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Post by hondobrode on Oct 20, 2017 17:33:58 GMT -5
Rock of ages, the only Grant Morrison JLA story I read. Derivative of so many other comic-book classic stories, and full of nonsensical plot points. Why, oh why would supermegabeings at the end of time require Green Arrow's help to stop some ill-defined pan-multiversal menace? They're out of boxing glove arrows? Arkham Asylum, which I really wanted to love. And it has great, great artwork by Dave McKean! But the script had one good moment, plus an awful lot of nonsensical auto-mutilation, name-dropping, and references that are in no way as obscure as the writer thinks. An exercise in pedantry disguised as psychological drama. The first Master of Kung Fu feature in Marvel Comics Presents, by Doug Moench and Tom Grindberg (I don't know if there were more later on). I was very happy to hear that Moench would come back to a character he had truly defined, and that had allowed him to write some of the very best comics of the '70s and '80s. But that storyline... urgh. All of a sudden, Shang Chi is back to his "Boy out of Honan for the first time" persona; one who has no idea who Bruce Lee is. Then we have cheap melodrama as a major supporting character is physically maimed for good. Then we must deal with a nonsensical plot in which a criminal organization sells guns to itself again and again, making profit after each sale (UH???). Then we have the ridiculously simplistic concept of a grand alliance of all terrorist factions in the world (yeah, like Al Qaida and Hezbollah could work together with Irgun, Neo-Nazis and the Red Army Faction). Plus the story ends with Shang Chi contracting a fatal disease that will kill him within a few months. Talk about a lousy return on investment! I'd rather have had the man stay retired as a fisherman in China. Big yes to Arkham Asylum It was just mad dash paint thrown against the wall (creativity !) with a high-end artist and terribly overpriced HUGE let down |
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Post by chadwilliam on Oct 20, 2017 22:15:37 GMT -5
Rock of ages, the only Grant Morrison JLA story I read. Derivative of so many other comic-book classic stories, and full of nonsensical plot points. Why, oh why would supermegabeings at the end of time require Green Arrow's help to stop some ill-defined pan-multiversal menace? They're out of boxing glove arrows? Arkham Asylum, which I really wanted to love. And it has great, great artwork by Dave McKean! But the script had one good moment, plus an awful lot of nonsensical auto-mutilation, name-dropping, and references that are in no way as obscure as the writer thinks. An exercise in pedantry disguised as psychological drama. "nonsensical auto-mutilation". I remember Batman cutting himself with a piece of glass in this one due to psychological issues. Ugh. I will say this for Arkham Asylum - Morrison was quite good at big set-ups that just sort of petered out rather than ended. Rock of Ages I believe was guilty of that, for instance, which had Darkseid taking down every major hero only to be stopped by Green Arrow and The Atom. Arkham Asylum however, is that rare thing where Morrison provides a nice little masterstroke to a Gordion Knot briefly introduced at the start of his tale - Harvey Dent has been weened off his coin and is now reduced to a state where he can't even use the bathroom without consulting the I-Ching. Batman gets out of his own predicament by effectively restoring Dent to "normal". I liked that much at least. |
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Post by MDG on Oct 21, 2017 8:31:36 GMT -5
Arkham Asylum, which I really wanted to love. And it has great, great artwork by Dave McKean! But the script had one good moment, plus an awful lot of nonsensical auto-mutilation, name-dropping, and references that are in no way as obscure as the writer thinks. An exercise in pedantry disguised as psychological drama. "Great artwork" as long as you're not counting on it to tell a story. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Oct 21, 2017 19:01:19 GMT -5
I really believe that both McKean and Morrison had a really good comic in their head when they worked on Arkham Asylum - I just don't get the sense that they ever explained to the other what that comic was.
Rock of Ages, though, I loved.
Morrison's the best writer in superhero comics (ever!) at finding aspects of characters that make perfect sense in character terms but nobody else has ever noticed...
Here we had Batman using Bruce Wayne's corporate board-room skills to fend off a "hostile take-over" from Luthor. Such a good idea - I also quite liked Batman-as-franchise operation from his latter Batman stuff.
Also: The KirbytechGods chose Green Arrow because (A) Green Arrow is pretty awesome, (B) he was a Justice League memeber and the League has a whole has a great track record for dealing with multi-dimensional crises and (C) it worked, didn't it?
