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Post by tingramretro on Sept 28, 2016 3:10:14 GMT -5
I really enjoyed both (and to echo what crazyoldhermit said above, I certainly saw KC as a triumph of hope over despair rather than just another parade of violence and misery for its own sake) but of the two, I think I actually enjoyed Marvels more, probably because the Silver Age Marvel characters really strike a chord with me which most of DC's don't. I think that image of a huge Giant Man striding across the city seen from the perspective of people on the ground is probably the greatest visual depiction of the character, ever. I think Marvels is also hugely aided by the realistic approach the Bullpen injected into those characters. The early Marvel universe occupies a real place, progresses in real time and is very carefully integrated into the culture of New York City. So a book like Marvels is really the next logical step and feels very natural because Stan, Jack, Steve and the rest had done the real grunt work decades earlier. Absolutely. I think it also really benefits from the decision to set the scenes at the times they were originally published, something which is carried on in the follow-up series Marvels: Eye of the Camera which takes the story up to the mid 1980s and the death of Phil Sheldon. |
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Post by crazyoldhermit on Sept 28, 2016 3:22:55 GMT -5
I think Marvels is also hugely aided by the realistic approach the Bullpen injected into those characters. The early Marvel universe occupies a real place, progresses in real time and is very carefully integrated into the culture of New York City. So a book like Marvels is really the next logical step and feels very natural because Stan, Jack, Steve and the rest had done the real grunt work decades earlier. Absolutely. I think it also really benefits from the decision to set the scenes at the times they were originally published, something which is carried on in the follow-up series Marvels: Eye of the Camera which takes the story up to the mid 1980s and the death of Phil Sheldon. I love stories that transplant superheroes into real time. Huge factor in why I love Marvels. Is Eye of the Camera any good? |
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Post by tingramretro on Sept 28, 2016 4:02:39 GMT -5
Absolutely. I think it also really benefits from the decision to set the scenes at the times they were originally published, something which is carried on in the follow-up series Marvels: Eye of the Camera which takes the story up to the mid 1980s and the death of Phil Sheldon. I love stories that transplant superheroes into real time. Huge factor in why I love Marvels. Is Eye of the Camera any good? Well, "good" is relative, with fiction. I can only say that I liked it. No Alex Ross, of course, but it works pretty well as a continuation of the story, taking it through the 70s and up to 1986. It takes a more 'personal' slant, I think, focusing heavily on Sheldon's family. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 28, 2016 5:37:20 GMT -5
Apart from its intrinsic qualities as a story, a huge appeal of KC was to figure out who everyone was.
There was a list of annotations on the fledgling internet in those days that explained the origins of pretty much every character we met. Very cool.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 28, 2016 6:00:38 GMT -5
I honestly don't understand the love people have for Kingdom Come. Superman gives up on the human race when the public cheers the new guy on for killing The Joker - a guy who is in his third decade of mass murdering scores, if not hundreds, of people on a monthly basis?
Batman's a douchebag who talks down to Superman? Frank Miller did this 10 years ago and everyone's been following his template since then - why is this laudable?
It's nice that someone's written a thinly veiled attack on the uber violence found in Image Comics by making the new guys in town look like refuges from an Image Comic. By the way, which Green Lantern is that? Hal Jordan or Alan Scott? Oh, it's supposed to be Jordan but you can't come out and say it because in current continuity Hal Jordan is a uber violent mass murdering psychopath himself?
"I'm here to force peace!" THIS is supposed to be Wonder Woman?!
Kingdom Come is just so miserable, hopeless, uninspiring, and I suspect that's supposed to be the point. I just can't figure out why. The KC Green Lantern is actually Alan Scott. He's shown as being left handed; Scott is left handed, Jordan isn't. It's definitely Alan Scott... they say so on the action figure box, if not in the actual comic. |
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 28, 2016 6:35:06 GMT -5
I'm not a big fan of Alex Ross. I liked his art on Marvels and Kingdom Come well enough, but I don't like his designs (at his worst in Earth X).
Writingwise I like Marvels just so much more than Kingdom Come. Kingdom Come is pretty wobbly when you start to analyze the plot. (But I like Busiek a lot more than Waid most of the time, so that's not surprising).
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 28, 2016 6:40:17 GMT -5
My problem with Marvels is that when a bystander has the narration, it takes the magic away from the heroics and makes it seem a little silly. He uses the same writing method in Astro city and it wears thin issue after issue.
