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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 16, 2021 9:46:17 GMT -5
I slightly misremembered, it is the ENTIRE body of the "dead" 1st known Celestial called Progenitor not just the head. Located at Earth"s North Pole and standing erect semi embedded in ice, it is now "known" as Avengers Mountain. Jason Aaron came up with this in his run (no idea what volume) in Avengers 8. Supposedly the Celestials spoke through the Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider for granting the team permission to "live" in as caretakers of Progenitor"s now "dead" husk. Yeah. Don't ask for sense in modern comics, just ask for whatever seems kewl or spectacular. Ah yes, the talking Celestials. Another brilliant idea. I can't wait to see a Celestial rob a bank and escape in his Arishemcopter!
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Post by badwolf on Nov 16, 2021 12:03:33 GMT -5
The more of Aaron's ideas i hear, the less i'm inclined to check out more of this work. I didn't mind some of this Thor stories but haven't read much of his other work. His Eternals sounds awful and i'm not a fan of his turning She-Hulk into an angry roided out version. Making Avengers HQ a Celestial doesn't make much sense either, feels like that is 100% guaranteed to backfire as some point I enjoyed his Doctor Strange once I got past the modern "jokey" tone of it. Chris Bachalo's art might have helped a lot.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 16, 2021 12:42:48 GMT -5
(edit:) Jason Aaron was the guy who had the Eternals commit mass suicide, wasn't he? Out of shame, after finding out they'd been crap all these years. I think that makes it pretty clear what he thinks of the whole idea.
The more of Aaron's ideas i hear, the less i'm inclined to check out more of this work. I didn't mind some of this Thor stories but haven't read much of his other work. His Eternals sounds awful and i'm not a fan of his turning She-Hulk into an angry roided out version. Making Avengers HQ a Celestial doesn't make much sense either, feels like that is 100% guaranteed to backfire as some point Southern Bastards is legit one of the best books of the last couple decades. Scalped, while not without problems, was very good.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2021 14:04:53 GMT -5
The more of Aaron's ideas i hear, the less i'm inclined to check out more of this work. I didn't mind some of this Thor stories but haven't read much of his other work. His Eternals sounds awful and i'm not a fan of his turning She-Hulk into an angry roided out version. Making Avengers HQ a Celestial doesn't make much sense either, feels like that is 100% guaranteed to backfire as some point Southern Bastards is legit one of the best books of the last couple decades. Scalped, while not without problems, was very good. Aaron is one of many of this generation of comic writers whose creator-owned stuff I find to be head and shoulders above their work-for-hire stuff (Aaron, Lemire, Bunn, Remender, Kindt, etc.). Since it is so pervasive, and since there is a clear divide between the quality of their work-for-hire stuff for the big 2 and their creator-owned stuff, and since it seems to be the same whether it is DC or Marvel, I would lay it on the editorial policies and restrictions that they have to work under for Marvel and DC. Truly innovative stories with the IP protected characters are not likely to get greenlighted because they do not change the status quo in acceptable and reversible ways. Writers are allowed to knock things in the sandbox around but only in ways where everything can be put back the way it was when they leave so the next guy has a clean slate with the same company mandated status quo. Writers have to work within the narrow editorial strictures imposed on them from above and they have to work with the artists assigned to the books and what strengths or weaknesses those artists have rather than being able to follow any personal creative vision they might have, they have to pursue the editors creative vision or get the editor to sign on to theirs and then follow any notes the editor gives to make that vision work within the editorial and corporate mandates that guide those characters. The difference when these guys get out of that creative straightjacket and do their own creator-owned stuff is like night and day. Marvel and DC are no longer about telling stories about characters, they are about telling stories about their shared universe and the characters and stories come in second to the universe, and because of that, the types of stories that can be told and the things done within those stories are severely limited, so the writers have to shoot for those "cool" things that will make a splash, draw sales to their books but that can be discarded by the end of their run so editors and suits are happy. But it's a regular paycheck and a way to build an audience for your own brand as writer to bring with you to your creator-owned books down the road where you can actually write the stories that interest you and that you have a vision and a passion for. That's the nature of the business now and the creators don't call the shots on what can and can't be done in the books or even how things are going to be done in the books. You can blame the writers, but a different writer on the book would have to deal with the same parameters and editorial and corporate vision for that book. You can pitch your own ideas, but by the time those pitches are executed into actual comics, they will have the corporate and editorial stamp on them that will make them something very different than if that writer were doing the same kind of story in a creator-owned or creator empowering environment. So, I never judge creators these days by their work-for-hire stuff (and I rarely buy it either, reading most of it via Unlimited, hoopla or my public library). At this point I almost thing Marvel and Dc should go with house names for their writers (a la Franklin W. Dixon for all Hardy Boys books no matter who wrote it) except that would hurt the writers in building an audience, but it would be more honest labelling of the actual result on the pages. -M
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Post by berkley on Nov 16, 2021 14:34:45 GMT -5
Ah yes, the talking Celestials. Another brilliant idea. I can't wait to see a Celestial rob a bank and escape in his Arishemcopter! Then he can get into a fistfight with Thanos, who has expanded himself to their size for the purpose! Or no, Iron Man backward-designs his own gigantic Celestial armour and uses it to fight them on their own terms! Ha, ha, stupid Celestials, what were they thinking.
