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Post by tonebone on Apr 2, 2024 11:26:20 GMT -5
It gives one the impression the creators think islands float on the water. On the other hand, a mutant island is a novel concept. Maybe when Krakoa became this collective being, it involved the flora and fauna tearing off some rock and floating away. Yeah, the floating island thing is a real head-scratcher. I was looking at the artwork and thinking, "that's not how islands work". But in the end I rationalised it in exactly the way you suggest, that Krakoa had broken away from where it first formed. Are you SURE that's not the way they work? I think the congressional record might disagree with you...
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 2, 2024 11:52:21 GMT -5
Yeah, the floating island thing is a real head-scratcher. I was looking at the artwork and thinking, "that's not how islands work". But in the end I rationalised it in exactly the way you suggest, that Krakoa had broken away from where it first formed. Are you SURE that's not the way they work? I think the congressional record might disagree with you... Ha! I think Rep. Hank Johnson has been reading too many X-Men comics.
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Post by Batflunkie on Apr 2, 2024 12:33:31 GMT -5
Radioactive Man: Radioactive Repository Volume One (2012) Finally got around to finishing this over the long Easter weekend, after a really long pause (I started reading it back in November, but then set it aside to read other things – mainly re-reading stuff for the 12 days of Classic Comics Xmas – and honestly sort of forgot about it). Anyway, this very nice and hefty HC is a collection of the first six-issue Radioactive Man mini-series published by Bongo Comics in the 1990s, i.e., it collects the issues that were numbered 1, 88, 216, 412, 679 and 1000; it also includes all of the stories from Radioactive Man 80-page Colossal as well as the four Radioactive Man back-up stories from Simpsons Comics #s 36-39, which are notable for the back-covers, as they are all homages to Steranko covers: Most of the stories were written and/or drawn by Steve Vance and Bill Morrison and I won’t bother summarizing any of them; I’ll just say that these are all entertaining stories on their own, but like so many of the other Simpsons comics, they are also very much comics about comics, i.e., they riff off of or satirize superhero comics from all eras, both in terms of overall stories but also in little details like this: So there are stories that reference Wertham and the comic book scare of the early ‘50s, the ‘relevant’ late ‘60s/early ‘70s stories, esp. Green Lantern/Green Arrow, as well as Watchmen and the Dark Knight Returns. However, they’re never mean-spirited, and like those Sterankoesque mock covers above, they’re just as much homages to the stories and creators. I highly recommend reading these, esp. if you can find a reasonably priced copy of this collected volume. It’s too bad the second Radioactive Man mini-series and some of the later RM material didn’t get collected into a second volume. Of all the books that I was upset about getting eaten away by rats (even more so than my two issues of the Valiant "Nintendo Comics System", The Adventures Of The Super Mario Bros), I was devastated the most by the loss of my collection of Radioactive Man comics (though issue #100 thankfully survived as it's one of my favorites) It's such a great homage book, definitely up there with Moore's 1963 and Big Bang Comics
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 2, 2024 15:09:34 GMT -5
Recently read X-Men #94 and #95, which continue the adventures of the new X-Men team first seen in Giant-Size X-Men #1. The plot concerns Count Nefaria and his Ani-Men invading the U.S. Army's Valhalla Base, located inside Cheyenne Mountain and home to NORAD, America's Cold War early warning air defence centre. At the same time, the old X-Men decide to depart from the team, leaving the new, hastily recruited line-up that Professor X assembled in Giant-Size X-Men #1 to take on Nefaria. Unfortunately, during the X-Men's assault on the base, Thunderbird is killed trying to stop the Count making his escape in a fighter jet. Chris Claremont's writing is solid here, rather than spectacular, but these were only his first two issues on the series, so I guess he'd not quite found his mojo yet. That said, they were good, honest Bronze Age comics and a lot of fun to read. I also think it was a bold decision to kill off one of the team this early. I've read that part of Marvel's thinking behind having an international team of X-Men was that it would increase sales in non-traditional American comic book markets. I guess that Thunderbird fans among the Native American reading public weren't a particularly big demographic for Marvel to worry about. I was glad to see Sunfire leaving the X-Men and return to Japan (good riddance, frankly!). He was such an uppity arse in GSXM #1 that his continued presence on the team would've really marred the series for me. As for the villains, I'm not sure I've ever read a comic with Count Nefaria in it before, but he's a good, dastardly villain and certainly a snappy dresser! The Ani-Men I recognise from early issues of Daredevil. One small criticism would be that the way in which the original X-Men just decide to leave the team one day, with little in the way of motivation, seems a little contrived. It just feels like an excuse to have the new team take over, which is exactly what it was, of course, but it's a little too obvious for my liking. That said, I think having Cyclops stay on as team leader was a good move, as he provides a nice link to the team's previous incarnation. All in all, these were some fun issues.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 2, 2024 19:50:48 GMT -5
I just re-read the Brood saga that stretched from Uncanny X-Men #154 to 167. I remember that at the time it had truly renewed my faith in the title, which had been a little shaken by John Byrne's departure. It's not that I disliked Cockrum's art, but well... I was a real Byrne fan back then. Plus, recent issues with fill-in artists and a rushed plot had left me dissatisfied. But boy! Did the arrival of the Aliens-wannabes change things!
