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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:Yeah I'm working at least 50-60 hours a week, often seven days a week.  You'd better be going for partner at a law firm or something.
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Mar 14, 2018 19:48
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Endless Mike posted:This one should be much easier to get: That's actually perfect - I bought it in a sale on Comixology ages ago for about £1 and never got around to reading it. This is an excellent excuse to finally get back to it.
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Mar 14, 2018 20:02
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:Yeah I'm working at least 50-60 hours a week, often seven days a week. Between that, going to and from work, and my diet/exercise I have almost no time to do anything else. Endless Mike and Jerusalem, if you guys want I'll give you guys laterality to process requests or whatever, since you're probably the two most active members in the thread. Sorry to hear, buddy, but I'll try to keep it up. I'm sure J-Ru would be happy to help, too.
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Mar 14, 2018 20:27
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If that's the case, endless mike, jerusalem, hit me! no dupes please 
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Mar 14, 2018 20:33
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Pacra posted:If that's the case, endless mike, jerusalem, hit me! no dupes please  Locke & Key: The Crown of Shadows This is volume 3 of the complete series, comprised of Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows #1-6. It's available on Comixology. I loved the series, but can't really speak on this volume on its own.
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Mar 14, 2018 20:43
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CapnAndy posted:That's not healthy, man. No, I've just been out of work for a while and need the money. It's a job that pays well that I don't hate doing, so I'm fine with te crazy amount of overtime I'm doing.
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Mar 14, 2018 21:35
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God that Dracula/Dr. Strange stuff looks amazing, both artwise and with the amazing prose. HE SCREAMS FOR SOOTHING DARKNESS - - AND FALLS!  Lick! The! Whisk! posted:No, I've just been out of work for a while and need the money. It's a job that pays well that I don't hate doing, so I'm fine with te crazy amount of overtime I'm doing. Sorry to hear but glad you have the work and hope you get back onto an even keel soon. I'll be happy to help Endless Mike as and when I can. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Mar 14, 2018 |
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Mar 14, 2018 22:16
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Hit me, no dupes.
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Mar 14, 2018 22:17
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Retro Futurist posted:Hit me, no dupes.  You get 69 (nice) - Uncanny X-Men #183: He'll Never Make Me Cry That's from Volume 1 of Uncanny X-Men, and is available on Comixology and Marvel Unlimited Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Mar 14, 2018 |
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Mar 14, 2018 22:24
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Inkspot posted:Avengers #200 Okay, that is a well deserved sigh. Jerusalem posted:God that Dracula/Dr. Strange stuff looks amazing, both artwise and with the amazing prose. Gene Colan is on fire when he was doing Dracula and Dr. Strange simultaneously so the crossover was an opportunity for him to give give it everything. Those are some of my favorite issues of both Dr. Strange and Tomb of Dracula. FWIW, Dr. Sun was a brain in jar that wanted to steal Dracula's vampiric abilities and use them to take over the world. He even managed to kill Dracula:  Tomb of Dracula is one of those series that people tell you it's really good, but you'd never believe that until you experience it for yourself. The only catch is it's Marv Wolfman who really makes the series incredible. and he doesn't come on until issue seven so it's worth skipping those first few issues. Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Mar 14, 2018 |
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Mar 14, 2018 22:56
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Jerusalem posted:
Nice e: Ok well that was easy. This was a good one. Claremont and JRJR back when they're still good. We jump in in the middle of a few plotlines, but the only relevant one is Secret War. While on Battleworld, Colossus fell in love with a woman who sacrificed herself to save him. Now everyone's back and he needs to break the news to Kitty. It's a very subdued issue that's more dialog than anything (and not just because it's Claremont), and hits some good emotional notes  After that, Wolverine takes Colossus out for drinks to lecture/beat the poo poo out of him, and Nightcrawler tags along to ref. Of course, things go south from there as, of all the beer joints in all the world, they had to walk into the one Cain Marko is hanging out in. Logan tries to have the group slip out, and Colossus spills his drink all over Juggernaut and kicks off the inevitable fight. This was pretty fun, the two beat the hell out of each other, but it's pretty clear to everyone except Pitor that it's just an old fashioned bar brawl. Wolverine sits back and watches as Juggs handles the rear end kicking he was planning to deliver anyways. Juggernaut winds up dropping the bar on him, tosses Logan some money to give to the owner, and heads off.  I dig that kind of old school hero/villain camaraderie. It's nice to see that kind of thing instead of someone trying to take over the world etc. All in all, a refreshing read, but I wouldn't really seek it out unless I was doing an X-Men run. Let's tempt fate and hit me again, no dupes please Opopanax fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Mar 15, 2018 |
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Mar 14, 2018 23:00
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Jesus Claremont, you used to be really loving good at this  Retro Futurist posted:Let's tempt fate and hit me again, no dupes please Oh you lucky loving bastard:  You get 293: BATMAN AND ROBIN MUST DIE which is just loving excellent. It's available on Comixology
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Mar 15, 2018 10:15
