Sperg about comic books here

[MirrorNoir]

Hulk is weird. Ewing tried to explain it with some weird mystic shit, but I feel like that's not gonna be concretely referenced because it took a fuckton of liberties.

Ewing's Hulk run was less about Hulk's strength level and more offering a magic-themed answer to the question of Hulk's healing factor in relations to how Marvel brought Banner back after killing him off in a way that was super hard to undo (arrow in the head causing instant death) as well as how other gamma characters keep coming back (IE the Leader). It's super retcon heavy, especially the Leader shit since some stories involving him already gave a reason why he survived death (IE teleportation devices).

Evil Havok? I uh. . . don't remember anything. I think AXIS was just a hamfisted attempt at showing how much disunity there was with the heroes prior to the Secret Wars event, highlighting how fucked up everything became. I get it, division was drawn between the Avengers/X-Men. But could we have them actually carefully develop stuff for a good payoff.

In X-Men Blue, Inverted Havok formed a new Hellfire Club group with White Queen, Miss Sinister, and Bastian (who was helping mutants when he realized that his life would have no meaning if there were no mutants left to kill) that utilized Ultimate Marvel tech that ended up in the regular Marvel Universe after Secret Wars 5, to turn innocent people into mutants against their will, further mutate other mutants like Wildside and Wolfsbane, and forcibly repower mutants like Beak from the Morrison New X-Men run against his will.

In the end, when writers caved to fan demand that Emma go back to being a goody goody, Emma grabbed Polaris (who was fighting to stop the new Hellfire Club with a random roster of F-List mutants introduced in the 00s and 10s while the timelost O5 X-Men were busy in a crossover with Venom) instead of Scarlet Witch to "fix" Havok. Rather than get Wanda to cast a spell to de-invert Alex, Emma pulled a Byrne/Donna Troy and copy-pasted a new "real Alex" personality on to of Inverted Alex's personality using Polaris's memories of Alex as the basis for "the fix" to "reset Alex. The only comfort being, that both Alex and Lorna were a bit pissed that Emma chose the lazy option to restore Alex and the fact that Emma only did this thinking that it would keep her from being arrested by Lorna for destroying so many lives via turning people into mutants against their will.

This later continued into Hellions, where it was implied strongly that Emma's "fix" was wearing off and Alex was slowly reverting back to his inverted self. And that Emma was explicitly weaponizing Alex in such a fragile state with help of Empath, so that she could use him a a pawn against Sinister for her own political game......


Also, some rumored spoilers for Dead X-Men and X-Men resurrection in general:

Spoiler

The White Room/Phoenix Force may be becoming the new excuse plot for mutant resurrection as it's going to be how Cannonball, Jubilee, Dazzler, Frenzy, and Prodigy come back to life.

Captain America was very popular in the 1940s and I think generally respected in the 1960s, but yeah after that his fortunes waned. I think he was always respected at the very least, sort of like Superman--people love him as a symbol but don't care for the actual stories.

..................

Sooo... I actually came to this topic to micro-sperg.

Lots of people tell me Neil Gaiman's The Sandman is an example of actual intelligent comic writing. Now, I've read a few of the graphic novels and while there are interesting ideas.... intelligent? Come on! The very first storyline has a part where there's a convention meet-up for Serial Killers, with a booked hotel room and everything.

Like... that's just a fundamentally retarded idea even on its face, I don't know where to begin poking holes in it.

(I do like Neil's portrayal of Death though).

Also, since a lot of 1990s comic writers turned out to be loonies, I'm wondering if there's ever been any sauce on Neil Gaiman?

Neil has a pathological obsession with Tori Amos. They met while Neil was a writer of hastily written cash grab biography books of famous rock musicians in the late 80s and Neil developed an intense obsession with her, going so far as to have Delirium be based visually off of Tori. Tori was so flattered that someone so avant-garde loved her that she stuck in explicit shout outs to him on her first three albums as a solo artist and referenced characters from one of his non-comic works in her fourth album.

