The Comic Book Thread

[OCH]

17 minutes ago, Maf said:

Yeah I read that. I think it’s a new series though and he’s not writing ASM. 

It is a foot back in the door though.

[Maf]

I’ll read it. I’ve really enjoyed his Fantastic Four and maybe the break away from Spider-Man will mean he’s got lots of cool ideas saved up. Slott’s first 5 years on Spider-Man was awesome. It was the second 5 years where it stopped being likeable. But maybe the return will be good. Let’s see. 
 

I always respect Slott. After comics Twitter dragged him through the mud and he was getting nothing but hate to the point I think he closed his account. He always gave it his all. He loves Spider-Man more than any other current writer I think. So even when it went rubbish it was never for lack of effort it just didn’t work for a lot of people (including me). 

 

But despite every one hating on him he was really giving it everything. So he named his last story

 

 

Which is perfect in every way. This won me over even though the story itself was so-so. 

 

I’ll read he’s book. Even if it’s not good there will be no doubt he’ll put a lot of love in to it.

[OCH]

I've thought Slott's FF run has been good, but not great. Then again the only time I thought that highly of a FF run was under Hickman. Who seemed to really understand the FF, and later the X-Men. Although I didn't think much of his Avengers stuff at all.

[OCH]

No Marvel Or IDW Comics For Britain Next Week

[Maf]

Superman’s penultimate act! To change Lex Luthor 

 

[OCH]

In a similar vein. The Penance Stare* of Ghost Rider does not work on The Punisher. 

Spoiler

The Penance Stare is a supernatural ability that incapacitates victims and is only performed by the Spirits of Vengeance or Ghost Rider. When in close combat, the Ghost Rider locks eyes with his opponent and induces self-mortification by imposing him or her every negative actions, behaviour and sensation, and sins to the pain of others that individual has ever committed in their lifetime.

 

[Maf]

I was saying above that as much as I don’t like a lot of Slott’s later years on Spider-Man, I always respect him because I know how much he really is a die hard Marvel/Spider-Man fan

 

He’s just a big fucking comic book nerd. I don’t like everything he writes but I like him, he really just loves Marvel 

[OCH]

This is a little late, but...

 

Alan Grant is DEAD

 

Quote

Alan Grant, Comics Legend Behind Judge Dredd & Lobo Has Died Aged 73

 

Alan Grant, best known for writing Judge Dredd for 2000AD and Batman and Lobo for DC Comics, passed away this morning at the age of 73. His wife, Sue Grant, posted to Facebook "I have no words. Alan died this morning." A longstanding comic book creator for fifty-five years, and born in 1949, he began working as an editor at  D.C. Thomson in Dundee, before moving to IPC in London in 1970 to work on romance comics and magazines. After returning to college – and Dundee – he began working on a new weekly science fiction anthology comic, 2000AD, and began working – and living – with Judge Dredd co-creator John Wagner, working on Dredd as well as Robo-Hunter and Strontium Dog. But between them, they established Judge Dredd as one of Britain's most popular comic book characters through the eighties and nineties, as they then split writing duties, for Grant to focus on Strontium Dog and Judge Anderson strips for 2000AD.

This success saw them picked by American publishers together, working on The Outcasts for DC in the eighties, then moving to the main Batman books with Alan Grant shortly becoming the sole Batman writer, co-creating Batman characters such as Anarky, Victor Zsasz, Ratcatcher and the Ventriloquist. He also wrote The Bogie Man with Wagner, which was turned into a TV show starring Robbie Coltrane. And he worked with Simon Bisley, and Keith Giffen on a minor Omega Men character called Lobo, which became one of his biggest hits. He also wrote the Batman/Judge Dredd crossover with Wagner, and drawn by Bisley, Judgment On Gotham, which also became a million-selling hit.

He also contributed to fanzines such as FutureQuake, write for the drug-focused comic Northern Lightz, organised the annual Moniaive Comics Festival with his wife Sue, and wrote DC Comics novels. After working on Toxic! Magazine, he started his own publisher Bad Press Ltd, which released the humour title Shit the Dog, written by Grant and drawn by Simon Bisley, to UK newsstands, hoping to appeal to those who bought Viz Comic. The imprint would also later see him publish the follow-up to Northern Lights, the drugs comic book Wasted. He set up another comics publishing company with more projects drawn by Simon Bisley and began moving into children's graphic novels with Scott vs Zombies and The Loxleys and the War of 1812. Most recently, he co-created sports comic sci-i parody Rok Of The Reds from BHP, and later led the village of Moniaive, home to his own comic convention, to produce a comic about the pandemic experience.

Alan Grant was involved at every level in the comic book industry, across continents, but was never too proud to start again, or work on the smallest, least-prominent projects, even when his Batman characters were filling the big and small screens. Funny, mischievous, curious, and always experimenting to try something new, while leaving massive marks across the comics and the communities he worked in.

