The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: arkabee on March 01, 2005, 08:44:24 pm
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infinity wars was about when i stopped being "into" comics, so i don't know the evil twin phasing *****.
didn't scarlet witch die?
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infinity wars was about when i stopped being "into" comics, so i don't know the evil twin phasing #####.
didn't scarlet witch die?
Actually me too. That's about when they hit the Crisis on Infinite Crossovers. I can understand needing to buy all four Spider-Man comics for a crossover storyline occasionally, but not twice in a year for 2+ months at a time. That shit's just wrong.
But the even Spider-Man was marginally cool. It actually had 8 limbs.
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yes, but, did scarlet witch die?
it seems like not many marvel characters ever died.
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I didn't read the "Avengers Disassembled" so I apologize in advance for not having all the facts, but Scarlet witch's powers went out of control and destroyed the mansion and killed some people and she may or may not have died herself. This was all an attempt to make the Avengers about Marvel's most popular super heroes and not some shmoes who just got together to have a badguy beat-down party now and then.
So currently Avengers is: Captain america, Some guy named Sentry from some storyline in the late 90s, Spiderman, Spider-woman, Iron Man, Luke Cage and they are working on Daredevil joining. The other guys who you remember as Avengers aren't really around anymore, no Thor, or Vision or Scarlet Witch or Hawkeye. You'll have to read ultimates for them.
The "New Avengers" as they are called is one of Marvel's only worthwhile comics right now. They are too busy paying lawyers to sue everyone and his dog, rather than pay actually decent writers.
One of the other decent comics right now stars are very own favorite: Kitty Pride. Astonishing X-men is the only decent X related title currently as long as you don't mind Colossus coming back from the dead. It features, Cyclops, Kitty, Beast, Colossus, White Queen and Wolverine (he apparently has to be in every goddamned marvel title). It's pretty decent.
But if you are looking for consistantly good comics, look no further than DC. Outsiders, Teen Titans, Batman, Nightwing, all worth every penny. I don't read everything, so I'm sure there are good comics I'm missing but many titles have seen brighter days.
If you're looking for good comics guaranteed, Trade Paperback are the way to go. All the best stories preserved forever and packed together:
Secret Wars, Infinity Guantlet, Watchmen, Dark Victory, Maus, Maximum Carnage, Frank Miller Daredevil, Guardian Devil, Bastard Samurai, Cosmic Odyssey... All good bets.
Sorry to have gone on so long. I sort of work at a comic shop.
And I'm sort of in love with the medium.
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A lot of Marvel characters die. They just don't stay dead... Cyclops, Jean Grey (3 times), Colossus, Psylocke, Magneto, Aunt May, Green Goblin (3 times), Dr Druid (still dead), Captain Marvel, Wonderman, Elektra... I'm certain there are more.
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Hahaha, wow. I'm a huge comics dork, but I'm all about Marvel stuff. I dunno, almost all of the Marvel Knights I've been seeing lately has just been fantastic, and I've never really gotten into DC, other than the New Frontier stuff. But Marvel's Wolverine fetish really has gotten too much. He's in EVERY fuck*ng BOOK now.
But we definitely agree on the New Avengers title rocking cocks. Also, there's a new Iron Man run with Warren Ellis that's very....Warren Ellis-y, although it's toned down a lot. If you're not a Warren Ellis fan, you should probably not invest the time.
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Scarlet witch = not dead. Doctor Strange shut down her mind and left her as a vegetable in the hands of her dady, Magneto.
Hawkeye is dead because of her, so is ant-man, Vision's now dead, Jack of hearts and some more.
Pick up the TPB for more info.
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So currently Avengers is: Captain america, Some guy named Sentry from some storyline in the late 90s, Spiderman, Spider-woman, Iron Man, Luke Cage and they are working on Daredevil joining. The other guys who you remember as Avengers aren't really around anymore, no Thor, or Vision or Scarlet Witch or Hawkeye. You'll have to read ultimates for them.
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A lot of Marvel characters die. They just don't stay dead... Cyclops, Jean Grey (3 times), Colossus, Psylocke, Magneto, Aunt May, Green Goblin (3 times), Dr Druid (still dead), Captain Marvel, Wonderman, Elektra... I'm certain there are more.
Huh, so they finally added Spider-Man as a full member. Last I saw they had guys like him and Moon Knight in the reserves. So they got little communicator IDs and fought in Secret Wars/Inifinity */&c but that's about it.
