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I really don't know what the between-office editorial communication was like, but Mark Gruenwald was Simonson's editor on Avengers, while Ralph Macchio was his editor on FF. Maybe the face of the menacing bureaucracy in the climax of his FF run wasn't quite as affectionate as I assumed as a kid. 
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May 17, 2017 21:16
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sbaldrick posted:I love Galactic Storm, maybe the first really great Marvel space story.
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May 18, 2017 06:06
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Here's a quick recap of what happens in nineteen (more if you count preludes and epilogues) issues of OPERATION GALACTIC STORM: 1) Some Shi'ar are like trying to collect a bunch of Macguffins to build a SUPERWEAPON to destroy the Kree, who they went to war with off-panel. 2) The Avengers succeed in stopping them from collecting a few Macguffins, but the Shi'ar have spare Macguffins and are able to build the NEGA-BOMB, a bomb that is made of the Negative Zone or something but somehow required a bunch of other poo poo to make. 3) Some Avengers go to the Shi'ar homeworld to ask them to stop fighting. Others go to the Kree homeworld to ask THEM to stop fighting. Neither teams succeeds. 4) Deathbird murders a bunch of people in the Kree government so the Supreme Intelligence pops up and goes HEY I'M THE LEADER NOW. 5) The NEGA-BOMB is on its way to Kree territory but before it goes off it turns out that Skrulls had infiltrated Shi'ar government and tricked them into going to war. 6) Oh a different group of Skrulls stole the bomb so even though the Shi'ar don't want to bomb the Kree anymore the Skrulls still do. 7) And then the Skrulls successfully bomb the Kree and kill off like 95% of the people in multiple galaxies with this super duper bomb. I can't remember the captions say billions or trillions die, but it's a loving lot. 8) Then the Supreme Intelligence gloats that this was his plan ALL ALONG, and somehow he manipulated the Skrulls into manipulating the Sh'iar into manipulating the Kree into going to war so that this Rube Goldberg device of poorly described events could take place so that 95% of the Kree Empire is killed... because he's jealous of other races being able to have mutants, Kree can't have mutants but he bets that anyone who survives this bomb will be able to mutate in all sorts of cool ways. 9) Then the Avengers take a vote about whether or not it's okay to try to destroy this AI that is literally laughing in their face about how they helped him kill billions/trillions of people and he's going to get away with it and there's nothing they can do and etc. Some Avengers decide it's probably better to kill the Supreme Intelligence, but a bunch (Cap, Hawkeye, BLACK WIDOW) decide that killing is wrong, even in times of war. Even in times of galactic genocide. Even when the war criminal in question is literally just a techno-organic amalgamation of a bunch of dead brains. 10) I have no idea, right afterwards the West Coast Avengers break up and get canceled, and form FORCE WORKS the extreme pro-active version of the Avengers, but the schism there doesn't align at all with Those Who Kill and Those Who Don't. I'm pretty sure the Kree Empire comes back within a couple of years. The Supreme Intelligence doesn't even stay dead for an entire issue, and is shown getting downloaded into a different planet like five pages after the momentous CHOICE FOR AVENGERS TO KILL. I don't think any of the d-list characters who get killed off in the series stay dead, no one did anything with all the new Kree Mutants, it was a bad story with a bad plot that accomplished nothing. I think the best illustration of Operation Galactic Storm's quality is that they build half an issue around the reveal that Hawkeye is deemed "not powerful enough" to go into space because "all he has is a bow and arrow" (other people who are part of the Space Team: Captain America with his shield, Black Knight with his sword) so Hawkeye storms out, comes back and is all HEY GUYS REMEMBER IN THE KREE-SKRULL WAR WHEN I WAS GOLIATH FOR LIKE THREE ISSUES? GUESS WHAT, I GOT HANK TO GIVE ME SOME GOLIATH JUICE, I'M GOLIATH AGAIN, LET'S GO TO SPACE. And then he's like... there. Like he grows big for a couple of pointless fight scenes, but there's nothing in the entire nineteen issues that affects the story or him as a character that he's wearing a different outfit and like he takes out fuckin' Ch'od from the Starjammers with a giant hand instead of a net arrow. And then as soon as he gets back to Earth he basically goes WELL HEY IT WAS FUN TO BE GOLIATH LIKE BACK IN THE ORIGINAL KREE-SKRULL WAR BUT YOU KNOW, TIME FOR OL' HAWKEYE TO COME BACK LET'S FORGET ABOUT THAT GOLIATH BUSINESS, EH?