Another one gone. Seems to be a trend for this year😞

[Maf]

Since it’s just been announced and I know nothing about it I grabbed the Kang Dynasty omnibus of Amazon for £20. This things huge at 15 issues. I thought it was a small story

 

[OCH]

19 hours ago, Maf said:

I thought it was a small story

 

[Maf]

Almost half way through the Kang Dynasty omnibus and it’s a boring read so far. It has lots of problems. First it’s full of lame characters. Jack of Hearts, Stingray, Photon, Triathlon, etc. Even Thor speaks in his old 12 year old’s attempt at Shakespeare and it’s really annoying. 
 

Second problem is that these first few issues have been set up for the main story. Which is pretty basic and not interesting so far. Kang shows up and says “The Earth is fucked, but I can save it. But to do that I must take it over. Whoever fights for me I will reward”. Then only 2 factions rise up, the Deviants and the Atlanteans, both of which are dealt with easily and that’s about it.

 

There’s also continuing soap opera drama between the characters but this is jumping in to a collected story, not reading it like a monthly comic, so a lot of that stuff I have no idea about so it’s like whatever.

 

The rest of the book has been housekeeping. The Annual issue included is purely to fix Ant-Man’s character, explain what happened to Iron Man during all the Onslaught stuff and retcon/fix the origin of Cap’s shield. 
 

I’m hoping when the story gets going it will actually be good. But so far big snooze. Very difficult to get through because it’s so boring. Classic Avengers. 
 

Better is I’ve been catching up on Detective Comics. I’ve been concentrating more on video games the past lot of months so there are a few series that have stacked up. DC being one of them. I actually like this way more than the main Batman title.
 

The problem with the main Batman comic is every 6 issues is it’s own event, everything is pushed to the max all the time, it’s too big and loud. DC is more normal, monthly ongoing stories about Batman and co. They each have their own stories that go over a few issues, there’s overarching stories that build up through each, fun things happen but none of it is end-of-the-world stuff. 
 

Each story in the main Batman title feels like a movie pitch where as DC just reads like a really solid monthly comic (that I’m reading all at once) It’s really good and enjoying it a lot.

[OCH]

32 minutes ago, Maf said:

It has lots of problems. First it’s full of lame characters. Jack of Hearts, Stingray, Photon, Triathlon, etc. Even Thor speaks in his old 12 year old’s attempt at Shakespeare and it’s really annoying. 

This is why, prior to the New Avengers run in 2004 and the MCU, the Avengers were considered a joke. They were all like this. It is hard to fully grasp just how little they were thought of, for decades. The series picked up a little, post-Heroes Reborn. But that was only an upscaling from 'poor' to 'meh'.

 

Quote

Very difficult to get through because it’s so boring. Classic Avengers.  

 

How accurate this statement is. It's difficult to parse for modern fans I imagine, post-MCU.

[Maf]

I’ve not given up on this story yet, I think it’s just a lot of fixing and set up. I think it’s about to take off, hopefully it gets better.
 

But some of these characters are very, definitely dumb. This is the first comic I’ve read with Triathlon in, I think. His power seems to be he was an Olympic champion, fucked up his career in ways the comic hasn’t said, got “healed” by a cult. And now has ran, leapt and punched his way on to the Avengers. His costume also sucks ass. Black and green, my guy?

 

They spend so much time on him. But why. He’s basically the main character in this story, or at least the vehicle character for the reader to follow. I guess because he was new at the time so they were really trying but, c’mon. This is a bad idea for a character.

 

It’s funny as well because at the beginning he talks about how he’s the newest member of the team, he doesn’t fit in with the rest, and he’s worried he’ll end up a forgotten Avenger like Rage or Mantis. Lol. Of course you’re not going to make it, your superpower is you’re really good at triathlons. What the fuck.

[OCH]

23 minutes ago, Maf said:

Triathlon

For those who are curious who Maf is describing.

[OCH]

My niece asked me how weird and goofy characters can get in the MCU. Now most of the rights stuff has been settled. I gave her a couple examples, off the top of my head.

 

Spoiler

Strong Guy - X-Men

The Human Fly - Spider-Man

Razorback - Spider-Man

The Gibbon - Spider-Man

Spider-Man and the lower tiers of his animal-based villains...😄

[OCH]

Picked this up the other day. A friend asked about Maxwell Lord, after watching WW'84. I think I confused this with Infinity Crisis? Oh well... Should be here today.

[Maf]

Yeah, Maxwell Lord is in whatever story happens right before Infinity Crisis. I don’t know what the story is called, though. 

[OCH]

The 80's X-Men:

Rogue, Psylocke, Longshot, Wolverine, Gateway, Dazzler, Colossus, Storm and Havok.

[Maf]

 

[OCH]

For those curious where the costume for Magneto in the upcoming X-Men '97 came from:

 

It was a 1980's thing. Magneto got a redesign as he briefly became headmaster of the Xavier School.

 

Professor X got a redesign too...