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Trying to keep this updated as best I can - I think it's currently accurate but if I've missed anything or screwed up a url, please let me know. Review Archive: 12. Gummy Joe: Jack Staff: Everything Used to Be Black and White 26. Lick! The! Whisk!: Daredevil: Born Again 28. Dias: Hitman 48. Cornwind Evil: American Barbarian 50. Jiru: Top Ten #1-12 58. Lick! The! Whisk!: Daredevil #284-290: The Man Without Mercy 60. Roth: Fantastic Four: Unthinkable 69. Retro Futurist: Uncanny X-Men #183: He'll Never Make Me Cry 86. Inkspot: The Demon vol. 1 #1-8 Part 1 | Part 2 116. Jerusalem: Starman (Robinson/Harris) Part One | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 176. Endless Mike: Hickman's Fantastic Four/FF: Part One, Dark Reign: FF | Part Two, Solve Everything | Part Three, Prime Elements | Part Four, The Future Foundation | Part Five, Three | Part 6, Tomorrow | Part 7, The Supremor Seed 177. enigmahfc: Superior Foes of Spider-Man 182. Otherkinsey Scale: Captain America #250, "Cap for President!" 183. Jordan7hm: The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: I Told You That Story So I Could Tell You This One/Spooky Stuff/Punch Dracula 185. Jerusalem: Flash vol. 2, #91 190. Archyduke: JLA Year One 193. Jerusalem: Superman and Batman: World's Funnest 196. Random Stranger: She-Hulk 206. hup: Alias vol. 1 219. CarlCX: JLA: Tower of Babel, #43-46 260. Random Stranger: Doomquest, Iron Man #149-150 271. Inkspot: Tomb of Dracula #44/Doctor Strange #14 289. Jordan7hm: Atomic Robo: Why Atomic Robo Hates Dr. Dinosaur 329. A Strange Aeon: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty 325. Archyduke: Superman: Secret Origin 335. Gaz-L: Fantastic Four #8 338. jng2058: Iron Man: Armor Wars 354. Senerio: We3 370. Gummy Joe: Animal Man #5: The Coyote Gospel 396. Zeeman: Fear Itself 426. Jiru: Seaguy 429. bagrada: Batman #417-420: Ten Nights of the Beast 437. bagrada: Tales From the Bully Pulpit 481. Zachack: Uncanny X-Men #101-103: Phoenix Rising/Leprechauns 494. Doctor Spaceman: Marvel Apes 510. baronvonsabre: Bruce Wayne: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D 512. Jiru: Garfield: Alone 537. Random Stranger: Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #106 "I am Curious (Black)!" 543. Wapole Languray NYX Part 1 | Part 2 551. Lick! The! Whisk!: Spider-Man: Identity Crisis - A rewrite may come later 556. SMP: Batman/Daredevil King of New York 577. Random Stranger: Batman #598: Santa Klaus Is Coming to Town! 583. jng2058: Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #112: You'd Better Watch Out... 604. CapnAndy: OMAC vol.2 (John Byrne) Part 1 619. Dexie: Flash Rebirth (Geoff Johns run) 633. Random Stranger Punisher #52: Maternity War 637 jng2058: Justice (Alex Ross/Jim Kreuger) 641. CarlCX: Ultimate X-Men #42 655. Roth: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures #1-12 670. Retro Futurist: Suicide Squad (New 52) 671. CapnAndy: Spawn/WildC.A.T.S.: Devil Day Part One Part Two 676. bagrada: Green Lantern #54-55 679. Lick! The! Whisk!: Maximum Clonage 686. Cornwind Evil: Uncanny X-Men: Holy War, #423-424 Part One Part Two 688. Cornwind Evil: Kick-rear end Part One Part Two Part Three Coda 689. Gaz-L: Wanted 701. Doctor Spaceman: Countdown to Final Crisis Part 0 | Part 1 709. Cornwind Evil: Identity Crisis Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Conclusion Reviews That Need To Be Done: 176. Endless Mike: Hickman's Fantastic Four/FF (in progress; issued 1/6/2018) 63. Escobarbarian: Captain America: Winter Soldier issued 1/6/2018 397. Lightning Lord: Inhumans (Jenkins/Lee) issued 1/6/2018 68. Skwirl: Hawkeye #11, Pizza is My Business issued 1/6/2018 309. Sodomy Non Sapiens: Stormwatch (Warren Ellis/Tom Raney) issued 1/8/2018 662. Lightning Lord: Spider-Man: Reign issued 1/8/2018 363. Fritzler: The Mighty Thorcules (The Incredible Hercules #132-137) issued 1/10/2018 84. Jordan7hm: Mister Miracle #3-4, "The Paranoid Pill" issued 1/12/2018 469. Conrad_Birdie: Legion of Monsters (Dennis Hopeless/Juan Doe) issued 1/14/2018 608. Little Mac: Miracleman (Gaiman/Buckingham) issued 1/14/2018 116. Jerusalem: Starman (Robinson/Harris) (in progress; issued 1/24/2018) 559. AllNewJonasSalk: Final Night issued 2/3/2018 261. enigmahfc: Captain Britain and MI-13: Vampire State issued 2/7/2018 604. CapnAndy: OMAC vol.2 (John Byrne) in progress; issued 2/7/2018 701. Doctor Spaceman: Countdown to Final Crisis in progress; issued 2/7/2018 279. Android Blues: The Coming of Superman (Action Comics #1) issued 2/7/2018 210. Mr. Maltose: Aztek: The Ultimate Man #1-10 issued 2/11/2018 18. Jedi: TRANSFORMERS VS. GI JOE (Tom Scioli and John Barber) issued 2/12/2018 705. Inkspot: Avengers #200 issued 3/14/2018 88. baronvonsabre: V for Vendetta issued 3/14/2018 187. Pacra: Locke & Key: The Crown of Shadows issued 3/14/2018 293. Retro Futurist: BATMAN AND ROBIN MUST DIE issued 3/15/2018 304. Zeeman: JLA/Avengers issued 3/21/18 635. LORD OF BOOTY Civil War issued 4/13/18 355. Retro Futurist Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye issued 4/13/18 Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Apr 13, 2018 |
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Mar 15, 2018 11:02
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Jerusalem posted:Reviews That Need To Be Done:
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Mar 15, 2018 14:18
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I know I'm late. The flu epidemic severely impacted my downtime on the ambulance, and I just haven't had the time to read. The good news is, I finished the first trade and should have the review up by Sunday.
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Mar 15, 2018 16:45
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Random Stranger posted:Okay, that is a well deserved sigh. What I've read of Tomb of Dracula is great, I really need to finish it. Just grabbed the Tomb of Dracula vol. 1 from the Comixology $1 deal because it has the Dracula Lives stuff that seems hard to find, along with the first two volumes of Werewolf by Night and the Marvel Horror Magazine collection, because that era of Marvel horror seems to be great. Also, I think I've recovered from the boredom of Fear Itself, so deal me in, no dupes
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Mar 15, 2018 20:49
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As aforementioned, I'm working a ton and don't have the time I do a real write up. I read it; Spider-Man Identity Crisis is essentially The Clone Saga done more right. It has a gimmick of replacing spidey with someone else, but it only take two months instead of four and each involved book is basically self-contained, so you don't have the problem the clone saga has of constantly repeating information across separate titles. It's pretty inessential and honestly sort of boring; two of the identities spidey assumes are basically variations of Spider-Man, Prodigy is a golden age pastiche so is intentionally flat and boring and sort of nothing, and Dusk is the only really compelling identity S-M assumes and the story ends too quick for it to be explored. Also, being a two month "event" means that although it's not offensive, there's no real reason to read it; it's basically the unsweetened oatmeal of comics stories. That's basically it. I can write more and do a proper review, but I don't have time for at least the foreseeable future.
