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Lurdiak posted:Is there any answer I could give that wouldn't cause you to list several minor arcs that don't 100% fit my definition? It might help people get where you're coming from. Honestly, both Bendis and Hickman have done very different runs from the standard Avengers fare. I see it as a good thing, in that the Avengers were not that popular or well-selling. It's like Justice League Detroit (i.e. usually 1-2 headliners and then a bunch of c-list characters), and I say that as a life-long Avengers fan. The fact that a lot of the stories involved the rather tangled continuity of the backbench Avengers didn't exactly help things. If the issue is that the characters aren't being heroic exemplars, that's sort of the way Marvel (and DC in its typically more flawed way) have been going for awhile. Super heroic characters don't play to the core audience-- take that as you will, but if it's done well, the Watchmenification of comics is a good thing. It just often becomes a mess because authors don't get that Moore's point was an extension of Stan Lee's original "superheroes as real people" idea.
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Nov 9, 2014 01:37
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It may be too early to include Spider-Verse, but no way is it too soon to include Axis, which is bad and not good or fun.  Yet I keep reading it. 3/4 issues so far have been an un-fun, uninteresting slog. So there.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:16
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rkajdi posted:It might help people get where you're coming from. Honestly, both Bendis and Hickman have done very different runs from the standard Avengers fare. I see it as a good thing, in that the Avengers were not that popular or well-selling. It's like Justice League Detroit (i.e. usually 1-2 headliners and then a bunch of c-list characters), and I say that as a life-long Avengers fan. The fact that a lot of the stories involved the rather tangled continuity of the backbench Avengers didn't exactly help things. Reminder that even in the 80s Armor Wars had Tony Stark breaking international laws and attacking US assets and good heros to eliminate all examples of his armor technology outside his own hands (it's a good story). Also he shot Bruce Banner into space and did that whole civil-war thing. At least in his portrayal in the last decade, he has had a diamond hard core of his own beliefs about what is right and has sacrificed everything to uphold it. This is the man who deleted his own brain to keep his knowledge out of Norman Osborn's hands (he had a backup, because comics) Black Bolt has been written in this direction for at least the entirety of Hickman's F4 run as well. Namor was always a tweener, he's as likely to invade the surface as defend the Earth Steven Strange, I don't know his character has never felt that established for me Black Panther is probably the most unlikely hero to be part of the Illuminati but there's a pretty good reason he's involved as well. The Beast is the cause of all the bullshit in All New X-Men and was always the pragmatist X-Man. (See also: He is blue.) Also, Hickman may have a tendency to put his heros in compromised conditions, but not necessarily to leave them there. At any rate he's not making a huge departure from the Heros as they have been written, just raised the stakes. If it was a different writer I would say "gently caress Grimdark" as well, but I really think his work at Marvel that I've gone through has earned him some trust and patience. Also, Also, I think having Captain America say "gently caress No" to the whole thing really put him forward as the Heroic Ideal for the Marvel universe. Plus I am loving the mystery of the story. We know that the destruction of these universes are not a natural phenomena, and I strongly suspect that the source of the destruction is going to trace back to Earth 616. I was thinking Thanos at first but now... AIM maybe? What the gently caress is up with the Black Swan, in what way is she going to betray them? Of course I've only JUST read the issue where Bruce Banner joins the Illuminati so people who are caught up are probably rolling their eyes at my stupidity. In conclusion, give New Avengers a chance even if you don't read it until the whole story is over. As for Bendis, I think I've already made a post about his Avengers run and why I shouldn't be listened to about it, but there's a page in one of his X-Books (All New, I think) where the time shifted boys are out in public and meet and chat with some teens. There's a really cool dynamic where the X-Men see their job as perilous, difficult, and emotionally tortured while the kids they are talking to think that being a super hero would be kind of cool, with the flying or controlling ice or whatever. I really think this tension informs most of what Bendis has written for Marvel, especially Ultimate Spider-Man. edit: I've been mulling over this idea for at least a month now, and I think that the original impetus was actually a similar post in the "Touching and Inspired" thread about how grimdark Avengers (and all of the Marvel main properties) has been for the last decade. I don't feel that Grimdark is the best term to use for Avengers, is my point. If I screwed up which conversation, sorry for the wrong thread. edit 2: Yeah, this post is not in line with the conversation, but now I'm not sure what to do with it. How about this: What the gently caress happened with X-Men: Messiah Complex, and the sequels. I read the main comics for each event, yet none of them made me want to keep reading the related X-Books, so complete failure? I mean I enjoyed the stories, I guess, but the characters are all kind of ... Bleh? Jonny Nox fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Nov 11, 2014 |
