Sperg about comic books here

[Hummingbird]

On one side, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy, but on the other, damn, that's dark.

 

[DaBigBopper]

On one side, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy, but on the other, damn, that's dark.
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I think the previous page has Red Skull call out Magneto for having the same values as him (and actually a higher kill count because he literally caused a global power outage). It's literally just Jewish Revenge Fantasy #6,000,000,001. Red Skull is weird nowadays because he's just the opposite of the whatever values the writer holds to be virtuous.

I honestly just want it to be revealed that Magneto being a Holocaust victim was an implanted memory by Xavier. The constant smugness whenever a writer has him bring up Jews is annoying. This was good though, it was Acts of Vengeance, right? Villains swap heroes and try to kill them?

 

[Samson Pumpkin Jr.]

I think the previous page has Red Skull call out Magneto for having the same values as him (and actually a higher kill count because he literally caused a global power outage). It's literally just Jewish Revenge Fantasy #6,000,000,001. Red Skull is weird nowadays because he's just the opposite of the whatever values the writer holds to be virtuous.

I honestly just want it to be revealed that Magneto being a Holocaust victim was an implanted memory by Xavier. The constant smugness whenever a writer has him bring up Jews is annoying. This was good though, it was Acts of Vengeance, right? Villains swap heroes and try to kill them?

It's definitely possible that the writer was going for a Jewish revenge fantasy with Magneto, but it's also possible that they were simply trying to show how similar Red Skull and Magneto are. Both have killed many people and both believe strongly in their own values. It would make sense for Xavier to implant memories in Magneto's mind, but we don't know for sure if that's what happened.

 

[DaBigBopper]

It's definitely possible that the writer was going for a Jewish revenge fantasy with Magneto, but it's also possible that they were simply trying to show how similar Red Skull and Magneto are. Both have killed many people and both believe strongly in their own values. It would make sense for Xavier to implant memories in Magneto's mind, but we don't know for sure if that's what happened.

Oh no, it's Mark Gruenwald he was definitely writing a Jewish revenge fantasy.

 

[MirrorNoir]

It's definitely possible that the writer was going for a Jewish revenge fantasy with Magneto, but it's also possible that they were simply trying to show how similar Red Skull and Magneto are. Both have killed many people and both believe strongly in their own values. It would make sense for Xavier to implant memories in Magneto's mind, but we don't know for sure if that's what happened.

The entire Red Skull/Magneto segment of the Acts of Vengeance storyline was Mark doing a favor for Claremont, who was literally sperging out Mark Waid style over John Byrne wanting to make Magneto a major super villain again.

At the time, Byrne had came back to Marvel in 1989 and Byrne was on super bad terms with Claremont due to Byrne participating in the resurrection of Jean Grey and being tasked with writing the story that explains how the fuck Jean was alive/how "Phoenix" was an imposture. Byrne wanted the Phoenix Force to be a Cosmic Horror abomination who was only good while impersonating Jean because Jean managed to dump her memories into the Phoenix Force, effectively causing a partial overwrite of the Phoenix Force's personality until Mastermind inadvertedly restored it's true dark nature only for the Jean part of it to kill itself in the end (as Byrne explicitly came to believe/want Jean's Phoenix power to be the result of her merging with something else so they could ultimately depower her as Byrne came to see Jean as too OP for her own good).

Claremont really didn't like that Jean was coming back and that his plans for Scott were being scorched earth by Jim Shooter and Bob Layton. To placate Claremont, Shooter (who was also feuding with Byrne over forced Secret Wars 2 tie-ins and Byrne's Hulk editor fucking with Byrne and claiming, falsely, that Shooter was behind him 100%) basically let Claremont find a new artist and removed the entire Byrne draw sequence showing what the fuck happened as far as why Jean was alive/what the fuck replaced her as Phoenix. Claremont basically made the Phoenix Force a benevolent cosmic horror entity who saved Jean out of altruism and compassion and took her place out of curiousity for what it was like to be human/that her cocoon was actually a healing cocoon to heal her body from the radiation that was killing her and not just a means to store her in stasis. Sadly, the ending of the story still kept Byrne's dialogue as Captain America describes the Phoenix Force as evil/Jean's copied memories ultimately stopping it via driving it to suicide which Claremont didn't like, leading him to completely redoing the sequence from scratch in Classic X-Men #8.