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Mar 15, 2018 21:39
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I'm 3/4ths of the way through Starman and I have a lot to say about the series, most of which is complimentary with only a couple of niggling issues (and one major one), but before I do I wanna talk exclusively about issue #38 - because I loving hate it. I hate it so much. There's a common occurrence in comics and tv shows, a kind of lovely shorthand to sell how deadly or scary or powerful some particular character is by having them deal to an established threat without actually bothering to build them up through actual development. It's been called lots of things, The Worf Effect, in comics they usually default to using Wolverine (in Marvel) though I'm not entirely sure who the DC equivalent would be: I can think of a few times where Superman was the guy getting punked to showcase how super-cool and badass <new character> was (they weren't). The villain was always defeated, of course: When the Hellfire Club destroyed the X-Men, the issue ended with the now famous panel of Wolverine in the sewers grunting,"Now it's MY turn!" - there was a reason for the chumping, and those chumped were usually given the chance to come back. Grant Morrison had Prometheus take out the entire JLA only to get defeated by a whip to his nads (no cup?) and Morrison acknowledged in a later issue Prometheus' success came largely from the element of surprise - with time to prepare, Batman easily (and hilariously) defeated him. The awful Identity Crisis had the widely mocked issue where Deathstroke defeats a group of JLA members but he does get beaten in the end, even if in a spectacularly stupid way. There's another common occurrence in comics, more to the fore in mainstream comics from the early-00s but certainly in existence before then, particularly in parodies like Mad Magazine - chumping some band of idiots who don't realize how lame and dumb they are. Sometimes it is all in good fun (like The Great Lakes Avengers), but often there is that same underlying nastiness that permeates this issue which draws far too close a line to being outright parody rather than the super-cool coming out party for The Mist that Robinson presumably intended it to be. When Garth Ennis wrote Lobo vs Hitman, I found it funny mostly because I'd never particularly given a poo poo about Lobo as a character. But when he largely just repeated the same thing for Punisher vs Wolverine it felt pretty lame which is probably how any Lobo fans (are there any?) felt when they read the former - hell look at Frank Tieri's sad "answer" to the Punisher/Wolverine story with his own follow-up for Wolverine to clown Punisher. Ennis' later Punisher vs Daredevil, Wolverine and Spider-Man story was mostly kind of pathetic and far nastier: ironically his JLA pastiche from The Pro felt somewhat more nuanced than that story. The oft-derided Mark Millar wrote an effective story about an Avengers-analogue that defeated the Authority (themselves a JLA analogue) which of course lead into the Authority's own comeback. I write about all the above because I can't quite wrap my head around just how mean-spirited this particular issue of Starman is, especially coming as it does in the midst of a comic that has largely been pretty optimistic beneath it's veneer of "realism". The treatment of the characters is cruel and senselessly violent, and made worse by my looking them up afterwards and realizing that not only do none of them ever get a chance to answer back to the Mist, for many of them this was their final ever appearance - they were unceremoniously murdered purely to get over a character who wasn't written well enough to justify it, and in the parts where I'm not rolling my eyes it's because I'm struggling to get the bad taste out of my mouth I had after reading this.  At this period in time, the "Big 7" had returned to the JLA and the smaller members had largely been discarded so Morrison and Waid could concentrate on stories for them (to much critical and commercial success, to be fair). The former Justice League of Europe are now working as a small 5 person hero team based out of France. Acknowledging their lowly status, they plan to eventually work their way back up in the world's mind through progressively larger jobs, starting in France, moving to Belgium and then across the rest of Europe until they're considered the Justice League of Europe once more. The team's attitude ranges from bitter to desperate, they've realized the world has moved on and they have to start from the bottom all over again. Their job is to guard a collection of diamonds on exhibit in Paris, since the police are mostly concerned with potential terrorist attacks on tourist locations but are aware the diamonds might entice a showy super-villain to try and grab them. Robinson certainly is no Garth Ennis, which is what makes the back half of this issue stand out for feeling so uncharacteristic (though not where his writing of The Mist is concerned). He spends the first half of the issue building up the characters, getting us to know each of them. Their thoughts, feelings, hopes and fears both in the wider scale of their team aspirations and their personal desires. Which makes it all the crueler and nastier when after working to build these (pre-existing!) characters up he then spends the back half of the issue rather callously dispatching of them in favor of his pet character, who ironically has none of the depth he has managed to give at least a couple of the team in only a handful of pages.  The idea is obviously meant to be to make us care, so that the Mist's callous murder makes the reader hate her. Except... well, the characters are clearly there to die, they're props for making the Mist look like a big deal but it's a catch-22, because she's not a big enough deal to actually be allowed to kill characters that would make her look like a big deal. Robinson clearly wasn't allowed to do this with any "big" characters: Blue Devil is the biggest "name" to die, even a B-lister like Firestorm rates above the Mist on the importance to DC scale. But even then you could almost make it work if the methods by which the Mist kills off the others weren't so contrived. ESPECIALLY since the Mist is still prone to standing around smugly talking about what she is doing and how. Her brother's death was supposed to have uncovered a talent for supervillainy she didn't know she had, in the same way that Jack's brother's death set him on the path to discovering his own penchant for being a superhero. But Robinson doesn't write her well enough to make that feel natural, everything is forced and the story the worse for it. How does she infiltrate the team? By getting somebody else to teach her how to pretend to be Ice Maiden, then somehow managing to contact Ice Maiden in secret and convince her to rush off to deal with her own personal case without telling anybody. Then she just put on the costume and walked in with the rest of them, and despite NOT being the team leader she was the one who reviewed all the security and sent them all to their locations... oh also she already went to all of the locations already and set them up with specific traps designed explicitly to deal with their power sets without anybody else noticing. Crimson Fox even points out that Mist obviously could have easily stolen the jewels without them knowing, and Mist replies that this wouldn't have been "fun". Her idea of fun? Murdering them just to see if she can.  