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Post by String on Jul 24, 2021 11:34:51 GMT -5
I'm ready to buy the story according to which Bob Hall decided to make the scene more dramatic by having Hank willfully hit Jan, but Jim is the one who chose to run with the art as it was. "It was too late to change it?" Nah. It was apparently not too late for Jean Grey to be killed instead of depowered in X-Men #137, even though the book was already pencilled and the change required much more than one or two panels! Shooter had it in for Hank & Jan since his first run on the book, when out of left field, he had Hank have a nervous breakdown and attack the entire group as Ant-Man. (I always remember that as the period when George Perez finally stopped having obvious drawing errrors in his art.)
In THE DEFENDERS, Steve Gerber did a very nice job bringing Hank out of retirement. Soon after, Steve Englehart made a point of having him & Jan rejoin THE AVENGERS. Then Gerry Conway ran Englehart off the book (and out of the company-- Steve really over-reacted, I feel), but was gone before you could blink, so Shooter picked up 3 of his books.
Right after that "Ant-Man goes insane" story, Chris Claremont did a 2-part MARVEL TEAM-UP to rebut it, in which he showcased Hank & Jan, giving Jan a major upgrade to her powers.
So when Shooter returned much later, and the very first thing he did was F*** over their marriage... I was very annoyed.
My impression was that Roger Stern, who was left with finishing off Shooter's mess, was ordered not to have Hank & Jan reconcile.
Of course, it could have been something else. Years later, I noticed that Stern was responsible for stories in which Stephen Strange & Clea broke up... Peter Parker & MJ decided they "shouldn't" be a couple... and Hank & Jan's marriage disintegreated, "permanently". I began to wonder if Stern just had a thing against happy longtime romances.
Some have said the Hank & Jan problem goes back to Roy Thomas, who wrote them as if they were completely different characters during his long run on THE AVENGERS. He made Hank unstable, and Jan turned into an IDIOT. No matter how flightly and fun-loving she was earlier, she was NEVER an idiot in the original ANT-MAN AND THE WASP series in TALES TO ASTONISH.
Having read those Avengers issues recently for the first time, I actually liked how Thomas handled Hank Pym. He did seem more confident and sure of himself. The incidents with the creation of Ultron and his Yellowjacket identity appeared to be more of isolated incidents under Thomas than anything. Shooter decided to connect the dots and turn those events into something more linear. Yes, Shooter may have turned Hank into a wife-beater but that fit underneath the larger umbrella of Shooter making Pym insane in the membrane earlier which I consider the larger crime. Pym under Thomas' penmanship seemed a far different character, one which I'd rather read more of frankly.
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Post by String on Jul 24, 2021 11:43:53 GMT -5
I made a quick search of the release dates of Avengers # 161 and MTU #59. MTU came out a week after the Avengers book. I have both books but don't remember if there's something stating which story comes first in continuity. Stern wasn't responsible for the break up of Jan and Hank. That happened during the Fall of Yellowjacket storyline. 211- 230. And I agree that Shooter probably outlined that they not reconcile. These characters are all subject to whatever the story requires, Especially the second tier ones. Regarding Claremont & Byrne's MTU 2-parter, my impression was that Claremont may have heard what Shooter was doing, got pissed off about it, and decided he'd show Mr. "BECAUSE I SAID SO DAMMIT" what he thought of his willful abuse of a character 2 previous writers had worked hard to bring back out of retirement.
I'm pretty sure it was discussed on the letters pages.
Remember, Claremont also got pissed off about AVENGERS #200 and did AVENGERS ANNUAL #10 as a rebuttal.
I kind of assumed that Roger Stern (who these days, I don't really think was so great, but lucked into being NOWHERE near as bad as those who came just before or after him) was ordered, "Hank & Jan MUST get a divorce-- DO NOT have them reconcile". It just caught my notice later, when I noticed he'd been involved in at least 3 long-time relationships "permanently" breaking up.
In my view, "The Fall of Yellowjacket" is simply a story that NEVER should have happened. You know... like... "Identity Crisis". (Remember THAT one?) Or... Kevin Dooley's version of "Emerald Twilight". Or whatever that thing was that Mark Gruenwald FIRED Stern off AVENGERS for while Walt Simonson was happy to just phone it in and take the money without giving a S***.
