Sperg about comic books here

[DaBigBopper]

Jack Kirby kept writing the Society of Superheroes stuff, but it always sucked. I like Jack for actually being an illustrator who served as a pathfinder for others in terms of the medium and sometimes creators rights. However, he was a giant fucking bitch by all accounts. Stan Lee put up with his bullshit despite having to deal with industry Mega-Jews, like Goodman, who consistently fucked over everyone.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

@Cool kitties club

His original claim to fame was being a writer for Lost and then showrunner for Under the Dome. I liked Runaways vol.1 & 2 a lot and his Doctor Strange: The Oath but beyond that I've never been able to get into any of his comic work. I found even 'Y The Last Man' boring -- like, you've got this weird, near post-apocalyptic setting and yet never really did much of interest with it, from the issues I read.

Vaughan can be very hit or miss for me. Runaways Vol 1 was great, but he only did volume 2 because people loved the first one so much they wanted him to keep it going, even though it was clearly written with an ending. I agree with Y The Last Man, everything interesting was wrapped up pretty quickly, and the second half of the series felt more like filler than anything. Pride of Baghdad was all right but nothing special. Saga started out fine but went to shit quickly because, and this is something he stated with pride, he wanted to write stories that appealed to the artist, which meant a bunch of SJW shit got inserted in.

My favorite of his was Ex Machina, with Tony Harris. 50 issues, ten volumes, and while some points are weak it's overall a pretty solid series and I think under rated, most likely because it's a political drama. A man becomes the world's first superhero, but after a couple of years he realizes he's doing more harm than good, and instead runs for mayor as an independent. He doesn't have a hope in hell, but during his campaign, 9/11 happens and he's able to save one of the towers by diverting the second plane. The series begins with him being sworn into office and having to deal with the political world as he screws over his entire career doing what he feels is the right thing. It was interesting because it wasn't left wing or right wing. He was pro gay marriage, but also hated people being coddled and thought you should be able to smoke indoors.

I'd say his biggest problem is that he has that issue where many of his characters sound the same. Bendis does this too, which is especially noticeable in his team books like Avengers. The main dudes from Y, Ex Machina, and Saga have the same dialogue patterns and could easily be saying the same things. It's not as bad as Joss Whedon's quippy shit, but it's still annoying when you first notice it. Also, he's one of those "There should be no happy endings" douchebags. He outright says it at the end of Ex Machina (Just read the first three pages if you don't want to spoil the rest of the series, which I still recommend), and it explains how he ends his comics so much. Y ended with nothing getting answered and Yorrick's life turning out shit because it's the saddest thing. I knew who the traitor was going to be in Runaways just by thinking "Which character betraying the team would make for the saddest ending?" I'm pretty sure he did Pride of Baghdad just because the real story had a sad ending.

He also did another series through Image called Paper Girls. Anyone ever read that? If so, how was it?

 

[MirrorNoir]

Please keep the schizo takes coming , this is the funniest one yet.

It's true. New Gods and pretty much ALL of Kirby's DC work was reviled when it came out initially. Besides having his Superman artwork redrawn behind his back, Kirby got kicked off the Losers because he turned a complex anti-war themed comic serial into a generic Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos strip, and Demon and OMAC both flopped.

There is a reason WHY, people use "My Real Daddy" cliche trope with giving credit to later writers on Kirby's DC books outside OMAC, which is the only one that got fucked over HARD by later writers using the concept (most notably Dan DiDio trying to turn them into the DC version of the Sentinels). Darkseid wasn't cool or seen as a legit real threat until Paul Levitz used him in Legion and later, Morrison in Final Crisis. Demon was a forgettable character until Matt Wagner and Alan Grant and to a lesser extent, Garth Ennis came along (and in turn is why a hell of a lot of people despise Byrne using his Wonder Woman run to erase and HARD HARD HARD retconning the changes made to Demon by those later writers). Mister Miracle wasn't interesting until Giffen and DeMatties turned him and Barda into a metaphor for suburban life heroes, Orion didn't become interesting until Starlin decided to lean into the fact that Orion is an unlikable shit, and Grant Morrison making the New Gods villains literal eldritch abominations who's very voice can mindbreak you.

 

[GranDuke]

It is fun how you take some true fact and then spin entire paragraphs of weird fan fiction around it.

Brooding loner with socialization problems, trust issues, anger issues and a complexity addiction.

