|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Jun 28, 2017 19:58:13 GMT -5
Marvel ticked off a lot of booksellers because they wouldn't keep their trades in print. By the time demand had grown, they had long ago cut off supply. DC was always far better about keeping trades in print for prolonged periods of time. Marvel left a lot of money on the table by focusing only on release sales. The spent far too much time catering to the Direct Market, at the expense of a wider and more lucrative audience. DC nurtured that a lot and it worked for them. Of course, now, after Borders bankruptcy and B&N reducing the number of titles they keep on the shelves, bookstore sales windows have become more like the Direct Market. The average lifespan of a book was always about 6 weeks; but, comic trades were different, as new fans would discover the material and pick it up.
|
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Jun 29, 2017 0:00:15 GMT -5
Sersi kind of travels back and forth between ally and bitch, which is part of what makes her interesting. In pro wrestling terms she's a "tweener," someone who falls on both side of the hero/villain dichotomy. That's a dramatic goldmine. Trouble is, too many writers in comics aren't geared towards shades of grey. Part of Hawkeye's charm in the Avengers was that he could be a bit of a Richard, sometimes justifiably, when a starched shirt like Cap got a bit pompous (and he could). I don't think gaiman got The Eternals at all and was massively disappointed by that. When it comes to the Eternals (and 70s Kirby), you have to think opera. Roy Thomas did a pretty decent job of it, when he took up the Eternals storyline, in Thor. It wasn't quite Kirby; but he got more of it than most. Actually, I kind of feel like Roy was one of the few comic writers who could do operatic epic well. yeah, I think most comics writers aren't really comfortable writing the kind of epic, mythic stories Kirby was dong in the Eternals. This kind of story has different concerns and makes different demands on the writer (and readers) than the usual superhero story and most of them just aren't in tune with what they're all bout. For example, they see the larger than life, archetypal figures that populate them as crudely drawn and lacking in the subtlety that is expected in the psychologically realistic human relationship dramas they equate with good writing. But that's a different kind of writing, and not what Kirby was interested in. So when they come to these characters they try to humanise them, make them more like the characters they're used to dealing with. But to accomplish that, all too often they end up introducing extraneous elements that were never part of the character in question. So Gaiman has to make Ajak jealous of his role as the Eternal's designated communicator with the Celestials, or he gives Thena a husband and children, because otherwise she seems too distant and unrelatable. Or, as String describes: I've always found Sersi interesting because she walks that fine line between heroism and self-absorbed desires/needs. I'm not sure about Bryne's handling of her on Avengers but I did like Harras' use of her during his time. The love triangle he worked to establish between her, Dane Whitman, and Crystal was quite good. You may not agree with Harras' motivations that forced the issue somewhat (something about her powers were growing unchecked, making her more violent or something. She forged a mental bond with Dane to help stabilize her, it's been awhile since I read the issues). But I did like how the growing danger forced her emotional hand, can she declare any form of true love for another? Can such love be reciprocated? It was some good drama that I think has held up well over the years. Your mileage may vary though. another writer has to make Sersi uncertain of herself and jealous over some guy, just as Gaiman has to make her impressed, like some middle-class human girl, by Tony Stark's wealth and power in the human world. The problem is, none of these things make sense for the characters involved and actually undermine their defining characteristics, the things that make them what they are. Thena isn't married because she has other concerns - one might even say higher concerns. Is that so hard to get your head around? Apparently it is, for some writers. And Sersi's entire persona is that she's out for a good time and is therefore extremely casual about her love affairs. And of course, the idea that any Eternal, let alone the blasé Sersi, would be impressed by some human billionaire's money and social status is completely nonsensical - none of that would mean anything to them whatsoever, unless it might be to convince them all the more of how benighted humans and their messed world are. But writers want the soap opera, so there you go. |
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Jul 2, 2017 21:39:20 GMT -5
