Sperg about comic books here

[MirrorNoir]

While I bought SWORD when it ran, I bailed when it rebooted as X-Men Red. But I came back and bought X-Men Red #5 because of the Mars Massacre.

Sadly it's a big miss as Uranos's "arsenal" is a bunch of vaguely drawn crap that makes the Hex look downright normal looking. And the massacre is downplayed and not as gorey as it should be, combined with a pointless plot point where one member of the Arakko council kills another then fucks off and Nightcrawler/Legion get sidelined to make us by next month's Legion of X #6. Oh and a massive fucking asspull to make it so Magneto survived as he uses his powers to stay alive even after his heart is ripped out.

Only decent thing is the fact that Nova was involved and helps the bulk of the civilians get off-world while the violence happens.

Immortal X-Men #5 was an Exodus origin issue and attempts to make him sympathetic and imply he's gay for Black Knight. Kudos for Gillen acknowledging and referencing the rarely read Black Knight special that gave his origin that came out years after everyone and their mother stopped caring about Exodus and he fell into comic limbo.

And Dark Crisis was more crap: Rose and a bunch of villains get infected with Great Darkness vomit Slade vomited on them, Black Adam gets kicked out of the new JLA when he tries to forced everyone to be a party to him executing Count Vertigo so his corpse could be displayed outside the Hall of Justice (Vertigo survives because the new Wonder Woman stops Adam from killing him), so he ends up joining the new Legion of Doom, which includes Punchline instead of Joker.

Oh and the Green Lanterns attack Pariah and find out the "paradise worlds" are "weapons" and gets sucked into the John Stewart world where he's immediately depowered and attacked by John Stewart stans who state "Hal isn't allowed in John's paradise".

Oh and the JSA finally show up to back the new JLA up when they expel Black Adam to help out.

 

[DaBigBopper]

While I bought SWORD when it ran, I bailed when it rebooted as X-Men Red. But I came back and bought X-Men Red #5 because of the Mars Massacre.

Sadly it's a big miss as Uranos's "arsenal" is a bunch of vaguely drawn crap that makes the Hex look downright normal looking. And the massacre is downplayed and not as gorey as it should be, combined with a pointless plot point where one member of the Arakko council kills another then fucks off and Nightcrawler/Legion get sidelined to make us by next month's Legion of X #6. Oh and a massive fucking asspull to make it so Magneto survived as he uses his powers to stay alive even after his heart is ripped out.

Only decent thing is the fact that Nova was involved and helps the bulk of the civilians get off-world while the violence happens.

Immortal X-Men #5 was an Exodus origin issue and attempts to make him sympathetic and imply he's gay for Black Knight. Kudos for Gillen acknowledging and referencing the rarely read Black Knight special that gave his origin that came out years after everyone and their mother stopped caring about Exodus and he fell into comic limbo.

And Dark Crisis was more crap: Rose and a bunch of villains get infected with Great Darkness vomit Slade vomited on them, Black Adam gets kicked out of the new JLA when he tries to forced everyone to be a party to him executing Count Vertigo so his corpse could be displayed outside the Hall of Justice (Vertigo survives because the new Wonder Woman stops Adam from killing him), so he ends up joining the new Legion of Doom, which includes Punchline instead of Joker.

Oh and the Green Lanterns attack Pariah and find out the "paradise worlds" are "weapons" and gets sucked into the John Stewart world where he's immediately depowered and attacked by John Stewart stans who state "Hal isn't allowed in John's paradise".

Oh and the JSA finally show up to back the new JLA up when they expel Black Adam to help out.

Only one guy died during that whole attack that mattered. Urano's literally didn't actually kill anyone beyond filler characters, Magento is also missing a section of his spine and lungs. I don't give a shit about magnets, he supposedly gets power boosts by being near genocides now. The entire X-Men thing just feels like them spinning their wheels, I'm aware of it due to talking to a friend and nothing really matters. The Eternals basically failed their entire attack because the X-Men still have their leadership and ressurrection.

The only way I'd actually buy American comics again is if they got expressive artists and stopped hiring failed tv writers. Also, probably do a bit of a 7-in-1 deal where they sell a bulk of stories in hopes of getting a better quality trade. The hobbyist route was always fucking retarded.

