Sperg about comic books here

[Arthur Morgan]

Does anyone else have a niche run/obscure era of a popular character that nobody else gives a fuck about but you really like? I have quite a few but one that stands out to me is the mid-90s Deodato/Peter Milligan era of Elektra:
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To me when I think of Elektra in my head this is the version I think of. I know the Miller/Sienkiewicz run is better, and the Bendis run people know more about, but when I want to read Elektra this is what I go for. It's fun, and the big hair + red bandana look IMO looks better than the skullcap and makes her look more like a street ninja assassin lady.
I think why it's probably not remembered is that mid-90s bankruptcy Marvel in general is not remembered fondly for good reason, and the mid-late 90s in general were inundated with Bad Girl comics, which this run is definitely going for. But I have a soft spot for a lot of 90s Bad Girl comics since I like the sheer pulpiness of them, and this Elektra run is definitely fun to read and worth checking out if you can find the TPB for it which is out of print.

The only Elektra run I read besides Miller/Sienkiewicz was Greg Rucka's run from the early 00s. He took over from Chuck Austen, who I think drew the first couple of issues, and then started doing this 'reborn' storyline where Elektra goes nuts, gets addicted to killing, and then finds a female master to teach her how to be a normal human being. There were a couple of proto-SJW scenes, one being that Elektra was Stick's best student, he was just too much of a misogynist to accept it. Aside from that, it's pretty standard Rucka fare.

As for your question, I'll go with Fabian Niceiza's Gambit run, set after Rogue abandoned him in Antarctica. It's basically a 'what happened next' kind of thing. Nothing special from the guy, but I still enjoy it.

 

[Clyde Cash's Left Teste]

Gambit run, set after Rogue abandoned him in Antarctica. It's basically a 'what happened next' kind of thing. Nothing special from the guy, but I still enjoy it.

I never got people's love for Gambit, he is cool I guess but I just don't get it. Maybe I need to read more X-Men.

To go with the question. I actually like the New 52 run of Lobo. It's not really the character but it reads well.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Noticed that Gambit gets fanservice which is nice (hold your horses folks geez) mainly because it's not all the damn time which is refreshing. He and Rogue are fun together.

The whole Horseman arc was stupid though (he looked like Meat Loaf....crossed with The Witcher) as was when Mystique disguised herself as a new student and sexually assaulted (?) him. Am I the only one that remembers that?

Did Rogue get a lot of shit from fans deserting him in Antarctica back in the day? In her defense she just was forced to witness something terrible AND the realization that Remy lied.

 

[A Grey Cat]

Debated on wether to post this here or in Ken penders thread proper. Figured here would be as good a place as any since it's nothing new regaurding Ken just his early work.



Anyways I started reading Archie's sonic comics again and...they are a head trip to go through chronologically from 93 to the turn of y2k. They start out as run of the mill goofy slapstick kids comics of the 90s. On par with what nickelodeon was producing with marvel or DC'S adaptations of the then new cartoon cartoons. And man do they get interesting as the years march on.



Bringing up penders again. He was a writer for Archie's sonic titles since damn near the beginning, artist too. And it's funny how when he's on a creative leash, told to keep his writing (and art) simple or as close to a Saturday morning cartoon as possible. He's actually on point with it.


True the series got way too convoluted and later works like the knuckles spinoff he had total creative control over are what lead to him being the lol cow we know him as Today, and don't even get me started on his art. Sonic art is infamous to this very day from looking passable for a cartoon art style to...well if you've seen Ken's work you know how bad it got over the years.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

B b b but Julie su!!!!!!!!!
I remember reading an issue from like 2002 and being confused because where tf was Amy Rose and who was this purple girl (Mina) hanging out with them.

 

[A Grey Cat]

B b b but Julie su!!!!!!!!!
I remember reading an issue from like 2002 and being confused because where tf was Amy Rose and who was this purple girl (Mina) hanging out with them.

Yeah sega being hands off with archie lead to some interesting paths and divergences from the games. With the Ian Flynn era being the best of the series since the early days. The art was finally consistent and on model to the games and not...whatever penders was trying with his.

Kinda makes me wish archie didn't ditch the series to focus on "modernizing" archie with crap like Riverdale and the more realistic art in everything that wasn't an archie digest book. They coukd have lived off sonic comics forever.

 

[strumpets exeunt]

Does anyone else have a niche run/obscure era of a popular character that nobody else gives a fuck about but you really like? I have quite a few but one that stands out to me is the mid-90s Deodato/Peter Milligan era of Elektra:

I think I may be the only person on Earth who gave a damn about Hal's time as the Spectre. I don't think it even got a collected trade.