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May 19, 2017 01:38
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Lurdiak posted:I hate you for reminding me of all that, but I will point out that there's a pretty big difference between killing during a war and executing a prisoner of war, even if he may or may not be "alive".
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May 19, 2017 14:41
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"Why didn't they get deeper into her background as a humble ex-prostitute who learned kung fu so that she could try to seduce all of the male Avengers and make the female Avengers jealous in this movie?"
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May 19, 2017 20:34
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Nextwave is good because there are still a few things I like about Transmetropolitan so it's nice to have a different Warren Ellis Project With the Most Insufferable Fans
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May 20, 2017 19:51
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A Strange Aeon posted:re the classic Captain Marvel issues collected anywhere?
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May 27, 2017 19:46
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A Strange Aeon posted:poo poo, I think I meant Shazam, then? The Mr. Mind chat made me think of it. Wouldn't there be like 50 years of Fawcett comics? Have those ever been reprinted? I know there were some random fill-in issues with Alan Moore's Marvel Man, but I thought those stories were some other British rip-off of the American Fawcett stuff. I believe they're all out of print, but Amazon has pretty decent prices on DC's old line of Archive hardcovers. Marvelman was very explicitly a British comics company doing very well with Captain Marvel reprints in the 1950s and then just doing their own rip-off, which now Marvel owns and reprinted to resounding indifference.
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May 27, 2017 20:44
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John Byrne's whole thing by the early 1990s when he did Avengers West Coast (and only hardened going forward) was this sort of weird FRAMER'S INTENT philosophy. It got even worse after Kirby died and Byrne briefly batted around trying to take on the mantle of The New King, Heir to Jack's Throne before getting slapped down violently by well, everyone. Therefore when he did his New Gods stuff in the late 1990s, he insisted no one but Kirby's interpretation mattered. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were loyal members of Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants back when STAN AND JACK wrote them, so shouldn't they still be that? Hawkeye was a kneejerk hothead WHEN STAN AND JACK WROTE HIM so there's no way he'd be leader of an Avengers team! And Vision is just an android very much not made from the parts of the original Human Torch because that was Steve Englehart, who had probably slighted Byrne at some point so gently caress Englehart violating the original form of the Vision that Stan and Jack, er, Roy and John created. Now when he decided to invalidate half of the old style FRAMER'S INTENT of Superman in 1986, that was okay because ____________________.
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Jun 10, 2017 23:03
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In John Byrne's defense, he did a pretty great Nixonian bit of begging the question rather than outright saying it. From 1993, when Kirby was still around and Next Men was new: quote:Once upon a time yours truly was considered the Number One Talent in comics, at least in terms of the available crop of comic artists. This is not ego speaking. This is a statement of simple fact. The mantle once worn by the likes of Jack Kirby and Neal Adams had settled about my shoulders. quote:Toward the end of the conversation [about Kirby's passing, Byrne's art dealer] said something that took me totally by surprise. "Better take care of yourself," he said. "You're The King now."
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Jun 12, 2017 02:22
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Lobok posted:"I made my patients faster and stronger and more alive than ever! And for that they took away my license! Called me a quack! Well I'll show them what it means to be a quack! They're about to get billed by... DOCTOR DUCK!!!"
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Jun 14, 2017 15:09
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Lobok posted:Strange name to give a villain, especially male, considering Dorcas was a cherished and noble woman in the Bible. My grandma was in a Dorcas group, knitting clothing for people in need. drat, missed my opportunity while she was alive to call her a huge Dork rear end. In looking up who created Dr. Dorcas, I found out that he came back from the dead and went from looking like this standard Nasty Scientist  to a *really* nasty looking scientist  It was in Jeff Parker's Thunderbolts, which I read, so it's double weird I forgot about this serial killer starfish look.