Eternals #4  Sersi looks like she is yelling at the demons to go play somewhere else. Something tells me that was a familiar scene to young Jacob Kurtzberg. The Deviants are attacking New York, with Kro looking like the Devil and the rest looking like demons (not Etrigan, though).  Ikaris blasts a couple of Deviants and then gets hit with a "barin mine," and falls unconscious (as we are reminded that they can't kill an Eternal). The Deviants grab him and carry him off to their ship. The rest continue attacking New York, while Kro looks like Hellboy's long lost uncle. The citizens run around in panic as fireballs hit the city and boogiemen jump out at them. Sersi and Margo watch events on tv and we see a reporter tell citizens that there is no cause for alarm and to remain calm, as the city burns in the background. You can tell how old this is, since it isn't a calm scene, with a fevered reproter telling people that, "...while officials say there is no call for alarm, there is every chance that this is armageddon!" Ah, the days before info-tainment! Sersi relates dealing with Ulysses and his boorish Greek sailors and ho she turned them into real boars, and how she played slight of hand tricks to wow Merlin, in King Arthur's court. Apparently, Sersi played the Palace! BA-DUMP-BUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you, thank you; enjoy the show and try the veal! Sersi is enjoying herself until mutates appear outside her window and she blasts the Peeping Tom (or Grog, or Kragg, or whatever his name is...)  Three more come barging in and threaten Sersi with flame guns. They blast at her, but she diverts it,  and then turns them into lizards. She then tells Margo she hates to do it, but she needs to call help. With a bit of high-tech "Mirror, mirror, on the wall;" she calls Olympia, home of the Eternals. Meanwhile, Ikaris is sealed up in a capsule and shot out of the Deviant ship, like a torpedo, to lie for ages, asleep, on the bottom of the Atlantic. Somehow, Ajak can see al this but decides to let Ikaris learn a lesson. he has the power to help, but waits. Dr Damian has been translating Incan wiritings (with a lot of help from Ahak and soon realizes that Ajak is worried about the Deviants and the Celestial host. He also worries about how the humans will react to the sight of a Celestial, as he gazes out at Arishem. next, we are promised Olympia. Nice bit of drama going on and some more fun with Sersi's past. Her take on the Odyssey is a bit different than Homer's ("You'd think they'd never seen a spoon or a fork...") and she impresses Merlin by pulling a rabbit (well, weird creature, actually) out of a cannister. Kirby is really having fun with her and she is pretty badass, as she dispatches the Deviants. We will soon see what her reputation is with them. Kirby is still really cooking here, hitting us with epic action and some pretty fun characters, minus Margo the drip and Ikaris the clod. He isn't the brightest bulb in the Eternal assortment. We get to meet some of the others, next issue, including the Big Cheese. |
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Jul 2, 2017 23:49:43 GMT -5
I think with Ikaris Kirby was deliberately subverting the whole idea of the alpha-male hero that continues to be standard in superhero comics today. Ikaris acts pretty much like Superman or whoever would act - and he f*cks it all up, biting off more than he can chew just like his mythical namesake.
Contrast that with his portrayal of Sersi (who BTW looks nothing like Beautiful Dreamer to me) and especially of Thena in the next few issues and the distance between the Eternals and the usual superhero comic is even more striking.
BTW, I don't think Kirby's take on Sersi is as much at odds with Homer's as one might think: people tend to forget that Circe (actually Kirkê in the original Homeric Greek), after her initial hostility, becomes a staunch and trustworthy ally of Odysseus - under compulsion at first, it's true, but later voluntarily, as far as we can tell. The entire Circe episode is very ambiguous and IMO probably hides another, more coherent story that's been lost.
|
|
|
|
Post by kirby101 on Jul 3, 2017 8:02:22 GMT -5
The art really shows how Kirby is telling stories rather than making pretty pictures. (though the double splashes are still very impressive.
But looking at these pages you can tell exactly what is happening without reading a word of the text.
|
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Jul 4, 2017 19:08:16 GMT -5
Eternals #5  Featuring the debuts of Thena, Makarri and Zuras, King of the Eternals, as well as the city of Olympia. When we left Sersi, she was using a mirror to contact the Eternals, at Olympia...  After exchanging taunts with Makarri, the mutates attack and grab her and Margo. Makarri witnesses this and goes off to tell Zuras, who is engaged in a life size game of Rock 'Em-Sock "Em Robots...   Thena remarks that the Deviants are in more trouble, holding Sersi, but, she itches for battle and Zuras fulfills her wish. meanwhile, Zuras has eyebrows that would make Jeff Corey envious!   Thena and Makarri take one of his speedsters and head for New York. Meanwhile, Sersi and Margo are brought before Kro and Sersi has some fun...  Kro is a poor sport and Margo is threatened. The ladies are whisked away in Kro's ship, while Thena and Makarri open a can of whoop-ass on the mutates. The issue ends with scenes of an Air Force general being shown surveillance photos of the Andes, complete with the dome over the landing site and Arishem. The pucker factor goes up to 10. Lots of action and more fun from Sersi and Thena gets to join in the hijinks, with her crossbow...  Thena is Daddy's Little Girl; but, she is a buttkicker! Makarri is depicted as an immortal teenager, living for speed. He is mocked by Sersi, Zuras and Thena. About the only thing he has going for him is a pretty cool design, from Kirby. Thena gets a bust that could knock down walls and an armored headpiece. She isn't quite the pin-up model that Sersi is; but, she packs some oomph. If only Kirby had gotten to do Wonder Woman! Would have been a heck of a lot better read than Kanigher, that's for sure. Lot more lively art than she got in the 70s, too. The series keeps going from strength to strength. Next issue, the Marvel Universe intrudes. |