Too much of corporate comics have become "Let's F*** over our characters!" instead of "Let's tell GREAT adventure stories!"
Avengers Annual #10 is another writer's misstep. Claremont presents a condemnation of Avengers #200 (and rightfully so) in a holier-than-thou speech given by Carol but he loses this vaunted moral high ground right from the get-go within the first two pages of this issue by having Carol psychically raped by Rogue, yet another tragic event suffered by this character, one that Claremont mines for dramatic conflict for nigh on a decade afterwards. So only Claremont can decide how best to abuse Carol then?
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Post by profh0011 on Jul 24, 2021 12:01:15 GMT -5
Avengers Annual #10 is another writer's misstep. Claremont presents a condemnation of Avengers #200 (and rightfully so) in a holier-than-thou speech given by Carol but he loses this vaunted moral high ground right from the get-go within the first two pages of this issue by having Carol psychically raped by Rogue, yet another tragic event suffered by this character, one that Claremont mines for dramatic conflict for nigh on a decade afterwards. So only Claremont can decide how best to abuse Carol then? TOTALLY agree!
Claremont had a reputation for writing "strong" women, but paradoxically, he also had a long track-record for ABUSING them... and... ALL the character he wrote, frankly.
Long before I began to read about a growing number of readers who had "given up" on X-MEN, I had. From when he first got on the book, he seemed hell-bent on making every one of their lives as miserable as possible, ALL the time., and after resolving some storyline, would soon start it al up again in a month or two. the only saving grace of those comics, for me, was Dave Cockrum's art.
There's a B&W story he did that was intended to be a Red Sonja story, but apparently someone objected to what he had planned for her, so he was forced to create a new, different sword-fighting woman, just os he could put HER thru more hell than he would have been permitted to with Sonja. (sheesh)
In a better world, Dave Cockrum would have stayed on THE AVENGERS with Steve Englehart, who never would have allowed Gerry Conway to run him off the book.
Imagine Dave Cockrum & George Perez alternating on stories on that book...!
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Post by profh0011 on Jul 24, 2021 12:02:41 GMT -5
ESSENTIAL ANT-MAN is one of my favorite ESSENTIAL books.
It may sound strange, but to me, everything on AVENGERS after Roy Thomas took over doesn't really count, by comparison.
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Post by The Cheat on Jul 24, 2021 13:17:03 GMT -5
"Yeah, well. that's the trouble with my stories - they always seem to build up to something that never actually happens." - Grant Morrison (in his Animal Man fiction suit)
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Post by Graphic Autist on Jul 24, 2021 16:24:53 GMT -5
Imagine Dave Cockrum & George Perez alternating on stories on that book...!
One month decent art the next amazing?
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Post by profh0011 on Jul 24, 2021 17:02:56 GMT -5
Imagine Dave Cockrum & George Perez alternating on stories on that book...!
One month decent art the next amazing? Something like that.
I know Dave was gone before George arrived, but... imagine if Dave had stuck around, and, the quarterly GIANTs had continued. You could have had George doing the monthly book, and Dave doing the quarterlies (as he did GIANT #2 & 3). Hey, it's my fantasy...
For some reason, you didn't see this happening on most superheroes titles. You'd have a regular artist, and sometimes, they'd blow a deadline, and you never knew if the fill-in would be junk, or, almost embarrassing, way better than the regular guy.
One period that flipped me out was when NEXUS switched companies, went monthly, and Steve Rude realized, there was just no way he could do 12 issues a year. So at some point, they hired Paul Smith. He was very good. Steve would do 6 issues, Paul would do 4, Steve would do 6. As I said, Paul was VERY good. But every time Steve would come back... WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I could never figure out why nobody else (that I'm aware of) ever did that.
Closest thing was the early part of SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE, where they changed artists every 4 issues-- and each block of 4 issues was a complete 4-part story! That was cool.
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Post by berkley on Jul 25, 2021 0:25:53 GMT -5
Regarding Claremont & Byrne's MTU 2-parter, my impression was that Claremont may have heard what Shooter was doing, got pissed off about it, and decided he'd show Mr. "BECAUSE I SAID SO DAMMIT" what he thought of his willful abuse of a character 2 previous writers had worked hard to bring back out of retirement.
I'm pretty sure it was discussed on the letters pages.
Remember, Claremont also got pissed off about AVENGERS #200 and did AVENGERS ANNUAL #10 as a rebuttal.