 

[Mayor Cody Travers]

Debated on wether to post this here or in Ken penders thread proper. Figured here would be as good a place as any since it's nothing new regaurding Ken just his early work.



Anyways I started reading Archie's sonic comics again and...they are a head trip to go through chronologically from 93 to the turn of y2k. They start out as run of the mill goofy slapstick kids comics of the 90s. On par with what nickelodeon was producing with marvel or DC'S adaptations of the then new cartoon cartoons. And man do they get interesting as the years march on.



Bringing up penders again. He was a writer for Archie's sonic titles since damn near the beginning, artist too. And it's funny how when he's on a creative leash, told to keep his writing (and art) simple or as close to a Saturday morning cartoon as possible. He's actually on point with it.


True the series got way too convoluted and later works like the knuckles spinoff he had total creative control over are what lead to him being the lol cow we know him as Today, and don't even get me started on his art. Sonic art is infamous to this very day from looking passable for a cartoon art style to...well if you've seen Ken's work you know how bad it got over the years.

I was a real little kid when Archie Sonic comics debuted and collected them religiously for years, I was the target age and Sonic was white-hot at the time.

I don't think I was THAT dumb of a kid, but the bolded part stuck out at me. His earliest stories were... all well and good enough, I would suppose, and definitely would've thought so back then. They felt in-tune with how "serious" SatAM was at the time, if that makes sense? Like, they were kid-appropriate soap opera stories about humanoid animals fighting a rebellion against a technologically-inclined madman like the cartoon, instead of wacky slapstick the comic's debut relied upon. The earliest Knuckles stuff at the time from under his pen felt suitably "SatAM" as well. And his earliest art was, indeed, passable. In fact, I remember being like... amused at the time they let a writer draw a story when he penciled that one early Knuckles story where he talks to a talking bird named Catweazle! Crazy, right?! And it wasn't half-bad for a writer, who I naively assumed had never ever drawn before! Just a strange but fun thing to me.

As you said too, over the years we saw just how bugfuck-crazy Penders was, as I got older I could see more and more off-kilter his work was becoming, even then. But I'm glad someone else saw how, IDK how to put it, innocuous his earliest Sonic work was, or even a bizarre... God help me for admitting this... cutesiness/charm to it, that someone was trying to inject some pathos/drama into the Sonic comics to bring them in-line with how dramatic SatAM was at the time.

Insanity just doesn't come out of thin air, I guess...

 

[A Grey Cat]

@Mayor Cody Travers I cany reply to your post so in just gonna say.


Linkara once said mark Miller can be a decent writer when put on a creative leash and made to dial down on his edglord ennis envious writing.


The same can be said of penders when it comes to 90s/y2k sonic. When Ken was told by the other writers and artists no. Such as the "death" of sally in issue 50. He can at least write like an experienced and competent writer. When given free reign to do what he wants? We him bastardizing the poem about "no one left to speak up" and knuckles as Jesus right on down to walking on water.


It's not just a penders problem though it's also the fact that as the mid 90s gave way to the late 90s and the sonic series itself was losing it's luster (the first time around) archie thought putting in darker themes that even satam would be put to shame by and "edgy" storylines would breathe new life into the books. But really it was the sonic adventure games and the Renaissance sonic had from 99 to roughly 05..just prior to the debacle that was sonic 06. That saved his sorry blue ass in both game and comic form.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Archie Sonic will never get an omnibus right?

 

[Newcomer 42]

You have to love how shameless Penders was in stealing stuff from better works, such as copying Krpyton's naming scheme, and even the freaking Source from DC Comics, with the same name and function.. But worse in every way, as it was pretty much a pool of golden piss you were supposed to bathe with.

 

[A Grey Cat]

Archie Sonic will never get an omnibus right?

Not when they legally can't republish almost 10-15 or so years worth of material without giving penders royalties for being a litigatious little prick. But that's what readcomiconline is for.


Was amazed to see they uploaded sonichu in addition to the entirety of the official archie comic to the site.

You have to love how shameless Penders was in stealing stuff from better works, such as copying Krpyton's naming scheme, and even the freaking Source from DC Comics, with the same name and function.. But worse in every way, as it was pretty much a pool of golden piss you were supposed to bathe with.

You know super Sonic was an obvious reference to dbz and the new super sayan form idea but it at least was different enough to be it's own thing while homaging dbz.


But penders probably figured "it's just a cheesy kids comic who's gonna know?"

 

[Arthur Morgan]

@Mayor Cody Travers I cany reply to your post so in just gonna say.


