Topic: Funnybooks (Read 170709 times)

Thad · « **Reply #240 on:** August 28, 2008, 06:57:49 PM »

Quote from: Classic on August 28, 2008, 11:52:56 AM

Do you think they would sell more toys because it was still on TV?

Maybe not more Superman or Batman, but they would sure as shit be selling more Question if anyone remembered who the fuck he is.

Thad · « **Reply #241 on:** August 30, 2008, 01:00:40 AM »

Old Man Logan: President confirmed to be neither Doom nor Magneto. Fisk is actually back on the table now that we know the Kingpin is a new guy using the name, but I'm still guessing it's one of the good guys. There's a dot labeled "Pym's Cross" in the President's Quarter, so we can safely assume that Hank, Jan, or one of their descendants went to the dark side, but again, I don't think the President is anyone whose name appears on the map.

Further conjecture: the new nanny in Fantastic Four is not only Sue from the future, she's Sue from THIS future. Which means the next question is, where does Valeria fit in? Is she dead? I think we can assume Franklin is, given that his mutant power is making dystopian parallel universes go away -- though maybe he did that by sending Mom back in time. (It could be that one of them is the President, but I think that's reaching a bit. I'm thinking the massacre is supposed to happen soon so that the FF can avert it in their book, meaning Franklin and Valeria are still kids when it happens and pretty unlikely to be teaming up with Magneto and Doom to kill all the superheroes.)

Given that our principal characters are Wolverine and Hawkeye, and my theory that the President is a good guy, it's probably safe to figure it's either an Avenger or an X-Man. We can probably rule out Scarlet Witch, Professor X, and Jean Grey, because they've all had high-profile "GOES BAD!" stories already. (Also, recent Marvel promos suggest there's a Jean-coming-back-from-the-dead Big Event coming, and I could see it stealing that thunder if she showed up here first.) Actually, has the President's gender been given yet? I don't think it has.

So, spitballing here...probably somebody close to Wolverine for him to freak out over it...let's say one of his teenybopper sidekicks...how about Jubilee, since we haven't seen her in awhile.

That, or the kid from 1985.

Thad · « **Reply #242 on:** September 02, 2008, 12:30:21 AM »

Nrama: Meltzer's started a charity to -- for starters -- fix up the boyhood home of Joe Siegel. They've tapped a pretty big list of talent who will be holding auctions for the cause.

Quote

The current list includes: Stephen Colbert (VIP tickets to a show taping), Jim Lee, Brian Michael Bendis (appear in Powers), Brad Meltzer (appear in his next novel), Geoff Johns, Richard Donner (an autographed preSuperman Superman movie script), Joe Quesada, Neil Gaiman, Alex Ross, Dave Gibbons, Jeph Loeb (a walk-on role on NBC’s Heroes), Murphy Anderson, Ed Brubaker (appear in his creator-owned work), John Cassaday, Gene Ha, Greg Rucka (appear in his comics), George Perez, Michael Turner, Adam Kubert, Andy Kubert, Judd Winick, Frank Cho, Eric Powell, Tim Sale, Walt Simonson (Superman and Beta Ray Bill original art), Joe Staton, Eric Wight, Dave Mandel, Mike Mignola, Rags Morales, Bill Morrison, Ivan Reis, John Romita Jr., Jason Palmer, Amanda Conner, Geoff Darrow, Ron Garney, Renato Guedes, Heroes, Dave Johnson, Chris Bachalo, Mike Bair, Allen Bellman, Dan Brereton, Ernie Chan, Travis Charest, and Ian Churchill.

Thad · « **Reply #243 on:** September 02, 2008, 01:17:27 AM »

Marvel: Your Universe is one of those free books the publishers periodically put out to try and get new readers up to speed and interested in what's going on.

Earlier today, I posted on the Real World board about a study showing that ads for prescription drugs don't actually increase sales. That seems apt here, because I have always wondered who this audience is that reads these promo books and then goes out and buys what they're promoting. Because, FCBD notwithstanding, I can't think of one I've ever read that hasn't been terrible.

This one is only an exception to that rule inasmuch as it is probably worse than any other I've ever seen. Batman: The 10-Cent Adventure? The 12-Cent Adventure? At least they had original content. Even that Secret Invasion one Marvel put out a few months back reminded me that Skrulls used to be fun. Even if it totally failed to mention the time one of them impersonated Richard Nixon.