Dave Cockrum is far more in his element with thais type of material than he was drawing discotheques. Huge spaceships! Huger space critters! Bizarre aliens! Beautiful designs for costumes, architecture and technology! What's not to like?
The title was still relatively fresh back then, unencumbered by too many years of cannibalized continuity. When characters like counselor Araki or Imperial guard Fang died, they were truly dead! (How many times have they been cloned and brought back since then? Morrison even had Araki add a number to his name the last time I saw him). The Brood, as fearsome as the alien aboard the Nostromo, hadn't yet been diluted into insignificance. They were truly scary with their combined monster/disease nature! Plus, they looked brilliant.
The plot is straightforward: Shi'ar Empress Lilandra is kidnapped by her evil sister Deathbird, who means to usurp her throne. Helping Deathbird are the Brood, insect-like creatures who also abduct the X-Men so they can act as incubators for their queen's eggs (the Brood lay their eggs in the body of other creatures, and when they hatch they transform said body into their own, absorbing their memory and powers at the same time. Brrr). Taken to the Brood's terrifying homeworld in a hypnotized state, the X-Men manage to escape only thanks to Wolverine's healing factor getting rid of the egg he's been implanted with. Doomed to die, the team decides to sacrifice their last hours saving the soul of a race of space whales that the Brood usually enslaves to turn them into living starships. Let's skip the esoteric details; suffice to say the mission succeeds in extremis, and the saved soul destroys the eggs inside the X-Men's bodies. Then the Brood homeworld blows up, and in a better world that would have been the last time we saw them in a comic-book. But I digress.
There's one egg remaining: the one implanted in Charles Xavier, who remained on Earth while the team was abducted. As the team returns home, the egg hatches and Xavier turns into a Brood queen; the X-Men manage to subdue him and thanks to the Starjammers' magical technology, Xavier's mind can be copied into a new cloned body grown from old tissue samples. Yay!
Publications schedule being what they are, we readers must make allowances for some incompatible timelines. While the issues covering these events saw print over many months, in the book itself only a few days elapsed... However, in our real world, the same months had seen the creation of the New Mutants comic, in which a much longer stretch allows Charles to mourn his pupils, then recruit the New Mutants, then train them, enough so that they're feeling quite at home in the mansion when the X-Men return. Oh, well, it doesn't really matter.
A funny bit is one that had completely escaped me back in the day. On several occasions we are treated to the morally honourable but practically ridiculous idea that "the X-Men don't kill". Apparently that proviso also means no killing of evil parasitic space aliens, as Wolverine and Carol Danvers are the only ones ready to send the critters ad patres; the rest of the team, and particularly Storm and Cyclops, insist on sparing even the Brood queen. (The planet blowing up is an unfortunate accident, not planned by the team). All right, I might disagree, but I guess the heroes are welcome to their own code of conduct.
However! When Charles turns into a new Brood queen, we face another dilemma: should we kill him, even though the mind of Xavier is still temporarily dominant and even though it goes against all our principles, or should we let the transformation run its course, resulting in the creation of an incommensurate threat to humanity? It's lucky the Starjammers say they can clone Charles a new body in which his mind can be transferred, as that way we can have our Charles and our principles too. Or can we? As everybody cheers upon seeing Professor X in his new body, no mention is made of the Brood queen's body he just vacated! Was she unceremoniously offed by Logan or Carol while we weren't looking? The story doesn't say.