Linkara once said mark Miller can be a decent writer when put on a creative leash and made to dial down on his edglord ennis envious writing.

First: If you highlight text you can reply or quote that.

Onto your point, I agree with Lewis, but it's not an original thought. Personally the reason he left DC is actually one of my favorite things from him. His run on The Authority dealt with the growing notion among British writers who threw out the idea that if they were truly heroes, they would be going after the people in power who hoard money and play with people's lives for their own power. Millar's run went with that and showed just how badly it could backfire.

Mark's problem with the series is that he wanted to go harder than he did, but was forced to rein in his edge lord tendencies. The final result was actually some of his best work, for me at least. It was the perfect balance of edgy without going too far. And he hated it.

 

[Newcomer 42]

Not when they legally can't republish almost 10-15 or so years worth of material without giving penders royalties for being a litigatious little prick

Sega is likely waiting for Penders to die so that they can sort out this whole mess... Assuming they care anymore by then.

 

[A Grey Cat]

Sega is likely waiting for Tenders to die so that they can sort out this whole mess... Assuming they care anymore by then.

And assuming Archie's willing to play ball with sega again. They didn't exactly leave on the best of terms. The sonic comics are technically unfinished with the Genesis of a hero story meant to continue into sonic 3 amd knuckles. From what I can gather Ian Flynn hoped the series could last to the milestone 300th issue. A title shared by only a select few other titles like amazing spider-man, uncanny xmen, and spawn

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

I can't help it they're cute

 

[Gaddafi]

The whole Horseman arc was stupid though (he looked like Meat Loaf....crossed with The Witcher) as was when Mystique disguised herself as a new student and sexually assaulted (?) him. Am I the only one that remembers that?

Half the shit I hear about Mystique seems really stupid. I read a Sabertooth story that I liked until they involved her because it was just really silly; he's kidnapped and a bomb is planted in him and will only be defused if he kills Mystique. He finds Mystique on a date with Wolverins and she reveals she was a citizen he slept with in Germany. I think she faked her death? And then had his child and then abandoned it because it wasn't a mutant. This makes Sabertooth give up on trying to kill her even though this is the same dude who raped and attempted to kill his best friends girlfriend and massacred his entire family over pie.

I like Mystique as a concept but from the (very limited) stories I've seen of her, she seems to just be a plot device

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Half the shit I hear about Mystique seems really stupid. I read a Sabertooth story that I liked until they involved her because it was just really silly; he's kidnapped and a bomb is planted in him and will only be defused if he kills Mystique. He finds Mystique on a date with Wolverins and she reveals she was a citizen he slept with in Germany. I think she faked her death? And then had his child and then abandoned it because it wasn't a mutant. This makes Sabertooth give up on trying to kill her even though this is the same dude who raped and attempted to kill his best friends girlfriend and massacred his entire family over pie.

I like Mystique as a concept but from the (very limited) stories I've seen of her, she seems to just be a plot device

Don't forget Wolverine going after her in the west and she vomits and stuff.
I liked her 2004 solo series. She works for Xavier but you just know she's gonna cross him.

 

[Commander X]

Speaking of collections,

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN BY DEMATTEIS & BUSCEMA OMNIBUS

Now this was a run, though after awhile, in retrospect it seems like hubris that Marvel thought they could follow up on #200:

Spoiler

You could not do a Harry Osborn story after this, though in the years since, many have attempted to - with diminishing returns.

It also feels like that issue was the last Spider-Man comic. By that I mean, there have been other stories with the character but it feels like the Parker who debuted in Amazing Fantasy’s story ended here.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

The only problem I remember having with DeMatteis' Spectacular stuff was a lack of good buildup to Harry going insane again. For like... nearly 20 years Harry was sane and happily married to Liz Allen. JMD quickly throws that all away and reverts Harry back to how he was during Gerry Conway's Amazing run. Fortunately, the strength of the stories make up for it. The same could be said for Kraven in Last Hunt. Although, with Kraven's Last Hunt you can kinda squint and head canon the previous Kraven stories as Kraven becoming increasingly unhinged, though really I think that was largely lazy writers just using Kraven as an evil hunter with zero nuance.

It's a bit funny how Dematteis gave the definitive ending to two of Spider-Man's characters but years later shitty hack writers with no original ideas ended up bringing back both characters and ultimately did nothing of interest with them. That said, the original fan theory of Kindred being the actual original Harry, damned to and tormented in Hell for years who managed to escape or strike up a deal with a demon, and the other Harry being a clone or LMD, could've been interesting.