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Post by Cei-U! on Sept 28, 2016 7:41:35 GMT -5
As you may recall, I listed Marvels as my top pick for Favorite Limited Run Series a few Classic Comic Christmases ago. I haven't changed my mind since. Love the story, loooove the art. While I certainly enjoyed Kingdom Come (I have the deluxe Graffiti Press slipcase edition signed by Waid and Ross), I don't think the story holds up well. I think the difference between the two titles are their relative accessibility. I've given both books to non-comics fans to read and so far the reaction has been universal: they rave about Marvels and are confused and frustrated by KC.
Cei-U!
I summon my two cents' worth!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2016 8:16:05 GMT -5
I prefer Marvels over Kingdom Come any day of the week; the art in Marvels is far more superior than Kingdom Comes - The Writing kind of shift to Kingdom Come and I like the Bystander did the narration for Marvels and that's gave it a personal touch to the story and that's made Marvels more true a story than Kingdom Comes of which has better writing for the Characters in that iconic book.
I loved them both - but Marvels is a better because of the artwork.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 28, 2016 9:33:52 GMT -5
As you may recall, I listed Marvels as my top pick for Favorite Limited Run Series a few Classic Comic Christmases ago. I haven't changed my mind since. Love the story, loooove the art. While I certainly enjoyed Kingdom Come (I have the deluxe Graffiti Press slipcase edition signed by Waid and Ross), I don't think the story holds up well. I think the difference between the two titles are their relative accessibility. I've given both books to non-comics fans to read and so far the reaction has been universal: they rave about Marvels and are confused and frustrated by KC. Cei-U! I summon my two cents' worth! It is certainly a comic-book for comic-book fans. Both books are being narrated by "normal" people, but while the photographer in Marvels is astonished by all these colourful characters than keep popping out of the woodowork, the pastor in KC knows what superheroes are and what they used to be. A newcomer to comics would probably understand the former's "what the heck is happening" attitude better than the latter's "oh, how did we get to this" one. And I still say that in the "How could the DC heroes turn out in the future" department, KC doesn't hold a candle to Lash House! |
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Post by chadwilliam on Sept 28, 2016 12:13:59 GMT -5
I find Kingdom Come to be the exact opposite of everything you just said. Moore and Miller broke the superhero down into tiny pieces and analyzed them. Subsequent writers took those pieces and used them to write stories without the analysis. Waid and Ross take those pieces and put them back together using those analyses. Superman turns his back on humanity for seeing a murderer as a great hero. It's as if Superman is looking at the then-current trend in comics and passing judgment on it. Superman represents the pre-deconstruction era of superheroes and the fans of that era. The public turns its back on Superman and looks to a new breed of hero, which disgusts Superman. The hero and the reader. There is a great feeling of hope and optimism in the story. Yes it is violent and yes the heroes act like assholes but that is the point. It's a learning experience and they come out of it all the better for it. The heroes start as their cranky, navel-gazing post-Watchmen selves, things reach their absolute lowest point and in the end they all experience some growth. In the beginning of the story Batman is barely a human being emotionally. At the end of the story he has patched things up with Dick and is a true friend to Superman. And it all comes down to the human perspective. It's the little guy who can see the light at the end of the tunnel and inspire Superman to not give up on himself and humanity. How is that miserable, hopeless and uninspiring?
Had the event which triggered Superman's abandonment of humanity been something other than "I'm outraged that the public isn't outraged that the world's most violent, dangerous terrorist has been murdered" then I could understand the reader's (and Superman's) disgust. Instead, Waid chose the most nonsensical justification for Superman's disappearance when he could have selected any number of rational explanations for his petulance. I mean, seeing as how The Joker had just murdered the entire Daily Planet staff during the course of a single afternoon mass killing spree and has presumably been doing these sorts of things regularly for about 30 years now, you have to figure his kill count is literally in the thousands. I'm not saying Superman didn't have good reason to get fed up or feel rejected by humanity, but we weren't given a good reason. I should also mention that I didn't like the "we're taking our ball and going home" attitude any more when the JSA exhibited it in the 1970's/80's so I'm not just picking on Waid here.
"It's as if Superman is looking at the then current trend in comics and passing judgment on it". Perhaps it would have helped if I hadn't read Kingdom Come when it was released. Here's the thing - if DC wanted to depict "the new breed" of heroes as out of control, immature children incapable of handling their own powers, they didn't have to pretend that they needed to look beyond their own line of comics.
Yes. Superman is about to hit a woman with all he's got to prove he's not insane.
