out of obscurity in an Acts of Vengeance tie-in for Iron Man, where yet another person stole Chemistro's gun, Iron Man accused Curtis of returning to crime, realized he hadn't and then offered him a job doing science stuff for Stark Industries. I feel like there is a third 1970s black supervillain whose whole schtick was originally "had creation stolen from them and wanted revenge/their creation back" that got flattened down to "Let's Do Some Crime Man #48" but I'm drawing a blank tonight. All of this clearly stuck with McDuffie, since it's kind of the jumping off point for Hardware.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 06:50
|
|
|
Okay I understand why creating an even stronger bomb is impressive but I don't see how a handheld nuke is particularly better.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 07:31
|
|
|
When they called him “the Black Bruce Banner,” they didn’t mean it as a compliment.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 07:52
|
|
|
Edge & Christian posted:It's not an uncommon trope, but both Thunderball and Chemistro were introduced in the 1970s with the same backstory: Probably not who you're thinking of since he's from 1986, but this is also more or less the origin of Slyde.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 12:04
|
|
|
Edge & Christian posted:I feel like there is a third 1970s black supervillain whose whole schtick was originally "had creation stolen from them and wanted revenge/their creation back" that got flattened down to "Let's Do Some Crime Man #48" but I'm drawing a blank tonight. All of this clearly stuck with McDuffie, since it's kind of the jumping off point for Hardware. I was thinking maybe Condor, who was one of the main villains back in the original Nova series ... but as far as I can tell, Condor never got an origin.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 13:28
|
|
|
Also reminds me of Prowler, who created his tech as a way to improve his livelihood as a window washer but his white boss didn't care for any of it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 13:58
|
|
|
Edge & Christian posted:Avengers, Avengers Spotlight, Avengers West Coast, Captain America, Damage Control, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Quasar, Thor: Big Banner indicating the main story advances And Power Pack. (They fought Mysterio. He was doing his standard 'spook people out of a place' real estate scam.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 14:53
|
|
|
Edge & Christian posted:It's not an uncommon trope, but both Thunderball and Chemistro were introduced in the 1970s with the same backstory: Thanks for this history lesson, as always. I also thought of Prowler here. Poor Hobie Brown was unappreciated as a window washer when he created the costume and gadgets as safety equipment, and then another white man ripped off the costume: Todd McFarlane.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 15:10
|
|
|
I had Prowler slotted into category of "smart inventor denied opportunities and briefly turned criminal before becoming pretty permanent heroes" which is a variation of a theme, but at least he got an arc and didn't just turn into a generic henchman/supervillain cannon fodder. Rocket Racer had a similar arc, though they didn't really highlight "this dude built a magic flying skateboard in a tenement building" thing until the 1980s.Dawgstar posted:And Power Pack. (They fought Mysterio. He was doing his standard 'spook people out of a place' real estate scam.) The Mysterio issue was a few months later and unrelated to Acts of Vengeance, a fill-in by... Dwayne McDuffie!
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 17:11
|
|
|
Edge & Christian posted:Power Pack did have an Acts of Vengeance tie-in the month after the one I linked to, several books I didn't list did. In a bold move, they fought Typhoid Mary in it. Oh, good catch. I'd gotten the timing mixed up and thought the Mary issue was the unrelated one. Re-reading it is a bit... unsettling as Typhoid is trying to break the team up and taking Alex Power on dates and I'm not sure how the ages line up there but I'm guessing the answer is "not well."
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 17:30
|
|
|
If I was gonna do a Thunderbolts book, I'd include Thunderball, I always liked him and he was in the first crossover I ever read (The Round Robin, a Spider Man storyline). Have there been any good T-bolts books recently?