However, Neil's obsession with Tori turned a bit too clingy for Tori's taste after Tori broke up with her longtime boyfriend and married another guy after a whirlwind/rebound courtship. Neil started becoming the creepy guy who kept asking Tori to hang out with him (and only Tori not Tori and her husband) and party with him when Tori was sliding into domestic life as a married woman and dealing with a miscarriage early in her marriage and later, finally gave birth to a child with her husband after the previous failed attempt. Neil eventually married another musician who looked a lot like Tori and continued to pressure Tori to leave her kid and husband at home to party with the two and finally Tori had to just cut Neil out of her life entirely because of this, since Tori values her marriage and family life way more than Neil and his hedonistic party lifestyle.

 

[Prehistoric Jazz]

Speaking of Warren Ellis, what's everyone's fave series from him?

I loved Transmetro, but The Authority and his run on Stormwatch are what got me back into comics when I first picked them up again after childhood. Planetary is probably my favorite thing he did.

I remember reading his xmen stuff and his writing, along with the art, was massively disappointing. Maybe I need to give it another chance, but no writer is perfect.

 

[Nick Obre]

However, Neil's obsession with Tori turned a bit too clingy for Tori's taste after Tori broke up with her longtime boyfriend and married another guy after a whirlwind/rebound courtship. Neil started becoming the creepy guy who kept asking Tori to hang out with him (and only Tori not Tori and her husband) and party with him when Tori was sliding into domestic life as a married woman and dealing with a miscarriage early in her marriage and later, finally gave birth to a child with her husband after the previous failed attempt. Neil eventually married another musician who looked a lot like Tori and continued to pressure Tori to leave her kid and husband at home to party with the two and finally Tori had to just cut Neil out of her life entirely because of this, since Tori values her marriage and family life way more than Neil and his hedonistic party lifestyle.

And then, Neil's wife (Amanda Palmer, a much shittier and uglier and feministier musician than Tori) left him and took him for all he had, so he had to give in and betray everything he ever stood for and the memory of his dead friends (like Cinammon Headley and Terry Pratchett) in exchange for TV adaptation money. Not that he wasn't a shitlib before, but he had shown sings of strong integrity in the past, but now he's gone all the way. Sure, make Death a nigger, it's not like you based her explicitly on Cinammon. Sure, write a TV sequel of Good Omens full of current day degenerate shit and claim that's what Terry wanted.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Just read the hellfire gala 23 and ummmm well thats confusing. Does Betsy have a white streak in her hair ala Rogue?

 

[MirrorNoir]

Just read the hellfire gala 23 and ummmm well thats confusing. Does Betsy have a white streak in her hair ala Rogue?

You are confusing Betsy with X-23. There are two (well, were two) of X-23 running around after one got left behind in the Children of the Vaults lair where time moves fast, and got cloned before she could be rescued/was presumed dead before Synch rescued her.

Older X-23 has a gray streak in her hair, or did before High Evolutionary burned her to ash and bone because Synch decided to act like an uppity black man demanding he help them stop Orchis. However, Synch uploaded older X-23's mind into his because they became lovers while they were in the Vault and the cloned Laura doesn't have the memories from that mission.

I loved Transmetro, but The Authority and his run on Stormwatch are what got me back into comics when I first picked them up again after childhood. Planetary is probably my favorite thing he did.

I remember reading his xmen stuff and his writing, along with the art, was massively disappointing. Maybe I need to give it another chance, but no writer is perfect.

Ellis's Authority sucks compared to the Millar run and there is an explicit moment where you can tell (when Stormwatch got rebooted) Ellis stopped giving a fuck about the characters and the whole going scorched earth and killing the franchise dead rather than just passing it off to another because Ellis was scared shitless that someone else could make Stormwatch sell better than his run. And Planetary is a hot mess and descended into Ellis having his whores (who destroyed his career down the line) telling him it was ok for him to go crawling to Marvel and writing whatever B or C or F list characters they'd let him come near and write.

