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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Jul 15, 2015 16:48:24 GMT -5
Court of Owls just seems to work for the newer generation. The artwork is decent, they get a dark Batman and a new character who thinks they can mentally break Bruce Wayne. I thought it was an interesting story and enjoyed it. Sure, the overall idea has been attempted before but whatever. It was an enjoyable read.
I definitely don't few any newer creators as ground breaking because, in truth, many do pay homage and draw a lot of reference from the original artists/writers who actually did break the ground and try new things. I am sure there are some neat original concepts but take it from someone who has come up with several of my own superhero stories/characters, every one seems referential to something that has been done. Which is not always a bad thing, provided you do it well and it's entertaining.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jul 15, 2015 17:14:23 GMT -5
Like benday-dot, I am a big fan of many things listed here. (Some people don't like Conan? Alan Moore? LOVE AND ROCKETS???) Some books or creators I dislike, sometimes deeply, but I get why they're popular. However, there is one thing I simply do not get: why fans, who are not all new readers, keep reading variations on the "ultimate crisis everywhere and at the same time" theme. It wasn't even that exciting the first time round, and after thirty years it's gotten really tedious. Isn't there a way to tell interesting stories without having a continuity-heavy (and continuity-destroying) company wide "event" every bloody five minutes? (Granted it might be a few years rather than five minutes, but it sure feels like it). I started in the 90's, so events are nothing new to me. Not to say I blindly buy them, or dislike the concept. But yes anything done too much and out of habit can get old and tired. I do think good stories can be told in events, I think that the main concept is allowing each part of the event to hold it's own. The last two I bought and enjoyed, Annihilation, which didn't seem to need any of the other titles (of which all I bought was Silver Surfer and the Hearlds of Galactus mini) didn't seem necessary to enjoy the main event. While some of Conquest's minis (Star-Lord & Quasar) out shined the main event (and I bought everything Conquest ... I mean everything). Though the main event was still enjoyable. So I am not sure what I am saying is the perfect formula for a good event, just that there are some. Maybe it's because it was a cosmic event and Marvel hadn't had one of that proportion since maybe Infinity Gauntlet. Though Marvel Universe: The End was good. But that wasn't so much an event as a heavy continuity mini series. In conclusion of this rambling that has no cohesion, Conquest was the last event I bought. |
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Post by coke & comics on Jul 15, 2015 18:12:04 GMT -5
Classic: The Celestial Madonna story. I HATE Mantis with a great passion, and Swordsman and Moondragon didn't do much for me either... the plot was OK, I guess, but with the spotlight on characters I just cringed to see it just pushes it into the 'Ugh' category for me. If the death of the Swordsman doesn't wet your eyes a little bit, I question whether you have a soul. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2015 18:18:19 GMT -5
Love Snyder's Batman.
More than some of the classic material from the 60s.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jul 15, 2015 19:04:12 GMT -5
Oh yeah, me too. I like stories based around secret histories, and having "Gotham City" basically be the antagonist is a pretty novel idea - at least in my Batman reading. I'm not a Batman guy and there isn't THAT much Batman stuff I like but the current Batman run definitely hits most of my "cool" buttons. |
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Post by benday-dot on Jul 15, 2015 19:07:11 GMT -5
Ok... I can certainly get on board with Roquefort Raider's annoyance with universe shattering events and crises that have become the new banality of the Big Two world.
I thought I'd swore them off... forever. But much to my shock and awe I find myself enjoying the latest Secret Wars event from Marvel. I never read the original Secret Wars stuff, so I don't know how the current edition stacks up. It may or may not be original. But it's zany What If approach is a surprising amount of fun for an event. Pretty much every Marvel title is drawn into this thing, and some I'm sure are better than others, but overall it's nice to read something that premises itself on anything but continuity, at least in the short term.
The main series is by Jonathan Hickman (I usually prefer his creator owned stuff, but hey I'm liking Secret Wars... so far I caution.)
