This is the thread to talk about Marvel Comics.
Marvel Comics Thread
- This topic has 1,156 replies, 37 voices, and was last updated 2 weeks, 5 days ago by
.
Author
-
-
-
The Fantastic Four Remake Their History in ‘Fantastic Four: Life Story’
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
I still think he ran Marvel better than any boss before or since.
Whether he did or didn’t, You can’t treat staff that way anymore. Back then it really was the big 2. Now if it happened “time to talk to Image about some creator owned ideas.”
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Shooter was never charming and took a lot of valid criticism, I still think he ran Marvel better than any boss before or since.
If you look closesly (or rather from afar) at the bottom of the page, there’s an imprint of the word MADMAN there. Big one. Something else is written over that, but I can’t make it out. WELCOME?
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
Just recently re-read Secret Wars. Considering how he wrote the X-Men in it, one could probably assume he hated them.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Whether he did or didn’t, You can’t treat staff that way anymore. Back then it really was the big 2. Now if it happened “time to talk to Image about some creator owned ideas.”
Well he’s addressing it to editors and most Image books don’t have editors unless a wealthy creator like Kirkman or Millar appoints one and they are usually local friends/contacts.
Overall though I agree, Shooter wound up a lot of creators and got it in the neck after he left with with various parodies. A dictatorial approach is not great and not usually welcomed in the 21st century but the books were really good and some creators have recanted to a degree because he did that while also introducing royalty payments. Claremont and Byrne had digs at Shooter but later admitted they were rewarded pretty handsomely. In the Friedrich case Byrne had to admit under oath he’d been paid over $10 million by Marvel which is a stark contrast to the previous generation like Ditko and Kirby. CC is a lot more amenable to Shooter now because he liked the next guys less.
The irony is that the 21st century approach to management is a lot more touchy feely while pretty consistently reducing reward. They’ll give you a mental health helpline number while simultaneously cutting what they pay into your pension.
-
There’s a book about Stan Lee out next week that I’m looking forward to: https://www.amazon.co.uk/True-Believer-Rise-Fall-Stan/dp/0593135717/
Extract:
Stan Lee and the Dot-Com Disaster
To hear him tell it, Peter Paul was a con man by age 13 — though he’d never use that term, of course. “I started a front organization called Americans Seeking Knowledge and I represented the youth of America,” Paul tells me, far beneath the vaulted roof of his Florida living room. A half smile crawls up the side of his silver-bearded face. “But I have to say that that was a bit of a fabrication, because I was the only member of the organization.” He used this front to send letters to venerable men and women of the world and ask them for artifacts. It was in that capacity, Paul claims, that he developed a friendly correspondence with President John F. Kennedy’s secretary and — as the story goes — ended up walking into Lyndon Johnson’s office in the early 1960s during a trip to Washington, D.C. “That’s what started my involvement in politics,” he claims.
Paul has multiple felony convictions from the ’70s and ’80s: one from cocaine possession, another from trying to bilk the Cuban government in an elaborate scheme involving the fraudulent sale of 3,000 metric tons of coffee, a third from using a dead man’s ID to cross the Canadian border. These, he claims, stemmed from secret missions he was performing on behalf of the U.S. government in the global struggle against communism. I ask him why he would do such things. Fingers tented, he laughs and says, “I had been the protégé of Salvador Dalí for a while, and it was just …” He trails off, then starts up again: “the notion of the surreal being incorporated into political action.”
Paul’s life story comes out in an overwhelming torrent when you speak with him: Spanish surrealists, Russian mobsters, Iranian nuclear officials, Nicaraguan death squads, Cuban counterrevolutionaries, Brazilian arsonists. These are the people who populate his self-professed personal chronicles. Who knows how much of it is true? Paul is charismatic and intimidating, the sort of man who could alternatingly charm and bully you into starting a business with him. And that’s exactly what Stan Lee did, in 1998.
-
-
Say…
Anyone interested in this upcoming Heroes Reborn 2021?
Nope.
-
-
-
-
Make way for Crystal Pepsi Man!!!
Is there a facepalm emoji? We need one… u_u
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Anyone interested in this upcoming Heroes Reborn 2021?
yes, always been a Squadron Supreme fan
Has anyone been reading Al Ewing’s Guardians of the Galaxy?
yes, I have been enjoying it. It was less involved with Empyre than you may think. Mostly one and done stories right now. I believe it is winding down in prep for the new storyline beginning with #13. currently on #11.
Quill died and came back while fighting dark versions of Greek gods. and Hercules has joined the team while this is going on.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Quill died and came back while fighting dark versions of Greek gods.
This kind of statement is indicative of why I no longer buy Marvel (or DC) books.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Somebody should tell Namor it’s bad form to outdo the bride.
Anyone follow FF these days? I’m a huge FF fan, but I don’t really follow what’s happening in new comic land any more, and I’ve always found Slott’s work incredibly bland.
I’ve heard Doom’s bride might be Silver Sable, since Latveria apparently just annexed her homeland of Symkaria. I also saw someone guess it might be Valeria Richards, which made me throw up in my mouth a little.
-
This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by
.
-
This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by .