 

[MirrorNoir]

Only one guy died during that whole attack that mattered. Urano's literally didn't actually kill anyone beyond filler characters, Magento is also missing a section of his spine and lungs. I don't give a shit about magnets, he supposedly gets power boosts by being near genocides now. The entire X-Men thing just feels like them spinning their wheels, I'm aware of it due to talking to a friend and nothing really matters. The Eternals basically failed their entire attack because the X-Men still have their leadership and ressurrection.

Also add that many have speculated that

Spoiler

the Avengers are just going to make shit worse, as they are going to resurrect the Celestial they are living in as a zombie they can control/speak through to make the Eternals stand down (due to the point point that the order to kill mutants is a Jihadi-style holy order that can only be rescinded by a Celestial explicitly giving a counter order negative the previous order) and that the Celestial will end up coming back to life fully alive, not as a braindead zombie and declare all of Earth on trial with extinction as the penalty if the Celestial finds Earth guilty of deserving to be destroyed.

 

[Juan's Sombrero]

Also add that many have speculated that

Spoiler

the Avengers are just going to make shit worse, as they are going to resurrect the Celestial they are living in as a zombie they can control/speak through to make the Eternals stand down (due to the point point that the order to kill mutants is a Jihadi-style holy order that can only be rescinded by a Celestial explicitly giving a counter order negative the previous order) and that the Celestial will end up coming back to life fully alive, not as a braindead zombie and declare all of Earth on trial with extinction as the penalty if the Celestial finds Earth guilty of deserving to be destroyed.

What the hell is even happening anymore? All of these "Earth/humanity is on trial" stories are just so overdone.

 

[DaBigBopper]

Also add that many have speculated that

Spoiler

the Avengers are just going to make shit worse, as they are going to resurrect the Celestial they are living in as a zombie they can control/speak through to make the Eternals stand down (due to the point point that the order to kill mutants is a Jihadi-style holy order that can only be rescinded by a Celestial explicitly giving a counter order negative the previous order) and that the Celestial will end up coming back to life fully alive, not as a braindead zombie and declare all of Earth on trial with extinction as the penalty if the Celestial finds Earth guilty of deserving to be destroyed.

Isn't that just Remender's Uncanny Avengers? Right down to the Hedonistic Mutant society that literally genocides humans? I'm so fucking sick of the Celestials, they're boring Space Gods that people are obsessed about.

 

[Water-T]

What the hell is even happening anymore? All of these "Earth/humanity is on trial" stories are just so overdone.

That's the Celestials' whole schtick: leave the Eternals behind on Earth to keep the Deviants in line, fuck off to space, then pop up every few thousand years to decide if they want to wipe out the human race, maybe have some fun tinkering with the DNA of some aliens. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

[Nick Obre]

Also add that many have speculated that

Spoiler

the Avengers are just going to make shit worse, as they are going to resurrect the Celestial they are living in as a zombie they can control/speak through to make the Eternals stand down (due to the point point that the order to kill mutants is a Jihadi-style holy order that can only be rescinded by a Celestial explicitly giving a counter order negative the previous order) and that the Celestial will end up coming back to life fully alive, not as a braindead zombie and declare all of Earth on trial with extinction as the penalty if the Celestial finds Earth guilty of deserving to be destroyed.

Remember Deathlok's mind is alive in the Celestial corpse. He's gonna save the day in the end or some shit.

he supposedly gets power boosts by being near genocides now.

Like the Saiyan's Zenkai power, which makes them more powerful the worse the beating they take, Mags becomes more powerful the more genocides he experiences

I call it Zenkike power

 

[Water-T]

Many have speculated that Maggie's power is keeping him alive because he's containing his chest wound in a magnetic bubble, and using his power to control the iron in his blood to keep it flowing properly. In a dumb comic book way it makes sense.

 

[DaBigBopper]

Many have speculated that Maggie's power is keeping him alive because he's containing his chest wound in a magnetic bubble, and using his power to control the iron in his blood to keep it flowing properly. In a dumb comic book way it makes sense.

Yeah, but he's missing parts of his spine and lungs. If he was comatose or whatever and his power was only just keeping him alive I'd understand, that'd be a stretch.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Ultimate Spider-Man was literally him ripping better stories off and modernizing them.