When Shooter got fired from Marvel, Tom DeFalco took over as editor in chief and got Byrne to come back. Byrne had a lot of demands and one of them was he wanted custody of Magneto as he planned on bringing back the classic Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (as Mystique's Brotherhood was now Freedom Force) as major enemies for the Avengers as part of the Acts of Vengeance crossover.

Claremont was pissed the fuck off as Magneto was running the New Mutants and was already pissed off that he was cockblocked by editorial with regards to them vetoing him having Magneto fake his death so he could join the X-Men in Australia. Meanwhile DeFalco had taken a huge amount of heat from other writers, for driving off Roger Sterns from the Avengers by firing him from the very first X-Men/Avengers mini over Roger wanting a downer ending where the X-Men severe ties with Magneto after he used mind control to get himself acquitted (as Claremont was pissy that Roger wanted Magneto as a villain). By this point, Bob Harras was editor of the X-Books and agreed with DeFalco that Claremont had to give Magneto up to Byrne so Magneto could be a villain in Acts of Vengeance and beyond.

But Claremont had an ally in Gruenwald, and Gruenwald pitched that the entire purpose of Magneto being with Loki's group should be because he wanted a chance to kill Red Skull; not kidnap Scarlet Witch and brainwash her evil after losing her kids and husband and nearly being raped by a giant sex starved snake with seven heads. With Gruenwald's backing, Harras also relented and allowed Claremont to write a scene in UXM #253 where he has Magneto tell Moira McTaggert and Banshee that he was "going back to playing the villain" for PR purposes to draw attention away from other mutant groups like X-Factor and New Mutants (though Louis Simonson, in a story where Byrne drew and IIRC scripted, had Magneto basically state that he only "reformed to mold the X-Men and New Mutants into his new army against humanity on the downlow and purposely refused to go into the sewers during the Mutant Massacre storyline to aid the X-Men because he wanted to see how the team under his "mentorship" would do and when they came back defeated, switched his plans to make the Hellfire Club his new allies". And Gruenwald wrote his arc in Captain America, leading to Byrne being made to reveal Red Skull in the final couple of issues of the Acts of Vengeance storyline to be turned out to be a robot double, while the real one was a prisoner of Magneto in Captain America.

When Byrne got fired from the Avengers books, Roy Thomas wrapped up the Brotherhood storyline and gave Claremont Magneto back; though Magneto returning to the X-Men title was not how Claremont intended. Claremont was planning a major storyline (Mutant Wars) which would have seen Magneto and Rogue rejoining the X-Men but when it was aborted due to Harras vetoing plans for the lead-in arc (Days of Future Present's original storyline), Magneto's return was postponed and an arc returning Rogue to the book via Loki and an Asgardian adventure with her and Loki was planned.

DeFalco was against this as Claremont wanted to push the "didn't do nuttin" portrayal f Loki and DeFalco was building Loki up in Thor as doing super bad shit that would finally end with Thor killing Loki, while Jim Lee found the idea of drawing Loki and Asgardian stuff "retarded" and wanted to draw Magneto and do a Savage Land story instead. Harras took DeFalco and Lee's side, and Magneto was brought back earlier as Rogue's rescuer in UXM #269 not Loki.

I think the previous page has Red Skull call out Magneto for having the same values as him (and actually a higher kill count because he literally caused a global power outage). It's literally just Jewish Revenge Fantasy #6,000,000,001. Red Skull is weird nowadays because he's just the opposite of the whatever values the writer holds to be virtuous.

I honestly just want it to be revealed that Magneto being a Holocaust victim was an implanted memory by Xavier. The constant smugness whenever a writer has him bring up Jews is annoying. This was good though, it was Acts of Vengeance, right? Villains swap heroes and try to kill them?