Jason Aaron also is writing a couple of fun tie-in titles.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 15, 2015 21:19:13 GMT -5
I think most of her appeal is from before she was a writer... both from the 'women in refrigerators' thing and her other journalism/editoral stuff. I agree she's a decent writer, but nothing remarkable. I think she's a terrible hypocrite when comparing her mainstream work to the stuff she used to complain about before she went pro. Her work is pretty status quo as far as the depiction of women in comics is concerned. I definitely thought that when I saw she was working on 'Sword of Sorrows' |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 15, 2015 21:23:10 GMT -5
Classic: The Celestial Madonna story. I HATE Mantis with a great passion, and Swordsman and Moondragon didn't do much for me either... the plot was OK, I guess, but with the spotlight on characters I just cringed to see it just pushes it into the 'Ugh' category for me. If the death of the Swordsman doesn't wet your eyes a little bit, I question whether you have a soul. Meh. To care about a sacrifice, you have to care about the character. There are plenty out there that were moving... that just wasn't one of them for me. |
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Post by chadwilliam on Jul 15, 2015 21:24:57 GMT -5
Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? I'd be shocked to find that Alan Moore had even skimmed through a Superman comic in the 25 or so years before he wrote this.
I'm curious as to why you don't like this story. I personally find it to be one of the best Superman tales out there and I hate most of Alan Moore's other work.  Closing the final Superman story of an era by having the character renounce who he was with his "Superman was an overrated egotist who thought the world couldn't get along without him" was one of those mean spirited touches Moore often added to his work during this period that affected how I viewed the rest of the tale. Had it not been the last Superman story for the 1958-1986 period, I might have dismissed this element as a lapse in judgment on Moore's part, but as a send off for the character, this should have been a tribute to Superman and not a denunciation. And why does Moore follow up Superman's self-condemnation with a classic wink to the audience? It's as if Moore had intended to end the story with a wink before deciding that his epilogue would consist of Superman burning his bridges with who he was and then said "You know, a happy little wink isn't really appropriate here, but I can't be bothered to change it".
Trebor's assessment of Moore's work - that he's a "great admirer of his work" but finds his Superman and Batman "overrated" pretty much mirrors my own feelings. It's strange too, since I not only like most of his work enough to rank him as one of the 50 greatest writers comics has ever had but I also admire who comes across as personally in his interviews. I just wish he had stayed away from Superman and Batman - at least during this period of his life.
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Post by fanboystranger on Jul 15, 2015 21:54:29 GMT -5
Along with a sub-forum on CBR under the same name that got so out of control Jonah had to lock it long before the whole forum reset. Her and her disciples then migrated to Bendis' forum. I was part of that group, and I think it's been somewhat unfarily maligned. I know that some people felt it was an echo chamber, but there was a plurality of interests within comics that posted both at the YABS and Bendis board forums. I got into loads of arguments about comics at both sites, and I felt that most people involved were debating in good faith, even if I didn't agree with their conclusions. I know bert, Beast of Yucca Flats, and JK Carrier posted there regularly, too, and they've made their way to this site to contribute. I'm sure there are others, too. |
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Post by fanboystranger on Jul 15, 2015 22:10:16 GMT -5
Ok... I can certainly get on board with Roquefort Raider's annoyance with universe shattering events and crises that have become the new banality of the Big Two world. I thought I'd swore them off... forever. But much to my shock and awe I find myself enjoying the latest Secret Wars event from Marvel. I never read the original Secret Wars stuff, so I don't know how the current edition stacks up. It may or may not be original. But it's zany What If approach is a surprising amount of fun for an event. Pretty much every Marvel title is drawn into this thing, and some I'm sure are better than others, but overall it's nice to read something that premises itself on anything but continuity, at least in the short term. The main series is by Jonathan Hickman (I usually prefer his creator owned stuff, but hey I'm liking Secret Wars... so far I caution.) Jason Aaron also is writing a couple of fun tie-in titles. I'm not much interested in the main series, but I think what is making a lot of the side series work is that the creators can pick and choose whatever Marvel elements they want to use. Like I've argued in the Pharozonk's Legion thread, much like a reboot, we get excited by seeing what is different and what's the same, what's new and what's carried been over, which gives these sort of a things a freshness and novelty. Most times, it wears off in a few issues, but fortunately, most of these books are just a few issues. I think it's really cool that Marvel's letting Jason Aaron and Mike Del Mundo mash together all the weird, fringe elements from cult '70s and '80s books into something that's really interesting in Weirdworld. (And Del Mundo is channeling Bisley and Sienkiewicz with his art.) I like that all the martial arts heroes are fighting in a tournament for control of K'un L'un in the Deadly Hands of Kung Fu series. I also think it's great that Dan Abnett can still follow the threads of his recent Guardians 3000 series through a courtly intrigue story focused through the lens of The Korvac Saga. I think many of the creators have actually been inspired by the freedom this event has provided and are having a real blast with the books they're working on.
