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Post by berkley on Oct 17, 2017 19:10:20 GMT -5
Most marriage ending storylines I feel fit this bill of terrible stories and decisions for the characters. One More Day may be the most reviled, but it was only the latest of a terrible trend of the big 2 doing everything they can to ensure no one ever stays married. Johnny Storm marries Alicia Masters - turn her into a skrull. Vision and the Scarlett Witch are the insanely popular unlikely love story? We can't have that. On that subject, I feel that the return of Jean Grey was terrible for both her character and for Cyclops and Madelyne Prior as well. It of course ended Cyke's marriage and turned him into a walkout deadbeat dad, made Marvel turn Maddie into a villain just to salvage something from Cyclops' character, and needlessly retconned what was considered the greatest X-Men story. Such a bad creative decision, and set the standard for future terrible returns of dead characters. DC editorial had a strange obsession with turning Tim Drake into a mini-Bruce Wayne and making him yet another bat-orphan. When Chuck Dixon was still writing he fended off the ravenous wolves, but when he was gone they finally got their wish, killing off most of Tim's supporting cast, making him darker, more like Batman and Nightwing, and just less interesting overall. Tim's character has never fully recovered from that mistake. Let's also not forget how Marvel destroyed the entire character and legacy of Hank Pym with one slap, ending his marriage and turning him from "founding member of the Avengers Hank Pym" into "wife-beater Hank Pym" for all time. What is sad is that Jim Shooter (who wrote the story in question) has said that the slap was not supposed to be intentional (it was supposed to have been an accident, as Hank was flailing his arms in frustration and Janet came too close to him), but that the artist, Bob Hall, misinterpreted the script and drew it as though Hank was hauling off on his wife. Sounds a bit doubtful to me, given Shooter's rep for tight control over the artwork. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Oct 17, 2017 20:34:49 GMT -5
Let's also not forget how Marvel destroyed the entire character and legacy of Hank Pym with one slap, ending his marriage and turning him from "founding member of the Avengers Hank Pym" into "wife-beater Hank Pym" for all time. What is sad is that Jim Shooter (who wrote the story in question) has said that the slap was not supposed to be intentional (it was supposed to have been an accident, as Hank was flailing his arms in frustration and Janet came too close to him), but that the artist, Bob Hall, misinterpreted the script and drew it as though Hank was hauling off on his wife. Sounds a bit doubtful to me, given Shooter's rep for tight control over the artwork. Sounds like a bit of after-the-fact ass-covering to me. I don't believe for a second Shooter couldn't have had the panel redrawn (remember, it was still in the pencil stage when he was scripting it) or had inker Dan Green correct it if there was a problem with it. If Stan Lee wasn't hesitant about having Kirby redraw things he didn't feel worked... Cei-U! I summon the skepticism! |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Oct 19, 2017 12:38:33 GMT -5
Listening to The Epic Marvel Podcast, I learned that Shooter made Bob Layton and Jackson Guice re-write and re-draw X-Factor #1 (a double-sized issue no less) from scratch in two-weeks...during a hurricane.
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Post by Cei-U! on Oct 19, 2017 13:08:39 GMT -5
Good god, what kind of suckage was it *before* the revamp???
Cei-U!
So not a fan!