I kind of assumed that Roger Stern (who these days, I don't really think was so great, but lucked into being NOWHERE near as bad as those who came just before or after him) was ordered, "Hank & Jan MUST get a divorce-- DO NOT have them reconcile". It just caught my notice later, when I noticed he'd been involved in at least 3 long-time relationships "permanently" breaking up.
In my view, "The Fall of Yellowjacket" is simply a story that NEVER should have happened. You know... like... "Identity Crisis". (Remember THAT one?) Or... Kevin Dooley's version of "Emerald Twilight". Or whatever that thing was that Mark Gruenwald FIRED Stern off AVENGERS for while Walt Simonson was happy to just phone it in and take the money without giving a S***.
Too much of corporate comics have become "Let's F*** over our characters!" instead of "Let's tell GREAT adventure stories!"
Avengers Annual #10 is another writer's misstep. Claremont presents a condemnation of Avengers #200 (and rightfully so) in a holier-than-thou speech given by Carol but he loses this vaunted moral high ground right from the get-go within the first two pages of this issue by having Carol psychically raped by Rogue, yet another tragic event suffered by this character, one that Claremont mines for dramatic conflict for nigh on a decade afterwards. So only Claremont can decide how best to abuse Carol then? I can't swear that I remember all the details of that Annual but wasn't an element of violation more or less intrinsic to Rogue's defining superpower? One of the reasons I've never liked the character-concept, as it happens. Or was there something different in what she did to Ms/Captain Marvel to what she did to her other victims - I think I remember Captain America being taken out by her pretty easily in that comic, but IIRC it was just one panel. To be honest, I don't recall the Carole Danvers sub-plot at all.
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Post by berkley on Jul 25, 2021 0:37:17 GMT -5
Avengers Annual #10 is another writer's misstep. Claremont presents a condemnation of Avengers #200 (and rightfully so) in a holier-than-thou speech given by Carol but he loses this vaunted moral high ground right from the get-go within the first two pages of this issue by having Carol psychically raped by Rogue, yet another tragic event suffered by this character, one that Claremont mines for dramatic conflict for nigh on a decade afterwards. So only Claremont can decide how best to abuse Carol then? TOTALLY agree!
Claremont had a reputation for writing "strong" women, but paradoxically, he also had a long track-record for ABUSING them... and... ALL the character he wrote, frankly.
Long before I began to read about a growing number of readers who had "given up" on X-MEN, I had. From when he first got on the book, he seemed hell-bent on making every one of their lives as miserable as possible, ALL the time., and after resolving some storyline, would soon start it al up again in a month or two. the only saving grace of those comics, for me, was Dave Cockrum's art.
There's a B&W story he did that was intended to be a Red Sonja story, but apparently someone objected to what he had planned for her, so he was forced to create a new, different sword-fighting woman, just os he could put HER thru more hell than he would have been permitted to with Sonja. (sheesh)
In a better world, Dave Cockrum would have stayed on THE AVENGERS with Steve Englehart, who never would have allowed Gerry Conway to run him off the book.
Imagine Dave Cockrum & George Perez alternating on stories on that book...!
I like Cockrum's artwork a lot and he created what for me is a truly iconic comic-book image with Mantis, but I think my ideal alternate creative history for the Avengers would have been a long, long run of Englehart and the young George Perez, whose art from this time is still my favourite of all his long career.
What's the consensus on Cockrum's Avengers work vs his first X-Men run? I think most people would rate the X-Men stuff higher but that could just be down to the immense popularity of the X-Men. Myslf, t's more that I know the X-Men stuff better in the sense that I kind of "lived it", i.e. read it as it came out, whereas the Avengers I didn't read for the most part till long afterwards, and even then haphazardly, in badly-reprinted collections (those colours!) or the odd back issue. Or had his artwork really improved over those few years in between - or was it a difference in inkers? I'll form my own opinion one of these days, when I read the whole of the Englehart Avengers in back-issues from start to finish.
But I think the abrupt curtailment of Englehart's Doctor Strange run was an even greater loss - even though I admit to feeling some doubt as to the merits of the American-history-inspired storyline he had begun at the time. But that could be just me not being American: I got tired of the US bicentennial hype that was running rampant at the time pretty fast (as I'm sure so did many Americans themselves!) and this story-line seemed to be part of that, but I'm pretty confidant Englehart would have found a way to make it transcend the moment. He was really running on all cylinders back then.