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Nov 11, 2014 05:40
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Man I'm reading Infinity War right now and drat is this thing bad. Magus is the most nonthreatening looking villain ever. He just looks like some rear end in a top hat with a ponytail who grins a lot. The art is the blandest 90's era poo poo possible and it's just so loving boring. Evil doppelgangers are showing up and beating up heroes, but the way the story is laid out is so weird that the battles are just so bland. There is no dialogue and it's just: bad guy shows up. punches good guy. maybe good guy wins. maybe not. Next scene. This is a really loving terrible event comic.
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Nov 21, 2014 19:27
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Is Bloodlines considered an event? Because that is the comic equivalent of the WWF New Generation by just throwing a ton of extreme 90s characters against the wall and see what sticks. We may have got one of the greatest series of all time from it in Hitman, but that doesn't make up for the 28 other characters that were introduced.
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Nov 21, 2014 19:57
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Havoc904 posted:Is Bloodlines considered an event? --too many subpar artists failing to sell Art Adams' original creature work, which by itself, already wasn't that hot --too many annuals following the exact same story beats (and there were a lot of annuals in the mix). It's a slog to get through. --too much focus on the new kids owning over the established heroes --too much goddamn blood, and in that I mean, it's overall a pretty gross and 90s-gaudy story, with people getting eaten and ripped apart all over the place, and it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth after awhile. --ending the entire storyline with a two-part BLOODBATH finale. I mean, c'mon. The whole dumb storyline being accidently caused by Lobo is pretty fitting, at least. redbackground fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Nov 21, 2014 |
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Nov 21, 2014 20:11
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That tickles my memory a bit, but early 90's, wasn't there a similar event with Marvel annuals? Where each one introduced a new character and I think the x-men one was the X-cutioner who was using one of I think Reaper's Scythes and a bunch of other random villain weapons. Did any of those characters survive or anything?
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Nov 21, 2014 20:38
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Kalli posted:That tickles my memory a bit, but early 90's, wasn't there a similar event with Marvel annuals? Where each one introduced a new character and I think the x-men one was the X-cutioner who was using one of I think Reaper's Scythes and a bunch of other random villain weapons. Did any of those characters survive or anything? Just like Bloodlines, I think there might have been a character or two to come out, but nothing lasting. I get why there was a push to add new characters (even back then the addition of new lasting characters was almost dead) but forcing it just meant lots of crap was released that killed any chance for the few good ideas to stick around.
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Nov 21, 2014 20:44
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redbackground posted:Heck yeah it is. Speaking as someone who has a Lot of Love for 90s DC comics, a few of the individual annuals were actually quite good--Lobo, LEGION, Demon, JLI, for example. However, the whole thing suffered from: Those creatures scared the ever living gently caress out of me when I was a kid. I remember daring myself to read this comics because I thought those creatures were scary.
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Nov 21, 2014 20:48
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OldTennisCourt posted:Man I'm reading Infinity War right now and drat is this thing bad. Magus is the most nonthreatening looking villain ever. He just looks like some rear end in a top hat with a ponytail who grins a lot. The art is the blandest 90's era poo poo possible and it's just so loving boring. Evil doppelgangers are showing up and beating up heroes, but the way the story is laid out is so weird that the battles are just so bland. There is no dialogue and it's just: bad guy shows up. punches good guy. maybe good guy wins. maybe not. Next scene. It was either a ponytail or a big purple gently caress off afro.