Byrne explicitly stated that was one of the chief goals he had when Marvel announced they were finally doing an X-Men book that would cover the entire period when the X-Men book was canceled (X-Men the Hidden Years) and it was so soundly rejected by fans (who were already pissed the fuck off that Marvel had retconned Magneto from Jewish to Gypsy/Roma and retconned the retcon that Magneto was named Erik along with the insanely reviled decision to make Joseph a random clone and negate about five years worth of Magneto storylines to make Magneto evil again), that Marvel had to put their foot down and tell Byrne (who by that point had been allowed to rape Hulk and Spider-Man with similar retcons) hell fucking no.

That said, the smug bullshit of people white knighting Magneto and how they've since had Xavier go evil via Krakoa and embrace Magneto's evil mutant belief structure, makes me want Magneto as a villain again purely because the well has been so utterly poisoned with Magneto as a "hero" that I roll my eyes whenever writers try and push him as being morally right.

Fuck, it makes me long for the days of Millar's Ultimate X-Men and even Ultimatum, the later of which for all of it's flaws, is the perfect "Magneto as a villain" story due to the fact that it treats Magneto as an Omega level threat who can fuck shit up and is taken seriously as one of the biggest villains in the Ultimate Universe.

 

[DaBigBopper]

@MirrorNoir My opinion on Byrne is weird because he's autismo supreme acting like the typical Western Otaku (lolicon and ebiphilia), but he wasn't above going after the sacred cows in comics. I think he genuinely think he wanted to update characters to make them more appealing rather than make sure no one played with his toys like Claremont. He was autistic though. He really should have a thread here, his forum is fucking fantastic.

My problem with Magneto is them pulling the Holocaust card. Claremont literally just made him a Jew for Jewish Revenge fantasies more than anything else. The X-Men have just become a minority revenge fantasy/ power fantasy over the years more than anything else. As more and more media becomes revenge fantasies, the less I can find anything I'd like.

 

[Water-T]

I thought it was Kurt Busiek who came up with the "The REAL Jean is in a cocoon at the bottom of Jamaica Bay" retcon?

 

[MirrorNoir]

I thought it was Kurt Busiek who came up with the "The REAL Jean is in a cocoon at the bottom of Jamaica Bay" retcon?

Busiek came up with the idea and pitched it to Roger Stern, who passed it along to Shooter. Byrne got roped into working with Stern in writing the resurrection storyline and the issue where Jean Grey officially comes back and we find out what "really" happened in UXM #101-137, partly because Byrne (even though he went against Claremont's script and drew Jean murdering a populated planet, triggering Shooter and making him order Jean's death in the first place) had grown tired of Jean being all powerful and wanted to nerf her powers back to normal and had the personal head canon that Phoenix was a sentient power upgrade energy source that Jean got bonded to (which Byrne managed to make Claremont bye-the-bye mention in the final published issue of UXM #137 right before Jean kills herself when she describes what she had become).

Stern and Byrne are BFFs hence why Byrne got the gig of retconning Dark Phoenix Saga. Claremont never wanted the story to see the light of day, since unlike Byrne, Claremont quickly embraced Jean dying due to the fact that after it's release, the Dark Phoenix Saga was heralded as a modern classic and Claremont basically ran with it by embracing Shooter's meddling and wanting to keep Jean dead. When his then editor Anne Nocenti had to break it to Chris that Jean was being brought back, that the "original X-Men reunited" book Claremont spent YEARS blocking was finally happening, and the implications towards Chris being on the verge of irrevocably retiring Cyclops from being used again as an active hero; Claremont had a nervous breakdown and pitched all sorts of shit to Anne and Shooter to try and stop the story from happening (most notably wanting Bob Layton to either be stuck with Dazzler as the fifth member or bringing in Jean Grey's sister Sarah and making her a mutant tracker ala Caliban).

When it became apparent that Claremont might actually rage quit Uncanny and create a major PR nightmare for Marvel, Shooter basically let Claremont and another artist (forget his name) "rewrite" the reveal scene about how Jean got replaced and the nature of the Phoenix Force in the issue Byrne wrote that directly contradicted what Byrne wanted to do. And was allowed to basically avoid doing any sort of crossover with X-Factor for about three years before Bob Harras finally forced him to with Inferno.