This one -- well, its biggest mistake is that it tries to cover every single fucking Marvel event since Avengers Disassembled. In chronological order. "The Scarlet Witch turned evil and then went comatose. Meanwhile, Cyclops and Havok discovered they had a long-lost brother. Then the Scarlet Witch came back and altered reality. Then everything went back to normal, except there were only 200 mutants left. Then they shot Hulk into space. Then there was a Civil War. Also, Hulk was fighting aliens. Then Captain America died. Then they tried to start a superhero team in every state, but they all got infiltrated by Skrulls. Then Hulk came back from space. Meanwhile, the mutants were fighting over a mutant baby, and Bishop betrayed them to avert his dystopian future, even though he already did that ten years ago in the Onslaught story. Then Bucky became Captain America. Also, Black Panther and Storm were part of the Fantastic Four for six issues, though that really doesn't matter and I'm not sure why I bothered to bring it up. Then Spider-Man and Mary Jane made a deal with the devil and now they don't remember they used to be married, and also now there is a Red Hulk and everybody is a Skrull. The end."

I mean, seriously, the only conceivable takeaway from all this is "The Marvel Universe is an epic goddamned clusterfuck." I seriously cannot envision the person who reads this thing and goes, "Oh, cool, I really want to read more about Captain America and Spider-Man's mutant baby red Skrull."

Even if I found a single one of those stories interesting on its merits (well...the first couple issues of Civil War were pretty good), the presentation here is just godawful. You could read a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book beginning-to-end and the narrative would jump around less and make more sense.

I just don't get it. It IS possible to do a good free promo book; I get a stack of the fuckers every May. But this...well, if people are looking for harbingers of the next comic industry crash, I nominate Marvel: Your Universe.

Well...that and One More Day.

Kazz · « **Reply #244 on:** September 02, 2008, 02:14:51 AM »

I know nothing about comics, but "Your Universe" is an entertaining title for something so embarrassing. Almost as though they're shoving it in your face and shouting "LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE. BAD."

Thad · « **Reply #245 on:** September 02, 2008, 01:49:09 PM »

Also, it has the word "SAGA" in the lower right-hand corner of the cover for reasons I'm not altogether sure of.

Thad · « **Reply #246 on:** September 03, 2008, 01:12:09 PM »

So, okay. As I've said before, the Whedon/Cassaday run of Astonishing has been on my "wait for the trade" list for the past couple years. And it's probably better that it was, given the schedule issues they dealt with.

Anyway. I said earlier in the thread that the third trade, Torn, was a massive disappointment, and that I was ambivalent about whether to pick up the last one. People reassured me it was better, and they were right -- it might be the best of the lot.

Perhaps most impressive is Whedon's skill at tying the earlier stories together. Everything that happened in the earlier issues happened for a reason.

And the characters have grown -- Cyclops and Emma show why they're in charge, Armor proves she's ready for the big time, Kitty and Peter struggle against fate, and Hank goes seven issues without whining about how he's going feral. He's good ol' Hank, using big words and making Star Wars references. The ending somehow manages to be surprisingly poignant, even after three death cheats in the preceding six issues and a whole lot more than that over the course of the entire series. (Of course, you have to accept the absurd alien weapon with a grin and a shrug if you're going to enjoy it, but what the hell -- Whedon, like Stan Lee or Kevin Smith, excels at dialogue far more than plot.)

And Cassaday's art -- Giant-Size is one of those books artists do just to draw every major character in the universe, and he does a damned fine job across the board. I love his Spider-Man in particular -- but I like the words coming out of his mouth even better. I would LOVE to see a Whedon/Cassaday Spider-Man book.

Anyway. All in all, a great run (Torn notwithstanding), and this is coming from someone who fucking hates the X-Men. Recommended reading (except Torn).

Huh -- you know, back to Old Man Logan and my betting that the President is Wolverine's teenybopper Asian sidekick? Maybe I picked the wrong one. Maybe it's Armor.

Thad · « **Reply #247 on:** September 07, 2008, 03:23:56 PM »

Took the peanut gallery's advice and, rather than write about Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 here, where nobody is interested in talking about it, I wrote about it on my blog.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #248 on:** September 07, 2008, 04:24:54 PM »

Hooray and I think your feed is broken but still hooray!

Royal☭ · « **Reply #249 on:** September 07, 2008, 05:17:09 PM »

Now it's working. Also, what'd you think of Gotham by Gaslight? I found it to be rather bland and predictable (there's a trend of these Elseworlds style stories to just transplant the character from era to era without it actually having any impact on things), with pretty art.