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Nov 21, 2014 21:12
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Parlett316 posted:It was either a ponytail or a big purple gently caress off afro. You should read the original storyline with him in Strange Tales and Warlock.
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Nov 21, 2014 21:16
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Kalli posted:That tickles my memory a bit, but early 90's, wasn't there a similar event with Marvel annuals? Where each one introduced a new character and I think the x-men one was the X-cutioner who was using one of I think Reaper's Scythes and a bunch of other random villain weapons. Did any of those characters survive or anything? Marvel did a similar thing with a new character in every annual that year, but unlike DC it wasn't an event where there was a storyline connecting all of them. I remember the Doctor Strange one was intended to be a new apprentice but Roy Thomas left the book a few months later and the guy vanished. I can't think of any other series actually using the characters created in those annuals.
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Nov 21, 2014 21:48
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Marvel's edgy 90's book was X-Force
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Nov 21, 2014 22:11
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Parlett316 posted:Marvel's edgy 90's book was X-Force All the books in 90's Marvel were tripping over themselves to prove how edgy they were.
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Nov 21, 2014 22:25
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Random Stranger posted:All the books in 90's Marvel were tripping over themselves to prove how edgy they were. It wasn't just Marvel, every comic in the 90s very much wanted to be edgey. Just looking at Image Comics is like the epitome of this. Speaking of Image comics and bad events, did anyone else read the event where Shadowhawk showed up in every other Image comic looking for a cure to his AIDs? Then the only person that could potentially help him was Spawn, who told him to gently caress off because he wasn't using his spawn energy counter to get rid of the guys' AIDs? Then Shadowhawk died and Troll from Youngblood cried. I feel like that above event would be some very ridiculous parody, but here we are.
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Nov 21, 2014 22:37
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Random Stranger posted:Marvel did a similar thing with a new character in every annual that year, but unlike DC it wasn't an event where there was a storyline connecting all of them. Genis-Vell was introduced in the Silver Surfer Annual and went on to become the besr Captain Marvel ever, Bloodwraith was used in Busiek's Avengers run and Adam-X has shown up in a couple books.
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Nov 21, 2014 22:41
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Havoc904 posted:It wasn't just Marvel, every comic in the 90s very much wanted to be edgey. Just looking at Image Comics is like the epitome of this. DC did it best 
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Nov 21, 2014 22:42
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Speaking of Image, didn't they have several bad crossover events when Wildstorm was still owned by them?
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Nov 22, 2014 06:43
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Mostly from Liefeld. Extreme Prejudice, Extreme Destroyer, Babewatch, ... Did they ever get more than two issues of Image United out?
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Nov 22, 2014 18:18
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I'm pretty drat certain someone here did a writeup on the Image United woes. Am I remembering that wrong?
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Nov 22, 2014 22:58
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Rirse posted:Speaking of Image, didn't they have several bad crossover events when Wildstorm was still owned by them? That said, there was the Deathmate crossover with Valiant!
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Nov 23, 2014 05:01
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Talking about Birds of Prey in the TV Thread made me remember the one redeeming thing about Identity Crisis: Calculator is a really brilliant concept but amazingly simple at the same time. Too bad that with the elimination of Oracle, he'll never be as well utilized as he could have been.
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Jan 12, 2015 00:39
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Timeless Appeal posted:Talking about Birds of Prey in the TV Thread made me remember the one redeeming thing about Identity Crisis: Calculator is a really brilliant concept but amazingly simple at the same time. Too bad that with the elimination of Oracle, he'll never be as well utilized as he could have been. My favorite thing about Identity Crisis was how it humanized some of the villains, showed them lurking in bars and secret shadowy headquarters, and how some were just working stiffs or pathetic washouts, while there were others who were too terrifying or weird and everyone generally avoided them. And I loved how Calculator was given a really cool new purpose.