It's... insufferable. The writing doesn't live up to the concept, it's all too forced and reliant on everything just happening to go her way. How the hell did she manage to coat a room in a veneer of glass without anybody noticing? Her mist was apparently able to slow down the reflexes of somebody with incredibly fast agility enough for her to cut her throat and then hold a lengthy conversation with her without the hero noticing until she suddenly died? How the hell did she get the water in the fire suppression system blessed and made holy in order to take out Blue Devil? The Mist brags about her planning and strategic mind, but a writer can't just say their character is an amazing strategist/planner if they can't actually write them to have believable plans/strategies. If you have to dumb down the characters so they trip over their own feet it's cheating (which Ennis is often guilty of) and more to the point it isn't particularly engaging to read. The idea is to sell how dangerous the Mist has become, so that (ideally) we could see her be defeated down the line by Jack and feel like justice of a sort was done, or she'd finally received some comeuppance. But a poorly written villain who constantly gets away with their plans solely on the auspices of the writer saying they do does not make for a compelling villain. The lack of this has been Starman's major fault so far, but it's come to a head in this issue which brings to the fore all of the problems with the Mist and makes it clear things aren't going to get any better. She's going to get to stand around and make long, smug speeches and engage in minor psychological analysis of the nature of heroes and villains, all while people just stand around gaping and asking dumb questions so she can smirk and tell them they're acting exactly as she planned. But the worst part, the absolute worst for me at least, comes when Mr. Amazing explains to Crimson Fox (as they develop a romance just to make it extra "devastating" when Mist kills them) why he values Paris, and talks about the civil rights movement and the way his grandfather was sidelined and mistreated in America after World War II in spite of his service. He talks of how Paris acknowledged and valued black soldiers and how many black Americans found a success in France they couldn't have in their place of birth. That this story is largely used to add to the "impact" of the Mist casually killing him 6 pages later with a pathetic "bluff" ("I have super-strength, haha actually it was just a big gun!") is really quite disgusting. As I said earlier, I actually ended up looking up these characters after finishing the issue because their deaths were so hamhandedly written that I assumed DC could have done the usual comics thing and just undone it all a few months to a year later. But nope, Crimson Fox remained dead and a new character didn't take on the mantle for another 8 years. Amazing Man got briefly resurrected 5 years later during a JLA/Avengers crossover and 5 years after that a new Amazing Man took up the mantle. Blue Devil at least came back a year later for the Day of Judgment event, while Firestorm as an actual relatively known character I believe just kept on being published in his own title. Icemaiden, rather nastily, apparently disappeared entirely for some time as far as I can tell, only to pop up in DC's One Year Later event where she apparently had the flesh stripped from her living body so another character could stay young. Jesus Christ, DC  This issue sucks, frankly. It's awful, the absolute worst of the Starman run so far. It's so bad that it feels like it comes from a different series and a different writer. But no, Robinson wrote it, and I don't know why. Well I do, I know what he was going for... but he did such an astonishingly bad job of it that it boggles the mind. It's Garth Ennis without the humor, a mean-spirited little side-story in which we get told over and over again how cool and smart and clever the villain is with nothing in the actual story to back it up. It's bad, bad, bad. And I didn't even mention the "spermjacking" plotline yet 
Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Mar 18, 2018 |
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Mar 18, 2018 09:40
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:That's basically it. I can write more and do a proper review, but I don't have time for at least the foreseeable future. I've put it in as complete, you can always write more later when you have some time, if you're so inclined.
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Mar 18, 2018 09:44
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COUNTDOWN #51 - #47 Countdown to Final Crisis is a 52 issue weekly series released in 2007 and 2008. It was a direct follow-up to 52 and some plotlines are a continuation of events in Infinite Crisis, Identity Crisis, Crisis on Infinte Earth and numerous other books DC published in the 20 years prior to the series. As such it is not the most accessible series every written, and relies on a decent knowledge of the status quo of the DC universe about 10 years ago. I’ll endeavour to provide context for the major plot points but a thorough background of everything that turns up in Countdown would end up being the Tristam Shandy of comic books*. For those who came in late… The multiverse has returned. Where there was once a single realm there now stand 52, each overseen by a Monitor. At the centre of the multiverse lies the Rock of Eternity, home of the wizard known as Billy Batson. We open with Darkseid and Desaad. Desaad proposes that life is ultimately meaningless because even if one influences others in their life everything ends in death. Darkseid concedes that someone with a limited view would come to that conclusion, but suggests that he sees further as he looks over the pieces in play in the DC universe. Joker’s Daughter Duela Dent (aka The Joker’s Daughter) kidnaps a young starlet and jumps of a Manhattan skyscraper**. Their parachute is shot down by Jason Todd, who catches the falling kidnappee and confronts Duela. She claims to be from a “neighbouring Earth”, which surprised me since (as best I can tell) prior to this she’d been a wannabee crook who claimed to be related to half of Batman’s rogues gallery before reforming and becoming a Titan. After mocking “Little Red Robin Hood” she suggests that he is as out of place as she is and gives him the slip. She is attacked by a mysterious figure, allowing Jason time to catch up. The figure is a Monitor, one of the race of beings responsible for overseeing the multiverse. In the original Crisis on Infinite Earths there was only an individual Monitor (opposed by an Anti-Monitor), but the rebirth of the multiverse in Infinite Crisis and 52 resulted in one Monitor for each of the 52 universes. I will be referring to the Monitors by their facial hair until or unless they get actual names. The Monitors Fullbeard claims that he is the multiverse’s only hope before shooting Duela. He views Jason Todd as another anomaly, since Jason had been killed by the Joker and then brought back to life by Superboy Prime punching the boundaries of  This is either a good insight into the character or a good insight into the writer Fullbeard claims he should be purged, only to be stopped by Muttonchops the Monitor. Both Monitors leave, with Muttonchops venturing to the edge of the universe to consult the Source Wall, a living boundary at the edge of the Multiverse. Here he is told that disaster approaches, and that the solution is  Who hasn’t been been seen since he disappeared at the end of Identity Crisis*** Fullbeard and Muttonchops both return to the Monitor’s Multiversal Nexus, where a council is called to debate their respective positions before a popular vote is held. Fullbeard makes special note of Donna Troy, Jason Todd and Kyle Rayner as being the “source of the virus” infecting the multiverse. While Donna Troy and Jason Todd have clear links to the Crises (Donna’s origin getting scrambled by CoIE and then again afterwards****, Jason Todd’s aforementioned rebirth) I’m not sure how Kyle Rayner fits in. Backups In the backups the Monitors detail and debate the history of the multiverse by running through the various DC multiverse crossovers, starting with Flash of Two Worlds and running through the semi-regular JLA/JSA crossovers up until Crisis on Infinite Earths. It works better than the debate in the main story because the various crossovers do a better job of illustrating the perils and possibilities than vague, context-free proclamations of disaster do.   