|
|
|
Post by tarkintino on Jul 4, 2017 22:50:30 GMT -5
EGO? Are you truly going to consider that in discussing Kirby's version of 2001? It is more likely to think that Kirby was inspired by the movie and wanted to explore further what he had taken home from the movie that interested him and fired his imagination. "Explore further" was not what was intended for the film adaptation from Marvel, and more importantly, MGM. If the deal allows "further adventures" beyond the film (e.g, Star Wars or Planet of the Apes), a creative team can take the property in another direction (within limits). Kirby--though he was using certain film plot points (as seen in my film/comic image comparisons), forced everything through his unnecessary artistic/scripted spacey-babble bearing no resemblance to the film message. It works when you have the right talent(s) adapting it who understand the task of making the moving image and its dramatic advantages to illustration. In the Planet of the Apes thread, I reviewed Gold Key's 1970 adaptation of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and despite certain plot points left out, it was a faithful adaptation in script & artistic interpretation. Additionally, in this thread, I posted a sample of how effective Williamson's The Empire Strikes Back was compared to how the same scene was shot in the film. Few ever complained that this version of The Empire Strikes Back missed the mark, or was bad. Just the opposite, proving its possible for the content to work on the page as well as its film source. I would like 2001 movie fans to see a comic adaptation--provided the comic actually captured the essence and heart of the film. |
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Jul 9, 2017 15:16:42 GMT -5
Eternals #6  I suspect Makarri is playing a bit of Jerry Lee Lewis there... We pick up the story where we left off, with Thena and Makarri blasting the Deviants and mutates...  Thena takes out the backbone of the mutates and the police get the drop on Kro, as Thena moves in and joins them...  Thena is surprised to see that Kro still lives, as Deviants are not as immortal as the Eternals. Kro replies that some of the Deviants are far stronger than others. Surprisingly, he offers a truce and surrenders to Thena, stating he has achieved his purpose, equating the Celestials with "devils" leading the humans to fear and make war on the Celestials, to aid the Deviants in driving them off. Thena demands to see Sersi, who is still being held, with Margo. Margo is still being threatened, though Seris laughs it off and messes with the Deviants..  She also belittles Margo, but all ends well. A Deviant captain dismisses the goons and tells Sersi of the truce. She forces them to retrieve Ikaris from the bottom of the sea. Thena informs them all of the truce and her plan to sway the humans to unite peacefully with the Eternals to deal with the Celestials reasonably. To do this, they need to introduce the different species to humans, via academic sources. Margo suggests a friend of her father. They travel to him and are presented, along with Kro (representing the deviant strain), to an audience. The Eternals demonstrate their powers to the incredulous humans.  While this goes on, a team of agents nears the Incan city and sees a celestial, close up! So, the initial battles between Deviant and Eternal come to an end and we get a taste of Kro and Thena's past. That will turn into an interesting element of the series. Sersi shows that she can be a real bitch, to friend and foe alike, which is part of her charm. Finally, the Marvel Universe invades the series, via a gag as Sersi turns an audience member into Ben Grimm and then via the reference to SHIELD, in conjunction with the agents. It seems like it was a last minute addition, as the ben Grimm stuff never says that Grimm is more than a comic book character in this world and the SHIELD reference is in one panel, at the very end. Roy and other editors wanted the Eternals to interact with the rest of Marvel and play with the characters themselves. This was an appeasement, though not quite what they wanted. Kirby wanted this to be its own saga and pretty much sticks to his guns. Unfortunately, the mass audience wasn't coming along for the ride. Their loss, in my opinion, as this series was blowing away a lot of its contemporaries; certainly conceptually and from a character standpoint. Again, Kirby suffered for being ahead of the curve. Like david bowie with music, Kirby was always 5 steps ahead of everyone else in the game. Bowie had better lick at getting the audience to come along, as Kirby tended to work in a broader sense. Even the young turks who were drinking from Kirby's cup fared no better, as Thanos and his ilk never proved popular enough to really carry things, in Captain Marvel. Stalin's work was cult, at best, though it was younger cult. he just spoke with a younger voice. Roy probably appreciated Kirby more than most; but, even he watered it down. |
