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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 11, 2019 16:12:49 GMT -5
I ultimately enjoyed the pairing of Dick Grayson and Damien Wayne, but I really could have done without the rest. That's actually a good point. Yes, that wasn't bad. Everything else, duh. Just go onto Wikipedia, take some obscure element of Batman's mythology, bring it back in some bastardized, "ironic" way and YOU can be Grant Morrison (don't forget to pretend to geeky-love and homaging that stuff). Lord Death Man, The Batmen of Many Nations, whatever, has he left anything alone? He didn't bring back these guys, did he?  They may be the only Silver Age characters left that no one has alluded to, resurrected, retconned, or otherwise ruined. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jun 11, 2019 16:16:03 GMT -5
X-Factor.When announced, I was enthusiastic, as I always preferred the original X-Men team to the 1975-forward versions. The title started off well enough, with characters reestablishing their own identity and unique history apart from the All Wolverine All the Time parent title, but if memory serves, the title did not retain its independent feel, ending up like any other X-title of the 1980s/90s. So much potential that was to fade by its second year, eventually driving me away from the title, and never caring to revisit the issues in my collection. This is exactly how I felt about Ultimate X-Men. Still burned from the 90's clone saga, I wasn't reading any Spidey. But at the behest of several people I grabbed the first TPB of Ultimate Spiderman was really surprised. When I took the same advice on Ultimate X-Men, it was just as you described your feelings about X-Factor. Why in God's name I took the same advice on The Ultimates, I'll never know. |
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Post by Duragizer on Jun 11, 2019 16:30:00 GMT -5
 An X-Men title illustrated by Tom Grummett should be a dream come true, especially if it's set outside the dumpster fire that is mainstream X-Men continuity, right? Wrong. The first five issues were more than enough to convince me this was warmed-over hot garbage. |
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Post by badwolf on Jun 11, 2019 16:34:53 GMT -5
And me, apparently. Englehart and Milgrom's WCA was, shall we say, underwhelming.
Cei-U!
But it was still light years better than X-Factor! X-Factor was up there too, but at least it had decent art. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 11, 2019 16:40:42 GMT -5
And me, apparently. Englehart and Milgrom's WCA was, shall we say, underwhelming.
Cei-U!
But it was still light years better than X-Factor! X-Factor was up there too, but at least it had decent art. Once Simonson came on board, sure, but Guice's work was competent but not much more. His earlier work on Micronauts was much better.
Cei-U! I summon the half-full glass!
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 11, 2019 16:43:29 GMT -5
That's actually a good point. Yes, that wasn't bad. Everything else, duh. Just go onto Wikipedia, take some obscure element of Batman's mythology, bring it back in some bastardized, "ironic" way and YOU can be Grant Morrison (don't forget to pretend to geeky-love and homaging that stuff). Lord Death Man, The Batmen of Many Nations, whatever, has he left anything alone? He didn't bring back these guys, did he? They may be the only Silver Age characters left that no one has alluded to, resurrected, retconned, or otherwise ruined. I actually tried plotting a new story for the Bat-Squad many years ago. Couldn't do it.
Cei-U! I summon the bitter failure!
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 11, 2019 17:12:47 GMT -5
He didn't bring back these guys, did he? They may be the only Silver Age characters left that no one has alluded to, resurrected, retconned, or otherwise ruined. I actually tried plotting a new story for the Bat-Squad many years ago. Couldn't do it.
Cei-U! I summon the bitter failure!
Good man! I really don't think the Bat-Squad have come back at all. (OBVIOUSLY I love the Bat-Squad.) Also, how come nobody uses Ruby Ryder? |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 11, 2019 17:35:58 GMT -5
Sovereign Seven is way up there. At the time, I thought, "Hey, Claremont with his own characters!" Well, turns out, like Byrne, he is better at playing in someone else's sandbox than creating his own. Hos Aleins vs Predator and Star Trek works were far better. He was right back writing X-Men after this crashed and burned. Millennium is another. Nice concept, lousy execution, with only the Suicide Squad portion and the Secret Origins issue working, for me. I was happy to see Mark Shaw revived, to reclaim the Manhunter name; but, that was about it. The Manhunter series is another...     The first 4 issues are pure gold. Mark Shaw is back as Manhunter and he is a bounty hunter of super-villains. It was fast paced, it had a sense of humor and a really cool villain. Shaw has to go on the run in Tokyo; it was fantastic. most exciting thing to come along in a while. it wasn't Archie Goodwin; but, Ostrander and Rice were a good team. Then, Ostrander seemed to want to focus more on mark and his family, rather than the adventure stuff. At first I hoped he was just character building; but, it didn't let up. Then, he was interrupted by Invasion. Doug Rice got bored with things and left the book. We got Grant Miehn, who was a decent, though less spectacular artist (and who had followed Chris Warner on Dark Horse's The American). It just kind of dragged. Ostrander brought back Dumas; but, it was too late and Miehn couldn't give life to it (and had a bad redesign, since he couldn't handle Rice's costume design). I had ideas for the series, like having Shaw run into Christine St Clair, who is hunting new sightings of Paul Kirk, have it revealed that this other Manhunter is a clone, when Shaw and his Southern Cross Salvage friends find the Council's old base (in the Australian desert) and a sleeping Paul Kirk (who made it to a stasis chamber and healed from the radiation poisoning at the end of Goodwin's series (and the explosion was shown rising upwards, in that series, away from where Kirk was, so he could have survived). Then, they would defeat the clone and Kirk would take over the series, with Shaw acting as support, along with Christine and Shaw's police dispatcher girlfriend. Ah, well. Ostrander was doing a