I'll give these a more thorough run down in a latter post. Jimmy Olsen Jimmy Olsen is in New York writing a story about the death of the Duela Dent. After calling in a small favour from Superman he meets up with a rather distracted Jason Todd.  Thanks mate, we’re going to need it. Jason Todd suggests the most straightforward approach: ask the Joker. Jimmy follows up on the idea, gaining entry to Arkham and interviewing the Joker. The Joker pretends to grieve and then begins talking about the “big picture” and how something isn’t right, before laughing at Jimmy for thinking he actually has a daughter. Jimmy calls the Planet to tell them he hit a dead end, but is interrupted by an escape Killer Croc. Jimmy spontaneously develops stretching superpowers and avoids Croc until the Arkham guards succeed in restraining him. Back at the Daily Planet he recounts the events in Arkham but neglects to mention the superpowers. Again he is interrupted, this time by a giant cloud floating over Metropolis emitting energy beams. He calls in Superman and rushes down to the street to observe the event. Once down there he again develops a superpower for a brief period: this time super-speed, which allows him to evacuate^ people from the area before they are hit by falling debris. Before he has time to explain he sees a body crash to the ground. It is Lightray, a New God. Lightray repeats the word “Infinite” to Jimmy several times before dying in an explosion of light. Later, Jimmy has a nightmare where he finds himself trapped in the Source Wall  Jason Todd & Donna Troy Donna Troy, Robin, Cyborg, and the other Titans bury Duela Dent. After everyone but Donna has left Jason Todd shows up. He tells her he was there when Duela died and talked about how he "wanted to be around someone else who might know how it feels to be living on borrowed time". Rogues The Trickster and the Pied PIper are trying to rejoin the Rogues. Since they have both reformed in recent years the rest of the Rogues are slow to trust them, possibility correctly in the case of the Pied Piper.  Mirror Master using his powers to snort someone else's line is pretty funny really Mirror Master and Pied Piper argue over past grievances (Mirror Master killed Pied Piper’s father) and over the fact that too many villains are joining the good guys, citing both Piper’s recent face turn and Boomerang Junior hanging around with Supergirl To prove his ill intent Pied Piper steals money from a corrupt corporate executive. As part of his feud with Mirror Master he then claims he’s keeping the money instead of turning it over to the group, but Trickster realises he has donated the money to charity and threatens to expose him unless he receives the loot. Flush with success the Rogues have a party to celebrate before they undertake a big job with Captain Cold and Inertia. Trickster and Piper are disgusted by the way their comrades are acting. They leave to have a private conversation, discussing their reformations and why they didn’t stick. Trickster says he was bored and can always claim to be a double agent if he gets caught. Piper says he is lonely; Linda and Wally are gone and he has no other family. Karate Kid In the Batcave Batman struggles against an attacker. Bats calls him Val Armorr but he says his name is “Trident”. The fight turns against Bats before Black Lightning steps in and incapacitates Val Armorr, saying that Superman miscalculated Karate Kid's skill. Karate Kid is then imprisoned on the JLA satellite, being interrogated first by Red Arrow (who gets no information from him) and then by Star Man. Karate Kid suggests that “"Maybe [the other Legionnaires] could figure out what happened to me, how I wound up in that trident suit with that Starro thing on my neck". Starman mocks Karate Kid for his ignorance of what happened to him and who was responsible.  Also for his dumb-arse posing. Nothing they talk about occurs in Countdown either. Holly Robinson Holly Robinson, a friend of Catwoman who first appeared as a Mary Marvel Mary Marvel is lost and alone. She is cut off from her powers, Freddy Freeman (Captain marvel Junior) has told her not to contact him (via a note) and her brother Billy is unreachable since he is now the Guardian of the Rock of Eternity. She seeks out a fortune teller in New York and is told that if she regains her powers she must stay out of Gotham as it is not safe for magic.   Again, either we’re supposed to think the character is clueless or the writers are Pursued by a street gang in Gotham she runs into vaguely familiar building. Once inside she finds dead bodies. Her attackers are added to the piles by the occupant of the building, Black Adam. Black Adam was a main character in 52, and since I’d prefer to avoid spoiling a good comics just to explain a bad one I’ll be vague and say that he became an outcast after reacting extremely badly to some personal tragedies. Adam wants to be left alone and thinks Mary has been sent to judge him for his crimes. Mary says that she isn’t there to do that, and doesn’t know why she’s there at all but is looking for help. She says his powers give him strength, which only causes him to laugh before describing them as a curse and attacking her for lying to him about her reasons for being there. She insists she is cut off from everyone who can help her, and Adam offers to remove her loneliness before Shazamming all over her.   Someone has masturbated to this ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’ve broken the storylines up this way because it’s easier to follow than an issue-by-issue summary, at least when the storylines don’t intertwine. Countdown, like 52, doesn’t really have book-wide arcs and so picking an endpoint is somewhat arbitrary. In this case I chose the beginning of Mary Marvel’s corruption, since she was a major part of the pre-release advertising (more on that in a later post) and her story arc is one of the more notable aspects of the book. The story has real problems with pacing. A year-long storyline with over half a dozen separate storylines can be forgiven for not moving at a-mile-a-minute but some subplots consist of variations on the same scene while others drag out a few panels into a few pages. The only part to really avoid this is the Jimmy Olsen subplot. The character is well-suited to this kind of story, being a character who needs no introduction to the reader and who has an everyman perspective on both the superhero community and the Fourth World. Between the spontaneous superpowers, the death of Lightray