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by
-
-
I’ve heard Doom’s bride might be Silver Sable, since Latveria apparently just annexed her homeland of Symkaria. I also saw someone guess it might be Valeria Richards, which made me throw up in my mouth a little.
There’s only one person Doom would deem worthy of marriage.
It’s clearly a Doombot.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
Anyone want another Marvel event? No? Too bad, you’re getting a Star Wars one, running across the set May to October, Battle of the Bounty Hunters.
So given Rocket’s recommendation, I think I’ll pick up Ewing GotG but I figured I might try the preceding runs by Duggan (whose work I really liked on Deadpool) and Cates (who I’ve no preconceived notions of).
I was just looking and they’ve each had their runs collected in OHCs. Cates’ is a standard OHC of 288 pages and has an RRP of £29.50. Duggan’s run is 408 pages in an “omnibus” OHC and an RRP of £62.50, yet his Infinity Wars event thing is in a “complete collection” OHC of 592 pages and has an RRP of only £42. So as far as I can see, you’re paying as much as twice per page for the Duggan GotG OHC simply because of the Omnibus name. Which is super shitty. I mean, I’d just go buy it in paperback, but the quality of those these days is a false economy.
Yep, it’s Marvel pricing! And yeah, too often “omnibus” = “jack the price up”.
If you can get them all cheap, the 2x Duggan + Cates volumes make for an effective trilogy.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Anyone want another Marvel event? No? Too bad, you’re getting a Star Wars one, running across the set May to October, Battle of the Bounty Hunters.
No, Battle of the Bounty Hunters was the Dark Horse comic set between ESB and RotJ about Boba Fett fighting off a load of other bounty hunters over the carbonite-frozen Han Solo as he tried to take him back to Jabba.
(A pop-up comic! Hey, it was the ’90s.)
This is a completely different story set between ESB and RotJ about Boba Fett fighting off a load of other bounty hunters over the carbonite-frozen Han Solo as he tries to take him back to Jabba.
It has the completely different name of War of the Bounty Hunters.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
Ehhh, battle, war
I don’t know how you could possibly get confused between two such dissimilar comics.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
@njerry My brevity of text should not be used against Ewing’s story. There were a lot of moving parts that i did not get into thinking people might enjoy learning about them on their own.
Good Luck with the trade search, Martin. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
-
This May, you’re invited to the wedding of… Doctor Victor Von Doom! And Marvel’s chief megalomaniac won’t be the only Fantastic Four character whose love life will be changed forever! The Human Torch suddenly must choose between his soulmate and his ex-wife. And because a simple love triangle isn’t enough, has Johnny Storm’s first heartbreak, Crystal, come back to rekindle their flame?!
I have been reading Slott’s FF. He has been leaning into the Family aspect of the team. A few months ago, the FF actually finished the trip they began when they got the powers and that planet believed strongly in predestination and Johnny got a soulmate that came home with him. Then Reed built a transport gate which allowed for the return of the Future Foundation and one of their guardians was Lyja who is Johnny’s ex wife. i am a idiot and I removed this part because of my idiocy.
-
-
-
I guess what I was trying to say was the death and return were just story aspects. the Why is more important than the What. Technically it wasn’t a death but rather a teleport but it was not revealed as such until his return so it was treated as a death for the months he was gone.
-
My brevity of text should not be used against Ewing’s story. There were a lot of moving parts that i did not get into thinking people might enjoy learning about them on their own.
I wasn’t commenting on the length of your text, Don; I was responding to the fact of Quill dying and coming back, and how Marvel and DC casually do this so frequently that major “events” in their comics no longer carry any dramatic impact, since we all know that Superman will return from the dead, Batman will put on his costume again, Steve Rogers will always be Captain America, and so on.
I haven’t read the story (yet) but I think there’s a reasonable difference between a emotional story-driven death (like Phoenix/Jean Grey’s or Bucky’s or Elektra’s) that’s undone, a stunt death done for cynical marketing reasons (like Johnny Storm’s a few years ago) and then an apparent death done in a story that is always intended to have an undo or resolution. And if you can’t throw in a death and resurrection plot element into a story with the Greek gods, when can you?
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
Fantastic Four: The Greatest Wedding Ceremony in the History of the Marvel Universe
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
Marvel Solicitations for June 2021 – Comics Continuum link
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
Gay Captain America to Debut in Upcoming Marvel Comics Series
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
I miss the days of the FP.co.uk pre-orders for this stuff. They were very reliable.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Their prices were pretty good too, especially when they did those time-limited 40% off deals.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
I wonder if reed comics is reliable?
some not quite speedy hen, but still good prices: https://www.reedcomics.com/x-men-inferno-prologue-omnibus-hardcover-74993
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
I’ve ordered from Reed once or twice and they were fine.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
Imagine what Previews will be like with neither of the big Two. Good thing we have @sean_robinson to straighten it all out for us.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
-
I spoke to the manager of my LCS about Marvel moving to Penguin for distribution.
She said their store will probably lose 5% in discounts. On the upside, she said they have excellent customer service and with the October 1 start date, they will have to prepare for the transition. She said there will probably still have some hiccups but is confident it will be fairly smooth.