The pages in question BTW:

Also of note; in the basic fanfict comic Byrne's been working on/posting on his forum where he "continues his run as if he got to keep X-Men and Claremont was the one who quit the book", which is also hinged ENTIRELY on the original ending of the Phoenix Saga happening where Jean was "lobotomized"; Byrne has an arc where it is revealed that Lilandra is evil all along and not only lobotomized Jean but also extracted the Phoenix Force entity from her and merged with it herself. In the end, the Phoenix killed Lilandra as she couldn't survive possessing it's power and when it tried to possess Jean again, it ended up restoring her mind and powers and she ultimately exiled it back into space.

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

Red Skull is weird nowadays because he's just the opposite of the whatever values the writer holds to be virtuous.

 

[ArthuriusMartyrius]

I've been re-reading Tim Drakes robin series and it is really, really boring. And, while Chuck Dixon does social commentary better than most it's still bad and killing random side characters to make a point is incredibly tiring. There's basically no developed side characters because they all die to teach the audience that bullying is bad.

Tim Drake as Robin was basically Spider-Man without superpowers and the constant life lessons after fucking up because DC was fucking allergic to making Tim anything other than a borderline perfect know-it-all. I have no idea how the fuck he even became popular, every comic I've ever read with the guy makes me wish for a random mook to blow his brains out over a brick wall. His appearance directly led to the flanderization of Dick Grayson's character to make Tim "the smart guy" and I take an immense amount of joy in knowing that he has become an increasingly irrelevant footnote after Damian Wayne's introduction.

 

[Water-T]

either be stuck with Dazzler as the fifth member or bringing in Jean Grey's sister Sarah and making her a mutant tracker ala Caliban).

I do recall that the original plan was for Dazzler to have Jean's slot in X-Factor (it was even hinted at in the last issue of her solo series), but I had never heard before about any plans to have Jean's sister on the roster.

 

[MirrorNoir]

I do recall that the original plan was for Dazzler to have Jean's slot in X-Factor (it was even hinted at in the last issue of her solo series), but I had never heard before about any plans to have Jean's sister on the roster.

Dazzler was Claremont's second choice as he REALLY REALLY wanted to push the idea of Sarah Grey as an alternative to Jean coming back and even pitched a character/power set for her of her being a living breathing mutant tracker ala Caliban. The line in the last issue of Dazzler's ongoing, IIRC was a red herring as there was a lot of fan speculation Alison WAS going to be the fifth member; especially since her book was being canceled at this time; as Marvel did a bang up job basically keeping Jean's return a secret.

Dazzler is a character Claremont hated but fans loved, hence him falling back to her as a last resort when using Jean's sister as a legacy character didn't work.

Of additional note: Jim Shooter had to change his personal phone number prior to Anne Nocenti being tasked with telling her that Jean was being brought back, X-Factor was happening, and Cyclops would be abandoning his wife and kid. Because he knew Claremont would call him and basically go apeshit on his ass claiming that the X-Men were HIS fucking toys and rage quit on Shooter if he didn't immediately reverse course. Claremont couldn't quit because of this and instead bugged the fuck out of Nocenti to basically pass along the alternatives once it dawned upon Claremont that Shooter was power flexing on him to basically beg him to change course, especially since Claremont (in spite of his rage) started to realize that if he rage quit the book, that Byrne or who knows who would swoop down and take control over the X-Men and he'd never get the book back, let alone with the level of creative control he previously enjoyed.

It's one of the reasons Nocenti was able to get Claremont to warehouse Longshot and his villain cast in X-Men (as payment for having to deal with Claremont's screeching tantrums during this time) and why Shooter conceded to allow Claremont to throw out and redo pages of Byrne's FF #286, and later retell the same story again in Classic X-Men; which in turn was the final straw for Byrne as he was pissy as hell that Claremont did that to him and that Shooter allowed it just to calm Claremonts rage pig tantrums ever so slightly. Claremont was THIS fucking close to quitting X-Men, which would have been the ultimate "what if..." ever when you think about it, in terms of what if Claremont DID quit X-Men around #201 and how radically different shit would have been in terms of the direction of the franchise.