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Post by berkley on Nov 16, 2021 14:42:36 GMT -5
On the independent vs work-for-hire difference, I'm in full agreement: never judge a writer by the latter. The constraints they're under to meet the demands of that market speak more to the nature of the market, the audience, than to the writer who's job is to satisfy those demands. Of coursethat doesn't mean the work itself shouldn't be criticised, just that we shouldnt automatically dismiss their solo work along with the Big 2 stuff.
Where it can get a bit muddy is the promotional interviews that, I imagine, they're obliged to do once they accept this kind of contract from Marvel/DC. Inevitaby, in promoting the work, they come across as sharing the tastes of its audience - all the more so as the interviewers tend to be sycophantic in the extreme.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2021 14:48:38 GMT -5
On the independent vs work-for-hire difference, I'm in full agreement: never judge a writer by the latter. The constraints they're under to meet the demands of that market speak more to the nature of the market, the audience, than to the writer who's job is to satisfy those demands. Of coursethat doesn't mean the work itself shouldn't be criticised, just that we shouldnt automatically dismiss their solo work along with the Big 2 stuff. Where it can get a bit muddy is the promotional interviews that, I imagine, they're obliged to do once they accept this kind of contract from Marvel/DC. Inevitaby, in promoting the work, they come across as sharing the tastes of its audience - all the more so as the interviewers tend to be sycophantic in the extreme. I assume most of those interviews are like other show business interviews now, i.e. just as actors and directors answers are shaped by studio directives in press junkets rather than coming form those creaive folks themselves, most of the stuff in interviews for comic-related news sites and podcasts have all the authenticity of a movie press junket appearance, and the answers are guided/written by the marketing arm of the publisher rather than the creators themselves, and it's all part of what the creators are hired for. But then again, this was true for Marvel and Dc all the way back in things like the Bullpen Bulletins pages and mas like Marvel Age, so its nothing new for comics either. -M
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Post by berkley on Nov 16, 2021 17:48:18 GMT -5
Yeah, and that's why you have to take everything they say with a grain of salt. But there does seem to be a grey area at times, especially when they get into questions related to the creative side of things and what they were trying to accomplish with any given story or character or what have you. In the end, you can only go by the comic they've written. If what they say matches what you read in the comic, probably they're telling the truth; if it doesn't, ...
But I do think there's a difference between this sort of promotion conducted through the medium of a supposedly independent comics journal and the kind of in-house carnival-barker salesmanship of a Stan Lee. Marvel Age I think was after my time, or at least I don't remember looking at it much, so not sure where that fits on the spectrum. Was it a Marvel publication? If so, I'd see it as a first step towards the kind thng we see today, but still at least not pretending to be unaffiliated with their interview subjects.
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Post by berkley on Nov 16, 2021 17:53:20 GMT -5
(edit:) Jason Aaron was the guy who had the Eternals commit mass suicide, wasn't he? Out of shame, after finding out they'd been crap all these years. I think that makes it pretty clear what he thinks of the whole idea.
I sure am hoping there's more to it, because having Eternals commit mass suicide sounds like a terrible idea for multiple reasons. I get wanting to reduce the Eternals numbers down to your core cast or whatever but feels like there are other, more preferable ways to go about it - why not have most of them fly off into space (the setup for Gillis' 80s series). The more of Aaron's ideas i hear, the less i'm inclined to check out more of this work. I didn't mind some of this Thor stories but haven't read much of his other work. His Eternals sounds awful and i'm not a fan of his turning She-Hulk into an angry roided out version. Making Avengers HQ a Celestial doesn't make much sense either, feels like that is 100% guaranteed to backfire as some point Actually now I think of it, I believe it was Neil Gaiman who came up with the talking Celestial in his Eternals series, unles someone else did it before then, which wouldn't surprise me. And if I understood correctly from reading about all this online, I think Aaron's story of the mass suicide was meant to be an outcome of the Eternals finding out that they were just programmed artificial constructs of the Celestials, another Gaiman idea. So if we blame Aaron for his Eternals, we have to blame Gaiman too.