Transmet might have had an emergency sales inspired retool but it's still the most consistent book Ellis ever wrote.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

I read that parody of the Avengers vs X-Men and tried reading the actual cross over (big mistake, Muh Phoenix is superior) but I feel like the X-Men have the problem where certain writers want them to be the main characters of the entire setting when they are not good on their own.

The issue is that the writers who seem to like the X-Men cannot help, but write them as entirely justified no matter what crimes they commit. You really can’t root for them because they’re assholes who impose their sense of justice on everyone, are immoral, and brow beat everyone who’s not a mutant.
The other issue is that every mutant is effectively an X-Man unless it’s not favorable for them to do so.

This is mostly from skimming issues I’ve been recommended. I really dislike Nightcrawler. He went from devout Catholic, but friendly disfigured German (degenerate) to a degenerate enabler. Every character suffers from this, but he offends me the most. I’d like it better if X-Men characters left the reservation or it’s heavily implied that they are subtly brainwashed into never leaving.

 

[Nick Obre]

I read that parody of the Avengers vs X-Men and tried reading the actual cross over (big mistake, Muh Phoenix is superior)

MightyGodKing's "I Don't Need Your Civil War" is superior to Civil War
Nuzlocke's* "Muh Phoenix" is superior to AVX
Illuminated Comics "Everything Is Illuminated And Then It Dies" is superior to Time Runs Out and Secret Wars

Seeing a pattern here.

*Yes, the same Nuzlocke who invented the Pokemon challenge.

 

[Begemot]

Ellis's Authority sucks compared to the Millar run and there is an explicit moment where you can tell (when Stormwatch got rebooted) Ellis stopped giving a fuck about the characters and the whole going scorched earth and killing the franchise dead rather than just passing it off to another because Ellis was scared shitless that someone else could make Stormwatch sell better than his run. And Planetary is a hot mess and descended into Ellis having his whores (who destroyed his career down the line) telling him it was ok for him to go crawling to Marvel and writing whatever B or C or F list characters they'd let him come near and write.

Transmet might have had an emergency sales inspired retool but it's still the most consistent book Ellis ever wrote.

Transmet had some weird pacing issues, I know that. When would you saying is the retool point?

 

[MirrorNoir]

The retool happened in #13/second year of the book. The series shifted from slice of life cyberpunk to overtly political satire/thriller with the cyberpunk elements downplayed with the introduction of the Smiler, who started out as a Blair parody but quickly morphed into a Bush 2 expy once Ellis realized Americans were misinterpreting the character as such and to cash in on antiBush sentiment at the time

 

[leChinkyRaccoon]

John Constantine (when he's not getting raped by shitty writers)

What are some of your favorites? I've only ever seen him in bits and animated series where they need him for magicking some stuff off screen.

 

[Nick Obre]

What are some of your favorites? I've only ever seen him in bits and animated series where they need him for magicking some stuff off screen.

John's good stories happen in:
Alan Moore's Swamp Thing
The original Hellblazer ongoing series, but it depends on the writer; best are Delano, Ennis, Ellis, Jenkins, Carey. Gaiman and Morrison have a few issues, Azzarello's run is overall bad but it has a couple good issues too. Everything after Carey is BAD.
-Out of that, the most famous and most celebrated story is Dangerous Habits, from Ennis' run. I also recommend an OGN by Carey, All His Engines.
The Books of Magic (the original mini, and a few appearances in the original ongoing).
Millar's Swamp Thing

At around the time of Brightest Day, which is a year or two before Flashpoint, and with the Hellblazer series ended, they brought John back to mainstream DC.
NOTHING from his presence in DC, pre and post Flashpoint, is worth reading at all (except maybe his appearances in the Rotworld crossover between Nu52 Swamp Thing and Animal Man; both of those books are good on their own right).