Of course the Avengers West were the super losers.
Tony Stark died for a time, allowing War Machine to take over his book but he came back. Aunt May died, revealing she knew about Peter all along, and I'm pretty sure Vulture died.
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it seems like not many marvel characters ever died.
They die all the dang time. They just also come back all the dang time. This is known as Marvel's "revolving door" policy.
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it seems like not many marvel characters ever died.
They die all the dang time. They just also come back all the dang time. This is known as Marvel's "revolving door" policy.
See also: Hulk Hogan "retiring"
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When Joe Quesada took over he passed a rule saying that once a character is dead, he or she stays dead. Because everybody was dang sick of people coming back from the dead.
At this time, Magneto was dead, colossus was dead and Psylocke dead with the plan for an enormous, excellent rebirth. This rule fucked all that up and pissed a few writers off.
Joe recently took his rule back and once again the dead walk the halls of marvel. It's all quite silly. Writers need to come up with something more original than killing and resurrecting characters... Superman dead, Batman with a broken back, these were bad ideas! If they can't pull them off then why would Aunt may or Captain Britain be any better at it?
I thought Iron Man was having heart problems (and alcohol problems) not living problems when war machine took over. I've never been an Iron man guy so I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about.
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Actually, the Batman "Death in the Family" storyline was one of the best they'd done. It was a huge comic book event at the time.
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I thought Iron Man was having heart problems (and alcohol problems) not living problems when war machine took over. I've never been an Iron man guy so I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about.
When War Machine was created this was true. But for a while Stark "died" (transferring his mind into a computer or somesuch) and during that period War Machine became the main character in the Iron Man comic. When Tony came back they shared the book for a while before WM got his own comic and became part of the Avengers West. I think they transferred the guy to Stark Enterprises L.A. office or something.
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Actually, the Batman "Death in the Family" storyline was one of the best they'd done. It was a huge comic book event at the time.
Good point.
DC does the resurrection in such a way that it doesn't piss people off as much. Everyone has a young prodigy who grows up to take over.
When Superman finally does go, Superboy will be able to take on the reigns.
Robin's death was pretty amazing. I mean the fans voted for that...
The killing Joke: Also very good.
The last huge Batman storyline actually blew my mind. War Games was amazing. Very worth all the pennies it may cost.
DC has a lot going for it, except that Marvel fans seem to be snobs toward it. I was one too once. I can't explain it. I think it's just that Superman is too unbeatable. What fun is there in that?
I'd take superman over one more bloody wolverine cover any day.
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Me, I'm all about the Tick.
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With all the advertisements, dead returning to life, and multiple books per hero, I've given up on comic books. I can't say that I don't care about what goes on in them. (Certainly not, that would prevent me from being some kind of dork.) But I can at least say that those punks won't get my money. (Which makes me more of a pathetic dork than before.) Now I just read them in graphic novel form and only when I've been told that a specific series is really good.
For instance, I got into John Constantine in "Books of Magic" which was an awesome one-book story (though I've heard there are sequels now). A friend of mine then gave me a couple of Constantine's Hellblazer books. They're pretty neat horror books. Not the very best, but good.
The same friend went to see the movie "Constantine" knowing that it would be bad.
It was bad.
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Me, I'm all about the Tick.
The Tick was great.
I dig comics, although it stemmed from reading manga, since I was never into comic books 'til after manga. I far prefer to get TPB's, but I decided to go with comics for the Astonishing X-Men run. I will probably end up getting TPB when it happens as well though.
Apart from that, I don't really do comics so much. Too much effort or me, and I tend to dislike having that little to read of each story each month,
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I'm all about the Fabulous Furry Freak Bros.
And Grim Jack. Him too.
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I'm all about Hate.
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At some point or another I've been into every comic, but they all get silly after awhile. Stan Lee is/was the Best ever though, IMHO.
Now i'm only into Groo and Eightball.
The first 10 issues of Hate are the funniest comics ever written.
~Paul
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I've never been into comic books. Never ever. Not a one. Which seems odd, as I had friends that were into them, and I went through the whole baseball card collecting thing too when I was like 8. I'm not exactly sure why I never got into them.
