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Post by wildfire2099 on Oct 18, 2017 22:17:10 GMT -5
Awww, come on.. Ravage is fun  . and also, Stan was 70ish by then... that's past retirement age, you gotta grade on a curve.  |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2017 22:27:30 GMT -5
Awww, come on.. Ravage is fun . and also, Stan was 70ish by then... that's past retirement age, you gotta grade on a curve. It was also the book that broke me of buying every Marvel book. When I started collecting, I wanted to own every Marvel comic, so when I could afford it, I started buying everything Marvel put out, since it was only way to make sure I had it all. I finished reading Ravage #1 and basically said, why am i reading this and buying this. I felt that way about a lot of Marvel's output at the time, but it was the straw that broke me and the Marvel habit. I went into the shop the next day and dropped about 15-20 Marvel titles from my pull list (including all the 2099 line). It was only a little while later I cut most of the rest of Marvel and started really exploring alternate publishers and becoming extremely selective as to what I bought on a regular basis. So in many ways, Ravage was a watershed book in my collecting history, but not in the way that Marvel intended in making the book I think. -M PS and I wouldn't grade on a curve when there are a great many writers who are over 70 and producing work as good if not better then when they were younger, so no excuses for age. |
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2017 2:27:37 GMT -5
I think Reptisaurus does a good job of pointing out Stan Lee's strengths and in the process also points out indirectly why his re-inventions of the DC icons didn't work: he was never an idea man in that sense - you know, coming up with new characters or new story-concepts, that kind of thing. He could have done that DC project when in 1967 and the result probably wouldn't have been much better - because it didn't play to his strengths. He was a characterisation and dialogue guy, and one of the best.
I don't think it's too hard to separate his contribution from that of his artist-collaborators in a general way, though I'd never claim to be able to identify every little detail of who came up with what. There are various things you can look at, like the books he wrote with artists who weren't themselves known for inventing new characters, etc - e.g. Gene Colan, John Buscema, John Romita, etc. You can compare those with some of the stuff he did with Ditko or Kirby and see the difference. Many of the characteristics common to both would I imagine be due to Stan, and are the ones Reptisaurus talked about.
More and more over the last few years, I've started to think that a lot of his humour and stepping outside the story to talk directly to the audience came from the early MAD. I don't mean that in any way to be a negative comment - quite the opposite, I think it was a stroke of brilliance to 1. even think of bringing that to superhero comics in the first place, and 2. to do it so skilfully, maintaining just the right balance between irreverence and very serious melodrama. The humour never made you take the drama less seriously, not an easy thing to pull off.
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Post by Icctrombone on Oct 19, 2017 5:25:38 GMT -5
I never like these discussions that revolve around Stan Lees contributions because he always gets relegated to just the dialogue guy for Kirby and Ditko. I'm no expert on the subject but I have to believe that he was the one that came out with the Spider-man and FF concepts and his collaborators added ideas to make it better. He was the guy in charge of Marvel/Atlas, not the artists.
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Post by Icctrombone on Oct 19, 2017 5:31:07 GMT -5
As for Ravage, It wasn't my cup of tea either but I respect that wildfire2099 enjoyed it in a special way. I think everyone on this forum has a special love for a series that no one else has regard for. I absolutely love the first 18 issues of the 1987 Flash run written by Mike Baron. When ever people talk about that series they list among their favorite writers Mark said and Geoff Johns, but I consider the first 18 to be the definitive set of stories for the character and the most exciting. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Oct 19, 2017 7:00:24 GMT -5
Awww, come on.. Ravage is fun . and also, Stan was 70ish by then... that's past retirement age, you gotta grade on a curve. It was also the book that broke me of buying every Marvel book. When I started collecting, I wanted to own every Marvel comic, so when I could afford it, I started buying everything Marvel put out, since it was only way to make sure I had it all. I finished reading Ravage #1 and basically said, why am i reading this and buying this. I felt that way about a lot of Marvel's output at the time, but it was the straw that broke me and the Marvel habit. I went into the shop the next day and dropped about 15-20 Marvel titles from my pull list (including all the 2099 line). It was only a little while later I cut most of the rest of Marvel and started really exploring alternate publishers and becoming extremely selective as to what I bought on a regular basis. So in many ways, Ravage was a watershed book in my collecting history, but not in the way that Marvel intended in making the book I think. -M PS and I wouldn't grade on a curve when there are a great many writers who are over 70 and producing work as good if not better then when they were younger, so no excuses for age. All of 2099? I can see Ravage, but Spidey 2099 was fantastic up until Editorial sucked and Doom is Ellis' best superhero work, IMO. X-Men was pretty fun too. Ravage was the book that made me love comics. Sure, it's not particularly good, but it IS nuts in a Silver Age sorta way. Reading it triggered something in my brain that really helped me enjoy all the crazy Silver Age stuff later... it somehow helped me to apply context to the stories, which really added to my enjoyment. I'm not sure I'm explaining that well, but suffice to say Ravage will always have a special place in my heart . |
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Post by Icctrombone on Oct 19, 2017 8:06:52 GMT -5
I tried most of the 2099 line and found the only weak book was the punisher one.