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 17:38
|
|
|
I just read that Power Pack comic, and wow is the reveal at the end dumb. He’s called Dr. Doom because he has a Ph.D. and his surname is Doom. He doesn’t have a secret identity, Typhoid Mary. If you want to psychoanalyze a superperson for the alias they chose, Mr. Fantastic seems like a much deeper well of insecurity.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 17:40
|
|
|
El Gallinero Gros posted:If I was gonna do a Thunderbolts book, I'd include Thunderball, I always liked him and he was in the first crossover I ever read (The Round Robin, a Spider Man storyline). Not for about 15 years. There've been some Marvel Suicide Squad books though. (Yes, I'm salty the gimmick's changed from 'villains turn over new leaf, either as scam or sincerely' to 'convicts used as disposable troops' like the Squad)
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 18:22
|
|
|
Antifa Turkeesian posted:He’s called Dr. Doom because he has a Ph.D. and his surname is Doom. Yeah, about that Ph.D... He got expelled from college. Kind of infamous for it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 20:05
|
|
|
El Gallinero Gros posted:If I was gonna do a Thunderbolts book, I'd include Thunderball, I always liked him and he was in the first crossover I ever read (The Round Robin, a Spider Man storyline). Thunderball was part of Black Panther for a bit before the space arc pushed me off that book. I think that was the first time I discovered he was a genius character. I want to say he showed up working with heroes in another book around the same time, but I cannot remember.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 20:06
|
|
|
Soonmot posted:Thunderball was part of Black Panther for a bit before the space arc pushed me off that book. I think that was the first time I discovered he was a genius character. I want to say he showed up working with heroes in another book around the same time, but I cannot remember. Yeah, Thunderball being smart comes at you in random ways, like I found out in the 90's during the annual Spider-Man six week event that featured Moon Knight had the Secret Empire hiring him for science stuff (and he'd also used their resources to build himself some power armor because he'd been de-powered after Loki too Wrecker's juice back in Thor for a while).
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 20:44
|
|
|
Soonmot posted:Thunderball was part of Black Panther for a bit before the space arc pushed me off that book. I think that was the first time I discovered he was a genius character. I want to say he showed up working with heroes in another book around the same time, but I cannot remember. TNC also used him in his run on Captain America. He was in prison with Cap when he was framed for killing Thunderbolt Ross and helped him bust out, if I recall.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 23:22
|
|
|
Dawgstar posted:Yeah, Thunderball being smart comes at you in random ways, like I found out in the 90's during the annual Spider-Man six week event that featured Moon Knight had the Secret Empire hiring him for science stuff (and he'd also used their resources to build himself some power armor because he'd been de-powered after Loki too Wrecker's juice back in Thor for a while). Yeah, that's the storyline I was talking about, it's a good one
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 00:32
|
|
|
Gaz-L posted:Not for about 15 years. There've been some Marvel Suicide Squad books though. The Jeff Parker Thunderbolts still had the "convicts" aspect but was very specifically not a Suicide Squad, it was run by Luke Cage and was explicitly built around rehabilitation, more like the "ex-con Hawkeye leads the Thunderbolts" era, except with official support. That also only lasted three years before morphing into the second Dark Avengers book, which had gotten way off-message. (I liked the full Parker run, but it stopped being "Thunderbolts" literally and figuratively at a certain point) There was also the Loeb-inspired Thunderbolts that was built on the idea that Thunderbolt Ross was Red Hulk now, so what if he formed a Thunderbolts with all of the anti-heroes with red costumes like Elektra and Deadpool? And what if Punisher and Venom got red costumes because this is all operating on a seven year old's dream logic? And then there was the Secret Empire lead-in Thunderbolts, equally not worth mentioning. Since then, Matthew Rosenberg has used the Thunderbolts in Punisher and a King in Black mini-series, which is a frothy, lovely, mix of traditional Thunderbolts and Suicide Squad concepts: Baron Zemo is no longer the ruler of Bagalia after nuking its capital city to try to kill the Punisher, so Zemo flees to NYC and declares DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY and Mayor Wilson Fisk publicly welcomes Zemo and his gang of Thunderbolts to be deputized officers of the city of New York. Then Kingpin and Zemo assign a bunch of d-listers to go out and fight Punisher/Knull with the expectation they'll all die. So it's true that there's been a lot of bad Thunderbolts content in the past fifteen years, but it's been a variety of bad content! Also it's weird to look back now and realize that DC wasn't even really using the main Suicide Squad concept in 2006 when Millar stole it, and barely used it in general from like 1993-2011. Edge & Christian fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Oct 18, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 01:39
|
|
|
Dawgstar posted:And Power Pack. (They fought Mysterio. He was doing his standard 'spook people out of a place' real estate scam.) Ah, the Scooby Doo gambit. Classic poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 02:32
|
|
|
Random Stranger posted:Yeah, about that Ph.D... He got expelled from college. Kind of infamous for it. I mean, he probably has an honorary doctorate from a Latverian university by now.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 04:14
|
|
|
Didn’t the all red Thunderbolts end up being pretty fun, or was that just the annual or whatever that had Elsa Bloodstone feature in it?
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 08:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 01:09 |
|
|
Open Marriage Night posted:Didn’t the all red Thunderbolts end up being pretty fun, or was that just the annual or whatever that had Elsa Bloodstone feature in it? I read it on Unlimited, it was fun.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 10:23
|
|