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Post by spoon on Mar 10, 2018 18:16:36 GMT -5
The talking mammoth is Changling. He's the Legionnaire with antennas the others are calling Reep (because his real name is Reep Daggle). He's a shapechanger, and he's trying to lead the mammoths away. Do you mean Chameleon Boy? Changeling was one of the Teen Titans. Yes, oops, you're right. Haven't read any LOSH recently and the part of my brain that processes that is getting moldy.
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Post by spoon on Mar 10, 2018 16:55:11 GMT -5
Always had a soft spot for Kid Psycho. Back in the Silver Age, his name was just a weird name. I wonder what a modern fan thinks about it when he hears it for the first time. Maybe that he's Dexter's son? So I was wrong. Every character has an ardent fan. Element Lad yelling for Kid Psycho is a moment that's stuck in my head. It sounds like a mocking name (like Fatty or Four-Eyes), so it weird to have him call out the name out of concern for his well-being. It's such a Legion thing, like when a duplicate of Supergirl became Satan Girl, or Matter-Eater Lad's power to eat stuff.
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Post by spoon on Mar 10, 2018 14:51:00 GMT -5
I don't know that "celebration" is the right word--you don't celebrate 50 years by writing your flagship character out of continuity and killing off the one that kicked off the silver age. Since Secret Origins and Who's Who were coming out around the same time, they could've used those to acquaint people to and "celebrate" DC's history. But, water under the bridge... I never got that from Byrne and Claremont. Roy Thomas at DC, on the other hand... Englehart was probably the best writer at "revealing" history without making it seem shoehorned in or forced. Well, like I say, the "intent" of what evolved into Crisis was to be the 50th Anniversary celebration; but, as they developed it, it morphed into something more. Wolfman has talked about how he only had one or two key deaths, in his plot; but, editorial wanted to push the stakes higher. The original working title was History of the DC Universe and I always had the impression that the earliest plot ideas were something more along the lines of what the final History of the DCU ended up, though with more action and a longer run; but, then got tagged as a way to streamline things, since they were talking about pulling everything into it. This is from memory, and I haven't really read any in-depth interviews about the whole evolution of Crisis, from idea to execution. It's been more snippets, here and there. Certain Marvel editors were sticklers about continuity; but, others weren't as much into it. Roy definitely was. DC's footnotes tended to be relatively short. Usually, parallel Earth stories had anywhere from a couple of panels to a one (two-page, max) page synopsis of the background of the world and then moved on with the plot. Bob Rozakis regularly explained (though the questions themselves might be asking about specific characters) the differences in Ask The Answer Man. DC readers never seemed to have much problem with it and such stories didn't appear routinely. I still think the push came from Marvel talent, who wanted to use characters from different Earths, without contriving a crossover macguffin. Len Wein is the name I have seen attached to the continuity issue, in relation to Crisis; but, I wonder whether Gerry Conway and some of the others who came over might have put the bug in his ear. It didn't seam like Roy had a problem with it, as he ran with it in All-Star Squadron. Conway probably ran into more than anyone else, since he was writing JLA, with the annual crossovers. There were actually house ads months before Crisis on Infinite Earths started that advertised the series as "Universe: Crisis on Infinite Earths." I have heard (maybe upthread, maybe elsewhere) that the 2-part History of the DC Universe mini-series was originally supposed to be the last two issue of Crisis, so I'm not so sure the whole series was supposed to be like that. History of the DCU is like a history lesson rather than an exciting adveture. It's geared to a narrower group of hardcore fans. I've heard that one idea was to introduce new heroes and replace some of the existing heroes with counterparts that would give the DCU greater ethnic/gender diversity. Supposedly, the new Doctor Light was part of that, but otherwise it seems that plan was abandoned.
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Post by spoon on Mar 10, 2018 12:19:15 GMT -5
And now on to #3.
The mastermind manipulating Harbinger and Psycho-Pirate is cloaked in shadow. Wolfman and Perez do a good job drawing out the reveal. Psycho-Pirate calls Harbinger unstable. Someone tell the master of emotions that's called projection. I guess it's true too, though.
The credits tell us this issue was inked by both Dick Giordano and Mike DeCarlo. I wish Giordano could've stuck around longer. But I'm sure he had a lot of editorial/management responsibilities and he was in his 50s. I don't have huge confidence in my inking recognition skills, but I'd guess DeCarlo started with the page with Wonder Girl's lasso helping survivors down the side of the building. At the very least, I think DeCarlo did the WWII stuff and the pages after that.
A lot of the ways Wolfman combines things seems intentional. Here, he includes one of DC's classic pairings (Batman and Superman) what I consider a memorable pairing of the 1980s (the Outsiders and the New Teen Titans). They had a crossover a couple years earlier. Even though she had a brief tenure, I like Kole. Maybe her design is dated, but I think it's cool.
