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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2016 21:07:57 GMT -5
Next issue: Cap for President? And after that I feel the creative team really kicks it into high gear with the best stories in this run. Plus in the letter pages hints of the Red Skull story that never saw print & letters from...Kurt Busiek!
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Post by Nowhere Man on Aug 2, 2016 0:28:50 GMT -5
Next issue: Cap for President? And after that I feel the creative team really kicks it into high gear with the best stories in this run. Plus in the letter pages hints of the Red Skull story that never saw print & letters from...Kurt Busiek! Couldn't agree more. As good as the issues have been so far, the story that takes place in the UK is the best of the run. Byrne's art is particularly stellar in those issues. |
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Post by Ozymandias on Aug 2, 2016 0:56:17 GMT -5
249 was the peak of this run, for me. I loved how, despite his parting words, Cap had assisted in a suicide, against his will.
Maybe someone can confirm this, but I seem to remember Byrne saying in an interview, that he used some stories he stored when he was young, for his FF run (negative zone sci-fi adventures). This one, feels like something of the like.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2016 9:25:23 GMT -5
 "Cap For President" Plot by Roger McKenzie & Don Perlin. Cap stops terrorists from bombing the New Populist Party (third party) convention. The leader of this new third party tries to convince Cap to run as their candidate. Cap politely tells him he would think about it. He goes back to his apartment. He has a letter from the army which he leaves on his desk. He helps Bernie unpack her stuff in her apt. Then he sees a news paper headline announcing Cap for President. The people in his apt are excited. Later he goes to Avengers Mansion & is besieged by reporters. Inside Beast is over the top excited about Cap being President. Iron Man thinks it is a bad idea. Wasp thinks Cap would be a great President. Vision is unsure if Cap's 1940's mindset could handle 1980's problems. Then several panels of thoughts from people around NYC including Fury, Daredevil & Spider-Man. Cap tries to make sense of all this & goes back to his elementary school to think. He recalls a civics lesson one of his teachers gave that had a big impression on him. He then goes to make his speech before the media. The speech is 2 pages long...part of it is "In the early 1940's I made a personal pledge to uphold the (American) dream...as long as the dream remains even partially unfulfilled I can not abandon it." With that he announces he can not be their candidate. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2016 9:39:03 GMT -5
In the letters page Stern explains when he was editor McKenzie & Perlin pitched this story to him. He vetoed it because at the time they could not think of a good ending...Cap would either win or lose. Neither was viable. He then contacted them to ask to use their story but instead have a reason why Cap would not do it...
When I first read this I would be able to vote in my first Presidential election (Reagan vs Carter). The story appealed to me because IMO the elections are usually about picking the lesser of two evils. To have a candidate of Cap's caliber would be awesome! It is even more relevant today when I re-read it with the two choices we have...!
This issue was very unusual for the time it was published. After last month's issue long fight there was minimal action in this one. It was basically a talking heads issue...common today...rare back then.
In the overall run it was nice to have a "slow" issue because as I said before Stern & Byrne really hit their peak in the rest of their run.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2016 9:42:23 GMT -5
BTW I read somewhere in the collection "War & Rememberance" there were a few pages of some of Bryne's work on the unpublished Red Skull story. I don't have the collection. Can anyone confirm this for me? Thanks.
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Post by Ozymandias on Aug 2, 2016 11:52:25 GMT -5
For Bendis maybe, others not so much. |
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Post by tingramretro on Aug 2, 2016 12:01:40 GMT -5
I still don't understand why they later diluted the impact of this story by bringing Machinesmith back, particularly since these days he seems to have no problem whatsoever with the knowledge that he's just a robot in the form of a dead man. That, to me, would be traumatic, as indeed it clearly was for him here.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2016 12:42:19 GMT -5
For Bendis maybe, others not so much. Rucka is another. I know there are other writers that do this but since I usually avoid them I can't think of their names. |
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Post by Ozymandias on Aug 2, 2016 14:38:58 GMT -5
I still don't understand why they later diluted the impact of this story by bringing Machinesmith back Cheap effect in the sort-term has a tendency to trump good stories; continuity over-complication and degradation, in the long term, is collateral. They have no problem ruining characters, for the same reason (i.e. Gwen, Felicia...). |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2016 18:55:28 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2016 21:48:03 GMT -5
I have not commented on Bryne's art. I really liked his art before he started inking himself. This run was stellar. I really think Rubenstein enhanced his pencils. The next 4 issues were amazing.