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Oct 19, 2017 13:11:10 GMT -5
The whole history of comics and especially the X-Men would have been better if shooter just canned the X-Factor idea from the start.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 19, 2017 13:56:04 GMT -5
The whole history of comics and especially the X-Men would have been better if shooter just canned the X-Factor idea from the start. Some might think that's an exaggeration, but I think you're 100% correct. Superhero comics, at least, were dealt a major blow with that very short-sighted editorial decision. Sales may have gone up for a few years, but the seeds of total irrelevance had been planted and would only keep growing. You can't tell stories about pyjama-clad crime fighters who solve problems by punching people if you sacrifice the reader's willing suspension of disbelief. You don't have Victoria Principal wake up from a season-long dream, you don't have Peter Parker make a deal with the devil, and you don't bring back Jean Grey. |
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Oct 19, 2017 14:05:20 GMT -5
The whole history of comics and especially the X-Men would have been better if shooter just canned the X-Factor idea from the start. Some might think that's an exaggeration, but I think you're 100% correct. Superhero comics, at least, were dealt a major blow with that very short-sighted editorial decision. Sales may have gone up for a few years, but the seeds of total irrelevance had been planted and would only keep growing. You can't tell stories about pyjama-clad crime fighters who solve problems by punching people if you sacrifice the reader's willing suspension of disbelief. You don't have Victoria Principal wake up from a season-long dream, you don't have Peter Parker make a deal with the devil, and you don't bring back Jean Grey. I groaned aloud when I read that they were bringing Jean back again this winter. Sure comics are already in a bad state (at least on the Marvel side) so there's not much left to ruin, but why repeat what was a terrible mistake 30 years ago? Jean fans are right to point out that the joke about her always dying and coming back is unfair because other characters have died and come back as much, if not more, but the reason she became a joke is because she was the first, and because it was handled so poorly as to ruin an classic story and several characters. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 19, 2017 14:51:53 GMT -5
Some might think that's an exaggeration, but I think you're 100% correct. Superhero comics, at least, were dealt a major blow with that very short-sighted editorial decision. Sales may have gone up for a few years, but the seeds of total irrelevance had been planted and would only keep growing. You can't tell stories about pyjama-clad crime fighters who solve problems by punching people if you sacrifice the reader's willing suspension of disbelief. You don't have Victoria Principal wake up from a season-long dream, you don't have Peter Parker make a deal with the devil, and you don't bring back Jean Grey. I groaned aloud when I read that they were bringing Jean back again this winter. Sure comics are already in a bad state (at least on the Marvel side) so there's not much left to ruin, but why repeat what was a terrible mistake 30 years ago? Jean fans are right to point out that the joke about her always dying and coming back is unfair because other characters have died and come back as much, if not more, but the reason she became a joke is because she was the first, and because it was handled so poorly as to ruin a classic story and several characters. Cyclops being my favourite Marvel character, I can only agree! |
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Post by Prince Hal on Oct 19, 2017 15:31:21 GMT -5
Some might think that's an exaggeration, but I think you're 100% correct. Superhero comics, at least, were dealt a major blow with that very short-sighted editorial decision. Sales may have gone up for a few years, but the seeds of total irrelevance had been planted and would only keep growing. You can't tell stories about pyjama-clad crime fighters who solve problems by punching people if you sacrifice the reader's willing suspension of disbelief. You don't have Victoria Principal wake up from a season-long dream, you don't have Peter Parker make a deal with the devil, and you don't bring back Jean Grey. I groaned aloud when I read that they were bringing Jean back again this winter. Sure comics are already in a bad state (at least on the Marvel side) so there's not much left to ruin, but why repeat what was a terrible mistake 30 years ago? Jean fans are right to point out that the joke about her always dying and coming back is unfair because other characters have died and come back as much, if not more, but the reason she became a joke is because she was the first, and because it was handled so poorly as to ruin an classic story and several characters. It's too bad Marvel doesn't just restart the whole concept of the X-Men on a slightly different Earth in another dimension or something, so that they can bring back all the great characters they want and tweak them if they want, without screwing up continuity or spoiling the stories that have already been told. But no, that would be so-o-o-o-o confusing. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2017 15:44:42 GMT -5
I groaned aloud when I read that they were bringing Jean back again this winter. Sure comics are already in a bad state (at least on the Marvel side) so there's not much left to ruin, but why repeat what was a terrible mistake 30 years ago? Jean fans are right to point out that the joke about her always dying and coming back is unfair because other characters have died and come back as much, if not more, but the reason she became a joke is because she was the first, and because it was handled so poorly as to ruin an classic story and several characters. It's too bad Marvel doesn't just restart the whole concept of the X-Men on a slightly different Earth in another dimension or something, so that they can bring back all the great characters they want and tweak them if they want, without screwing up continuity or spoiling the stories that have already been told. But no, that would be so-o-o-o-o confusing. they pretty much did that with the Ultimate Universe starting in 2000, and for a while those books sold as well as if not better than their main universe counterparts, but once the shiny new luster wore off, sales dipped and only Ultimate Spidey seemed to keep its audience, and eventually they were folded back into the main Marvel U in some event or other to prop sales up for