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Post by mikelmidnight on Oct 7, 2017 11:40:00 GMT -5
I actually really liked The One and I'm pleased to see it remembered!
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Post by mikelmidnight on Oct 7, 2017 11:38:15 GMT -5
I wasn't crazy about Twilight, Chaykin's take on the DC space heroes of the 50s. But again, nice art by Garcia Lopez. I actually loved Twilight, but to me it was the 'Earth-3' versions of the characters and not the 'real' ones. Making Orion a stupid, supercilious bully or an out of control berserker or a callow, insulting frat-boy or etc : again, writers, just read the Kirby comics to understand why none of these are good ideas, then ask yourself why you thought otherwise. Kirby's bombastic art and awkward dialogue during this period tended to obscure what a remarkably subtle writer he was, and very few people have been able to do decent followups to his characters for that reason.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Oct 6, 2017 12:00:05 GMT -5
They're having someone else do a Xombi revival and didn't even tell John Rozum. He literally found out on Facebook. Rozum was my favorite Milestone creator and they ain't getting any of my money.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Oct 5, 2017 11:29:53 GMT -5
One amusing note: it was quite firmly established pre-Crisis that Ted Knight had no children.
Post-Crisis he was revealed to have a son.
Post-Zero Hour he was confirmed to have TWO sons!
If he'd stuck around, would a third son have appeared post-52?
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Post by mikelmidnight on Oct 2, 2017 9:14:28 GMT -5
A collection of underground stories reflecting back on the 60s. Some stories of interest to the fans here:
- A Spirit story by Will Eisner which I have never seen anywhere else,including any of his bibliographies.
- A story of Tarzan in the modern day by Mike Olshan and Frank Brunner.
- Roy Thomas' and Barry Smith's account of the wizard Shazam(m) summoning Conan and Sherlock Holmes to solve a case.
- A version of Captain Freedom (the Harvey Comics hero) receiving a cynical treatment written and drawn by Steve Englehart.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 26, 2017 11:38:19 GMT -5
I didn't mind the reprints in this series as much as the others, because getting to see the Golden Age material was such a novelty, and brought those old adventures into modern perspective.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 25, 2017 11:54:19 GMT -5
^Would have been cool to see her don the Union Jack costume. (PS...if any of these things happen don't tell me haha. Remember, I am reading this as though I am a kid back in the 1970s who bought the run and is reading for the first time. With some minor knowledge, of course)
Apparently she was supposed to have been Union Jacquie, but they didn't like the way the uniform looked on a female physique.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 22, 2017 11:53:42 GMT -5
I think it was setting her up in advance as someone with the skills to be a costumed hero, while simultaneously pointing out that Lord Falsworth really was too old to go back into action.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 20, 2017 11:31:52 GMT -5
I totally second the recommendation for Jack Staff! It's a little off-beat but an excellant read.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 20, 2017 11:29:50 GMT -5
That is the fun part of Billy Batson coming over to Marvel. Who in the MU becomes part of the Marvel family? Does Rick Jones get to become Captain Marvel Jr? Could MJ or Gwen Stacy or Misty Knight become Mary Marvel and what about the 3 Lieutenant Marvel's: you could redo the Sons of the Tiger and make them be Lin Sun and Abe Brown and drop Bob Diamond in favor of Hector Ayala. Volstagg would make a great "uncle Dudley" for the group I had thought sending the Marvel Family cast over to Marvel made sense just so they could use the name properly, but now I totally want to see this! I wouldn't make Gwen or Misty into Mary Marvel though; how about Sharon Ventura?
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 15, 2017 12:01:43 GMT -5
Hellcat was the old romance character Patsy Walker. She was tagging along with the Avengers and found Grer's costume in a warehouse.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 14, 2017 11:31:34 GMT -5
There was an additional issue written and pencilled, which has never been published. I keep hoping for a collection including a completed version of the final story.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 13, 2017 13:18:58 GMT -5
Thanks for the info tarkintino and chaykinstevens!
Skull The Slayer has intrigued me...how does it stack up? I have long considered trying it and Kull. Conan too, which I have read some of the earlier stuff but it does not pull me in like superhero books do. I really, really loved the first three issues at the time, the Marv Wolfman ones. They were very much in the Edgar Rice Burroughs tradition, but with an added touch of modernity (the Bermuda triangle and space aliens being involved). High adventure, civilized people thrown into the age of the dinosaurs, etc. Then under Englehart and later Mantlo it suffered from two simultaneous syndromes: the "Sudden change of direction" syndrome, and the "Let's kill all these characters for shock value but oh whoops we better get them back as our hero now has no one to talk to" syndrome. The final issues and the Marvel-two-in-one conclusions tried to get back to the original concept, but you can't unscramble an egg so it didn't really work. The art also became sort of generic... Steve Gan had done an interesting job in the early issues, but was replaced by the ever-dependable but kind of by-the-numbers Sal Buscema. Overall I would definitely recommend it if you find the series at a low price, but wouldn't pay more than a couple of bucks for each issue. I never minded the meandering story so much, but agree it's not exactly essential ... worth reading if you can get it reasonably priced. I detested the 2-in-1 conclusion however, as it totally wiped out every bit of character development from the cast, making them all sort of inexplicably annoying.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 11, 2017 13:02:34 GMT -5
I liked this issue a lot. To me, it was one of the better stories so far. Thomas does a good job resurrecting some classic Golden Age heroes. There is a letter page where he explains why he choose who he did and how he came up with the Liberty Legion name. He talks about Red Raven being the main one he wanted to have, and how Blue Diamond was one brought up by a friend as a good character to use. You may not be aware of this, but pre-Invaders, Roy had tried to sell Marvel on a 40's series featuring Bucky, the Whizzer, and Red Raven, to be drawn by Barry Smith! I personally think that's a truly terrible lineup for a team, but I was always sorry he never did a Liberty Legion special which featured this story along with a second story starring the remaining four members of the team.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 11, 2017 12:51:01 GMT -5
That issue of The Eltingville Club is the one where they're all old and bitter, right? Yeah, that's some dark stuff, as you'd expect. But even though Bill is an incredibly bitter and disgusting misogynist in it, I don't think the message was misogynist, because we're supposed to side with Jerry as he grows up and leaves the club for good for just that reason. It's probably a reaction to misogynist controversies that were going on in comics and gaming at the time.
I agree. The Club guys have always been loathsome 'bad examples' of the worst of fandom, and this continued it. I think we were plainly meant to side with Jerry.
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