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Post by String on Aug 20, 2021 13:40:22 GMT -5
That issue had a really good cliffhanger. Come to think of it, that Jonathan Caesar storyline, and the things the magistrates did to Rogue in Genosha, were pretty mature for a nine-year-old to be reading. Definitely. Though to be fair, yes, the Genosha arc may not have been the best jumping on point hahaha but hey, it seemed to work for you. Really, UXM #236-237 is one of my favorite two-parters from that era. Say what you will about his writing style or playing the long game plot-wise but here Claremont was still demonstrating his ability to reveal new ideas and concepts that broadened and strengthened the X mythos.
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Post by String on Aug 20, 2021 13:29:29 GMT -5
Let's talk about Br'iar Barton, ol' Hawkeye for a few minutes.
My first intro to Hawkeye was his 4 issue miniseries, written, I think, by Gruenwald. This lead into the WCA mini-series and eventual ongoing series. Thus Hawkeye and Mockingbird have always been a seminal couple to me. So it was interesting to see his previous relationships while I've been catching up on the Silver/Bronze Age issues, specifically with Wanda and Natasha. Though in those issues, under Thomas & Englehart, Clint's machismo comes on a bit strong for me sometimes. Especially when Englehart took over, Clint was all about making it serious with Wanda only to be rejected in favor of Vision. Then he tried to re-connect with Natasha in San Fran with no success. His machismo was in full force then. (The carnival costume he wore during this time didn't help matters either).
Then there's his attitude about needing to prove he is a hero in his own right. Thus the seemingly never-ending cycle of him joining/leaving/re-joining/re-leaving the team. I shook my head over some of his thoughts (paraphrasing) like 'Hey, I don't need them!.....what's that, they don't miss me?.....well, Fine!....I don't need them either!....Never did!......Hey, you guys need me, right?....Right!
Plus, I have never ever used the word 'chick' in reference to a girl unlike Clint who will use it to describe any girl apparently. Maybe I'm old-fashioned but while I don't consider the word to be insulting, I do feel like it can be demeaning in a way. For me, it's up there with how Wolverine would sometimes use the word 'frail' in reference to a girl.
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Post by String on Aug 18, 2021 13:53:26 GMT -5
In my youth, probably when I was around 9-10 years old, my first Avengers issue was: I don't recall from where I got the issue though (and yes, still have it). The first Avengers issue I bought with my allowance money was #227. Within two months, I had convinced my mother to pay for a subscription to Avengers which started with #230. I kept that subscription up through #337 (around 8 years or so) wherein I had moved out of state and had to drop it. So yeah, Avengers was a lynch-pin Marvel title for me along with X-Men (with FF being a close third). Back then I knew of the JLA but they always seemed to be more rigid, the Avengers had more drama, the team members didn't always get along but when it came to duking it out with the major bad guys, they assembled! Besides I don't recall the JLAers ever having such great nicknames, right Goldilocks? Plus, the book allowed for a broader snapshot of the MU which was great for any new reader. Atlantis, Savage Land, Negative Zone, outer space with the Skrulls, Kree, and beyond, it was exciting to see new and different corners of this vast universe. After I dropped my subscription, there was period of about 3-5 years where I read very few comics. When I decided to come back, it was around the time of Busiek/Perez run and that helped reignite my passion for the team. Unfortunately, that passion soon hit a brick wall with the arrival and tenure of Bendis. I didn't read a main Avengers title for a decade, even going so far as to check out Marvel Adventures Avengers just to get a dose of the team I remembered. Fortunately Bendis eventually moved on and the book (and team) recovered. Been reading it ever since.
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Post by String on Aug 18, 2021 13:16:04 GMT -5
Scarlet Witch being colored green on the cover of her first two appearances (while red on the interiors). Wanda's constantly changing costume from a one piece to a 2 piece from panel to panel or page to page in the Avengers issues by Ayers, Heck and Wood (circa 18-20). These were things that jumped out at me while doing my Scarlet Witch read through... -M Wasn't there also her hair changing color from brown to black to brown again?
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Post by String on Aug 18, 2021 13:14:02 GMT -5
First comic I remember buying by myself was Superboy 106, on sale around the third week of May, 1963, just before I turned nine years old. Who knew that Krypto had such similar will-power too?
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Post by String on Aug 17, 2021 13:58:39 GMT -5
At this point in the game, I can no longer remember how I got introduced to comics. My best guess would be by my mother who was an avid reader and had always encouraged the same within me. By now, as far back as I can recall, I've always read comics. When I was very young, I dimly recall having a very small stack of comic books stacked nicely behind my bedroom door. The only issue I remember from that stack is: But I can't recall where I got it, what happened in it or even what happened to it for I no longer own the issue. So I think then I was vaguely aware of Marvel and DC. The earliest recollection I do have is riding home one night with my parents and holding onto this issue for I think they bought it for me: I do remember reading and re-reading this issue (which I still own to this day) and this issue probably jump-started my love for Superman ever since. The first comic I recall buying with my own allowance money: Like the cover says, all of that for six dimes, sure why not?