And I say this as someone who is sick of constant cosmic threats.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2015 1:29:50 GMT -5
On the work of Gail Simone, could we have some examples of how she's a hypocrite? For example, I am unaware that she ever killed off a female character just to provide a motive for the male hero. I am by no means an expert on Gail Simone. I just like to see examples when someone gets called a hypocrite without a single example being cited for comparison. Her discussions on Yabs involved more than the specific deaths of superheores, and tended to delve into the overall representation of women as weak, accessories to men, sex objects, ect. And she intended to rectify this by making her scantly clad big breasted women make out with eachother in cheesecaky panels in her comics. She became the go-to writer of female lead comics but pretty much pumped out the same exact material male writers did. For example, this is Gail SImone's Batwgirl, complete with really weird posture for all female characters, usually involving spread eagle crotch shots   Now, some will say "Gail isn't the illustrator!" which is true. But she is the writer. A superstar writer, who is putting her name as a feminist voice in the industry on this product. She had the ability to make it what she wanted, especially concerning the depiction of women. Or if she didn't, she had the power to not be involved, and not endorse it with her name on the cover. For sake of argument, here is the new Batgirl  The fact that they had to put that little exclaimer on how to not draw breasts is hilarious, but there it is. Someone took the cheesecake out of a female driven superhero title. This isn't the only example either. Her entire body of work at DC is the same, often times more outrageous, involving giant busted women tied up or making out. I'm just not sure how this is different from the sexist comics written by men that Gail and her crew found so offensive  |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 16, 2015 5:27:05 GMT -5
It's possible that TPTB insisted on all of those exploitive elements. I can't imagine that writers have free reign to refuse to cater to the mostly male audience by leaving out the boob shots that sell these books.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 16, 2015 6:12:55 GMT -5
Conan. That series lasted quite a few years and was a factor in keeping Marvel alive back in the 70's but I just never saw what was special about it. Seems like the same story over and over again. Conan in the 70s was a stark departure from super-heroes. He didn't put on a disguise, he didn't go out to fight crime; heck, apart from a certain inner nobility, he wasn't even a good guy! That was a pretty uncommon thing back then, even if it wasn't entirely new. It was like a potshot at the comics code. His adventures were full of exotic locales, high adventure and a believable mythology. The mag was much closer to the Tarzan comic strip than to Spider-man, but at the same time it incorporated that important aspect of early Marvel comics: time went by for real, the character aged, and the storyline progressed. Since the comic was based on a literary corpus that presented the character at different times in his life, it also gave it a sense of history. That came to an end when Roy Thomas left in 1980, and as you say things got very repetitive. All of a sudden there was a status quo in the comic, and we were treated to month after month of a guy in a loincloth fighting monsters. That's a pity, but in all fairness the same holds true of pretty much every comic... A few months of innovative storytelling separated by years of same old same old. (Oh, look, Doctor Doom is back again!) Still, for ten years, the Conan mags had been quite unlike most other books. Its novelty has eroded, but back in it really was a window into an age undreamed of! |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jul 16, 2015 8:07:42 GMT -5
Along with a sub-forum on CBR under the same name that got so out of control Jonah had to lock it long before the whole forum reset. Her and her disciples then migrated to Bendis' forum. I was part of that group, and I think it's been somewhat unfarily maligned. I know that some people felt it was an echo chamber, but there was a plurality of interests within comics that posted both at the YABS and Bendis board forums. I got into loads of arguments about comics at both sites, and I felt that most people involved were debating in good faith, even if I didn't agree with their conclusions. I know bert, Beast of Yucca Flats, and JK Carrier posted there regularly, too, and they've made their way to this site to contribute. I'm sure there are others, too. Sorry, it wasn't my intention to say everyone participating in that sub-forum was the cause of it's demise. More often than not it's the minority that ruin it for the majority. And in no way was Bendis' forum NOT a chaotic mess before Gail and her followers arrived. The two groups together clashed like hot and cold making thunder. Honestly once the Classic Comics forum got the Meanwhile thread, I rarely went anywhere else. Again, apologies for being too general. |
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