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Jan 12, 2015 04:23
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Identity Crisis humanized a lot of characters. The Butter Pecan speech, and any scene with Ma Kent are some of my favorite moments from DC.
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Jan 12, 2015 17:35
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Die Laughing posted:Identity Crisis humanized a lot of characters. The Butter Pecan speech, and any scene with Ma Kent are some of my favorite moments from DC. The Butter Pecan speech is possibly the only thing I still remember fondly from that book. I know there's more, but I don't really want to revisit it and dig for them.
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Jan 12, 2015 22:02
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Die Laughing posted:Identity Crisis humanized a lot of characters. The Butter Pecan speech, and any scene with Ma Kent are some of my favorite moments from DC. Those characters were already humanized. You don't need to rape and murder Sue Dibny for people to relate to her. She was a likable and fun character before she was a corpse. Stories where Superman is dealing with and concerned about the people around him are nothing new. Stuff like The Death of Clark Kent handled it long before Identity Crisis ever did.
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Jan 12, 2015 22:04
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Die Laughing posted:It's one issue in, and it was a perfectly fine book. Now that we are further along, Spiderverse's main book is bad. But it's basically serving as a hub book, almost like infinity. It needs a handy chart in the front of each book, they could even make it look like a web! I'm reserving final judgement on it, but it's not looking great. Fear itself had the same problem. Actually it had a lot of problems, but one of the big ones was that a lot of important stuff was happening in side books you didnt know mattered. Another big one was that many of the tie ins were "here is a team fighting an evil guy with a hammer and defeating him in a way that has no interaction with the main arc" and there was no real way to tell which ones were which. Avengers Academy, and Fantastic Four are the first to come to mind as far as that goes. So at least Spiderverse isn't crossing over to too many other books! X-Men, Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 16:21
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ImpAtom posted:Those characters were already humanized. You don't need to rape and murder Sue Dibny for people to relate to her. She was a likable and fun character before she was a corpse. Stories where
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Jan 13, 2015 16:59
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Alhazred posted:Identity Crisis was just another step in DC's ongoing process in destroying everything Works better.
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Jan 13, 2015 18:39
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There were good ideas in Identity Crisis, the problem was the terrible poo poo was so bad it overwhelmed everything else. Even discounting the rape, which was awful, you still have the scene with Deathstroke clowning the JLA like it was the writer's personal fanfic. You have Dr. Light turn into a villain whose sole characteristic is that he threatens female heroes with rape. You have the mystery being a gigantic cheat with enormous plot holes. You have Firestorm randomly killed off for no reason and so many other issues. Hell I'll even forgive the Batman mind wipe which could have worked in a much better book but then was just used as an an attempt to turn Batman into a huge recluse that hates everyone which resulted in a huge spy satellite that Bats loses control of because he's a moron.
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Jan 15, 2015 20:43
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OldTennisCourt posted:There were good ideas in Identity Crisis, the problem was the terrible poo poo was so bad it overwhelmed everything else. Even discounting the rape, which was awful, you still have the scene with Deathstroke clowning the JLA like it was the writer's personal fanfic. You have Dr. Light turn into a villain whose sole characteristic is that he threatens female heroes with rape. You have the mystery being a gigantic cheat with enormous plot holes. You have Firestorm randomly killed off for no reason and so many other issues. Hell I'll even forgive the Batman mind wipe which could have worked in a much better book but then was just used as an an attempt to turn Batman into a huge recluse that hates everyone which resulted in a huge spy satellite that Bats loses control of because he's a moron. You know, despite all the reasons above, the main reason I hated IC was because it was a really really really lovely murder mystery.