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Jun 14, 2017 15:33
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A number of writers carried a heavy load trying to rehabilitate Tigra in Avengers Initiative/Avengers Academy and I don't know if they succeeded but I think she deserves to be raised out of the cellar simply because people put some effort into her and she appeared in some comics that weren't just godawful. I may be giving her too much credit just for sheer longevity. I also appreciate no one listing Starfox just because he became a butt of jokes for a couple of decades there. I will ride or die for Doctor Druid because his entire story was that he was terrible and ill-equipped to be an Avenger which puts him ahead of everyone else mentioned. Stingray was kind of cool because his whole thing was basically "I'm a researcher, not a crimefighter" and I respect that. Pretty much everyone else mentioned are all unquestionably terrible and I'm heartened to see people listing actually lovely nobodies like Silverclaw and Gilgamesh (and Deathcry!) and not just "bad" Avengers like Wonder Man/Mockingbird/Hank Pym/Black Knight who had periods of being cool and then other long runs of irrelevance. And I really appreciate that no one stooped so low as to pick on support crew members like Fabian Stankowicz or Marilla, may she rest in peace. Edge & Christian fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Jun 15, 2017 |
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Jun 15, 2017 04:32
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He's allies with GRONK, not the football player but Doughboy's illegitimate son. The all existed solely as henchmen for MAELSTROM, who was like Evil Mastermind With a Longterm Master Plan #207 from the 1970s and 1980s.
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Jun 16, 2017 00:33
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Hey, debuting in Dazzler puts Blue Shield in the company of luminaries such as Terror Tank, Beefer, Doctor Sax, Johnny Guitar, Roman Nekoboh (whose name is Hoboken Namor backwards for some reason), the Outriders (Stomper, Chunk, and Mama), and uh... yeah, actually Blue Shield is somehow the breakout star of that run.
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Jul 1, 2017 14:53
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delfin posted:Mark Gruenwald was a complicated man. 1) Don't just create redundant characters willy-nilly, if you need a teleporter or fire guy or ice guy or bird guy and there's one already established and there's no compelling storyline/character reason not to use the established character, just use them, there's no point in having twenty different ill-drawn Freeze Ray Guys Who Rob Banks. 2) Try not to job out established characters for what amount to filler pages to set up your real story, having [your character] beat up the Absorbing Man or the Wrecking Crew or Rhino in two pages doesn't make your character look badass, and it cheapens the established characters. So the result in "create totally unique characters that can afford to get jobbed out" and thus: Death Throws. And the Power Tools. And the 8th-13th most prominent members of the Serpent Society. And all of the Skeleton Crew that aren't Crossbones. My Lovely Horse posted:so Nighthawk is definitely intended to be Marvel's Judge Dredd, right? Though technically speaking that issue came out the summer of 1977, a few months after Judge Dredd debuted in 2000AD. Odds are slim that the creators would have been reading (or even able to obtain) the then-new import magazine, but if there's some other parallel I'm missing it's possible they picked it up. Edge & Christian fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Aug 26, 2017 |
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Aug 26, 2017 16:43
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Actually he's sort of poo poo at being a businessman and as soon as he became a superhero delegated all of his business dealings to his trusted right-hand man who funneled a bunch of his company's money into the white supremacist Sons of the Serpent. Not because he was a racist - hell, he was African-american - but because he thought it would (somehow) be good for business. The Serpent Society was basically an old executive who stole some supervillain tech and was like "The government should be run.... like a business! Wait no, not a government, an evil supervillain organization!" and he brought collective bargaining agreements and benefits and stuff to supervillainy. Then eventually he almost got killed by the original crazy nihilist who hijacked his well-functioning organization and tricked them all into helping her in a plot to turn Ronald Reagan into a snakeman to destabilize humanity and wipe the planet clean of life. In short, snake themed villains are a study in contrasting philosophies.
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Aug 26, 2017 21:52
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Wanderer posted:I was never 100% clear on how the original '70s Nighthawk from the Defenders managed to come back to life, or why anyone thought it needed to happen. So Jim Krueger, co-writer of all that insanely convoluted Earth/Universe/Paradise X got tapped to do a three issue mini-series where Nighthawk was resurrected by an angel Mephisto and given NIGHTHAWKVISION to see crimes before they happened in a convoluted plot to get Nighthawk to kill Daredevil, at which point it was revealed Nighthawk was in hell and was a pawn to get Daredevil down into hell but then they somehow fought their way out of hell because of Nighthawk Vision and Daredevil's Radar Senses or something or other. Then this was promptly forgotten and he kind of pops up every 2-3 years with a new status quo, then disappears again.