There were multiple answers to my question, but I'll just quote the last one. One of the key things in Batman's lore is that Robin is lighter character and we got lots of talking points about how Dick saved Bruce from going into total darkness and all that fun stuff. So when Morrison wrote Batman & Robin he flipped that dynamic, now Batman was lighter character and Robin could have gone bad. And when Bruce comes back in Batman Inc. we can see that their partnership wasn't really working out since they both were darker characters. It ends badly.

Do I even have a point here? I don't know, to me Damian and Bruce have very little in common outside of superficial similarities that many characters share. Does it mean that Superman should (or could) get along with every darker character? No, even him getting along with Bruce is more out of tradition than due to actual character developments in last 20-30 years. After all, this partnership was built back when Batman wasn't written like a borderline psychopath.

While I enjoyed Super Sons I don't think that it is a coincidence that there were sharp drops in quality every 8-10 issues and latest mini (Challenges of Super Sons) being barely readable. I have my doubts if Jon/Damian partnership can work long term without either fundamental rewriting of their characters or Jon remaining forever as naive and idealistic child.

 

[GoPro]

I'll actually defend the writing of the Fourth World writing as for each of the 3 main books there is a distinct writing style which is an impressive bit of world building, and I also don't think its really worse then Stan's writing. When people think of Lee's writing they usually think of F4 and Spider-Man when outside of those books Lee's writing became very hit or miss. There is a reason why it took a bit for the Avengers and X-men to take off, and stuff like Thor is just terrible. In particular the post Kirby/Ditko era of Lee writing in stuff like Silver Surfer is just terrible.

It's a common issue with Lee. If he is working with someone like Kirby, Ditko, Wood, or Romita the books are good. Without a competent artist storyteller, it's a miss more often than not. These coincidences confirm accusations stating that Lee was a co-writer on these at best.

Vaughan can be very hit or miss for me. Runaways Vol 1 was great, but he only did volume 2 because people loved the first one so much they wanted him to keep it going, even though it was clearly written with an ending. I agree with Y The Last Man, everything interesting was wrapped up pretty quickly, and the second half of the series felt more like filler than anything. Pride of Baghdad was all right but nothing special. Saga started out fine but went to shit quickly because, and this is something he stated with pride, he wanted to write stories that appealed to the artist, which meant a bunch of SJW shit got inserted in.

My favorite of his was Ex Machina, with Tony Harris. 50 issues, ten volumes, and while some points are weak it's overall a pretty solid series and I think under rated, most likely because it's a political drama. A man becomes the world's first superhero, but after a couple of years he realizes he's doing more harm than good, and instead runs for mayor as an independent. He doesn't have a hope in hell, but during his campaign, 9/11 happens and he's able to save one of the towers by diverting the second plane. The series begins with him being sworn into office and having to deal with the political world as he screws over his entire career doing what he feels is the right thing. It was interesting because it wasn't left wing or right wing. He was pro gay marriage, but also hated people being coddled and thought you should be able to smoke indoors.

I'd say his biggest problem is that he has that issue where many of his characters sound the same. Bendis does this too, which is especially noticeable in his team books like Avengers. The main dudes from Y, Ex Machina, and Saga have the same dialogue patterns and could easily be saying the same things. It's not as bad as Joss Whedon's quippy shit, but it's still annoying when you first notice it. Also, he's one of those "There should be no happy endings" douchebags. He outright says it at the end of Ex Machina (Just read the first three pages if you don't want to spoil the rest of the series, which I still recommend), and it explains how he ends his comics so much. Y ended with nothing getting answered and Yorrick's life turning out shit because it's the saddest thing. I knew who the traitor was going to be in Runaways just by thinking "Which character betraying the team would make for the saddest ending?" I'm pretty sure he did Pride of Baghdad just because the real story had a sad ending.

He also did another series through Image called Paper Girls. Anyone ever read that? If so, how was it?

Ex Machina is the only thing Vaughan wrote that I fully enjoyed. It's easily his best work. Unlike his other books, Ex Machina takes the idea, fleshes it out, and squeezes all it can from it without overstaying its welcome.
I have not read Paper Girls, but have heard that it is Stranger Things but with girls and time travel. After reading some of Saga I decided to avoid Vaughan's recent work.

 

[GranDuke]

Paper Girls are a bit older than Stranger Things. But I haven't read it so maybe he did Stranger Things before Stranger Things did Stranger Things...