A few years ago they did a soft reboot of the peripheral Sandman stuff (The Sandman Universe line), and Spurrier got to do a sort of continuation of the original Hellblazer story, drawing from both the ending of that book AND a plot thread from The Books of Magic.
I haven't finished reading it, but it's decent; better than anything they'd done with him in years at least.

And there's a recent standalone, "bad future" Swamp Thing story called Green Hell with a good John in it.

As a final note, Spurrier also wrote a pretty good independent series called Damn Them All, which is transparently an off-brand Hellblazer story.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

Everything after Carey is BAD.

Andy Diggle's stint wasn't awful, though kinda fanboy-y with a lot of references to past stories and even trying to tie up some old plot threads (and not doing super well). But, yeah, Denise Mina's run completely wastes the setup of Carey's finale and just isn't good in general. Peter Milligan's run I didn't even finish because I disliked it so much. The worst part about Milligan's awful run is that years earlier he did a really great Shade, the Changing Man arc with John in it, so when they announced he'd be a Hellblazer writer I was actually excited for it.

 

[Nick Obre]

Andy Diggle's stint wasn't awful, though kinda fanboy-y with a lot of references to past stories and even trying to tie up some old plot threads (and not doing super well).

Fair. I remember back in the day, in the Straight to Hell forum, we had a lot of hope for Diggle, but were left disappointed. Not devastated but it wasn't the return to form we all hoped for.

But, yeah, Denise Mina's run completely wastes the setup of Carey's finale and just isn't good in general.

For the Mina run, I feel (or felt at the time, I haven't ever re-read it so I can't really elaborate) she didn't really understand the character. The voice and the way he worked.

Peter Milligan's run I didn't even finish because I disliked it so much. The worst part about Milligan's awful run is that years earlier he did a really great Shade, the Changing Man arc with John in it, so when they announced he'd be a Hellblazer writer I was actually excited for it.

Man, Milligan was the real devastation. He had a good precedent, we really thought we were back, but in fact, it was over.
It's so awful, John suddenly finding a young big tiddy goth gf and marrying her, all the shit that happened to Gemma, and that horrible ending.

Which is why I like to cope by pretending Damn Them All is the real ending of Hellblazer. Just change the names and uh, ignore the discrepancies.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Justice League Dark hes fun in that too

 

[Nick Obre]

Justice League Dark hes fun in that too

 

[MirrorNoir]

In other news, Geoff Johns recently did an interview where he gave the answer to one of the most controversial dropped plotlines from the New 52: who was New 52 Question?

It was Greek tragedy figure Narcissus, who gave us the term narcissist, who in Geoff's plan had drowned after coming across his reflection in a pool of water and fell into it trying to reach his double.

Now, this utterly contradicts the story that introduces New 52 Question (who proclaimed he "had followers" who would stop the Gods from punishing him) and lines of dialogue from Trinity Wars where it was said "Question finding out his true identity would mean doom to the world due to who he was and if his memories returned", and even the retconned version of how Question lost his face that was shown in the short lived Trinity of Sin series, which redid the scene where Question lost his face and memory and changed Question from looking like he normally did as Vic Sage to looking like a bald guy in an Egyptian pharaoh outfit.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

In other news, Geoff Johns recently did an interview where he gave the answer to one of the most controversial dropped plotlines from the New 52: who was New 52 Question?

It was Greek tragedy figure Narcissus, who gave us the term narcissist, who in Geoff's plan had drowned after coming across his reflection in a pool of water and fell into it trying to reach his double.

Now, this utterly contradicts the story that introduces New 52 Question (who proclaimed he "had followers" who would stop the Gods from punishing him) and lines of dialogue from Trinity Wars where it was said "Question finding out his true identity would mean doom to the world due to who he was and if his memories returned", and even the retconned version of how Question lost his face that was shown in the short lived Trinity of Sin series, which redid the scene where Question lost his face and memory and changed Question from looking like he normally did as Vic Sage to looking like a bald guy in an Egyptian pharaoh outfit.