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I'm of the opinion that as far as awesome writers go the best way for a person to fall in love with comics is:
First: Falling in Love with Frank Miller's Work (Daredevil, Sin City, Batman)
Second: Jeph Loeb's (Batman: Hush, Batman: Dark Victory, Spiderman: Blue, Batman: Long Halloween, Superman Batman)
Finally: Alan Moore's (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Top 10, Killing Joke)
There are really so many other wonderful writers but I think this is the perfect progression and I plan to raise my children on it.
Bendis does some great work, Jim Starlin made gold, i mean there are so many legends and good ol' Stan is their Grandfather but kids coming up are going to have a hell of a time wading through those early stories... Comics now take maybe 10 minutes, whereas 20 years ago or more it could take you a solid 40 minutes to an hour and a lot of the stories are tired and cliche now.
I have GOT to shut up about comics.
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I read Groo when I was a kid, but for some reason I stopped. (Hell if I can remember why.) It still saddens me that it isn't in wider circulation; being a dork, I make references to it in dork company and often just manage to confuse people. It sort of saddens me.
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I feel THAT pain. My friends are so Internet clueless, that they don't even get my Homestar Runner references. Which makes me do a double-take the same way it would if I mentioned lasagna and Mondays and someone didn't know what I was talking about.
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when i wanted to look at pictures i watched cartoons. when i wanted to read, i read books. hence, no comics for me.
though just recently i read art spiegelman's 'maus' and 'maus II' - bad ass.
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Man, I bought Maus 1 a couple of years ago and I still haven't gotten around to reading 2. I didn't much dig his sept. 11 book, however.
I don't dig superhero comics, but I'm pretty into that other kind. I adore Dan Clowes in particular. I just got a fairly endearing comic, Clumsy, by Jeffrey Brown. Oh, and I snag any rad comic books that come into the paper I write for. I got to review Dogs and Water, by Anders Nilsen, which was this rad comic about an existential tundra voyage of sorts. Also this... deeply perplexing pseudocommunist comic called Mac Tin Tac, by a collective of Montreal artists (bad sign, I know.) Basically, it was about this dystopian city ruled by a cake factory and... uh... it had a lot going on.
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Jeffrey Brown is good, but by the third book he wrote about how he feels sexually inadequate in relationships, my interest waned. But check out his new thing, Bighead, which is a satire of superhero comics. Check out Seth, too: he's an amazing artist, storyteller, and he's also a Canuck! JUST LIKE YOU! Look up Clyde Fans, Vol. 1.
And don't write off superhero comics just because a lot of them suck. The best hardly deal with the "superhero" idea at all and go more into the actual people involved. I should totally also ship you all of my Transmetropolitan books (not superhero, but by a guy who does a lot of capes comics), except my ec-girlfriend has all of them. FUCK.
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I love me some superhero comics. Mostly DC is my thing but I savvy the Marvel as well.
Superboy is never going to take over as Superman; Robin is never going to take over as Batman. The characters and the duality with their secret identities are too heavily embedded in the mass consciousness for DC to decide to do that, as is Spider-Man. (Captain America and Wonder Woman, by contrast, could be replaced because even though everyone recognizes them as icons nobody gives a crap about their secret identities.) Robin became Nightwing and a new Robin appeared to replace him, and if they decide to have Superboy grow up he'll become Superior or Invincible or some other non-franchise-diluting identity.
Marvel once tried to replace Peter Parker as Spider-Man. The full sordid details can be found here (http://www.newcomicreviews.com/GHM/specials/LifeOfReilly/1.html), but for those of you who don't feel like wading through a 35-part essay about the Clone Saga to get to this bit, it was decided that turning off the casual readers by having someone other than Peter Parker as Spider-Man wasn't worth the potential narrative benefits. (This did not stop them from turning off casual readers by having a ridiculously convoluted years-long storyline that had to be tracked through four different titles to make any sense, but this has become depressingly standard in the industry.)
Death & Rebirth of Superman made a (half-hearted) attempt to replace Superman with four different characters including the aforementioned Superboy, but it did not exactly work out. Superboy and Steel remain active, although Steel got the S-icon stripped off to avoid franchise dilution.
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A lot of Marvel characters die. They just don't stay dead... Cyclops, Jean Grey (3 times), Colossus, Psylocke, Magneto, Aunt May, Green Goblin (3 times), Dr Druid (still dead), Captain Marvel, Wonderman, Elektra... I'm certain there are more.
haha, the funny thing is i was all thinking "wha about Dr Druid? that guy sucked!" only, he's dead!
the rest of them, those deaths are like "oh ya they got amnesia". no xmen related deaths count, i mean, i swear to god, Days of Our Lives stole the Marlena being possessed by Satan story line from Marvel. I mean, Psylocke, was that before or after she went through the portal which changed her from a mild mannered prissy englishwoman into a fuck*ng asian hottie ninja with psychic claws? i mean, really, w.t.f.?