That was part of the appeal for me, it was familiar, reshuffled a bit and with some new twists and turns. I liked Kraven being a Steve Irwing type TV character with his villain origin story being that he got humiliated by Spider-Man on live TV and his ego can't take it so he started doing weird things to get stronger. Things like that were fun.
The main problem with the overall Ultimate line was that they sometimes seemed to introduce reimagined characters for the sake of it, then nothing really came from that, it was just something to check off from a list.

Was it Kirkman's Ultimate X-Men run that people hated? There was one writer that they brought in that people were excited about but the entire run felt like he was just keeping the chair warm for the next guy.

 

[Water-T]

Yeah, but he's missing parts of his spine and lungs. If he was comatose or whatever and his power was only just keeping him alive I'd understand, that'd be a stretch.

He can magnetically prop himself up (or create a metal harness if needed), and as long as he's keeping his blood circulating, he's actually getting much needed fresh oxygen in his body via that hole.

There - I tried my best to come up with a plausible "comic book" explanation.

I'd imagine Mr. Eisenhardt will do this just long enough to get through a gate to Krakoa and have Elixir patch him up in seconds. Josh previously did a similar trick years ago after Prodigy got his heart ripped from his chest by a demon.

 

[Nick Obre]

He can magnetically prop himself up (or create a metal harness if needed), and as long as he's keeping his blood circulating, he's actually getting much needed fresh oxygen in his body via that hole.

There - I tried my best to come up with a plausible "comic book" explanation.

I'd imagine Mr. Eisenhardt will do this just long enough to get through a gate to Krakoa and have Elixir patch him up in seconds. Josh previously did a similar trick years ago after Prodigy got his heart ripped from his chest by a demon.

All the gates in Arakko are destroyed. He'd have to get to Krakoa the hard way.

Or Magik/Kurt/Telford Porter/some other can take him there.

 

[MirrorNoir]

Isn't that just Remender's Uncanny Avengers? Right down to the Hedonistic Mutant society that literally genocides humans? I'm so fucking sick of the Celestials, they're boring Space Gods that people are obsessed about.

Reminder's version is different:

>>Kang kidnapped Angel's mixed race babies he had with a murderous Japanese Geisha who vomits beetles and creates an axe that can kill Celestials and gifts it to Thor in the distant past so he can fight Apocalypse.

>>Makes the kids live in a Days of Future Past death camp run by Ahab to make them hate humans so much they'll take all mutants off-world per the plot point revelation that Kang's future is mutant free because all of the mutants were one day raptured off-world and fucked off to outer space (which BTW was a direction Remender was pushing to isolate the X-Men from the rest of the Marvel Universe when Ike gave the order to bury the X-Men post-Secret Wars 5).

>>The kids doublecross Kang and kill a Celestial with Thor's axe, causing the Celestials to nuke Earth save for Thor and Wasp. Also Rogue and Scarlet Witch kill each other but not before Wanda raptures every mutant (plus Puck) into the kids ship and they create a mutant space colony and brainwash everyone into making them their leaders save for Havok and Wasp.

>>Kang survives the wiping of his future and gets Havok and Thor to send the surviving Uncanny Avengers back in time into their past selves bodies before Rogue and Wanda kill each other/Wanda raptures the mutants (plus Puck).

>>Turns out that Kang was playing EVERYONE and that the plan was to summon the Celestials so that Kang (using the axe) could kill the Celestials and become a God by drinking (metaphorically) Celestial blood. He knew the kids would betray him and just wanted to pull the rug from underneath them for the evilulz because he hates mutants THAT much. Oh and he has Havok and Wasp's kid locked up somewhere from the now erased future timeline.

>>Oh and the implication that Kang is the true architect behind Days of Future Past, which ties into the plot point from Kang Dynasty that Kang helped Boliver Trask build the Sentinels and that all Sentinels have a built-in program hidden in their systems that make them turn on their masters and serve Kang when activated.

That was part of the appeal for me, it was familiar, reshuffled a bit and with some new twists and turns. I liked Kraven being a Steve Irwing type TV character with his villain origin story being that he got humiliated by Spider-Man on live TV and his ego can't take it so he started doing weird things to get stronger. Things like that were fun.
The main problem with the overall Ultimate line was that they sometimes seemed to introduce reimagined characters for the sake of it, then nothing really came from that, it was just something to check off from a list.