I mean, it's a shame that we never got proper resolution the the trinity of sin, but I feel like they may have been trying the old Phantom Stranger approach to give that version of Question a bunch of "possible" origins. Dunno what Pandora's deal was. She really could have been a new Wondy antagonist if they'd pulled her off right.


Honestly the idea of him being Narcissus could be interesting if you handle it right and expand the idea further.

 

[MirrorNoir]

I mean, it's a shame that we never got proper resolution the the trinity of sin, but I feel like they may have been trying the old Phantom Stranger approach to give that version of Question a bunch of "possible" origins. Dunno what Pandora's deal was. She really could have been a new Wondy antagonist if they'd pulled her off right.


Honestly the idea of him being Narcissus could be interesting if you handle it right and expand the idea further.

They sort of resolved the ToS shit in the ToS series, which had a bullshit ending where N52 Question "absorbed" Phantom Stranger and Pandora's "sins" and then got transformed into a human size question mark in what was implied to he him dying (as shortly after this, New Suicide Squad launched and it featured a brand new Vic Sage who was clearly supposed to be Max Lord in full evil mode but editorial forced the writer to use Vic instead).

But Question as Narcissus doesn't make a lick of sense given how the character was presented. Again, they explicitly portrayed New 52 Question as a horrible person, someone with followers who would avenge him (something that does not fit Narcissum whatsoever as far as Narcissum being a loner type) and that him getting his memory back would be a catastrophe for humanity.

The cynic in me honestly thinks that Geoff is making shit up with the Narcissum declaration, since the only characters that make sense for New 52 Question to be would be Per Detagon or some alt universe version of Rorschach who managed to escape Veidt's artic stronghold after he realized that Manhattan was going to murder him to silence him from outing Veidt's crimes and that Dan/Laurie were 100% down with this and he ended up forming a political resistance to Veidt's new world order.

If you wanted to make him some cursed version of Narcissum, you'd have to use him in Wonder Woman or JL Dark and have him be a wandering homeless version of Narcissum with his memory intact and not try and make him out to be someone who is so dangerous you can't allow him to remember who he is.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

They sort of resolved the ToS shit in the ToS series, which had a bullshit ending where N52 Question "absorbed" Phantom Stranger and Pandora's "sins" and then got transformed into a human size question mark in what was implied to he him dying (as shortly after this, New Suicide Squad launched and it featured a brand new Vic Sage who was clearly supposed to be Max Lord in full evil mode but editorial forced the writer to use Vic instead).

But Question as Narcissus doesn't make a lick of sense given how the character was presented. Again, they explicitly portrayed New 52 Question as a horrible person, someone with followers who would avenge him (something that does not fit Narcissum whatsoever as far as Narcissum being a loner type) and that him getting his memory back would be a catastrophe for humanity.

The cynic in me honestly thinks that Geoff is making shit up with the Narcissum declaration, since the only characters that make sense for New 52 Question to be would be Per Detagon or some alt universe version of Rorschach who managed to escape Veidt's artic stronghold after he realized that Manhattan was going to murder him to silence him from outing Veidt's crimes and that Dan/Laurie were 100% down with this and he ended up forming a political resistance to Veidt's new world order.

If you wanted to make him some cursed version of Narcissum, you'd have to use him in Wonder Woman or JL Dark and have him be a wandering homeless version of Narcissum with his memory intact and not try and make him out to be someone who is so dangerous you can't allow him to remember who he is.

I could see them trying to make a more complex character that just happened to also be the mythological Narcissus kinda like how Vandal Savage was Napoleon, etc.

However, him being Per Degaton would have been fucking fun because it'd have more organically teased the whole mystery of why the JSA was missing.

 

[Overly Serious]

It's not much of a sperg but I was looking through some older Marvel comics earlier and you don't get panels like this much anymore:

Action, banter and tight outfits on pneumatic figures is really all an adolescent boy is looking for in comics. Why did we have to go from the above to this:

?