I blame those stupid Marvel handbooks for this attitude. "MultiDimensional KirbyGod has a Ethereal Persistence Stat of 12.61, while Green Arrow is only a class B-7 non-Meta!" therefore, he has a coefficient of effectiveness only .0035 of the required skill set to subdue an Anti-Life 16 class Darkseid. THESE WRITERS HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING! CAN'T THEY EVEN DO CALCULUS?!?!"
I swear, comics have been less fun since MarvelnDC decided they had to catalog everything.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Oct 21, 2017 19:13:22 GMT -5
Just read Pedrosa's "Equinoxes" after loving "3 Shadows" more than life itself..
I'm not even sure what happened. 4 semi-interconnected stories with vague characters kind of wandering around being boring.. Basically ruined my whole day.
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Post by Warmonger on Oct 21, 2017 19:25:36 GMT -5
In recent memory, Scott Snyder's Batman.
Heard great things about it from a ton of people, and it turned out to be some of the most convoluted crap I've ever read.
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Post by badwolf on Oct 21, 2017 20:01:03 GMT -5
I loved "Rock of Ages" as well; it's one of the stories that brought me back to superhero comics after a long hiatus.
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Post by Cheswick on Oct 21, 2017 21:27:20 GMT -5
In recent memory, Scott Snyder's Batman. Heard great things about it from a ton of people, and it turned out to be some of the most convoluted crap I've ever read. That's a great example. I really wanted to like it and actually managed to make it halfway through it. I figured after "Death of the Family", that it couldn't get any worse. Man, was I wrong. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Oct 22, 2017 8:12:05 GMT -5
I swear, comics have been less fun since MarvelnDC decided they had to catalog everything. Oh gods, yes! A thousand times yes! Cei-U! Who quantifies fantasy??!? |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2017 11:18:49 GMT -5
I swear, comics have been less fun since MarvelnDC decided they had to catalog everything. Oh gods, yes! A thousand times yes! Cei-U! Who quantifies fantasy??!?Video gamers. -M |
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Post by Icctrombone on Oct 22, 2017 15:41:36 GMT -5
 This, hugely I was SO hyped for this Byrne loves the Doom Patrol and this was a dream project in my mind I've never been so disappointed. It was about every kind of wrong you can imagine and the scripting was as painful as a Continuity Comic. Only later out of the quarter bins did I purchase them out of morbid curiosity, strictly for continuity Apparently, I've heard this run was disregarded later as being a cartoon on tv ? This was at the point that Byrne lost his powers. He was trying anything to be relevant again, even Work with Claremont in the JLA book. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 22, 2017 15:48:55 GMT -5
I was trying to find this thread earlier and couldn't because I was remembering the text from the OP and not the name. The OP talks about runs that were "highly regarded". I think that's where my disconnect came from. Because a LOT of those mentioned (Byrne's Doom Patrol, Secret Wars II, to name a couple) were never highly regarded.
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Post by hondobrode on Oct 22, 2017 18:28:27 GMT -5
I hate Spawn and really dislike Todd McFarlane for reasons I won't go into here, but I wanted to like Spawn.
I liked the concept when I read about it in CBG years ago, but the execution was horrible IMO.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2017 14:21:44 GMT -5
I hate Spawn and really dislike Todd McFarlane for reasons I won't go into here, but I wanted to like Spawn. I liked the concept when I read about it in CBG years ago, but the execution was horrible IMO. I felt the same way Hondo; and I was so frustrated with Todd McFarlane that he didn't do a good job with the book and it's was terribly executed and I read the first 6 books and dropped it entirety. Loved the Movie and this scene below - The Red Cape Scene! |
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Post by berkley on Oct 23, 2017 19:25:25 GMT -5
Oh gods, yes! A thousand times yes! Cei-U! Who quantifies fantasy??!?Video gamers. -M And IIRC Marvel actually tried to transfer that video game mentality directly into some of its comics a few years ago, with explicit references to "power levels" that were assigned a number, stuff like that. I want to say it was used with some of the characters who wield magic "energy bolts" and the like, but I'm not really sure. I think I just saw it in some previews or an article or something like that. |
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