and the visions of the Source Wall there’s more than enough going on to keep the reader interested. Other sections aren’t quite as successful. The Mary Marvel subplot manages to be full of both repetition and internal contradictions, and the meeting with Black Adam is spread across 3 issues. If you can put aside those issues (and her ridiculous costume) it’s still got a hook, which is more than can be said for the Rogues. They meet. They argue. A tidbit of backstory is dribbled out. Rinse. Repeat. The scenes are individually fine but there is no suggestion of what the stakes are and we don’t really know where the story is going^*. It’s worse in the Karate Kid “subplot”. The introductory scene is a confusing mess that lacks any sort of context; Karate Kid is given three different names in one page and if you’re unfamiliar with him (as I am) you’ll have no idea which, if any, is his real one. The scene where he is interrogated by Red Arrow is utterly pointless; the characters and their relationship do not change and the audience gains no new insight. The scene with Starman is only better on account of a decent visual joke. As a subplot on its own it completely fails and as an ad for other books it’s just as bad. The reader is given no reason to care about the events being alluded to or what the stakes are, and even if they did there is no indication of what issues actually contain the story. Maybe I should dive into some of the other books being published around the time, just to get a feel for what’s going on.  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *I did briefly consider doing this **Hell yeah. *** If you are unfamiliar with the events of that story, congratulations. If you wish to be familiar with them, check out Corwind Evil's reviews ****Thanks John Byrne ^That old wanker in The Wire is wrong, it’s been used like that for hundreds of years. ^*This is a lie, because I’ve read ahead and unfortunately know exactly where it’s going. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Even in the darkest of times there are still heroes willing to write  Also check out Rihanna’s new hit Umbrella and don’t forget to buy real estate Doctor Spaceman fucked around with this message at 12:00 on Mar 18, 2018 |
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Mar 18, 2018 11:57
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There really is no reason for Kyle to be with the rest of them, beyond, close-to at the time, being Ion, and having routinely had bouts where he's achieved universe manipulating omnipotence. The actual reason he's there is they decided they wanted to do a Donna Troy love triangle, the bad boy option was given to Jason Todd and since Kyle had a pre-existing relationship with Donna. It was also hosed up by John Bryne. John Bryne hosed up a lot of things. This was especially annoying for me, since I generally like Kyle, Donna and Jason. Kyle Rayner was my introduction to Superhero comics so... yeah, hell one of the writers getting in on this dumb dumb dumb bad bad bad stupid loving experience was Ron Marz... for an issue... The worst part is Countdown would be the last time Kyle Rayner would EVER get to interact with the DC universe writ large. From this moment on, bar a few crossovers in the New52, Kyle would be relegated to a 3rd stringer in the GLC Even when the Actual Final Crisis rolled about all he did at that time was... fly to earth. Onmi fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Mar 18, 2018 |
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Mar 18, 2018 12:30
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Honestly, Countdown was worth it for this image:
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Mar 18, 2018 12:50
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Countdown at its best is incomprehensible, even if you were reading all the major things that it ties into. The entire concept of having each issue reflect things happening in other comics coming out the same week made it extremely difficult for the writers* to actually tell anything resembling a story. And no, I wouldn't recommend reading other comics from the time. That was a really low period for DC and was very much editorially driven. On the positive side, Amazons Attack! gave us this:  *Scripter is probably a better term as I believe Dan Didio was straight-up giving them plots that they then churned out into comics. Oh yeah and Evil Mary Marvel was done because that's how she shows up in Final Crisis, but Morrison's script for issue 1 didn't say *why* so they took it upon themselves to give a reason that ultimately contradicts Final Crisis. Of course. For more fun, as you approach the end of the series when the New Gods die, read Death of the New Gods that came out simultaneously for some fun contradictions! These also contradict Final Crisis and were entirely unnecessary. Endless Mike fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Mar 18, 2018 |
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Mar 18, 2018 16:08
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Jerusalem posted:Stuff that makes me glad I ended my Starman read after the magic painting arc. Blue Devil is rad and deserves better. Last thing I read with him was the team-up with Black Lightning where they fought Tobias Whale. Of course. Sometime around the initial New 52 launch, I think?
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Mar 18, 2018 21:11
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Inkspot posted:Blue Devil is rad and deserves better. Last thing I read with him was the team-up with Black Lightning where they fought Tobias Whale. Of course. Sometime around the initial New 52 launch, I think? I don't think anyone has had a real handle on what to do with Blue Devil since his original series. You probably should have continued Starman, though. This one issue is the lowest point in the series and it's an amazingly low point compared to the rest. If the rest of Starman is an 8, then that issue is a 2. I'd say it was a 1 since I can't think of a redeeming thing about it and it pisses all over some minor characters with fan followings (also, Crimson Fox), but rating things 1 sounds hyperbolic to people who haven't experienced them. That issue is the turd in the punch bowl of Starman.
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Mar 18, 2018 22:00
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Yeah, the reason I did a single issue focus on it is because it stands out so much from the rest of Starman, it's loving terrible and I can't wrap my head around how it could have happened. The tone is completely off from everything else, and despite having the same writer as the rest of the series the quality of writing just takes this massive dip down out of nowhere. I've read past there up through the Stars My Destination storyarc and the quality just snaps back to normal immediately after the issue which makes it all the weirder. I can only assume that Robinson just has a blindspot when it comes to the Mist.Onmi posted:It was also hosed up by John Bryne. John Bryne hosed up a lot of things. Which reminds me, I made the mistake of reading the Genesis event and I'm surprised that didn't make the list, because it's also awful and another example of Byrne loving stuff up. I still can't believe the same guy did OMAC or that early 80s X-Men stuff. Alhazred posted:Honestly, Countdown was worth it for this image: This hilarious panel aside, was there anything sadder and lamer than "Bad" Mary Marvel as a character concept? 