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Post by Cei-U! on Oct 19, 2017 8:37:38 GMT -5
Another aspect of Stan's writing I think is often overlooked is his work on the "girls'" comics like Millie the Model and Patsy Walker. I remember reading these as a kid (my sister collected them) and enjoying them but for years I've been assuming that those fond memories were founded more in nostalgia and my own lack of discrimination as a young'n than any real quality. Recently, however, I read the 9-issue run of Linda Carter, Student Nurse from the early '60s and was pleasantly surprised by how good it often was. Not only was Stan's dialogue snappy and often hilarious but his stories often had a serious side, touching on such subjects as the dangers of judging by appearances, the importance of owning up to one's mistakes, and the dignity and nobility of the nursing profession. These lessons were never ham-handed, as they often were during the era of "relevancy," but woven seamlessly into the fabric of the narrative. Nothing world-changing, you understand, but good stuff all the same.
Cei-U!
I summon the eye-opener!
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Post by MDG on Oct 19, 2017 8:39:44 GMT -5
I don't think there's anything wrong or denigrating in saying that Stan was a better editor and marketer than a writer (see: Feldstein, Al). It's also true that most early Marvels that aren't "Stan + Jack" or "Stan + Steve" range from much lower quality to damn near unreadable (my opinion).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2017 11:36:01 GMT -5
I never like these discussions that revolve around Stan Lees contributions because he always gets relegated to just the dialogue guy for Kirby and Ditko. I'm no expert on the subject but I have to believe that he was the one that came out with the Spider-man and FF concepts and his collaborators added ideas to make it better. He was the guy in charge of Marvel/Atlas, not the artists. From Mark Evanier at the Kirby panel at this year's NYCC.. SO there's that. -M |
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Post by Icctrombone on Oct 19, 2017 11:41:44 GMT -5
Evanier has a dog in the fight as he was Kirbys friend. No way to know because of bad memories and the like. I had heard that the plotting for their issues took place in Stans office and that he would act out the plot many times for Kirby. Who really knows ?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2017 11:44:08 GMT -5
It was also the book that broke me of buying every Marvel book. When I started collecting, I wanted to own every Marvel comic, so when I could afford it, I started buying everything Marvel put out, since it was only way to make sure I had it all. I finished reading Ravage #1 and basically said, why am i reading this and buying this. I felt that way about a lot of Marvel's output at the time, but it was the straw that broke me and the Marvel habit. I went into the shop the next day and dropped about 15-20 Marvel titles from my pull list (including all the 2099 line). It was only a little while later I cut most of the rest of Marvel and started really exploring alternate publishers and becoming extremely selective as to what I bought on a regular basis. So in many ways, Ravage was a watershed book in my collecting history, but not in the way that Marvel intended in making the book I think. -M PS and I wouldn't grade on a curve when there are a great many writers who are over 70 and producing work as good if not better then when they were younger, so no excuses for age. All of 2099? I can see Ravage, but Spidey 2099 was fantastic up until Editorial sucked and Doom is Ellis' best superhero work, IMO. X-Men was pretty fun too. Ravage was the book that made me love comics. Sure, it's not particularly good, but it IS nuts in a Silver Age sorta way. Reading it triggered something in my brain that really helped me enjoy all the crazy Silver Age stuff later... it somehow helped me to apply context to the stories, which really added to my enjoyment. I'm not sure I'm explaining that well, but suffice to say Ravage will always have a special place in my heart . I've never been a big fan of Peter David's writing. There have been a few things he's done I've really liked (Future Imperfect, Atlantis Chronicles & Aquaman being among them), but for the most part his stuff is just meh for me and Spider-Man 2099 is no different, just meh and I didn't like the costume or the concept of the entire line either. As for Doom, it started the month after Ravage came out and John Francis Moore, not Ellis was the writer at the launch. I did try a couple issues later when Ellis came on board because I really dig Ellis' stuff, but this one didn't do it for me and I thought it didn't come anywhere close to his best stuff I had read at the time so only bought a couple of issues before dropping it. -M |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Oct 19, 2017 12:15:16 GMT -5