Who knew so many of DC's military characters were in Markovia at the same time? It's fun to see these characters from genres I don't read much. Re-reading this makes me curious to sample a few war comics. Because this is DC, we have some weird genre mash-ups like Haunted Tank. That's some Lost Cause fetishization. But because I go to Wikipedia all the time, I learned it's not just an American Confederate fetish, but a British one as well! The ghost of Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart watches over his namesake descendant and his namesake tank. The tank model is the M3 Stuart. Except the U.S., which built it, just named it the M3. It was the British, using it under the Lend-Lease program, who decided to add the name of a Confederate General!
It's too bad Blue Beetle had to be removed from the action. But I'm sure he'll turn up later. Wink, wink.
So they decided to kill off Kid Psycho, technically only a reserve member of the Legion. I guess they tried to find a Legionnaire who has zero ardent fans.
"It's time for you to die!" Oh, silly Harbinger. You declare that as if the Monitor doesn't know it's coming.
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Post by spoon on Mar 10, 2018 11:51:10 GMT -5
So I re-read #2 and #3.
I love how Marv Wolfman juxtaposes ancient times and the far future by having Anthro's time and the Legion's time blend into each other. Also, the Legion is cool.
The scene of Batman busting through the window looks like an homage to the cover of Batman #374 (https://www.comics.org/issue/876925/cover/4/) by the late great Don Newton and inked (like the early issues of Crisis) by Dick Giordano. Newton, who is my favorite Batman artist, died in 1984. If this was an intentional tribute, I think it's a great one. I like the portrayal of the Joker, complaining about jurisdiction. There's a sense of fatalism at points in Crisis. We're shown things that are going to happen, like with the Flash, and the interest is finding out how it happens and what it means. By the way, the Flash disappearing in #350 is also a spoiler, because Flash #345 has the same cover date as Crisis #2.
I love the panel layouts during the briefing by the Monitor. Perez is a master at doing numerous, smaller panels.
So the voice in the Central Power Battery tells the Guardians that this began with them centuries ago. This is where historian super-fans were probably getting ideas.
It's fascinating that Pariah knows about Superman and Batman before the Crisis, while no one knows him. Wouldn't it be easier if Batman stayed in Gotham for the meeting and Superman traveled there? I guess Gotham doesn't have any scenic rooftops.
The Monitor has a strange mix of foresight and short-sightedness. He picks allies who don't work out, like Psycho-Pirate here in #2 and finding that Blue Beetle's scarab isn't helpful enough in #3. Of course, he knows about some of the "surprises" like Lyla's betrayal. I don't remember which of his mistakes were mistakes and which were planned. The Psycho-Pirate is very interesting as a villain. He's like an addict, so there's pity and frustration mixed up in the feelings he evokes in a reader (or at least this reader).
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Post by spoon on Mar 10, 2018 11:24:12 GMT -5
Stop the press! It's time for issue 2, before I learn the entire plot from this thread.Switching over to The Legion. Thank you! They have a fire-guy, too, and a fairly tiny Colossal Boy. He is the mighty Micro-Colossal Boy! Brainiac 5 is one of the top 20 best Brainiacs ever. One of the mammoths can talk and is flirting with Wildfire! Did not see that plot twist coming! Business is picking up. The top 15 DC has to offer are still here. Who's the stupid poltroon? GF. Girlfriend? Wait, I thought Lyla and Harbinger were the same person? Is this one of those DC style secret identities? Harbinger will end up being a traitor or something? This Pariah guy is a new character, too? Snipped down your post just to answer a few questions. I don't know if you're joking or they're serious questions. The talking mammoth is Changling. He's the Legionnaire with antennas the others are calling Reep (because his real name is Reep Daggle). He's a shapechanger, and he's trying to lead the mammoths away. GF is Geo-Force, the Outsider wearing green and yellow. I don't think the heroes and villains the Monitor has assembled realize Lyla and Harbinger are the same person yet. Hey, she's got a more elaborate disguise than Clark Kent! Yes, Pariah is a new character. He's from some unnamed Earth destroyed before the first page of issue 1. He keeps getting transported where bad Crisis stuff is happening. His backstory will be addressed a bit later.
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Post by spoon on Mar 9, 2018 20:50:29 GMT -5
Good for him for making some money from shows I likely won't watch. Yeah. Liefeld's kids have to eat. Or if he doesn't have kids, his cat or iguana or goldfish has to eat.