All in all a truly thrilling ride, which also saw a lot of development: Carol Danvers turning into the new super-hero Binary (thanks to some genetic tampering by the Brood), the introduction of Lockheed the dragon (he hunts Brood for breakfast on their home planet), a good view of the Starjammer, which in this story is half the size of Manhattan, space whales, the Brood... those were the days of anti-decompression!
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Post by spoon on Apr 2, 2024 20:06:45 GMT -5
Recently read X-Men #94 and #95, which continue the adventures of the new X-Men team first seen in Giant-Size X-Men #1. The plot concerns Count Nefaria and his Ani-Men invading the U.S. Army's Valhalla Base, located inside Cheyenne Mountain and home to NORAD, America's Cold War early warning air defence centre. At the same time, the old X-Men decide to depart from the team, leaving the new, hastily recruited line-up that Professor X assembled in Giant-Size X-Men #1 to take on Nefaria. Unfortunately, during the X-Men's assault on the base, Thunderbird is killed trying to stop the Count making his escape in a fighter jet. Chris Claremont's writing is solid here, rather than spectacular, but these were only his first two issues on the series, so I guess he'd not quite found his mojo yet. That said, they were good, honest Bronze Age comics and a lot of fun to read. Also, keep in mind that these two issues were scripted by Claremont over Len Wein's plots, so he didn't even have full control of the writing at this point. It was more of the germ of the idea than a sales strategy that really played out, because for instance, there weren't going to be a lot of Soviet readers prompted by Colossus. He came across as quite the hothead in X-Men #64. I bought an Iron Man Epic Collection that has some of his early appearances that I haven't read yet. I do think at interesting What If concept would be what if Sunfire didn't quit, because I could see how the extra help with Nefaria plane might've saved Thunderbird's life. Nefaria also a Silver Age appearance, although that time his minions were a totally random assemblage (Plant Man, Porcupine, Unicorn, etc.). It is kind of random to see the Unholy Three expanded and reworked into the Ani-Men. Yeah, I agree it feels forced. Another sign of just how contrived it was is that after saying they wanted to be on their own, Angel and Iceman then end up on a new team in Champions #1, which came out the same month as X-Men #95. Also, Jean's departure didn't play out quite as Claremont intended, but maybe I'll save that for when she shows up again.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2024 19:33:04 GMT -5
I just read Brave and the Bold #182 which features the Earth-One Batman getting inadvertently cast into Earth-Two on a stormy night which leads to a team-up with that world's Robin and Batwoman. At this point, Robin is fully grown and his world's Batman has already passed away. Similarly, Earth-One Batman had experienced the passing of Kathy Kane the year prior on his world. This sets up a very powerful story around how to cope with seeing a "copy" of a lost one, Robin in particular struggling and initially refusing Batman's offer to call him Bruce as there was "only the one original" to him. He also gets miffed as he feels like he's being treated like a kid sidekick versus a fellow adult hero (and reminds Batman they are actually close in age). Kathy is a little spunkier, married with kids now but missing the old days of adventuring, and still carries a bit of a torch for the original Batman and seeing this version stirs up some of those emotions again. The main challenge is to get past these feelings as there is a very real threat by the Hugo Strange of that world (previously thought dead but apparently still alive), and their ability to come together as an actual team despite the awkwardness is pretty inspiring. There is a reveal around Strange which is interesting in itself, this is a really intelligent story IMO. Eventually Batman is able to return home thanks to the assistance of Starman, and it's a sweet parting with both Dick and Kathy. This issue hit the newsstand in late 1981, and is a great example of how a single issue back in the day could tell a complete impactful story. Brennert and Aparo are the creative team, and kudos to both for a lovely comic, I really enjoyed this.