both lines. They could do it again, but why bother-the audience for monthly super-hero books is only 50-100K hardcore readers/buyers so why not just keep pumping out the same old stuff they always buy, because no one else wants to buy it in that format with at that price with the constraints placed on books to keep hardcore fans happy. So why not just keep recycling the same things over and over the keep that niche market wallets open, since they customers have proven time and again they will buy it no matter how much complaining about it appears online and sales always go up when they do something like this, even temporarily, and that's all you can shoot for now because there is no window for long term growth with the current status quo. All you can hope to do is shift the dollars in the market from one book to another so why not retry a stunt that did it before while you wait for another publisher to retry something to shift it back again, and then play your next card. That's pretty much all the direct market for big 2 super-heroes in monthly floppy format is now anyways, and all it has been for a while, it's scale just keeps shrinking because of normal attrition without any feeder program to bring in new readers to replace those who leave. You get what you pay for and al long as people keep paying for this despite their complaining about it, it's what they'll get. -M |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 19, 2017 16:14:53 GMT -5
I groaned aloud when I read that they were bringing Jean back again this winter. Sure comics are already in a bad state (at least on the Marvel side) so there's not much left to ruin, but why repeat what was a terrible mistake 30 years ago? Jean fans are right to point out that the joke about her always dying and coming back is unfair because other characters have died and come back as much, if not more, but the reason she became a joke is because she was the first, and because it was handled so poorly as to ruin an classic story and several characters. It's too bad Marvel doesn't just restart the whole concept of the X-Men on a slightly different Earth in another dimension or something, so that they can bring back all the great characters they want and tweak them if they want, without screwing up continuity or spoiling the stories that have already been told. But no, that would be so-o-o-o-o confusing. That’s what I hoped they would do with their post Secret Wars world... almost continue with business as usual, but retroactively make all the nonsensical plot twists of the past decades disappear. It was such a golden opportunity! |
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Post by Prince Hal on Oct 19, 2017 16:30:01 GMT -5
It's too bad Marvel doesn't just restart the whole concept of the X-Men on a slightly different Earth in another dimension or something, so that they can bring back all the great characters they want and tweak them if they want, without screwing up continuity or spoiling the stories that have already been told. But no, that would be so-o-o-o-o confusing. they pretty much did that with the Ultimate Universe starting in 2000, and for a while those books sold as well as if not better than their main universe counterparts, but once the shiny new luster wore off, sales dipped and only Ultimate Spidey seemed to keep its audience, and eventually they were folded back into the main Marvel U in some event or other to prop sales up for both lines. They could do it again, but why bother-the audience for monthly super-hero books is only 50-100K hardcore readers/buyers so why not just keep pumping out the same old stuff they always buy, because no one else wants to buy it in that format with at that price with the constraints placed on books to keep hardcore fans happy. So why not just keep recycling the same things over and over the keep that niche market wallets open, since they customers have proven time and again they will buy it no matter how much complaining about it appears online and sales always go up when they do something like this, even temporarily, and that's all you can shoot for now because there is no window for long term growth with the current status quo. All you can hope to do is shift the dollars in the market from one book to another so why not retry a stunt that did it before while you wait for another publisher to retry something to shift it back again, and then play your next card. That's pretty much all the direct market for big 2 super-heroes in monthly floppy format is now anyways, and all it has been for a while, it's scale just keeps shrinking because of normal attrition without any feeder program to bring in new readers to replace those who leave. You get what you pay for and al long as people keep paying for this despite their complaining about it, it's what they'll get. -M Wow! I knew comics had changed since I stopped reading the Big 2 (Actually I felt as if they had left me), but what you write here reaffirms the rightness of my decision. |
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2017 21:11:59 GMT -5
A few other pet dislikes:
Making Shang Chi third-rate superhero instead of the martial arts/espionage character he'd been earlier.
Making Dr. Strange a typically wise-cracking action guy, like Spider-Man.
Killing off Rachel Van Helsing somewhere or other for no particular reason. Yes, she can always be brought back by any writer who feels so inclined, but still a bad idea for the character.
Jane Foster as Thor: I know it gets on a lot of people's nerves when this is criticised as they see it as a welcome improvement in more equal gender-representation and so on, but I think it's the wrong way to go about it and is really counter-productive.
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Post by Cei-U! on Oct 20, 2017 8:41:03 GMT -5
Making Dr. Strange a typically wise-cracking action guy, like Spider-Man. Not unlike what they did to Dr. Fate back in the '40s after the DC Editorial Advisory Board put the kibosh on the strip's Lovecraftian ambience, stripping Fate of most of his powers and turning him into just another bush league Superman. Cei-U! I summon the travesty! |
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Post by Icctrombone on Oct 20, 2017 8:43:44 GMT -5
Making Dr. Strange a typically wise-cracking action guy, like Spider-Man. Not unlike what they did to Dr. Fate back in the '40s after the DC Editorial Advisory Board put the kibosh on the strip's Lovecraftian ambience, stripping Fate of most of his powers and turning him into just another bush league Superman. Cei-U! I summon the travesty! But it's cool that the magic trappings were restored. |
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