Honestly, at this point, I think Stan is probably a little underrated. I've been toying with a long-form essay on this for years. Stan's probably the best writer in mainstream comics ever at using dialog to define characters. It's not that he's a DEEP writer but he's incredibly efficient at creating rounded characters in just a couple panels. I've posted this before (this week!) but here's Thor and the cab driver.  A well-rounded fleshed-out character, that only appeared once for five panels. And, y'know, he used the tools of postmoderism - his stuff was ABOUT the relationship between the creators, the story, and the audience as much as anything - to sell comics to nine year olds. There's a general sense that comics got more sophisticated in the '70s because they talked about pollution, but I see it as a step down from Stan's ultra-complex - but, paradoxically, quite easy to understand - meta-fiction. And he was a really good humor writer - always at least amusing and sometimes (like most J. Jonah. Jameson scenes) laugh out loud funny. And very rarely does anyone mention any of this, and all these skills have been basically forgotten by mainstream comic writers of the last 30 years. Every superhero comic artist is stull influenced by Kirby. You can't do American factory system superhero comics in 2017 without at least indirectly copying some of Kirby's aesthetic. But nobody these days is copying Stan, and comics are far worse because of it. Great points. I tend to get the sense that Stan used those supporting characters as a sort of Greek Chorus. Even if what the heroes were doing was relatively mundane, this constant commentary and analysis by the supporting characters magnified the events and made the reader care more than they would have otherwise. Stan is still my favorite "funny" comic book writer in terms of superhero comics. The humor seemed to flow effortlessly from the mouths of J.J. Jameson, Spider-Man and the Thing. You never get the sense that Stan was straining to be clever or overly witty, so it almost always comes off natural and good-natured. His best stuff is particularly refreshing after enduring the mediocre hipster snark that pervades a lot of modern comics. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Oct 19, 2017 12:23:04 GMT -5
I never like these discussions that revolve around Stan Lees contributions because he always gets relegated to just the dialogue guy for Kirby and Ditko. I'm no expert on the subject but I have to believe that he was the one that came out with the Spider-man and FF concepts and his collaborators added ideas to make it better. He was the guy in charge of Marvel/Atlas, not the artists. Spider-Man's true origin is anyone's guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if the FF was mostly Jack's creation, if only for the The Challenger's of the Unknown. I do think Stan had some say in things seeing as how the choice was made to re-purpose the original Human Torch for the group. If the creation was solely Kirby's, I think we would have gotten a completely new character in Johnny Storm's place (Maybe he would have been Iceman?) |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Oct 19, 2017 18:25:38 GMT -5
I never like these discussions that revolve around Stan Lees contributions because he always gets relegated to just the dialogue guy for Kirby and Ditko. I'm no expert on the subject but I have to believe that he was the one that came out with the Spider-man and FF concepts and his collaborators added ideas to make it better. He was the guy in charge of Marvel/Atlas, not the artists. It is amazing that Stan came up with the idea of a bunch of jumpsuited adventurers who fight monsters and get shot into space and gain superpowers from space radiation only a couple years after Kirby had the exact same idea. That is quite a coincidence. Boy Howdy. Now Fantastic Four turned into it's own thing that was vastly different from the Challengers - and did it fast. But the earliest couple issues of the Fantastic Four borrow a lot (like, A LOT..) from Kirby's Challengers of the Unknown. The tone is a little darker and, yeah, I agree that there is very little chance Kirby would have brought back the original Human Torch on his own... but the basic idea is really close. I don't actually think Stan was any less creative than any of his contemporaries - He pretty much off-handedly invented our current "continuity" model as a marketing gimmick, and there are fans who ONLY read comics because of that - but in terms of story concepts... Well, we've seen what Kirby did on his own (Challengers of the Unknown, Demon, New Gods, Eternals, Omac, Captain Victory, etc...) and what Stan did on his own (The Destoyer, Ravage 2099, Stripperella, the She-Hulk, the Super Backstreet Boys*....) And if you bring SIMON and Kirby into it you get Romance comics as a genre, Captain America, the (original) Vision, Manhunter (I think?), the Fighting American, Boys Ranch.. Well, it's hard to believe that most of the ideas didn't come from Kirby. Spider-Man was certainly a completed concept before Ditko was brought in as artist, though. (Although Stan said in the '60s that Doctor Strange was "Steve's idea.") On the other hand... I really don't think Stan got enough credit for what he DID do. I am a huge fan of the New Gods (1971.) I have read Kirby's solo-written Yellow Claw stories (1956). The writing in the latter is... charitably... Godawful. So, so, so, so, so, so bad. Roy Thomas very charitably descibes them as sketches of stories rather than actual Someone, sometime, in that 15 year period taught Kirby how to write. And I suspect that Stan Lee was the most likely candidate. And even just on the art front... Kirby, Ditko, Colan, Buscema, Trimpe, Romita, Steranko... They all got much, much, better in the time that they worked with Stan. This can't be coincidence. As an editor and a collaborator Stan must have encouraged and championed individual artistic development in a way that his peers simply didn't. (I have more in the "Stan Lee is under-appreciated" series - and I am REALLY happy for a chance to get all my thoughts all down in one place.) * I quite like Ravage and the Destroyer, Stipperella was fun, and I will defend Stan's "Just Imagine..." work at DC to the death. I'm not saying this was all crap. |
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. and also, Stan was 70ish by then... that's past retirement age, you gotta grade on a curve. 