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Post by spoon on Mar 4, 2018 11:46:35 GMT -5
Harbinger is killed before she can collect every Pokemon. Just kidding, here she is still. Psycho-Pirate says he's as sane as any man. After the green wizard dude and Blue Beetle I'm inclined to agree. She can't get the first Psycho-Pirate, because he's dead. Uhmm, can you or can you not travel in time? Did they think this story through? I hope he has an actual pirate costume, arr. Harbinger never says that she wanted the first Psycho-Pirate. In fact, she explicitly says she wants Hayden, the second Psycho-Pirate. Having Harbinger tell Hayden that Halstead is dead is just a vehicle for telling the reader, through an explanation to Hayden that there was a previous Psycho-Pirate who has died. It does seem that there are some constraints on the Monitor omniscience though, at least with regard to how the Crisis unfolds. He mentions that five heroes he needed are gone because their Earth was destroyed. Is that the Crime Syndicate or some unnamed, undepicted characters? That suggests somethings are unanticipated by the Monitor. I like that there is a diverse bunch of character. Story comes before strategy. The assemblage helps to show off the expansiveness of the DC multiverse. Characters are taken from different Earths and different times. Some are solo heroes, some are members of teams, and some are villains. Some are from hidden civilizations. By using characters with a wide range of powers, we can see the impact on characters that are very strong and ones that don't even have super-powers. The ways in which some characters feel powerless will come up again.
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Post by spoon on Feb 17, 2018 14:31:08 GMT -5
As a foreigner/tourist, I would never, ever consider staying away from the U.S. because of gun control problems, North Korea, Islamic fundamentalists, Christian fundamentalists, etc, etc. I absolutely refuse to live in fear and, anyway, the degree of fear that one should realistically feel is totally blown out of proportion by the media anyway. I'm damn well coming to the U.S.A. this summer and that's all there is to it! Yes. Too many things are pushed as all-or-nothing. Just because the murder rate in the U.S. is higher than almost all of Europe, it doesn't mean that the U.S. is a hellscape where everyone is getting murdered all the time. The murder rate has generally been declining over the past 25 years. Also, almost every nation or territory in the Caribbean has a higher murder rate than the U.S., but I never hear people saying they're going to stop traveling there.
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Post by spoon on Jan 27, 2018 6:50:47 GMT -5
Count me in as another person who likes Denny O'Neil's run. David Mazzuchelli is perfect pairing for the character.
I also agree that the first 11 issues are great. I don't really like John Romita's short run after that though. One might think that a great Spider-Man artist would fit well on Daredevil, but it wasn't the case in my opinion. Gene Colan long, first stint is rightfully classic. There an arc with the Jester I remember enjoying a lot. It's fun to see Colan paired with various inkers from Syd Shores to Tom Palmer.
Ann Nocenti's run gets political and the quality of the writing varies widely. When she has a really good idea and integrates it well into the story, there are some really good issues. When her writing is bad, it's really bad. Sometimes her political stories are ham-fisted: the opinions don't seem well thought-out or she doesn't come up with a way to make the political content serve the story.
I'm also a fan of Kesel/Nord run.
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Post by spoon on Jan 21, 2018 10:06:34 GMT -5
I think one of the strengths of Romita's run (and to a lesser extent, Ditko's run) is the serial storytelling. Rather than focusing on individual issues, I'd recommended using the Essential or Omnibus series to read the run as whole.
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Post by spoon on Jan 21, 2018 9:56:16 GMT -5
There have been some who considered # 123 as the 'third part' of the story, because it opens by noting the funerals of Gwen and Norman, and, with Spider-Man considered the prime suspect in the murder, that drives Jonah to hire Luke Cage to bring him in. That's interesting, but myself, I don't consider ASM #123 to be part of the Death of Gwen Stacy. Sure, it deals with the fall out from Norman and Gwen's death, but that's just part and parcel of serial superhero comics -- especially one as soap opera-like as Spider-Man. The two-part Death of Gwen Stacy arc is clearly done with Norman being impaled on his own glider at the end of #122, and, just as importantly, Mary Jane stopping by Peter's pad to console him (a real turning point in their relationship). The real focus of ASM #123, on the other hand, is Spidey's clash with Luke Cage. Spidey has problems with the police for several years after this, as a result of Norman's death. Well, to be fair, Spidey had been hounded on and off by the police since the Lee/Ditko era. Well, I'm one of those people who would through ASM #123 in as a third-part. It's clearly the epilogue/aftermath, but IIRC it deals with Peter's grief. If I was in charge of picking issues to put in a TPB, I'd want #123 to go with #121-122.