 

[Nick Obre]

Possibly this is old, but can someone explain to me why Thor is now Black?
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View attachment 3387772

Also, what kind of racist shit is this? Asgard is black so there are trainers hanging from telephone wires? And Thor now talks in like a ten year old making rhymes?

bit late but

 

[Arthur Morgan]

bit late but
View attachment 3410554

Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[Water-T]

Anyone who is a fan of Fables like me, take heart - the series is back and continuing from it's original numbering with #151. Even better, it looks like Willingham is going to establish Peter Pan as the true villain behind Geppetto, like he originally planned until he found out that the character was not in the public domain at the time. It appears that Peter Pan's copyright has expired since then, so now Willingham is bringing the series back under DC;s Black Label, since Vertigo was killed off by incompetence and Zoe Quinn.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

Anyone who is a fan of Fables like me, take heart - the series is back and continuing from it's original numbering with #151. Even better, it looks like Willingham is going to establish Peter Pan as the true villain behind Geppetto, like he originally planned until he found out that the character was not in the public domain at the time. It appears that Peter Pan's copyright has expired since then, so now Willingham is bringing the series back under DC;s Black Label, since Vertigo was killed off by incompetence and Zoe Quinn.

That series shit the bed so hard after the Geppetto arc resolved that I'm wondering if anything can still be salvaged at this point.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

That series shit the bed so hard after the Geppetto arc resolved that I'm wondering if anything can still be salvaged at this point.

Yeah, this is why I'm concerned about what he's planning on doing. I think he got bored of writing the series and tried changing things up, but when that didn't work he quit.

So, is the ending of #150 going to be in canon? Is this set centuries in the future where Bigby and Snow have a ton of descendants? Or are we going to see how Pinocchio became the US President?

 

[Registration]

Powering the villains with homophobia, racism and machismo.
kek

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I've seen a poster for something called the Gwen-verse (probably old by now) and it really underlines what's the current problem with alternate universe stories - rather than be a device to show effects of past events and decisions it is just a way to lazily make woke versions of known characters.

 

[Kup]

We were talking about the Superman/Batman friendship awhile back and I dug this up.

This sums it up, they’re brothers. They’re night and day different and have very little in common…… but you gotta see how they view each other to see the heart of the bond.

“Do me a favour and lose the sense of humour.”

“Do us both a favour and buy one.”

 

[DaBigBopper]

I've seen a poster for something called the Gwen-verse (probably old by now) and it really underlines what's the current problem with alternate universe stories - rather than be a device to show effects of past events and decisions it is just a way to lazily make woke versions of known characters.

People really liked Emma Stone and Marvel hired editors who were way too into Tumblr when those movies were popular. The What If? blank was blank only works if theirs an angle to it. Like making Frank Castle Captain America because he's a Veteran and it gives us a chance to see a world where Captain America more willing to not be a really gay 'Very Special Episode' and will actually empty a clip into a terrorist hideout.
Worst it's not even a one panel joke or a pun. I could sit through a world where Cyclops becomes Captain America because the joke is that his name is Red Glare in that world.

It reminds when Hickman's Secret Wars was going on and most of the ideas weren't even interesting. One series was called Ultron vs Zombies. Guess what happened? Hint: they didn't fight and they teamed up against a really fucking boring cast of characters. That's an easy book where you just have a killer robot go after zombies. Get a good action artist, couldn't even do that.
It's the issue I have where most of the writers are basically really bad TV writers. They write every comic like it's a low budget television show rather than a comic book.

I have no idea who the Gwen shit attracts other than Western waifu fags (the most pathetic type of waifufags.) The only good crossover character would be Gwen and Jean Grey because then you could just spend the whole issue killing her.

 

[Jetpack Himmler]

This sums it up, they’re brothers. They’re night and day different and have very little in common…… but you gotta see how they view each other to see the heart of the bond.

Exactly and to elaborate on that, they are the yin and yang that balance each other out, which is why I highly dislike stories that pit Batman and Superman against each other like Injustice.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

I don't know how anyone isn't sick to death of batman and batman adjacent characters by this point.

 

[Red Hood]

I don't know how anyone isn't sick to death of batman and batman adjacent characters by this point.

*ALMOST SOBBING* Hey man, not cool!

 

[Giga_Nigga_28]

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.

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

We were talking about the Superman/Batman friendship awhile back and I dug this up.

This sums it up, they’re brothers.

I don't want to cast aspersions on the sincerity of your feelings about this, but it's some of the gayest, most contrived, square-peg-round-hole shit I've seen in comics in a long time. Bear in mind I'm talking comics from a 2022 perspective. It almost makes 'save Martha' look good and deep in comparison.