She said DC is still a clusterfuck. They STILL are having issues with damages and returns. They absolutely hate dealing with DC’s distributor. She said it’s a bargain basement operation.
-
Today I learned Werner Roth’s depiction of Banshee was influenced by the “Irish Ape,” a method used by cartoonists of the past to dehumanise the Irish.
Roth was one of a number of artists who didn’t last long at Marvel, probably because they were more than a little stuck in the past.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
I wondered why Banshee always looked so weird in that issue.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
JR jr is back at Marvel.
https://www.gamesradar.com/iconic-marvel-artist-john-romita-jr-returns-home-after-stint-at-dc/
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
I read about the ‘Simian Shelf’ thing and Banshee from The Claremont Run Twitter account sometime last year.
Interestingly it adds that a less exaggerated version appears in Giant Sized X-Men#1 but it was most probably Cockrum following Roth’s template and it disappears the next issue.
You may have to be an X-Men nerd to fully appreciate but it’s a great account analysing all kinds of trivia from the mutant books.
Though Banshee does not have a lot of close-ups in the issue, Giant-Sized X-Men toes the line a bit in Dave Cockrum’s first illustrations of the character. By UXM 94, the shelf is gone altogether in Cockrum's renderings. 6/7 pic.twitter.com/bpw6z1fyug
— The Claremont Run (@ClaremontRun) July 15, 2020
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
He’s an artist that has gone increasingly ‘cartoony’ from when he started basically aping his old man on Spider-Man.
I still like his stuff as it has its own character but peak JRjr for me is his Daredevil run with Al Williamson inking, that stuff is gold.
-
I thought his work was great in Dark Knight Returns: Last Crusade and also in Superman: Year One. I think a good inker and colourist can really bring out the best in his work, and when he’s good he’s still very good.
I think DC should have put him on something like New Gods, something really big and bold like that. I’ve always thought of him as a bit of an heir to Kirby in some ways. That same sense of power and weight, even if some people find his work a bit ugly.
-
I still like his stuff as it has its own character but peak JRjr for me is his Daredevil run with Al Williamson inking, that stuff is gold.
Yeah that’s probably his high water mark.
Also his later Spidey run with JMS is pretty great I think.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
And, to be honest, I had never heard of the “Irish Ape” until now. Being an American, a lot of the English-Irish relations went over my head for a long time. I probably first picked up on them with Johnny Rotten’s No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs autobiography, and The Commitments (Hey! Chief O’Brien is in this movie!).
It was pretty common in the US as well in the 19th century, back when Irish and Italian people weren’t considered white the same way we are today.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
I think that probably had more to do with anti-Catholic sentiment than actual race/ethnicity, but America, for all of its pride at being a “nation of immigrants” certainly had a xenophobic side in its first century. (Not that we’re that much better now…)
Oh yeah, absolutely, it’s more that the concept of whiteness that’s used as an ingroup/outgroup vector is far more recent and ethnic groups that are considered white and therefore acceptable now used to be discriminated against for other reasons. The anti-Catholic stuff went on well into the 20th century, it dogged JFK during his presidential run, there were attack ads claiming he’d be a puppet of the Vatican – the same rhetoric that was used against calls for Home Rule in Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries.
-
H.P. Lovecraft’s racism was directed not just at people of color but also at the Irish, who he considered to be ethnically inferior to the British and therefore deserving of subservience to British rule.
And then there’s that classic line from the movie “Blazing Saddles” voiced by Slim Pickens during the hiring of men to work on laying railroad tracks…
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
The equality between whites thing runs very deep. In the 19th century an academic report into the Welsh portrayed them as violent and sexually rampant and constantly aroused (which was an insult in the days of piano legs being covered but would be accepted as a compliment now, I won’t reveal if I am erect while typing this). It follows the same narrative of animalistic traits being applied to anyone outside the ruling classes.
David Baddiel has recently looked at this aspect with Jews, they are white when people want them to be to serve their arguments. They are an oppressed minority when that suits too.
In the UK in the 21st century this kind of sentiment has very clearly been delivered to white and Christian Poles and Romanians. In Ireland itself I have seen political debate in the last week about traditional travellers.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
So, in the latest issue of Captain America by Ta-Nehisi Coates, the Red Skull is shown recruiting vulnerable young men on the internet using methods similar to right-wing shithead Jordan Peterson, including his “12 Rules For Life.”
Somebody forwarded it to Peterson, and he’s not very happy about it.
It all seems familiar somehow…
-
-
Marvel Solicitations for July – Continuum link
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
Non-Stop Spider-man #3 has been delayed until early June. WTAF? This series was originally supposed to go on sale a year ago, and was postponed until Feb due to the virus. I love the creative team (Steampunk rocked!) but this is getting a bit ridiculous. They really shouldn’t have re-scheduled this book until they had a good few issues in the bag. It’s supposed to be a fast moving, high octane series. These delays are going to kill it.
-
Especially with that title.
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
Steve Rogers Teams Up with an All-New Shield-Bearer in ‘The United States of Captain America’ #3
This looks like someone American Eagle would beat the shit out of.
1 user thanked author for this post.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.