Thoughts on The Fantastic Four as The Great American Novel? It is an extremely extensive, borderline schizo explanation of how the author rationalizes the titular team’s story. The author has some interesting takes on the characters, as well as several genuinely thorough explanations of meta events far before my time, and frankly I just don’t understand how it seems to have slipped through the cracks. The Original Marvel Universe, in a similar vein, seems to get brought up 10x as often for reasons unknown. Both sites seem very interesting for relatively similar reasons.
That Great American Novel site lost me as soon as I found the page with his fanon of Johnny being Sue's son by Namor. Since I was reading the pages out of order, he almost lost me when he suggested the other Marvel heroes either don't exist in his theory or aren't nearly as visible/powerful/active as the comics would have you believe, and again when he said everything since the end of Englehart's run has been the result of Franklin using his powers to keep everyone going through the motions while essentially timelocked. Never seen the other one.
Anyone out there old enough to remember Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site ( https://www.geocities.ws/cheeksilver/index-2.html ) when it was hosted on Tripod and still had its graphics intact? The current GeoCities.WS archive is nice and I'm glad it exists, but it's missing something without the scans.
Finished reading the 3 tomes of the adaptation of the Trojan War. Man fuck the gods, Troy did nothing wrong but at every turn the Gods helped the greeks in unfairly ways. There is no way to read this and feel like the Trojans were being treated unfairly. Also the wooden horse looks way better than the Nolan's Odyssey one.
And this page was very true, everything that happened here was described in the Aeneid. Greeks. The thing about the Epic Cycle is that it really work as an anti-war narrative, because after the fall of Troy, every single greek commander got fucked in one way or another.
The Return of Superman - The Reign of the Supermen in the Return TPB was seminal in how it informed my young mind that comic books were great art forms and stories. The twist with Cyborg Superman being a villain, Coast City being nuked and the return of the Big Blue Boy Scout in black and silver was incredible.
Zero Hour: Crisis in Time - pretty pictures aside for my age, seeing a hero turn to villain and everyone trying to stop him from remaking a perfect multiverse and giving everyone what they wish for made me think why this was such a bad thing. Years later I know why, but pretty pictures by Jurgens, Ordway and the feel of the event are very much timeless (pun intended).
Transformers (Marvel 1980s) - Issue 69 The Gathering Storm brought me into the world of Transformers comics and was so different from the one on TV I was used to. Science fiction concepts and pastiches informed my grade school mind thanks to Furman.
Batman Under the Hood Vol 1 and 2 - Got me reading comics seriously after so much happens with so much history in this storyline. I read War Games in it's entirety, it was like experiencing a thriller (albeit a bad one) since it was my fire "sprawling" crossover but Under the Hood was on another level which fed into Infinite Crisis.
Infinite Crisis (and later Sinestro Corps War) for being sweeping, epic and building upon great lore I was familiar with at a cursory glance. It moved the universe forward and established real stakes that felt like things mattered.
Countdown: Lord Havok and the Extremists - this one is a weird one but I loved it in how it showed a "Marvel Universe written as an obvious pastiche" but each issue showcased the origin of a member of the Extremists, with the climax of the story segueing together with Lord Havok's own origin that Frank Tieri made you feel for. I find that this little self-contained story was way more impactful than Grant Morrison's pastiche of Marvel when he finally got around to it in his Multiversity. Liam Sharp's art is incredible at this early stage especially.
The Return of Superman - The Reign of the Supermen in the Return TPB was seminal in how it informed my young mind that comic books were great art forms and stories. The twist with Cyborg Superman being a villain, Coast City being nuked and the return of the Big Blue Boy Scout in black and silver was incredible.
Zero Hour: Crisis in Time - pretty pictures aside for my age, seeing a hero turn to villain and everyone trying to stop him from remaking a perfect multiverse and giving everyone what they wish for made me think why this was such a bad thing. Years later I know why, but pretty pictures by Jurgens, Ordway and the feel of the event are very much timeless (pun intended).
Transformers (Marvel 1980s) - Issue 69 The Gathering Storm brought me into the world of Transformers comics and was so different from the one on TV I was used to. Science fiction concepts and pastiches informed my grade school mind thanks to Furman.
Batman Under the Hood Vol 1 and 2 - Got me reading comics seriously after so much happens with so much history in this storyline. I read War Games in it's entirety, it was like experiencing a thriller (albeit a bad one) since it was my fire "sprawling" crossover but Under the Hood was on another level which fed into Infinite Crisis.
Infinite Crisis (and later Sinestro Corps War) for being sweeping, epic and building upon great lore I was familiar with at a cursory glance. It moved the universe forward and established real stakes that felt like things mattered.
Countdown: Lord Havok and the Extremists - this one is a weird one but I loved it in how it showed a "Marvel Universe written as an obvious pastiche" but each issue showcased the origin of a member of the Extremists, with the climax of the story segueing together with Lord Havok's own origin that Frank Tieri made you feel for. I find that this little self-contained story was way more impactful than Grant Morrison's pastiche of Marvel when he finally got around to it in his Multiversity. Liam Sharp's art is incredible at this early stage especially.
The return of Superman was handled far better than I expected it to be, and we got some truly great characters from it. You don't see many events these days that give us good new things that enrich the fiction they're brought into.
Zero Hour wasn't really my jam when I was younger, but reading JSA and Justice Society of America later really made me appreciate parts of it.
I had one of those small black and white Transformers books, and I've spent a long time looking up old Transformers issues trying to find panels I recognize from when I was 5. I remember loving that lil book, and I should reread that run again.
Batman from that era had a lot of great art, and the story from Under The Hood and War Games had some fun stuff.
Infinite Crisis was great, I enjoyed all of it. That was peak DC for me when I was getting back into comics seriously.
I love Lord Havok; very good stuff. Far superior to what Grant Morrison ended up doing when given the chance to mess with the multiverse.
The return of Superman was handled far better than I expected it to be, and we got some truly great characters from it. You don't see many events these days that give us good new things that enrich the fiction they're brought into.
That's a REALLY good point. Every new character introduced in RotS was a BANGER. Cyborg, Steel, Superboy (and his extended Cadmus cast), Eradicator... they've all gone to hugely impact the rest of the DCU over the years. Not to mention how it basically made Mongul as important a GL villain as he was a Superman one.