Was it Kirkman's Ultimate X-Men run that people hated? There was one writer that they brought in that people were excited about but the entire run felt like he was just keeping the chair warm for the next guy.

Kraven as a Steve Irwin type lasted a single story and at the time, there was much outcry over Bendis giving him such a set-up and then jobbing him like a loser/reverting him back to classic Kraven the next time he used him.

And to be fair, the ONLY ONLY ONLY fucking reason people liked Ultimate Spider-Man was that Bendis was allowed to use MJ and write Peter and MJ as a couple, while MJ was being embargoed in the main Spider-Man books. It was the only thing people liked about the series and you can tell how interest in it went off a cliff and people dropping it, the moment MJ was brought back in Amazing Spider-Man #50 and reunited with Peter for good. (and the speed in which, after that happened, Bendis then put Ultimate Peter with Ultimate Kitty Pryde).

You are confusing Kirman with Bendis.

Bendis basically wrote two arcs, one of which was a Wolverine team-up arc with none of the rest of the cast and the second, had him haphazardly introducing a huge number of secondary X-men characters into a six issue arc and killing off Beast just because he could, because he got SO fucking pissy that everyone hated his arc, that he decided to make it so that his run COULDN'T be ignored by whoever replaced him. The same petty evil bullshit that led to him making Iceman gay after he realized how inconsequential his main book X-Men run was.

Kirkman's run was hit or miss but he had some decent arcs and some stinkers. But in general, he tried to make it a more traditional normie friendly X-Men book. And once he left, Ultimate X-Men became forgettable dreck.

Remember Deathlok's mind is alive in the Celestial corpse. He's gonna save the day in the end or some shit.

Some have speculated that Deathlok's going to be erased for good, as far as the Avengers expecting him to be the "voice"/remote controller for the Celestial and be the one speaking when he tells the Eternals to ignore any calls for killing mutants/that mutants are never to be harmed by Eternals. Only for the Celestial, once fully revived, to purge/erase Deathlok from it's body to cement that the Celestial's alive again and that the Avengers fucked up big time in regards to their plan failing and their only hope of a failsafe being shut down immediately.

It would explain why Aaron's refusing to participate in the crossover (the Avengers tie-in is written by another writer and features Hawkeye, who isn't on the Aaron Avengers team) and that Aaron having a major part of his status quo for the Avengers (their Celestial corpse base) and a potential major plotline killed dead in it's track (whatever he was planning with the Deathlok) by AXE might be why Aaron's Mephisto storyline is happening sooner than later. IE he's quitting as a result of AXE fucking up his plans and rushing his ending.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Kraven as a Steve Irwin type lasted a single story and at the time, there was much outcry over Bendis giving him such a set-up and then jobbing him like a loser/reverting him back to classic Kraven the next time he used him.

And to be fair, the ONLY ONLY ONLY fucking reason people liked Ultimate Spider-Man was that Bendis was allowed to use MJ and write Peter and MJ as a couple,

@MirrorNoir
Jobbing characters was a problem with Ultimate in a way. Deadpool and Taskmaster was rapidly gaining popularity and people were curious about what their Ultimate counterparts would be *wet fart*.

And I liked Ultimate Spider-Man, it came as a surprise to me because the local magazine started running it starting from issue 1. I hadn't read Marvel in years so out of boredome I swiped up a bunch of comics before a long train ride while passing through a store. It re-ignited my interest at the time and I wasn't aware of what other people thought though.

Doc Ock turning glowie asset instead of rotting in prison was also fun even if it was stupid.

You are confusing Kirman with Bendis.

Bendis basically wrote two arcs, one of which was a Wolverine team-up arc with none of the rest of the cast and the second, had him haphazardly introducing a huge number of secondary X-men characters into a six issue arc and killing off Beast just because he could, because he got SO fucking pissy that everyone hated his arc, that he decided to make it so that his run COULDN'T be ignored by whoever replaced him. The same petty evil bullshit that led to him making Iceman gay after he realized how inconsequential his main book X-Men run was.