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Post by Icctrombone on Apr 3, 2024 20:11:40 GMT -5
I just read Brave and the Bold #182 which features the Earth-One Batman getting inadvertently cast into Earth-Two on a stormy night which leads to a team-up with that world's Robin and Batwoman. At this point, Robin is fully grown and his world's Batman has already passed away. Similarly, Earth-One Batman had experienced the passing of Kathy Kane the year prior on his world. This sets up a very powerful story around how to cope with seeing a "copy" of a lost one, Robin in particular struggling and initially refusing Batman's offer to call him Bruce as there was "only the one original" to him. He also gets miffed as he feels like he's being treated like a kid sidekick versus a fellow adult hero (and reminds Batman they are actually close in age). Kathy is a little spunkier, married with kids now but missing the old days of adventuring, and still carries a bit of a torch for the original Batman and seeing this version stirs up some of those emotions again. The main challenge is to get past these feelings as there is a very real threat by the Hugo Strange of that world (previously thought dead but apparently still alive), and their ability to come together as an actual team despite the awkwardness is pretty inspiring. There is a reveal around Strange which is interesting in itself, this is a really intelligent story IMO. Eventually Batman is able to return home thanks to the assistance of Starman, and it's a sweet parting with both Dick and Kathy. This issue hit the newsstand in late 1981, and is a great example of how a single issue back in the day could tell a complete impactful story. Brennert and Aparo are the creative team, and kudos to both for a lovely comic, I really enjoyed this. This book is probably in my top 20 comics I ever read. Great character work highlighting the grief of Robin, the Broken heart of Batwoman and Batman's reaction to being resented for something he couldn't do anything about.
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Post by Cei-U! on Apr 4, 2024 0:41:06 GMT -5
I just read Brave and the Bold #182 ... This issue hit the newsstand in late 1981, and is a great example of how a single issue back in the day could tell a complete impactful story. Brennert and Aparo are the creative team, and kudos to both for a lovely comic, I really enjoyed this. As I've often mentioned, Brave & Bold is my all-time favorite series and this issue is one of the reasons why. Absolutely superlative in both art (I loves me some Jim Aparo) and story (as is pretty much everything Alan Brennert touches) and an Earth-Two story to boot, it's like it was custom designed to appeal to me... and, boy howdy, does it!
Cei-U! I summon the comic book as comfort food!
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Post by Hoosier X on Apr 6, 2024 13:41:47 GMT -5
I took a break from my long-term reading projects (Detective Comics and Thor) and I’m now re-reading The Tempest, the six-issue League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series by Moore and O’Neill.
I read it when it first came out in 2018 but I haven’t looked at it since then. I’ve been meaning to read it again for a while.
I read the first issue a few nights ago. I loved it back in 2018 and I’m finding that I like it as much now as I did then.
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Post by spoon on Apr 6, 2024 14:15:46 GMT -5
I just re-read the Brood saga that stretched from Uncanny X-Men #154 to 167. I remember that at the time it had truly renewed my faith in the title, which had been a little shaken by John Byrne's departure. It's not that I disliked Cockrum's art, but well... I was a real Byrne fan back then. Plus, recent issues with fill-in artists and a rushed plot had left me dissatisfied. But boy! Did the arrival of the Aliens-wannabes change things!
[snip]
All in all a truly thrilling ride, which also saw a lot of development: Carol Danvers turning into the new super-hero Binary (thanks to some genetic tampering by the Brood), the introduction of Lockheed the dragon (he hunts Brood for breakfast on their home planet), a good view of the Starjammer, which in this story is half the size of Manhattan, space whales, the Brood... those were the days of anti-decompression!
I like how it's structured with 4 issues of the Brood arc, then 4 issues of basically other stories, before resuming with 6 issues with the Brood. It finds a convenient in a break from a very long storyline, and also created an opportunity to start some plot threads off (including ones that would be used in New Mutants) before the X-Men are in space for several issues.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 6, 2024 23:10:24 GMT -5
I took a break from my long-term reading projects (Detective Comics and Thor) and I’m now re-reading The Tempest, the six-issue League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series by Moore and O’Neill. I read it when it first came out in 2018 but I haven’t looked at it since then. I’ve been meaning to read it again for a while. I read the first issue a few nights ago. I loved it back in 2018 and I’m finding that I like it as much now as I did then. I read this for the first time last year. I think it's a really fun and enjoyable end to the series. It's probably the best LoEG book since Volume 2. Here are my thoughts on it, which I know you read and responded to at the time... classiccomics.org/post/506499/threadBTW, did you read this in the TPB? I ask because I bought the paperback collection initially and was dismayed to find that the artwork was really f*cked up. It was all slightly pixelated and "fuzzy" looking, like someone has mistakenly scanned Kevin O'Neill's artwork in at 72dpi resolution instead of the standard 300dpi. Did you notice that in your copy? The poor quality artwork reproduction bothered me so much that I sold my TPB version and bought the hardcover instead, which doesn't have that problem.