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Jul 12, 2017 11:02:46 GMT -5
Eternals #7  It's alive, I tells ya!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Time for the Fourth Host, because the priest dropped the other three............. BA-DUMP-BUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (by the way, did you see the pope said no to a gluten-free host? My question is, what do vegans do at communion?) Anyway........   Dr Damian is shooting photos of the Celestials at work, gathering samples. We are introduced to some of them. There is Gammenon, the Gatherer; Jemiah, the Analyzer, and Fred, from Accounting. Off in the corner is the guy from IT, who none of the Celestials hang out with. Gammenon is scooping up stuff with a cosmic butterfly net and Ajak tells Damian that they are "life seeds", pods with living specimens. Gamenon offers one to the pair and Ajak is able to "open" it, releasing the 3 SHIELD agents Tyler, Parks and Stevenson. After a bit of "Who, what, where....." (in their best Daffy Duck voice), Dr Damian fills them in and one of the agents recognizes him and proceeds to pull a gun on him. Why is it that every SHIELD agent in the 70s and 80s was some gun-pulling jack-ass? Damn the CIA of the 60s and 70s for ruining a perfectly good super-spy organization! Anyway, Ajak (and Kirby) fill the agents (and new readers) in on the Celestial backstory and human and Eternal evolution. He tells them about the Third Host (the last time they were on Earth) and how he and a red-bearded guy (Quetzlecoatl) refueled the Celestial ships and filled out their flight plans (emptied the chemical tank, washed the windshields, polished the chrome...). Stevenson nods a lot then decides to use his "ace card" and runs spastically at the Celestials and hurls a nuclear device, which fits in the palm of his hand. Tefral, the Surveyor catches it and hands it to Serak, the Preparer............wait, that's the Simpsons...............he catches it and it explodes (damn neighbor kids and their fireworks!). His hand is smoking but intact and he calls a huddle. Next thing we know, the mothership sends down info on a lightning chain, there's a massive flash of blinding light and they are gone, leaving only Arishem, the Judge and the verdict doesn't look favorable...  The other Celestials have been scattered across the globe, so you know the defecation is about to hit the oscillator! More epic Kirby, as we get a lot of scenes of giant guys collecting specimens, like massive space nerds. Might explain why we see no Celestial women. Typical government type screws the pooch for the rest of the planet, without asking anyone if they would mind. There is a strong sense of impending doom, by the end. Next time, we meet two more favorites, as the Reject and Karkas join our story.   |
|
|
|
Post by Rob Allen on Jul 12, 2017 11:56:27 GMT -5
(by the way, did you see the pope said no to a gluten-free host? My question is, what do vegans do at communion?) Vegans have no problem with gluten; it's a plant protein. It's Celiacs who have been effectively excommunicated. |
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Jul 12, 2017 12:09:26 GMT -5
(by the way, did you see the pope said no to a gluten-free host? My question is, what do vegans do at communion?) Vegans have no problem with gluten; it's a plant protein. It's Celiacs who have been effectively excommunicated. No I mean as in the concept of the host as the "body of Christ" and the wine as "the blood of Christ." That was not in direct relation to the gluten-free part; just a humorous musing about vegan and the metaphorical nature of communion. I always found it amusing that my family church, growing up, used Welch's Grape Juice for communion. I suppose it was a step up from Hi-C. |
|
|
|
Post by Rob Allen on Jul 12, 2017 13:32:51 GMT -5
Vegans have no problem with gluten; it's a plant protein. It's Celiacs who have been effectively excommunicated. No I mean as in the concept of the host as the "body of Christ" and the wine as "the blood of Christ." That was not in direct relation to the gluten-free part; just a humorous musing about vegan and the metaphorical nature of communion. I always found it amusing that my family church, growing up, used Welch's Grape Juice for communion. I suppose it was a step up from Hi-C. Yeah, I guess vegans do have a quandary there, as do people who prefer to avoid cannibalism. |
|
|
|
Post by dbutler69 on Jul 12, 2017 14:55:34 GMT -5
Regarding #7, yes I was also thinking when I read this that the SHIELD agents acted like complete jerks.
Yay, Karkas! He's my favorite, and I like the team-up of him and Reject. Also, Sersi is my favorite Eternal, and Thena is pretty cool, too.
|
|
|
|
Post by brutalis on Jul 12, 2017 16:28:08 GMT -5
Oh yeah things really begin amping up now with the Celestial's returning. Lots more characters coming out to meet and greet the 3rd Host so Kirby gets to show off his cosmic designing skills. Did the King somehow tap mentally into another alien consciousness somewhere out there in the vastness of space? This would explain his inventive and stylized artwork and many of the thoughts he touched upon over the length of his career  |
|
|
|
Post by tarkintino on Jul 12, 2017 19:37:02 GMT -5
..except on 2001: A Space Odyssey...   |
|