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Post by impulse on Jul 26, 2021 9:01:29 GMT -5
Claremont has some... err... interesting and not necessarily in a good way... quirks to his writing besides just clunky dialogue. It flew over my head as a kid, but over the years on various forums and sites I've seen it pointed out he has a tendency for a lot of domination/submission story types and a lot of sexual subtext. How many mind-control stories has he done? Maybe I'm looking at it through a modern lense, but mental domination and characters forcing others to do things against their will seems a bit rapey.
Also tons of sexual subtext, mostly with Kitty Pryde I'm familiar with. Also LGBTQ+* coding with her. He kind of threw any attempt at subtlety out the window in later years, too. Xtreme X-MEN's Storm The Arena story was basically his BDSM lesbian fantasy story.
Dude's a little freaky and enjoys tormenting his characters, especially women, too much.
*Not to in any way imply there is anything freaky about LGBTQ+ content, coded or otherwise. He just did a lot of G/G sexual innuendo.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jul 26, 2021 11:37:24 GMT -5
I've said before I wish Claremont would just write his supernatural lesbian BDSM porn series already and get it out of his system.
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Post by impulse on Jul 26, 2021 13:00:52 GMT -5
I've said before I wish Claremont would just write his supernatural lesbian BDSM porn series already and get it out of his system. All pretense at subtly removed, yeah, basically this.
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Post by profh0011 on Jul 26, 2021 14:32:59 GMT -5
I didn't know this at the time (I caught up with it many years later), but Dave Cockrum started out pencilling LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, had a falling-out with the editor, went over to Marvel, and did a ton of inks on AVENGERS. And then he pencilled GIANT #2, and #3. (#2 looked way better, but only because of a change of inkers.) And then THE NEW X-MEN happened.
So, there's really only those 2 GIANTs to show off his pencilling on the book.
Yeah, once they replaced Vince Colletta, George Perez really started to shine on AVENGERS. Funny enough, a number of those early issues were inked by Sam Grainger, who ALSO inked several of Cockrum's early X-MEN issues. Grainger came up from the fanzines, and his inks were always real sharp, including when he inked a couple of Jack Kirby stories around 1970.
I would have loved to see Perez do a long run with Englehart, with Cockrum doing GIANTs or ANNUALs. Or any other time Perez needed time. It's not that George was slow... it's that he picked up a BAD habit from Rich Bucker, that of getting on mulitiple books at the same tme, and blowing deadlines on ALL of them. It eventually got him fired from Marvel, inspiring him to rebuild his rep over at DC, first on JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, then the revival of TITANS. (I still laugh when I think that, at a store appearance, when he talked about reviving TITANS, I didn't know at first what he was talking about... until the phrase TEEN TITANS was mentioned... heh. They didn't want to use TEEN, but DC insisted.)
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 26, 2021 14:38:41 GMT -5
(...) Grainger came up from the fanzines, and his inks were always real sharp, including when he inked a couple of Jack Kirby stories around 1970. Grainger's name doesn't come up often enough, but he's one of the few inkers who really caught my eye way back when (the first time in an issue of Thor, as I recall). He had a clean, clean line that just looked blacker than that of most other inkers. I really enjoyed his work whenever I saw it!
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Post by commond on Jul 26, 2021 18:00:15 GMT -5
Claremont has some... err... interesting and not necessarily in a good way... quirks to his writing besides just clunky dialogue. It flew over my head as a kid, but over the years on various forums and sites I've seen it pointed out he has a tendency for a lot of domination/submission story types and a lot of sexual subtext. How many mind-control stories has he done? Maybe I'm looking at it through a modern lense, but mental domination and characters forcing others to do things against their will seems a bit rapey. Also tons of sexual subtext, mostly with Kitty Pryde I'm familiar with. Also LGBTQ+* coding with her. He kind of threw any attempt at subtlety out the window in later years, too. Xtreme X-MEN's Storm The Arena story was basically his BDSM lesbian fantasy story. Dude's a little freaky and enjoys tormenting his characters, especially women, too much. *Not to in any way imply there is anything freaky about LGBTQ+ content, coded or otherwise. He just did a lot of G/G sexual innuendo. This episode of The Avengers left quite the impression on a teenage Chris Claremont:
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