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Post by Hoosier X on Apr 6, 2024 23:44:58 GMT -5
I took a break from my long-term reading projects (Detective Comics and Thor) and I’m now re-reading The Tempest, the six-issue League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series by Moore and O’Neill. I read it when it first came out in 2018 but I haven’t looked at it since then. I’ve been meaning to read it again for a while. I read the first issue a few nights ago. I loved it back in 2018 and I’m finding that I like it as much now as I did then. I read this for the first time last year. I think it's a really fun and enjoyable end to the series. It's probably the best LoEG book since Volume 2. Here are my thoughts on it, which I know you read and responded to at the time... classiccomics.org/post/506499/threadBTW, did you read this in the TPB? I ask because I bought the paperback collection initially and was dismayed to find that the artwork was really f*cked up. It was all slightly pixelated and "fuzzy" looking, like someone has mistakenly scanned Kevin O'Neill's artwork in at 72dpi resolution instead of the standard 300dpi. Did you notice that in your copy? The poor quality artwork reproduction bothered me so much that I sold my TPB version and bought the hardcover instead, which doesn't have that problem. I did not read it in a collection. I bought all six issues as they came out at the comic shop.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 7, 2024 0:17:29 GMT -5
I read this for the first time last year. I think it's a really fun and enjoyable end to the series. It's probably the best LoEG book since Volume 2. Here are my thoughts on it, which I know you read and responded to at the time... classiccomics.org/post/506499/threadBTW, did you read this in the TPB? I ask because I bought the paperback collection initially and was dismayed to find that the artwork was really f*cked up. It was all slightly pixelated and "fuzzy" looking, like someone has mistakenly scanned Kevin O'Neill's artwork in at 72dpi resolution instead of the standard 300dpi. Did you notice that in your copy? The poor quality artwork reproduction bothered me so much that I sold my TPB version and bought the hardcover instead, which doesn't have that problem. I did not read it in a collection. I bought all six issues as they came out at the comic shop. Gotcha! Yeah, the original issues and the hardcover are both fine, apparently; it's the TPB that has the problem.
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Post by spoon on Apr 7, 2024 21:54:16 GMT -5
I read the Thunderbolts Epic Collection vol. 1: Justice, Like Lightning reprinting Thunderbolts #1-12 and Minus 1, Annual '97, Incredible Hulk #449, a story from Tales of the Marvel Universe #1, Spider-Man Team Up #7, and Heroes for Hire #7. I've never read any of these issues before. I don't think I've read any issues of Thunderbolts, except I might've read where they crossed over with Avengers beyond the time period of this TPB.
It was a pretty good read. For some reason, the TPB put Thunderbolts #1 ahead of their prior appearances. Even though of course I was spoiled on the twist, I decide to read the Hulk story first as published. The concept creates a lot of anticipation in how it will play out and how long the secret will be kept. I thought maybe it could've gone on a little longer, although it probably would've been harder to get away with the lie once the Avengers returned. I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the pre-Thunderbolts careers of the various team members, but I don't think of most of them having well-defined personalities. It's not quite a blank slate, but it's not that far off.
It's cool how Busiek constructed differing individual motivations for the characters rather than just making it Zemo and everybody else. The grey areas like how Meteorite would often due the right thing for the wrong reasons, and positioned herself as a rival for Zemo, gave these issues some Game of Thrones moral complexity. There was also some thought put into the Songbird/Mach-1 romance. Even though super-hero comics obviously float realism in lots of ways, there's a certain realism to the history for Songbird that Busiek puts together. Women commit violent crimes at much lower rates, and her involvement comes out of a lot of trauma and need for belonging. Since they were in different incarnations of the Masters of Evil, they wouldn't have prior history. I also thought both the Annual and Flashback issue were used to good effect. For a guest appearance, the Spider-Man Team-Up issue was pretty pivotal.
I'm not the biggest Mark Bagley fan. I wish Jeff Johnson, who I fondly remember from his Wonder Man work, had more than just that single guest issue. I also liked Pascual Ferry's work on the characters in Heroes for Hire. Busiek is such a comic book nerd. He really went for the deep cut by pulling out the Elements of Doom. On the other hand, sometimes he's more of a plotter/historian than a wordsmith. He's got the DeFalco disease of having male characters who should have diverse speech patterns referring to younger women as "young lady" or "missy" instead of like, their names. It sounds very patronizing. That should be a verbal tic of specific characters.
There are some things I might've liked to see play out differently, but there were also lots of twists that were unanticipated and clever takes on the situation. I'm leaning towards buying the second Epic Collection when it comes out at the end of the month.
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