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Mar 18, 2018 22:26
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Isn't there also a huge dose of irony there because Morrison has her corrupted in Final Crisis as a specific satire of taking a character like Mary Marvel and sexualising her and how morally bankrupt that is?
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Mar 18, 2018 23:00
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Gaz-L posted:Isn't there also a huge dose of irony there because Morrison has her corrupted in Final Crisis as a specific satire of taking a character like Mary Marvel and sexualising her and how morally bankrupt that is? And does so in a twisted, disturbing way, rather than just going "And here's bigger tits and a black outfit." On top of that, she's being puppeted by Desaad in Final Crisis which adds a tonne of underlying messages to the whole thing. Like I'm sure they exist, but I can't imagine anyone actually being sexually attracted by Final Crisis Mary Marvel, it's clear that there are 'Sexual' parts of her design, but the whole thing is disgusting overall and not intended to be anything but.
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Mar 18, 2018 23:13
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Endless Mike posted:Countdown at its best is incomprehensible, even if you were reading all the major things that it ties into. The entire concept of having each issue reflect things happening in other comics coming out the same week made it extremely difficult for the writers* to actually tell anything resembling a story. I haven't found it hard to follow (beyond the occasional wikisafari when a new character appears) because nothing really happens.
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Mar 19, 2018 00:23
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Endless Mike posted:I think all of these need updates. I'LL UPDATE YOU, ENDLESS MIKE ULTIMATE X-MEN #42: WORST LIGHTNING BOLT, CONJURED ON UGLIEST BOOK  So, here's the thing: I have never been big on Marvel. In the childhood brand-warfare days I threw my lot in with DC, and lacking a frame of reference for Marvel my myriad attempts to get into them have fallen flat. When they launched the Ultimate imprint in the dark ages of the early 200s I tried in earnest to take advantage--at various points my pull list included The Ultimates, Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Spider-man, Ultimate Fantastic Four and even the weird Orson Scott Card version of Ultimate Iron Man where he was a) a giant walking brain and b) blue. The affair didn't last. Maybe it was the occasionally gross attitude of the brand, maybe it was the low effort put into a lot of the art, maybe it was the often lazy storytelling, maybe it was the growing awareness of how much of a fuckhead Card was and Marvel's desire to keep paying him--I bailed out after a couple of years. Shortly after it apparently turned into a grimdark armageddon universe where people regularly ate each other to death. I feel I made the right call. In coming back to the universe for just one issue, I wondered how many of those problems would resurface--if this would be one of the better issues, if there'd be a level of quality that would make me question the validity of my old criticisms of the imprint. The very first page of Ultimate X-Men #42 introduces a new character named Xi'an Coy Mahn, a young, foreign mutant who is working with Nick Fury's team and aiding the federal government. We know this because the very first page of Ultimate X-Men #42 has almost one hundred words in just two panels that explicitly state all of this, while reusing (mediocre) art with only one change between them.  I didn't miss you, Ultimate Universe. More than anything, this is the problem with this issue: It smacks of we-have-no-budget-or-time-to-make-this-good laziness. 14 of its 21 pages are spent on direct, back-and-forth expository dialogue between characters, eventually growing to the point that the panels become Ctrl-Alt-Deletian existential crises in questioning why you're even writing a comic book when nearly the entire panel is text overlaid atop featureless black figures:  And even when we do get moments of understated, emotional character drama dialogue, it's portrayed through art that is just one image reused at different levels of zoom:  And even when we reach the very point of visual art and express a character's complex feelings without words at all, the inherent lack of effort in the art still shortchanges it. After conjuring a lightning bolt, Storm runs off in search of Beast to share her moment of triumph only to find his empty room. Realizing that he left without telling her, Storm's emotions overpower her and manifest in a dark cloud...  ...which is represented by the same drawing of mansion and tree, but with the colors digitally shifted and the background cloud textures changed. As the sun is blotted out by the clouds of Storm's sorrow the shadows on the mansion don't even budge. The thing is, I know this is nitpicky. I'm analyzing this with the quality standards of a standalone story, but it's a single point in an ongoing monthly where corners need to be cut to get books out on time and within budget. The art doesn't need to be amazing as much as serviceable as long as the characters and the story being told around them are relatable, understandable, and most of all, more sympathetic than they are annoyi  oh, right, the ultimate universe This is the debut of Ultimate Dazzler. The original 616 Dazzler was planned to be a half-real crossover character, wherein the disco label Casablanca Records would create a singer to play Dazzler in real life at real concerts and Marvel would publish comic books about her exciting fantasy life as an action star. It failed, most likely because it was a terrible loving idea. It was still a better idea than an angry swearing mohawked punk Dazzler in the year 2004, when Punk in the mainstream was primarily represented by Green Day going through their mid-thirties "hey, youngsters, pull up a chair and let's rap about America" phase. I'd love to tell you about Dazzler's amazing debut, the incredible story wrapped around it, and the adventures they go on to introduce her as a character. But I can't, because she's in the book for four pages, during which she a) swears at her audience a lot, b) spits on Kitty Pryde's autograph book, and c) tells the X-Men she'll only join them if they get her band a record contract. Aside from an incredibly necessary butt-shot to demonstrate to us that she's wearing a thong and has a lower-back tattoo, that is the totality of her first appearance. This seems like a small thing, but it's emblematic of why the Ultimate Universe had so many structural problems. In a vacuum, if you're a new fan with no preexisting knowledge of Marvel, Dazzler's appearance is entirely perfunctory. Why is she a mohawked punk in 2004? What are her powers? Why does she matter? The story doesn't take the time to answer any of these questions or give any context to why she should matter--because that context is predicated solely on the idea that Dazzler is a sufficiently established character that her introduction can be made primarily by contrasting her craaazy new attitude with her Disco roots. Despite having an entirely new universe and continuity to play around with, Ultimate Dazzler is just the New Coke to 616 Dazzler's fanbase. By the same token, the final panel of the issue is supposed to be a big, surprising Wham Panel by abruptly introducing Emma Frost as a government operative--but again, no context is given to her character or appearance, so the drama depends solely on the idea that the reader already knows why this matters and why they should care. For anyone else, she's A Blonde Woman In A Labcoat. It's only so frustrating because so much of this issue is unnecessary expository chaff that advances no plot, presents no interesting visuals and wastes enormous amounts of space. That's the Ultimate Universe, at the end of the day: Blue brain people, punks three decades too late, a crippling lack of effort in search of deadlines, and at the end of the day, you finish your shredding guitar solo and then The Blob eats you. gently caress you, Orson Scott Card.