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Post by String on Aug 12, 2021 1:57:24 GMT -5
Black Knight #1-4 written by Roy & Dann Thomas, art by Buckler and Tony DeZuniga, published 1990. I'm not sure how much prices for this mini were affected by the announcement of the Eternals movie (and Dane's appearance therein) but just glancing over prices recently, I'm a tad flabbergasted. Lonestar has a CGC 9.8 copy of #1 for $400, eBay slightly cheaper with some slabbed 9.6 - 9.8 copies of #1 for around $260. Lonestar has the copies of the rest of the series but even VF 8.0 copies are listed for around #16 an issue. Sets listed on eBay start off around $30 and up with a good amount of the listings now referencing either the Eternals movie and/or Kit Harrington's upcoming portrayal of Dane (key issues y'all!) On the surface, this mini looks like something I could find in the dollar back issue bins if I look around enough but maybe it's scarcity helped drive up prices overall and the movie just boosted it even more now, I don't know.
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Post by String on Aug 10, 2021 15:11:56 GMT -5
Who is the character who's slinging/flipping the colored chips? Even reading over the character/actor list on IMDB, nothing rings a bell for me about this character.
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Post by String on Aug 10, 2021 15:06:18 GMT -5
Just because whomever is the current team leader doesn't necessarily mean that they'd have more exposure. There's been quite a few times where the leader would be stuck manning the al'mighty Mission Monitoring Board (although I could simple be mis-remembering Jan's efforts).
Still, even if the fans voted for a 'more popular' character, I would think a skilled writer should still be able to work in those team members who may be under-exposed and hopefully strengthen their fan appeal. I mean, there has to be a reason why Polar Boy won during Levitz' late tenure. Other than perhaps some form of joke by fans, maybe Levtiz' handling of his character had something to do with it?
Maybe they could've enacted a rule where when one particular character wins an election, they're ineligible to run for the next election. Perhaps something akin to a term limit?
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Post by String on Aug 10, 2021 14:51:20 GMT -5
By default, it would be the 80s for me, it was the decade that I really started reading/collecting comics, it was the decade that made me into a lifelong Marvel fan, it was also the decade that fortunately, introduced me to the concept of indie publishers and while my ability to purchase from said publishers was limited, I liked the expansion and freedom of creativity that I was able to buy.
However, I voted for the 70s. Thanks in no small part from contributions and opinions of those here at CCF, I've been going back and catching up on the Bronze Age, an age of which, while I was born within, I was too young to appreciate and acknowledge. But man, there are some great comics and stories found there, a sense of excitement and growth, experimentation, yes, some failures too along the way but it's great holding these issues and reading of the wonders contained therein.
Plus, don't underestimate the power of house ads for I am a huge sucker for them. For example, I'd been reading a Bronze Age DC issue and what's that, a house ad for what book? That looks like a cool cover and exciting captions! Next thing I know, I'm off to find out about that issue and/or particular run. It's a great treasure hunt of sorts.
Although I will give some love and shout out to an overlooked decade so far for my honorable mention would be 2000s, specifically for DC. I fell out of reading/collecting comics during the 90s for the most part except for a random title here or there. However, when I decided to come back, which was in the early 2000s, that's when I jumped all-in with DC. Besides, after seeing and reading Bendis at Marvel (which I hated), yeah, let's catch up with and read of the Distinguished Competition.
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Post by String on Aug 10, 2021 14:15:58 GMT -5
A little ways into Jaka's Story and have no problem with the text passages so far, in fact, I like Sims' prose style.
However, the scenes where Cerebus arrives at Jaka's apartment, she asks (makes) him stay there with her and Rick. Cerebus' actions & reactions, staying there in the home of the woman you love and her husband, sadly, I know exactly, exactly, how that feels and man, it is a dark emotional place to dwell in. Sims nailed it.
I had to put the book down for a few days....