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Jeffrey Brown is good, but by the third book he wrote about how he feels sexually inadequate in relationships, my interest waned.
I hear you on that one. I didn't have much sympathy left for the fella by the end of Clumsy. And when his girlfriend mentioned that he'd made her quit smoking pot, he was off my team.
But check out his new thing, Bighead, which is a satire of superhero comics. Check out Seth, too: he's an amazing artist, storyteller, and he's also a Canuck! JUST LIKE YOU! Look up Clyde Fans, Vol. 1.
And don't write off superhero comics just because a lot of them suck. The best hardly deal with the "superhero" idea at all and go more into the actual people involved. I should totally also ship you all of my Transmetropolitan books (not superhero, but by a guy who does a lot of capes comics), except my ec-girlfriend has all of them. FUCK.
Yeah, I've been meaning to check out Seth, having heard many good things. I'll look into the Transmetro-etc. books next time I have some more space in my comic-book budget.
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I hear you on that one. I didn't have much sympathy left for the fella by the end of Clumsy. And when his girlfriend mentioned that he'd made her quit smoking pot, he was off my team.
The teammmm of potttt.
Yeah, he actually did something really cool, though: he put out a little booklet called "Be A Man," in which he took every comic from his relationship trilogy in which he looked like a huge dick and put them together. So basically he made himself out to be the biggest asshole alive, just via editing. Also, he made this shirt (http://www.margomitchell.com/thc/jbhotshirt.gif), which I want so badddd.
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the rest of them, those deaths are like "oh ya they got amnesia". no xmen related deaths count, i mean, i swear to god, Days of Our Lives stole the Marlena being possessed by Satan story line from Marvel. I mean, Psylocke, was that before or after she went through the portal which changed her from a mild mannered prissy englishwoman into a fuck*ng asian hottie ninja with psychic claws? i mean, really, w.t.f.?
When I stopped reading the old Psylocke had reappeared and they both claimed to be the real one. Of course everybody was rooting for the Asian one because she's hotter.
I want to think Sunspot died and stayed dead. But that's a pretty big stretch as far as X-manness goes.
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The only thing that'll kill a superhero is loss of popularity.
Sometimes even that won't do it.
~Paul
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[ Psylocke, was that before or after she went through the portal which changed her from a mild mannered prissy englishwoman into a fuck*ng asian hottie ninja with psychic claws? i mean, really, w.t.f.?
She actually died "again" about a year and a half ago. She had to stay dead for a while but she's back as of last month.
For a non-superhero but seriously cool comic, I recommend 100 bullets. A guy gives you a briefcase of 100 untraceable bullets that once found all law enforcement will cease searching to right one wrong in your life... The guy that killed your daddy, the husband that abused your daughter to the point of her leaving, becoming a prostitute and getting murdered etc.
It's a neat concept... I'd kill that guy from highschool...
Tony Millionaires Sock monkey and James Kochalka's Peanut Butter and Jeremy are awesome comic-strip books. Both are prized posessions of mine.
Off topic but still on the topic of awesome comic related things... Does anyone read
http://www.alessonislearned.com/?
There is something about the poetry of it, the lucidness that appeals to me on a very different level. I really like it. I wish it were updated consitantly though.
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Quite fond of A Lesson Is Learned, yes.
Back on the subject of X-Men who may or may not be dead: did they ever bring back Cypher? I can't say as I care, but the SO was apparently very attached and tends to work Cypher's death into his occasional rants about how Comics Have Gone Down The Tubes Since He Read Them.
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Well he cam back merged with his good buddy Warlock. His name was Douglock.
I'm actually reading the TPB about Douglock right now. It's garbage.
If the SO's basis for being upset with comics is Cypher's death, he/she has many years of severe shit to add to that up to now. Yikes.
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Off topic but still on the topic of awesome comic related things... Does anyone read
http://www.alessonislearned.com/?
There is something about the poetry of it, the lucidness that appeals to me on a very different level. I really like it. I wish it were updated consitantly though.
Oh man, I'd never seen that before, but it looks incredible. Would that I didn't have three essays to finish tonight!