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Mar 19, 2018 02:43
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Doctor Spaceman posted:The big advantage 52 had is that it got a whole year of continuity more or less to itself. Countdown ends up with a lot of wheel-spinning while it waits for other events to happen. Holly Robinson's plot won't move until Amazon's Attack is done, the Rogues won't get anywhere until Fastest Man Alive finishes, Karate Kid is waiting on the Lightning crossover, the Monitors debate doing something but can't because that would move the plot along too fast etc.
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Mar 19, 2018 03:28
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Is there a good resource for what happened in the Ultimate universe? I read a few trades in high school and I kind of just want to read a comparison between the traditional characters, i.e., classic Wolverine is like this and Ultimate Wolverine is like that. Your review has me curious if the whole endeavor was as edgy and try hard as I recall or if there were some cool ideas there.
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Mar 19, 2018 03:31
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A Strange Aeon posted:Your review has me curious if the whole endeavor was as edgy and try hard as I recall or if there were some cool ideas there. Ultimate Spider-Man is genuinely good because it's still the Spider-Man you know and love, just in high school. Bendis didn't lean very hard on the "Oh look, it's character you know... only different/more EXTREME!" that the rest of the line was dominated by (though he did fall prey to it from time to time). The rest is exactly as pathetic as you remember it which is why the line outside of Ultimate Spider-Man petered out.
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Mar 19, 2018 03:55
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I think I gave up on Ultimate X-Men in the issue where Wolverine and Jean Grey (who is like... 17?) hook up and go spend the weekend at a hotel loving.
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Mar 19, 2018 04:21
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Random Stranger posted:Ultimate Spider-Man is genuinely good because it's still the Spider-Man you know and love, just in high school. Bendis didn't lean very hard on the "Oh look, it's character you know... only different/more EXTREME!" that the rest of the line was dominated by (though he did fall prey to it from time to time). The rest is exactly as pathetic as you remember it which is why the line outside of Ultimate Spider-Man petered out. The edgier elements might have been interesting if they had any substance beyond shock value like "Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are loving! Or are they?! Yes! They are!". I think that's what Hickman tried to do during his brief daliance in the line, by actually trying to have the Ultimate Universe be meaningfully changed by the things that had occurred in it, having governments collapse and a big chunk of South-East Asia becoming a new power bloc. But that was a classic Hickman long-game idea and it was never really given the breathing space it was going to need to pay off.
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Mar 19, 2018 04:50
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Jerusalem posted:I think I gave up on Ultimate X-Men in the issue where Wolverine and Jean Grey (who is like... 17?) hook up and go spend the weekend at a hotel loving. Not only did this happen, and not only was this their response to Beast almost dying and Cyclops leaving the X-Men, it was led into by a completely unironic 'you're a bad boy and I hate you but I just want you so drat much' dialogue. Ultimate X-Men was the god damned dirt worst.
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Mar 19, 2018 11:33
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CarlCX posted:That's the Ultimate Universe, at the end of the day: Blue brain people, punks three decades too late, a crippling lack of effort in search of deadlines, and at the end of the day, you finish your shredding guitar solo and then The Blob eats you.
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Mar 19, 2018 15:50
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Gaz-L posted:Isn't there also a huge dose of irony there because Morrison has her corrupted in Final Crisis as a specific satire of taking a character like Mary Marvel and sexualising her and how morally bankrupt that is? Also does anyone remember that one blog post from somewhere where they tried to trace characters chronologically from Countdown into Amazons Attack and back and found out that they end up somehow showing up before they leave and being in two places at once? I remember the evocative phrase "The narrative spine of the DC universe has scoliosis" from it, which you'd think would be Google-able, but... nope. Jerusalem posted:I think I gave up on Ultimate X-Men in the issue where Wolverine and Jean Grey (who is like... 17?) hook up and go spend the weekend at a hotel loving.
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Mar 19, 2018 17:40
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CapnAndy posted:Ehhh, I'll defend this. It was their answer to the endless, bullshit romance-cover longing looks between Wolverine and Jean Grey in 616 (oh boy am I excited that they're both alive again without that wet blanket Cyclops to get in the way!!!!!! ...not!!!! look Marvel writers I am as clever as this pairing) -- they meet up before she ever even starts a relationship with Scott, immediately fall into bed because of the lust at first sight thing, and then Jean realizes basically the next morning that that was a scuzzy thing to do and Wolverine is sort of a horrible person, and then she gets over him and that dynamic never comes up again for the rest of the existence of the Ultimate universe. I honestly vastly prefer a dumb-in-retrospect one night stand to the main universe dragging their one note bullshit out for the last 40 years. That's also the center of the problem I was talking about in the review, though--how many things in the Ultimate universe, ostensibly their chance to write a totally new continuity for a new audience completely free of the inertia and mooring of the 616, were chosen as direct responses to the weight of the 616 continuity. It's in the books because it was in the original books, and when the purpose of your imprint is a fresh, unanchored creative start, that's a really bad reason.
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Mar 19, 2018 20:03
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What sort of weird events would have occurred in an Ultimate DC universe? I'm sure this was all over comic blogs 15 years ago.
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Mar 19, 2018 20:08
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