 

[Water-T]

Of additional note: Jim Shooter had to change his personal phone number prior to Anne Nocenti being tasked with telling her that Jean was being brought back, X-Factor was happening, and Cyclops would be abandoning his wife and kid. Because he knew Claremont would call him and basically go apeshit on his ass claiming that the X-Men were HIS fucking toys and rage quit on Shooter if he didn't immediately reverse course. Claremont couldn't quit because of this and instead bugged the fuck out of Nocenti to basically pass along the alternatives once it dawned upon Claremont that Shooter was power flexing on him to basically beg him to change course, especially since Claremont (in spite of his rage) started to realize that if he rage quit the book, that Byrne or who knows who would swoop down and take control over the X-Men and he'd never get the book back, let alone with the level of creative control he previously enjoyed.

Scott dropping his wife and kid like a bad habit to hop back on Jean's pussy wagon was the beginning of Douchebag Cyclops, which continued for nearly 20 years until he ironically cheated on Jean with Emma Frost in "New X-Men". Then he became Chad-clops. After Jean died, her spirit was like, "I'm not even mad about it. You have my blessing to turn Emma inside out". The lesson here is never chase pussy - get it to chase YOU.

 

[MirrorNoir]

Scott dropping his wife and kid like a bad habit to hop back on Jean's pussy wagon was the beginning of Douchebag Cyclops, which continued for nearly 20 years until he ironically cheated on Jean with Emma Frost in "New X-Men". Then he became Chad-clops. After Jean died, her spirit was like, "I'm not even mad about it. You have my blessing to turn Emma inside out". The lesson here is never chase pussy - get it to chase YOU.

Disagree about that. Scott cheating on Jean only made Scott an even BIGGER douchebag and Morrison making Jean give deathbed permission for Scott to fuck Emma was up there with Marvel making Maddie a would be child murderess to justify (again) Scott being a horrible human being. And even later writers ran with this, as one of the central themes for Emma/Scott was watching Emma react in shock and horror at how being with her brought out Scott's worst attributes and the fact that everyone around Scott had to work overtime (as seen with Rogue and Second Coming) to basically cover for Scott's fucked up leadership; which culminated in AvX Scott and trying to force Hope to become Dark Phoenix just so he could use Dark Phoenix as a weapon against humanity, knowing damn well that it would end in the bulk of the human population dying and mutantkind being sent to death camps in retaliation.

 

[Red Hood]

Tim Drake as Robin was basically Spider-Man without superpowers and the constant life lessons after fucking up because DC was fucking allergic to making Tim anything other than a borderline perfect know-it-all. I have no idea how the fuck he even became popular, every comic I've ever read with the guy makes me wish for a random mook to blow his brains out over a brick wall. His appearance directly led to the flanderization of Dick Grayson's character to make Tim "the smart guy" and I take an immense amount of joy in knowing that he has become an increasingly irrelevant footnote after Damian Wayne's introduction.

>be me
>back from the dead
>meeting the guy that replaced me as a sidekick
> wondering what he does other than Will They/Won't They with blonde girl
> ask Dick what Bruce pulled this kid in for
> He offhand tells me Tim is "the smart sidekick"
> not "The Smart Robin"
> Oracle's listening
> she's always listening
> accident or patented Todd tactical trolling?
> cause months long rift between them

 

[MirrorNoir]

Tim Drake was a rare case of focus testing basically creating a new character to appeal to new younger audiences of his generation and working. Jason Todd was a failure due to both writers trying to make him a literal Dick Grayson clone and a half assed "bad boy" type.