Thad · « **Reply #250 on:** September 07, 2008, 05:19:12 PM »

Pretty much that, yeah.

Thad · « **Reply #251 on:** September 07, 2008, 11:25:43 PM »

...So I've finally gotten around to picking up Invincible vol 1. So far so good; will make more in-depth comments when I'm done with it.

Had forgotten Kirkman did the Masters of the Universe: Icons of Evil miniseries back before he was hot shit. (Think I noticed when I was sorting through my collection awhile back.) That's kinda funny -- Bruce Timm started out doing MotU too (the little mini-comics that came with the toys).

Rosencrantz · « **Reply #252 on:** September 07, 2008, 11:32:10 PM »

Quote from: Thad on September 07, 2008, 11:25:43 PM

...So I've finally gotten around to picking up Invincible vol 1. So far so good; will make more in-depth comments when I'm done with it.

I remember insisting that you read Invincible back in Pyokon '06. It's about time - enjoy!

Thad · « **Reply #253 on:** September 08, 2008, 01:59:06 PM »

Finished.

Good stuff.

It seems like every good superhero comic goes back, in some fundamental way, to Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four. Here we've got the two major themes of high school and the superhero family, each combining the extraordinary with the down-to-Earth.

It also makes a hell of a contrast to Walking Dead in its upbeat, utopian tone. While the "physics teacher turns kids into bombs" story is decidedly darker than the rest of the first four issues (and what the hell was a physics teacher doing talking about Mayan mythology, anyway?), overall the story's got a decidedly Silver Age optimism to it. Maybe more optimism than the Marvel Silver Age -- nobody has a dead uncle, a disfiguring monsterism, or shrapnel in his heart. So maybe, in that regard, it's more like Silver Age Superboy. (It also reminds me, perhaps oddly, of Dreamwave's Mega Man series. I really liked that book.)

I'm also aware that this is just an origin story and there's bound to be more conflict as the series goes on. (I'm also aware that there have been several more years of stories at this point and I have some catching up to do next time there's a sale at the comic shop.) But if Kirkman keeps up this tone and pace, I think I'm sold.

Rosencrantz · « **Reply #254 on:** September 08, 2008, 02:08:09 PM »

Quote from: Thad on September 08, 2008, 01:59:06 PM

I'm also aware that this is just an origin story and there's bound to be more conflict as the series goes on.

Ohhhhhhh, yes indeed there is.

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(I'm also aware that there have been several more years of stories at this point and I have some catching up to do next time there's a sale at the comic shop.) But if Kirkman keeps up this tone and pace, I think I'm sold.

Yeah, when I bought the first volume because of a recommendation, I enjoyed it but was on the fence about spending more money. Luckily, I found volumes 2 and 3 for half price at a convention soon after, and that's really where the story took off for me.

Niku · « **Reply #255 on:** September 08, 2008, 07:36:38 PM »

I'm probably about a year behind on Invincible right now and so probably soon will get to the point where it's time for me to go through another chunk .. but one of the things I really, really love about it is how Kirkman really seems to know just when to bring back an almost forgotten plot element just when it feels right. I can't overstate how much I love the book on the whole. It's one of the few series that I downloaded to try, consumed everything there was to read about it in a day or two, and then went out the next day and picked up several of the trades.

Zach · « **Reply #256 on:** September 09, 2008, 04:07:18 PM »

Finally.

(That is a link to the buy page for the newest Tales Designed to Thrizzle comic.)

Mongrel · « **Reply #257 on:** September 10, 2008, 05:22:25 PM »

I am becoming more dissatisfied with Kick-Ass as each issue passes.

*sigh*

Thad · « **Reply #258 on:** September 10, 2008, 07:32:50 PM »

Yeah, 4 was weak. I'm not ready to say "jump the shark" yet, but it pretty much betrayed the premise of the book -- first of all, that Kick-Ass ISN'T the world's first superhero, and secondly, that the other two are such unbelievably over-the-top characters in a book that's supposed to be set in the real world.

Mongrel · « **Reply #259 on:** September 10, 2008, 07:55:06 PM »

The diminutive ten-year-old cursing, trash-talking, asian girl dual-wielding a pair of katanas, sort of kills it, yes.

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Author Topic: Funnybooks (Read 170709 times)