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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 5, 2024 13:08:50 GMT -5
Yeah, Marvel was really trouncing DC at the time...which is weird in hindsight because outside of the Infinity books by Starlin and Peter David's Hulk run I can't really think of a single Marvel comic from that time that's worth reading. The one-two punch of Death of Superman and Batman: Knightfall really was a giant shot in the arm for DC that reinvigorated them for a good long while. I'll wait until I'm there in the reviews to check the numbers, but I'm pretty sure I recall reading that sales dropped quickly right after these events concluded. The Superman Office was planning everything it could to keep readers enticed after Superman's death, but the mass majority of readers (if you could even call them that by this point) were speculating or looking for hot art and presumably didn't see value in sticking around for strong plotting and characterization. At least that's how I remember it. The numbers may prove me wrong once we get there. I guess one could argue that, in the hands of Warner, DC's sales didn't really matter so long as they could earn enough to keep the presses going; it was the IPs that mattered. Still, in an age when comics were still widely consumed and hadn't yet become a niche market, if the comics became irrelevant, didn't the properties risk doing the same? DC was losing its appeal to an entire generation. Oh yeah, there was a ton of inflation there due to speculators so the highs were never going to be sustainable but it at least made DC competitive market wise which they definitely weren't in the early 90's.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 5, 2024 12:29:56 GMT -5
The two part season opening to Discovery's final season finally dropped...and it was a lot of fun. Although I would have rathered a more episodic pace like Strange New Worlds this might be the best long form story they've done as they're playing off a plot point from one of my favorite episodes of Next Generation: The Chase. It'll be interesting to see what they add to that idea.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 5, 2024 12:27:13 GMT -5
Coming just in time for Star Wars Day(May the 4th Be With You) the sequel to Tales of the Jedi is due to hit Disney+...but this time it goes darker:
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 5, 2024 7:50:20 GMT -5
Yeah, Marvel was really trouncing DC at the time...which is weird in hindsight because outside of the Infinity books by Starlin and Peter David's Hulk run I can't really think of a single Marvel comic from that time that's worth reading. The one-two punch of Death of Superman and Batman: Knightfall really was a giant shot in the arm for DC that reinvigorated them for a good long while.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 5, 2024 5:34:28 GMT -5
I wouldn't say I'm surprised it never was a continuing comic, but I think Edgar Rice Burroughs' Beyond Thirty would have made a dynamite series. It's about a possible future in which America remained isolated while the Euro-asiatic continent was ravaged by a terrible war that essentially put an end to civilization there. An American explorer eventually travels to the ravaged old world and adventure ensues. In those dystopian future stories, I'm always fascinated by what new civilizations might have emerged and how a renewed nature might have changed the landscape. It's like having a box of toys containing we know not what, and pulling out one nifty new thing after another. ( The Mucker would also have been darn cool, although I think there's at least one online comic series about the character). With how well Tarzan and John Carter have done in comics over the years it is pretty surprising this was never a comic or even for just a back up. I mean, there have been Pellucidar comics, and even the Venus stories were adapted a few times.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 4, 2024 16:58:58 GMT -5
I don't think readers had that negative a reaction to Robin as he and O'Neil claimed. The letter pages don't seem to be filled with missives attacking the character. Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle hadn't used him in about a year over in Detective Comics and I don't recall readers swarming over to that title for their Robin-free needs. Anecdotally, a lot of folks claim they couldn't stand the brat and wanted him dead. Of course, their reasoning is always either because they read his first Post-Crisis appearance and didn't stick around to see him evolve and quickly soften under Batman's wing, or because they read A Death in The Family. I don't think he was really all that hated, for one Jason only lost by 72 votes and 320 of those came from a single person and O'Neil said he had met the person who supposedly had set up the auto vote and he didn't even know there was a different Robin, he just hated the character as a kid watching the Adam West show. And that guy wasn't alone as Dick Giordano has said he had met all kinds of fans who said they voted to kill Robin and thought it was the original, and on top of that they were flooded with more hate mail after killing Jason than they had ever received regular mail in the previous five years before the event combined. Again, some of that could have come from casual fans who thought Dick Grayson was dead but still it's not as if he was universally hated.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 4, 2024 4:33:26 GMT -5
I'm pretty pumped for it myself. I love "What if...?" stories in general and have always wondered in particular how Jason might have matured as Robin after nearly dieing at the Joker's hands.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 3, 2024 19:07:15 GMT -5
Redcoat #1. Johns launches the story of an immortal redcoat soldier who gets mixed up with the founding fathers. It shows how he becomes immortal and has him involved with historical figures. This is very different from anything else I have read recently. This is historical fiction mixed with some magic and a character that gets powers that he doesn't deserve to possess. Plus beautiful Bryan Hitch art. That sounds pretty interesting, I may need to check that out.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 3, 2024 18:14:10 GMT -5