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Aug 27, 2017 18:55
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A comprehensive guide to Woodgod's post-1987 non-guidebook appearances: Quasar #14: He shows up, unnamed in a couple of panels showing all the weirdos that Mark Gruenwa-- I mean the Stranger has given sanctuary to on his Laboratory Planet. Quasar #20: Alongside Gargoyle, Diamondhead, and some other even more obscure character, he shows up on Earth in an ship that escaped from the Stranger's Laboratory Planet. Again, no name or dialogue. Marvel Comics Presents #76: An eight page story STARRING Woodgod by veteran inker Robert Campanella in one of his only writing credits, with art by Dave Cockrum. He's back in the hidden Changeling town, and we join him in media res as he's dumping Dovninia his half-deer girlfriend, which catches the attention of town rake Leonius, who is jealous that all of the Changeling ladies want to gently caress Woodgod, not him. I am not exaggerating. His plan for revenge is to lure all of the female Changelings one by one into the woods by telling them that Woodgod sent him to bring them to a rendezvous, then capturing them in nets Ewok style. Then he sells all of the women to DR. MALACHI OZ of Roxxon to experiment on. He plans to convince all of the remaining male Changelings that Woodgod has sold off their women. But Leonius decides he'd rather sneak off with Dr. Oz and get drunk as he experiments on all those women who won't gently caress him, so everyone assumes Leonius kidnapped them and track him to Dr. Oz's lab. He bursts in right as Dr. Oz starts contemplating that maybe *he* wants to gently caress some of the Changelings, kills Dr. Oz for being an evil scientist, and frees the women. They all thank Woodgod for saving them, and still want to gently caress Woodgod, but he tells them "I must remain ever apart... watching... protecting... alone..." and the story ends with Dovinia crying as she turns away from Woodgod, her desire to be with him unfulfilled. This all happens in eight pages. Nick Fury Agent of Shield #37: Nick Fury stumbles upon the Changeling town and they're all dead. Turns out they were killed off panel by people from Tranquility Base (repeatedly called "Trinity Base") and Fury arrives as they're trying to kill Woodgod too, but he's Hulked out and looks like he's going to kill them, so Nick Fury decides the right thing to do is shoot and kill Woodgod.  But don't worry, he shot him with tranquilizer bullets, and he set him free in another part of Colorado where I guess no one from T______ Base will ever find. This is probably his last in-continuity appearance, from 1992. Namor #44: I don't know what the gently caress this is, it's a one-shot called The Rime of the Ancient Sub-Mariner, which is all told in (kind of) verse about Namor and some Atlanteans getting attacked by a supervillain named The Albatross, and then his ship gets lost in the Arctic he plays dice with Thanos and Death and then he's turned into a ghost who fights Mephisto and Sattanhish, and is eventually is saved by Woodgod who is playing a pan flute and rows him to shore. I'm not entirely sure this counts as an appearance of Woodgod, or an in-continuity story, or a story in general. Hulk #30: The Impossible Man kidnaps Hulk and Red Hulk, makes them fight a bunch of goofy monsters, from Xemnu to ZZazxx to Woodgod to kluH, who is a well-spoken, overthinking Bizarro Hulk. Hulk and Red Hulk get merged into Composite Hulk. They beat up everyone. Lots of winks to the camera. I am also not certain this counts as in-continuity, but at least it's a clearly delineated story. Strange Tales II #3Dean Haspiel does a story where Woodgod hits on Alicia Masters, plays some stickball with Ben Grimm, and is then transformed in a mute sentient ball of gas and sent out into deep space as punishment for hubris by the Celestials. I swear that Warren Ellis wrote a jokey blogpost about how he wanted to revamp Woodgod about ten years ago, but I can find no trace of it.
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Sep 5, 2017 05:33
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Ghostlight posted:Why do you think so many women are interested in him.
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Sep 6, 2017 14:04
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