That might be it, I remember Beast "dying" but I also remember everyone shacked up in a log cabin somewhere. Who brought back Beast? If it was Kirkman maybe he's the guy I'm thinking about.


I don't know what people think of it but Sabretooth being Wolverine's son who hates haunts his dad is a better premise than Dakken and better than the 616 origin story.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

I remember liking Ultimate Spider-Man until up to the Hobgoblin arc, where Harry becomes a goblin monster. Bendis' decompression had become worse and worse and by then there were multiple issues of absolutely nothing happening, the plot not moving even by inches.

 

[DaBigBopper]

@MirrorNoir Remender's version had the OC's be tolerable because they weren't insufferable. I still wish that Holocaust would get redeemed because his whole story is basically being raised by a cult into being a genocidal monster. Why the fuck do they redeem the Apocalypse? All of the new OC's are insufferable and their designs are awful.

Also, he got to the point in less than 5 fucking years of bullshit across ten books. It was a Kang story so you know that time fuckery is gonna happen and largely it didn't effect other books.

I wish Trask would stop being shit on for being the only person who didn't want a race war and his whoppsie doodle fuck-up is the AI going crazy because Mutants have 10 mega-Hitler's on their side. Days of Future's Past isn't even his fault, I think Claremont literally had Emma and Shaw shoving mutants in the oven more because they feared other superhumans fighting against the regime they establish.

 

[Kulee Baba]

One thing I love searching the internet for and learning about is old comics. For the same reason I love old books & films for a brief moment you kinda get to feel like a timetraveller and have a glimpse of a world that was around decades before you.

Assuming you're American Gasoline Alley was likely a comic strip your (Great) Grandparents read and enjoyed. It was started over 100 years ago by Frank King. King had the bold idea to actually have the characters age naturally with time. Today the main cast of Gasoline Alley are well over 100 and the comic strip is drawn lazily by an old fart of the characters pretty much going "Oh wow that's an iPhone, we didn't have that back in the day haha." I assume Gasoline Alley only continues to this day for the sake of the remaining newspapers to fill their tired "Funnies" section and to reap whatever miniscule syndication it continues to get.

But man Frank King, the man was a great cartoonist. No doubt in my mind he likely was an influence on Bill Watterson. This right here is one of the coolest damn comic strips I've ever seen.

Look at that, it feels like pop culture depiction of a damn ACID Trip. And it was made in NINETEEN-THIRTY. A full eight years before Albert Hoffman first synthesized LSD! Now sure Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland predates this by decades so the whole thought of people going into dream worlds had existed long before this but I'm confident in saying you weren't finding trippy surreal funnies beyond Frank King's work in this time.

This strip I also just love for the concept of having the panels create a full image of people chilling on the beach. When I was madly into comic books years back I especially loved when comic book artists did stuff like this. I honestly would have assumed it was Golden Age Mad Magazine who first came up with stuff like this. It really goes to show that while most comic strips are not art a true artist can come in and create brilliant stuff in such a medium.

I just wanted to share this and I assume Comic Book fans would enjoy looking at it. The industry rightfully gives Will Eisner the respect he truly deserved for being such a fine artist. Frank King should be remembered in a similar fashion. Gasoline Alley strips aren't the funniest things out there but King had a warm & charming sense of humor and few creators dare to have their characters age with them.

 

[BetterFuckChuck]

Is Tom Defalco the most underrated Spidey writer?

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

I wish Trask would stop being shit on for being the only person who didn't want a race war

For years I've longed to see a DoD Marvel comic about an honest effort to put a band-aid on the mutant threat, just a hardworking suit with a family that in inner monologues explains why they are a threat to everyone and why they are doing good work. That person is just one of the 8 billion normal people that don't have god like powers trying to keep their life intact without stressing out too much about what might happen, except he or she knows the full scope of the threat.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

I remember liking Ultimate Spider-Man until up to the Hobgoblin arc, where Harry becomes a goblin monster. Bendis' decompression had become worse and worse and by then there were multiple issues of absolutely nothing happening, the plot not moving even by inches.

It went back and forth, though I do remember being surprised that certain arcs were 5 or six issues long when in my head they were 3.

It's interesting to go back and read comics from the 90s. I reach page 12 and assume the story will be finished next issue, only for everything to be wrapped up before page 22. Hopefully we can get back to that someday