great job on Suicide Squad; but, it wasn't working here, though wife Kim Yale got to write a few nice stories, on her own, as well as collaborate. It wasn't bad; just not what we saw in the series debut and what we had been promised. At to that just about every revival of the 4th World or the Eternals, by anyone except Kirby (apart from the Englehart/Rogers Mister Miracle and Don Newton's art, on the early Return of the New Gods issues). Dark Knight II is close. I didn't think lightning would strike twice; but, I didn't think it would be that bad. Made me very suspicious of new Miller projects, which saved me from All-Star Batman. Morrison has never wowed me enough to be disappointed. I always found his work uneven, so I was more happy to locate the projects that clicked with me than the ones that didn't. I could usually tell that at a glance and save my money. James Robinson, after Archie Goodwin's death and his personal demons (and Hollywood failure) was a different story. I almost universally loved his work prior to Starman and devoured it and associated stuff. Something happened when Archie died. It was like Robinson lost his father and his way and never quite recovered it. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Jun 11, 2019 17:48:15 GMT -5
X-Factor. After the Avengers and Fantastic Four issues leading up to it I bought the first three issues of this and then bailed. The big yellow Xes on two costumes were worse than if they'd just gone back to the #39/66 ones. Why wouldn't Jean either wear her Marvel Girl outfit or the black number repaired maybe with a small X belt or something? Then again, I probably would have insisted on a logo reminiscent of the old #1-49 X-Men... it's their identity and here they have less than they ever started with. I guess Byrne was on his way out the Marvel door and I was edging out the door altogether in terms of buying any superhero comics. Huge disappointment (though well after the fact) in seeing Professor Xavier & the X-Men #1, retelling of the origin with someone who was once a favorite artist... they should've put Image on the cover, not Marvel.  |
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Post by hondobrode on Jun 11, 2019 19:49:49 GMT -5
This sounds like an Englehart idea, and I normally like his stuff, but I think the biggest thing that killed this was Joe Staton's art.
The older I get the less I like it.
His style is a good fit for Dick Tracy. I'm glad he has that gig.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 11, 2019 20:12:15 GMT -5
I liked Staton's work before Millennium much better. It had a looser vitality that brought a dynamic feel to his stories and an enthusiasm to the stories. The more refined it got, the more it seemed to lose that quality. I also still feel that Bob Layton was his best inker. That said, I still liked his work; just not as much of the writing on the stories he did. It was nice to see him on The Huntress again, even if it wasn't Helena Wayne; but, Paul Levitz wasn't writing it. I also think the more serious tone of a lot of what he was working on went against his strengths. Even the horror stuff he did at Charlton had more of a tongue in cheek quality that worked really well and he still managed to be scary, while being fun.
His work on the First Comics E-Man still had that loose vitality; but, DC seemed to squeeze it out of him, for a time. He's a favorite, though, and I have a captain Marvel (the real one) on my wall, that he sketched for me, in 1991. I would have loved to have seen him on that character.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2019 20:33:52 GMT -5
The Bruce Jones/Bart Sears reboot of Warlord...  I wanted to like this sword and sorcery tale, even though it ignored the Grell series, but it was a hot mess from page one onwards. If you said we're doing a Shazam series with Roy Thomas and Tom Mandrake on the creative team, I would have been all in, until I read the first issue of this...  Peter David and George Perez are two creators who usually do work I like, but together on this Epic series...  produced a series I found near unreadable-boring, exploitative, predictable, and just a chore to get through. Maybe at some point I should revisit these to see if my tastes have changed, but I have so many other things I do like to revisit or new things to get to that I doubt I will ever get to these. -M |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 11, 2019 20:41:38 GMT -5
This sounds like an Englehart idea, and I normally like his stuff, but I think the biggest thing that killed this was Joe Staton's art.
The older I get the less I like it.
His style is a good fit for Dick Tracy. I'm glad he has that gig.
They could have had Neal Adams draw it and Bernie Wrightson ink it and it still would have been dreck. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 11, 2019 20:43:19 GMT -5
The Bruce Jones/Bart Sears reboot of Warlord... I wanted to like this sword and sorcery tale, even though it ignored the Grell series, but it was a hot mess form page one onwards. Totally agree. I was so looking forward to getting some sweet Bart Sears artwork and it was ugly and muddy. What happened , did he break his hand? |
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Post by hondobrode on Jun 11, 2019 22:27:16 GMT -5
I liked Staton's work before Millennium much better. It had a looser vitality that brought a dynamic feel to his stories and an enthusiasm to the stories. The more refined it got, the more it seemed to lose that quality. I also still feel that Bob Layton was his best inker. That said, I still liked his work; just not as much of the writing on the stories he did. It was nice to see him on The Huntress again, even if it wasn't Helena Wayne; but, Paul Levitz wasn't writing it. I also think the more serious tone of a lot of what he was working on went against his strengths. Even the horror stuff he did at Charlton had more of a tongue in cheek quality that worked really well and he still managed to be scary, while being fun. His work on the First Comics E-Man still had that loose vitality; but, DC seemed to squeeze it out of him, for a time. He's a favorite, though, and I have a captain Marvel (the real one) on my wall, that he sketched for me, in 1991. I would have loved to have seen him on that character.
Completely agree with Bob Layton as his best inker. I liked his work on All Star Comics.
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