I just saw Sara Frazetta mention in an ancillary conversation that the remaining Opus Frazetta books will not be published, as Opus failed to pay the writers and artists involved in the projects for their work. Death Dealer ran its course (and declined in quality as it went along), but the DD2099 has been cancelled, Dawn Attack will not have its final issue published, and the Halloween specials that were solicited will not see the light of day. I wonder if the same is true of the Sanjulian books they were doing that have also been perpetually delayed/late? I had already decided I wasn't getting DD2099 (concept didn't appeal to me) and was likely not to get more Opus books after the current series I was reading wrapped up before I knew about their failure to pay creators. Now, it's certain I won't support any of their books unless by some miracle something I preordered already shows up as I don't want to stiff my lcs on something that wasn't their fault. -M Man, that's such a weird development; it sounds like something that would have happened during the speculation boom/bust of the 90's rather than today.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 3, 2024 18:12:27 GMT -5
Vengeance of the Moon Knight #4Written by Jed MacKay Art by Alessandro Cappuccio Summary: Hunter's Moon and Tigra track the new Moon Knight to his secret lair...the sight of Marc's death! Plot: Up until this point Jed Mackay's run on Moon Knight has been like Mary Poppins: Practically perfect in every way. However, with this issue he suffers his first real stumble: sticking the landing on his big reveal. With Marc dead MacKay set up the mystery of a new Moon Knight under the hood, teasing us for the last three issues over whether it was Marc somehow back from the dead or someone new and it was delicious at each step of the way looking at the mystery from the eyes of his supporting cast. But here the identity was revealed...and it's way out of left field. I didn't know who was under the hood but there was literally no hint at it being this character and while I'm interested in seeing how it plays out it felt a little like a cheat. Don't get me wrong, I'm still excited to see the story go forward and regardless of how it ends this will still be one of the best runs of Moon Knight of all time but the reveal just didn't meet the build up. Each character's interaction implied that the new Moon Knight knew Marc's supporting cast well which meant someone they all knew or played into it somehow being Marc but ultimately it was neither as the character has no real history with any of the characters. He's an underused character though so I hope he gets some interesting development and hopefully MacKay finds his footing. Art: Despite the slight shortcoming in the plot Cappuccio continued to be on his A-Game with the art. The action was slick and the emotions displayed by Hunter's Moon were fantastically portrayed. Grade:6.5/10
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 3, 2024 17:44:11 GMT -5
Meanwhile Birds of Prey was a tad disappointing.The art was fantastic and I liked the banter during the fight...but the plot barely moved an inch forward. I just don't get why you'd pace a book like this.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 3, 2024 16:41:41 GMT -5
I figured it was probably a coincidence but man was it striking none the less.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 3, 2024 16:29:26 GMT -5
Shazam #10Written by Josie Campbell Art by Emanuela Lupacchino Summary: The Vasquez family finds that Zeus' generosity had some strings attached when they move back into their home... godly roommates!? Plot: Oftentimes when a book transitions from one creative team to another there is a distinct feeling of a disconnect between the two; which is completely understandable as the old team's story is over and the new team wants to mark their territory. However, every so often you get a hand off where if you didn't know the team had changed you wouldn't be the wiser and this is just such an occasion as Campbell seamlessly picks up where Waid left off to start her own yarn. It's perhaps not all that surprising that the transition felt seamless as Josie Campbell is no stranger to the Shazam family having already written the fantastic New Champion of Shazam and using Mary really well in Amazon's Attack! but it felt comforting none the less that this was going to remain a fun, upbeat book. I really loved how she picked up on the prior godly hijinks that the Marvel family endured and used it to introduce a new other worldly threat all while building further on the ramifications that Billy bought on by summoning more of the power of Shazam onto himself. On top of that we now get Hoppy the magic bunny as well as Talky Tawny so it's going to be double the fun going forward. Art: Like Campbell's familiarity on the plot side Lupacchino is a friendly face on the art side after previously working with Waid on the fantastic World's Finest: Teen Titans book. And while not as detailed as Dan Mora, their style is none the less very expressive and fun in a lightly cartoony way so she's a perfect fit for the book and a big part of why it feels like a new direction while also feeling like a continuation of what came before. Grade:8/10
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 3, 2024 15:53:07 GMT -5
March was a fairly poor month for me, as far as comic reading goes -- I only read 16 comics! Still, there were some great comics among that 16, such as Giant-Size X-Men #1, Uncanny X-Men #141 and 142 (Days of Future Past), and the finish of J. Michael Straczynski's run on Amazing Spider-Man. It's quality, not quantity, right? As long as you are enjoying what you are reading and the reading experience, I'm never going to comment of the quantity. Everyone has their own pace, and their own preference for how much they want to read, let alone different schedules that may dictate how much time you have available for reading. -M Exactly this. I kind of stepped away from logging my reading a few years back because I felt like I was pressuring myself and reading to check boxes rather than fun, but I missed seeing what everyone is into so I jumped back in and I'm trying not to read for anything else but fun.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 3, 2024 13:51:30 GMT -5
DC Vault: Death in the Family: Robin Lives! is a four part series by JM DeMatteis and Rick Leonardi coming in JulyFigured it was coming but not quite what I was expecting. Oh man, that's awesome! I was hoping for something like this after the alternate ending was released so I'm really looking forward to this.
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