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Jan 15, 2015 21:16
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OldTennisCourt posted:You have Dr. Light turn into a villain whose sole characteristic is that he threatens female heroes with rape. Am I alone in thinking that, even though trying to rehabilitate his supervillain cred was ostensibly part of the reason Meltzer wanted to use him, Dr Light actually came out of IC an even more pathetic character than he was when he went in? Before IC, Light was an inept C-Lister and punching bag for the Teen Titans; he was a loser. But after IC, he was an inept C-Lister who wouldn't shut up about the one time he was able to hurt a superhero by raping the man's wife and acted like it made him a Lex Luthor or Joker level menace; but he was still a loser. In other words, he was a joke before IC, but after IC, he became a bad joke. Ugh. I thought this wretched comic was a masterpiece when I was 14. I can recognise that there's elements of it that Meltzer did well, and they've been mentioned already on this page, but I just can't get past everything else.
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Jan 15, 2015 22:18
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Firestorm's death was fine because they had a better Firestorm planned anyways. Rags Morales really sold those emotional moments. I really liked the graveyard scene with Hal and Ollie too. It was good prep for Green Lantern: Rebirth. Identity Crisis also did a good job of making the villains feel like they had a community. I find it hard to believe there weren't anymore stories that involved the bad guys satellite.
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Jan 15, 2015 22:37
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Die Laughing posted:Identity Crisis also did a good job of making the villains feel like they had a community. I find it hard to believe there weren't anymore stories that involved the bad guys satellite. A bad guy community? What a novel concept and not one that Geoff Johns was writing about at the same time and doing an awesome job at.
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Jan 15, 2015 22:42
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Let's not forget the worst Dr. Light moment after IC was in Blackest Night (which I'd argue is a little below IC in terms of being awful) where he, as a zombie, threatens the female Dr. Light with rape AND threatens to murder her children. Blackest Night was such an unpleasant event. I can deal with dark events and stories, but BN was trying too loving hard and it showed. Die Laughing posted:Firestorm's death was fine because they had a better Firestorm planned anyways. Rags Morales really sold those emotional moments. I really liked the graveyard scene with Hal and Ollie too. It was good prep for Green Lantern: Rebirth. I'm not saying the next Firestorm was a bad idea, but having Firestorm get killed off by some rear end in a top hat in a throwaway page felt beyond lame. Like, if I recall right it was maybe 5 panels and then he's literally never mentioned again in the series. At least make it have some impact instead of "Yeah uh, he's dead now I guess?"
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Jan 15, 2015 22:59
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OldTennisCourt posted:Let's not forget the worst Dr. Light moment after IC was in Blackest Night (which I'd argue is a little below IC in terms of being awful) where he, as a zombie, threatens the female Dr. Light with rape AND threatens to murder her children. What about the moment with Firestorms girlfriend? There was also his death with the hookers dressed as the teen titans that were roleplaying rape.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:03
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bobkatt013 posted:What about the moment with Firestorms girlfriend? Oh god I didn't even know about those. Was the girlfriend one in Blackest Night too? He turned her into salt in a loving terrible scene or something? I stated before but good lord did the zombies in BN annoy me. Every single one of them was Freddy Kreguer. Wouldn't it be more effective and disturbing to have them act exactly like they did in life except evil instead of "HA HA LOOKS LIKE YOU'VE GOT A LOT OF HEART HAWKMAN! WELCOME TO PRIME TIME BITCH" OldTennisCourt fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Jan 15, 2015 |
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Jan 15, 2015 23:04
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OldTennisCourt posted:Oh god I didn't even know about those. Was the girlfriend one in Blackest Night too? He turned her into salt in a loving terrible scene or something? She was turned into Salt and then this happened 
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Jan 15, 2015 23:13
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Bring back the Jim Corrigan Spectre and bash some of these awful writers/storylines
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Jan 15, 2015 23:39
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Seeing stuff like this kinda makes me GLAD New 52 happened. Kinda.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:45
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