OK, these images are from the year prior to Kingdom Come and for all I know things were dialed back when Kingdom Come came out in 1996, but I certainly wasn't going to keep paying money for stuff like this to find out. I never bought Denny O Neil's explanation for having Azrael replace Bruce Wayne as Batman as a way of finding out if fans wanted a darker, more violent Batman since by the time of Knightfall O Neil had already given us a more violent, darker Batman and would crank it up even after Wayne returned. Kingdom Come just seems to want to present their characters as the heroes who have taken the moral high road when in 1996, it was DC who had already rejected the notion of the virtuous, noble hero - not the fans. I can't say that I blame Waid for this mind you, perhaps he had written Kingdom Come years earlier and had to wait for DC's OK or Alex Ross to finish painting for it to be released, but I really can't relate to an allegorical attack on Image from a company that was already stealing from their playbook (and sometimes even writing it).
Of course, Kingdom Come isn't as one-sided as that - Superman, Batman, et al were part of the problem in Waid's story as well and Waid didn't shy away from that. There is "some growth" but "some" isn't enough when the supposed good guys are so far gone to start with. Why is Wonder Woman killing (trying to? I admit I can't recall if she actually kills) in this story? How many people died during Superman's retirement because he wasn't around to save them? I really don't see where there is anything hopeful or uplifting in this story aside from a few crumbs here and there (Bruce Wayne putting his hand on Dick Grayson's shoulder isn't much given what's come before).
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Post by tingramretro on Sept 28, 2016 12:23:45 GMT -5
I find Kingdom Come to be the exact opposite of everything you just said. Moore and Miller broke the superhero down into tiny pieces and analyzed them. Subsequent writers took those pieces and used them to write stories without the analysis. Waid and Ross take those pieces and put them back together using those analyses. Superman turns his back on humanity for seeing a murderer as a great hero. It's as if Superman is looking at the then-current trend in comics and passing judgment on it. Superman represents the pre-deconstruction era of superheroes and the fans of that era. The public turns its back on Superman and looks to a new breed of hero, which disgusts Superman. The hero and the reader. There is a great feeling of hope and optimism in the story. Yes it is violent and yes the heroes act like assholes but that is the point. It's a learning experience and they come out of it all the better for it. The heroes start as their cranky, navel-gazing post-Watchmen selves, things reach their absolute lowest point and in the end they all experience some growth. In the beginning of the story Batman is barely a human being emotionally. At the end of the story he has patched things up with Dick and is a true friend to Superman. And it all comes down to the human perspective. It's the little guy who can see the light at the end of the tunnel and inspire Superman to not give up on himself and humanity. How is that miserable, hopeless and uninspiring?
Had the event which triggered Superman's abandonment of humanity been something other than "I'm outraged that the public isn't outraged that the world's most violent, dangerous terrorist has been murdered" then I could understand the reader's (and Superman's) disgust. Instead, Waid chose the most nonsensical justification for Superman's disappearance when he could have selected any number of rational explanations for his petulance. I mean, seeing as how The Joker had just murdered the entire Daily Planet staff during the course of a single afternoon mass killing spree and has presumably been doing these sorts of things regularly for about 30 years now, you have to figure his kill count is literally in the thousands. I'm not saying Superman didn't have good reason to get fed up or feel rejected by humanity, but we weren't given a good reason. I should also mention that I didn't like the "we're taking our ball and going home" attitude any more when the JSA exhibited it in the 1970's/80's so I'm not just picking on Waid here.
When did the JSA exhibit any such attitude in the 1970s/80s? They remained active from the early sixties right through to 1986 when they were exiled to another dimension! |
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Post by tingramretro on Sept 28, 2016 12:33:20 GMT -5
My problem with Marvels is that when a bystander has the narration, it takes the magic away from the heroics and makes it seem a little silly. He uses the same writing method in Astro city and it wears thin issue after issue. But superheroes, as a concept, are a little silly. And I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the magic". Surely the secret to Marvel's success has always been that despite their powers, as characters, their heroes are basically 'real' people, not paragons. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 28, 2016 12:39:26 GMT -5
My problem with Marvels is that when a bystander has the narration, it takes the magic away from the heroics and makes it seem a little silly. He uses the same writing method in Astro city and it wears thin issue after issue. But superheroes, as a concept, are a little silly. And I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the magic". Surely the secret to Marvel's success has always been that despite their powers, as characters, their heroes are basically 'real' people, not paragons. Superheroes and superhero comics are a LOT silly. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 28, 2016 12:57:17 GMT -5
But superheroes, as a concept, are a little silly. And I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the magic". Surely the secret to Marvel's success has always been that despite their powers, as characters, their heroes are basically 'real' people, not paragons. Superheroes and superhero comics are a LOT silly. A lot of fiction is silly. Allow me to continue to enjoy the silliness of the superhero genre. |
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