His downfall came due to the late 90s/early 00s rivalry between Batman editors and pretty much EVERYONE ELSE at DC; where they declared that all Batman characters had to act haughty and arrogant and basically treat every non-Batman character as "beneath them" due to the Batman editors being pissy that they had to play nice and let other writers/editors use their characters. They did this to Nightwing in the late 90s Batman revival, and everyone even Devin fucking Grayson (who is a huge Batman stan) complained about how this made Dick behave like a cunt to his fellow Titans. So they relaxed the mandate on Dick being a cunt but doubled down on Tim Drake being a cunt in non-Batman books, resulting in Tim being a totally unbearable piece of shit in Young Justice and Teen Titans.

It's one of the reasons why Damien got over with fans, as one the very first fucking things that Damien did was beat Tim Drake to an inch of his life due to the fact that there were a LOT of fans just BEGGING for someone to punch Tim and knock him down a couple of pegs.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

I loved Tim Drake and Chuck Dixon's '90s work on Batman, Nightwing, and Robin.

Also as for X-Men, iirc, wasn't the attempted Logan and Jean pairing Claremont's way of seething over her being back?

 

[Arthur Morgan]

I loved Tim Drake and Chuck Dixon's '90s work on Batman, Nightwing, and Robin.

They're actually how I got into comics. I really enjoyed the stories, and the setting of Bludhaven as a place so corrupt that the good cops had to act in secret was a good premise. Unfortunately Devin Grayson screwed things up and then things went to shit when DC decided to blow the whole city up.

For Tim's Robin... I get the Spider-Man comparison, but I don't get where the "He's perfect" part comes from, he constantly needed help and made a lot of dumb decisions. Yeah, depending on the writer, Tim being "The smart one" could go overboard, but overall he's still my favorite Robin. Though I do wish they'd actually made Stephanie his successor, that could have been interesting.

 

[MirrorNoir]

I loved Tim Drake and Chuck Dixon's '90s work on Batman, Nightwing, and Robin.

Also as for X-Men, iirc, wasn't the attempted Logan and Jean pairing Claremont's way of seething over her being back?

Chuck Dixon was great on Robin and Batman but I absolutely DESPISE his work on Nightwing. Pretty much every fucking problem with modern Nightwing can be traced to Dixon's Nightwing run and a huge chunk of the problems with modern Teen Titans can be traced to it as well as Chuck was one of the chief haters of Starfire/Nightwing and pretty much shitted all over Kory and Dick's rogue gallery from New Teen Titans every chance he could, while manufacturing from wholecloth an entire retcon romance between Dick and Babs to try and invalidate Dick/Kory to prop up his crack ship.

Also.....

Until Classic X-Men came along, Logan's crush on Jean was 100% one sided and Jean never even knew that Logan was pining for her.

Classic X-Men #1 featured an extended sequence written by Claremont that replaced the second half of Giant Size X-Men #1 (as Classic only reprinted the first half of GSXM #1 and skipped everything after the group landed on Krakoa) where he started pushing Jean/Logan HARD via Logan flirting with Jean, who was receptive until Angel caught them and started a fight with Logan (retconning Angel's hate for Logan not being about his willingness to kill but out of jealousy over Jean and the fact that Warren still loved her but had resigned himself to allow Scott to get her without actually fighting him for the right to be Jean's boyfriend and was pissy that Logan gave no fucks about being a gentleman and openly making a play for Jean, even though she had chosen Scott). Along with it explicitly stated that Jean quit the X-Men after GSXM because she didn't trust herself around Logan due to her attraction to his bad boy persona.

And that's not counting the whole Queen of the Night thing Claremont pushed with Jean as part of his evil Logan storyline.

 

[ArthuriusMartyrius]

Scott dropping his wife and kid like a bad habit to hop back on Jean's pussy wagon was the beginning of Douchebag Cyclops, which continued for nearly 20 years until he ironically cheated on Jean with Emma Frost in "New X-Men". Then he became Chad-clops. After Jean died, her spirit was like, "I'm not even mad about it. You have my blessing to turn Emma inside out". The lesson here is never chase pussy - get it to chase YOU.

I think people's problem with Cyclops/Emma Frost was less to do with Jean Grey and more to do with pissed-off Emma Frost fans who hated the sudden personality change she got after shacking up with Cyclops and random bullshit like her suddenly talking like a posh British bimbo.