I also have posted a mix of the original pages with older coloring techniques & reprints with modern computer coloring. I think in the modern reprints the line work looks sharper & less "muddy" but the colors detract from the art rather than enhance it. I am curious to other's thoughts about modern coloring on older material.
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Post by tingramretro on Aug 4, 2016 1:00:58 GMT -5
I have not commented on Bryne's art. I really liked his art before he started inking himself. This run was stellar. I really think Rubenstein enhanced his pencils. The next 4 issues were amazing. I also have posted a mix of the original pages with older coloring techniques & reprints with modern computer coloring. I think in the modern reprints the line work looks sharper & less "muddy" but the colors detract from the art rather than enhance it. I am curious to other's thoughts about modern coloring on older material.I tend to agree with you. I find that modern colouring techniques just make the art on most older material look garish. |
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Post by brutalis on Aug 10, 2016 8:27:49 GMT -5
I have not commented on Bryne's art. I really liked his art before he started inking himself. This run was stellar. I really think Rubenstein enhanced his pencils. The next 4 issues were amazing. I also have posted a mix of the original pages with older coloring techniques & reprints with modern computer coloring. I think in the modern reprints the line work looks sharper & less "muddy" but the colors detract from the art rather than enhance it. I am curious to other's thoughts about modern coloring on older material.I tend to agree with you. I find that modern colouring techniques just make the art on most older material look garish. Modern coloring should be called computer coloring because it seems that current colorists only know how to let the computer do the colors for them. And since they have no idea on how to control what they are coloring the answer is always to just adjust the colors buy "darkening" the entire page rather than choosing to learn how to utilize the colors best and toning them down within each panel or character. Computer colors shine/print brightly and i do like how they sharpen up a comic book and brighten it up when read electronically on an e-reader or Kindle or phone. But when seen in printed forms i agree that usually the colors come out to garish and overpower the artwork. If there can be so many variations of colors within the spectrum available now why is it the colorists only continue utilizing the basics? Classic comic books had no choice but to use the colors available for printing at the time and you would think with current technology coloring and lettering should be advancing rather than following/continuing old ways. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2016 20:34:31 GMT -5
 "The Mercenary & the Madman" The first 3 pages are a nice recap of Cap's history. Cap is standing on a rooftop at sunset looking at NYC. He thinks about his life in WWII & being frozen in ice & revived by the Sub-Mariner & found by the Avengers. Fighting the Red Skull again & teaming up with Falcon. He also thinks about Sharon Carter...his one true love in his new life in this time. Then he returns home. Meanwhile at Ryker's Island Mr Hyde is broken out by Batroc. Hyde lied that he would give anyone that broke him out of jail $5 million. Batroc is furious but Hyde subdues him. Back at Cap's apt he is working on his ads & Bernie comes in to make him breakfast. While he goes to the bathroom she is startled at his taste in music - big band. The same stuff her father likes. She sees a picture of Steve with Sharon & Steve tells Bernie Sharon was special but she died recently (I don't remember when this happened). Meanwhile Hyde & Batroc capture a Roxxon Tanker & threaten to blow it up in New York Harbor. They demand one billion in ransom & Capt America as a hostage. Cap agrees & releases a knock out gas as Batroc gets near him. Batroc & Cap fight. Hyde intervenes & knocks Cap unconscious. Cap comes to & finds himself chained to the front of the tanker as Hyde plans to ram it into the docks & explode it.... Also Kurt Busiek has a letter printed in the letter column praising #247. |
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