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Post by spoon on Jan 20, 2018 20:09:28 GMT -5
^If I had to pick a favourite period of Uncanny X-Men, it would pretty much be exactly the first JRJR run, from around #176 down to #209. I'm specifically a big fan of Rachel Summers' arc, who was introduced in #184 and becomes a proper member around #188. Favourite issues would be #182 ('Madness'), #185 ('Public Enemy'), #189 ('Two Girls Out to Have Fun'), #193 ('Warhunt 2'), and #201 ('Duel'). I like how very tense the book is during this period, there's heavy social commentary related to prejudice in pretty much every issue-- it's where the Mutant Affairs Control Act is signed, Project Wideawake kicks off properly, the X-Men are confronted again with a possible bleak future, the X-Men's public reputation takes a nosedive, and anti-mutant violence increases. All the while, there's also time for some more light-hearted bits, especially with the teenaged members of the group. Rachel and Amara going shopping and visiting the museum is just so precious. Anything involving Lockheed is great. Kitty goes through great development in terms of how she relates to some of the people she loves the most (her parents, Peter, Ororo) and adopts her IMO best costume (the blue Shadowcat one). My one complaint could be that Claremont overdoes it at times with either the narration or the thought bubbles; often the artwork gets pushed aside for the sake of large captions and oversized trains-of-thought, when he could have easily left the artist to tell the story. But for me it's only a minor complaint. LOOKATIT ITS AWSUMSAUCE!!!1 Yeah, that's a great splash page. I also love the splash page with Professor X overhearing the thoughts of a killer in his university classroom. I think it was #190. Also, the "Young Dragons in Love" cover (#181) is one of my all-time favorites. I think #195 was the first X-Men comic I ever read.
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Post by spoon on Jan 20, 2018 13:47:45 GMT -5
I love the "From the Ashes" TPB that reprints Uncanny X-Men #168-176, which is most of Paul Smith's run as penciler plus a Walt Simonson fill-in and John Romita, Jr.'s first issue. Actually, I love all of Paul Smith's run, which begins toward the end of the Brood storyline (#164, I believe). #168 is one of my all-time favorite comics.
Of course, I love the Claremont/Byrne run. Pretty much any issue is great.
I notice a lot of fans don't like much past Paul Smith's run. JRjr definitely started slowly, but he got better later on. The big battle between the X-Men, the Hellfire Club, and Nimrod toward the end of his run is a classic as far as action sequences go.
I realize I will be belted by a barrage of rotten tomatoes, but I like Inferno.
But as a general overview: the best parts of the Silver Age is really just Stan/Jack at the beginning and Thomas/Adams at the end. Most of the stuff between those runs is forgettable (and I say that as a huge fan of the X-Men of the 60s through early 90s). I seem to recall maybe liking Arnold Drake's issues. I like most of Claremont's run. I actually prefer Cockrum's first run to his second, which is not a favorite period for me. The other weak point in the Claremont era is around the 250s and 260s. Silvestri's art was subpar toward the end and there were several fill-ins.
A lot of the Classic X-Men back-up stories are nice stories with a person feel. I like the Jean Grey story in Classic X-Men #6, for example.
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Post by spoon on Dec 23, 2017 21:30:51 GMT -5
I've resigned myself to accept that no Star Wars film will ever be as good as the Original Trilogy. I judge subsequent films in comparison to each other; by that standard, I consider The Last Jedi to be a success. The Force Awakens so slavishly strip-mined the Original Trilogy, it felt like the characters were caught in a time loop. While The Last Jedi had elements that felt inconsistent with what Star Wars is, at least it felt original. There were truly unexpected moments and an expansion of the world.
Many people seem to fear that Disney's purchases of Lucasfilm, Marvel, and now the Marvel properties Fox has the rights to, will lead to an aversion to risk and uniformity of storytelling. But that didn't see like an issue with The Last Jedi. For both good and ill, Rian Johnson seemed willing to change course from what J.J. Abrams did in The Force Awakens. I like that Johnson was willing to kill off characters that Abrams seemingly intended to last throughout the trilogy. That led to genuine surprises and acknowledged that the films shouldn't be locked into things that aren't working.
On the other hand, that led to inconsistencies. In The Force Awakens, I thought the First Order was depicted to be a nascent revival of the Empire that's taken over portions of the Republic. The Republic is still in control of most of the galaxy. The Resistance is merely the armed force trying to defeat the First Order in the areas it has taken over. But even though The Last Jedi starts soon after The Force Awakens, Johnson changes the situation to essential replicate the Original Trilogy's politics. It seems like Resistance is supposed to be the last remnants of the Republic and the First Order runs most of the galaxy. That leads to my main problem with The Last Jedi - its bleakness. It feels like the accomplishment of overthrowing the Empire in Return of the Jedi was all for nought. There's also so much death. Even though The Last Jedi was cool, surprising, and creative, I don't know that it will lend itself to rewatching like the Original Trilogy does. Those films are so fun; I think the suffering in The Last Jedi will make re-watching hard. The Original Trilogy made even deaths hopeless. Obi-Wan's sacrifice in A New Hope was a key victory, and he came back as a ghost who told Luke to turn off his targeting computer!
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