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Post by String on Aug 10, 2021 14:11:31 GMT -5
Bran's actions here are baffling to me, especially his last act. Why do that? Thrunk shows up as the False Pope and Bran's reaction is...that. Was he afraid the people had lost faith in Cerebus? (and so quickly too!) Had he lost faith as well? I keep thinking that, that his reaction was a sign of the weakness of his faith in the Earth-Pig Born especially in the face of a giant stone fist punching through the hotel wall. This gets explained later on, implicitly. Thrunk seemed to be fulfilling a prophecy that Bran had expected Cerebus to. This resulted in a massive loss of faith combined with a feeling of having backed the wrong person, and he could not tolerate the emotional conflict. That's an oddity in this book. There were hints that in his youth, Cerebus had been sexually involved with women (not to mention the story which introduced Jaka), but apparently not because … he only believed in sex after marriage? Yeah, I thought it must've been something akin to losing faith for him. I've liked Bran more in his supporting role as a motivator for Cerebus, far more than Astoria seems to be viewed as. Astoria's goals are always political, a facet that Cerebus really doesn't care about in so much as how it affects his ability to command, conquer, and make money. Bran's goals aligned more smoothly with Cerebus' main interests which is why Bran always seemed to have a larger influence such as when he convinced Cerebus to run for PM and expanded his reach as Pope, Cerebus wants to believe in Bran more than Astoria. Still, his final scene remains quite shocking and vivid. There may be something to his belief in sex only after marriage, let's face it, he quickly married himself to Astoria before raping her so as to add some form of legitimacy to the crime. But I think Sims may have also introduced this newly acquired taste so he could simply have another facet of the supposed piety of religious leaders to mock and parody. For we have quite a few scenes of Sophia voicing her uneasiness about playing perverted games with the Pope.
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Post by String on Aug 10, 2021 14:01:17 GMT -5
I read all of Sudden Moves. That’s the first arc in Going Home. I remember the first two or three issues but the rest of it seemed totally new to me. And I’ve started the second arc. Fall and the River. This is the arc with F. Scott Fitzgerald. I remembered that Cerebus and Jaka are on a boat with F. Scott Fitzgerald but beyond that, none of the details are familiar. I was somewhat familiar with Fitzgerald when these issues first came out. I had read Gatsby more than once and I’d read The Beautiful and the Damned. I’m sure I was a little familiar with the stories of Scott and Zelda frolicking through the twenties. He was friends with Hemingway. Zelda ended her days in an institution. The Cliff Notes version. Since then I’ve read a lot more. I saw the movie version of Tender Is the Night. I was fascinated with Zelda for a while and I read a biography about her. I bought a book with her complete writings which includes a number of short stories, articles and a play. And also her novel Save Me the Waltz. Which I think is better than anything I’ve read by F. Scott. So I’m definitely getting a lot more out of Fall and the River than I did twenty years ago. Alright then, I didn't know that Fitz appears later on but it does make me wonder, has anyone ever counted how many celebrity caricatures/parodies there are throughout the run? It has to be quite the amount I would think. For example, doesn't the Three Stooges appear at some later point too? I've always been partial for Fitz. Any of you recall how, in high school, in English class, you'd have a list of novels that you'd have to read and then discuss or write a thesis essay about, etc? And you'd wait till the week before any of that stuff was due to try and read the book (or at least hunt down a Cliff Notes version of it)? Well, I did that for Gatsby, waited till the weekend before anything was due on it to try and read it. Quite surprised by how much I actually enjoyed it, read the entire book that weekend. And got good grades on the resulting class work about it.
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Post by String on Aug 4, 2021 13:39:22 GMT -5
Never voted. Always felt it was more a popularity contest among fans. Kind of wonder if Proty was ever a write in vote? Yes, I think it was a popularity contest. I remember reading a letter during the second Levitz run (in the 80's) where a fan prosed getting rid of having the fans vote for leader (because let's face it, sometimes the results don't make sense - Wildfire and Polar Boy winning?!?!) and Levitz said that he enjoyed it, as he enjoyed the challenge of writing in whatever winner the fans came up with. One thing I do like about Levitz is that he was a genuine Legion fan. I never voted myself but I can certainly see where this would boil down to a popularity contest. Although Levitz's viewing of the results as possibly being a writing challenge is commendable. Plus, it's one heck of a way to give readers/fans a sense of involvement and actual direction of their favorite team. When I first read of the Legion (post-Great Darkness), Element Lad was the leader so I've always got a soft spot for Jan in that regard. Has Timber Wolf, Colossal Boy or Star Boy ever served as leader? I think any of those three may serve as interesting choices (or at least different from the usual suspects).
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Post by String on Aug 4, 2021 13:32:00 GMT -5
A-HA! Found an instance of Star Trek tech in Legion! From issue #215, "The Hero Who Wouldn't Fight" I don't have an image, but the Legion cruiser (from the early 70's, I think) was clearly based on Star Trek. You mean this: Obvious Trek influence but I don't mind, it looks cool. Although that is one nitpick I have about the DnA Legion run, where they eventually had Legion World and the teleportation/warp gate portals, this is about a super team in the future, in space, c'mon, they gotta fly starships!
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