(edit:) the Aaron story was in the Avengers, just to keep this connected with the thread subject, if only by the thinnest of lines.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2021 20:11:33 GMT -5
Yeah, and that's why you have to take everything they say with a grain of salt. But there does seem to be a grey area at times, especially when they get into questions related to the creative side of things and what they were trying to accomplish with any given story or character or what have you. In the end, you can only go by the comic they've written. If what they say matches what you read in the comic, probably they're telling the truth; if it doesn't, ... But I do think there's a difference between this sort of promotion conducted through the medium of a supposedly independent comics journal and the kind of in-house carnival-barker salesmanship of a Stan Lee. Marvel Age I think was after my time, or at least I don't remember looking at it much, so not sure where that fits on the spectrum. Was it a Marvel publication? If so, I'd see it as a first step towards the kind thng we see today, but still at least not pretending to be unaffiliated with their interview subjects. There are no independent comics journalism. Sites like CBR and others who report comic news are dependent on the big 2 for press releases, access interviews, previews etc, to get enough clicks to get their advertising revenue that keeps them operating. If they are too critical of a big 2 book, or don't toe the company line in interviews, they lose those previews, access interviews, etc. and lose clicks and revenue. They cannot survive without the good graces of the big 2, so they do what they are told, ask what they are told to ask, and run the stories they are given by the big 2 marketing machine, They are essentially the modern internet version of the Bullpen Bulletins, their independence is only a pretense, they are essentially independently contracted corporate marketing mouthpieces. If you are an independent podcaster and you live on clicks because of who your guests are, you're not going to bite the hand that feeds you by pissing off one of the big 2 who provide the guests that make up your most clickable content, so they too become independent contractors who are adjuncts to the big 2 marketing machine. There's a reason why the big 2 don't need to put out things like Marvel Age anymore either in print or online, the news sites and podcasts fill that niche without the big 2 having to pay to produce the marketing hype. They just feed the content they want out there to these places, and if one of the places doesn't play ball, they are cut off from the source of most of their content. Bleeding Cool is one of the few who didn't play ball, they don't get anything from the big2 anymore for the most part, which is why they are vulturing most of the stories form other sites and "unnamed sources" and the entertainment industry sites, but they've made it work because they sold their soul to ComicConnect and Heritage Auctions and half their "news stories" are hyping comics up for sale at those two sites currently. -M
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Post by berkley on Nov 16, 2021 20:17:51 GMT -5
Yes, agreed. It's a problem and it makes reading comics "journalism" an exercise in futility and frustration, at times.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2021 20:24:45 GMT -5
Yes, agreed. It's a problem and it makes reading comics "journalism" an exercise in futility and frustration, at times. My google news page is curated so I get most of the comic headlines and press releases in it, but I rarely visit any of the comic news sites other than that. I click on Bleeding Cool maybe once to twice a day to check the headlines. I am subscribed to the newsletters of several creators whose work I enjoy, so I do get announcements of new projects and such usually just before or at the same time the press releases would be given to he news sites, and my wife has either followed or has friended a few other creators on FB so we get news regarding them in a timely manner, but the comic news sites could disappear and I wouldn't notice at this point. Maybe some of the print zines are independent Comic Book Creator, Back Issue, Alter Ego, etc.), but they are focused on comics past not present so they are not dependent on the current big 2 for their content and that allows them to be independent. -M
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Post by berkley on Nov 16, 2021 23:04:40 GMT -5
Yes, agreed. It's a problem and it makes reading comics "journalism" an exercise in futility and frustration, at times. My google news page is curated so I get most of the comic headlines and press releases in it, but I rarely visit any of the comic news sites other than that. I click on Bleeding Cool maybe once to twice a day to check the headlines. I am subscribed to the newsletters of several creators whose work I enjoy, so I do get announcements of new projects and such usually just before or at the same time the press releases would be given to he news sites, and my wife has either followed or has friended a few other creators on FB so we get news regarding them in a timely manner, but the comic news sites could disappear and I wouldn't notice at this point. Maybe some of the print zines are independent Comic Book Creator, Back Issue, Alter Ego, etc.), but they are focused on comics past not present so they are not dependent on the current big 2 for their content and that allows them to be independent. -M What's going on with the Comics Journal these days? At one time you used to see it on the stands at the LCS and thus could check out the latest issue to see if there was anything that caught your eye. I never see it anymore at the LCS here but I suppose you can do the same thing now, only online. I'll have to start checking it out now and then to see what it's like.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2021 0:10:04 GMT -5
My google news page is curated so I get most of the comic headlines and press releases in it, but I rarely visit any of the comic news sites other than that. I click on Bleeding Cool maybe once to twice a day to check the headlines. I am subscribed to the newsletters of several creators whose work I enjoy, so I do get announcements of new projects and such usually just before or at the same time the press releases would be given to he news sites, and my wife has either followed or has friended a few other creators on FB so we get news regarding them in a timely manner, but the comic news sites could disappear and I wouldn't notice at this point. Maybe some of the print zines are independent Comic Book Creator, Back Issue, Alter Ego, etc.), but they are focused on comics past not present so they are not dependent on the current big 2 for their content and that allows them to be independent. -M What's going on with the Comics Journal these days? At one time you used to see it on the stands at the LCS and thus could check out the latest issue to see if there was anything that caught your eye. I never see it anymore at the LCS here but I suppose you can do the same thing now, only online. I'll have to start checking it out now and then to see what it's like. I am not sure how relevant TCJ is these days. The typical comic buyer, who buys big 2 books, would have no interest in it, and the type of comic reader who would be would likely have to pre-order it on their pull list as most shops don't carry much in the way of shelf copies of stuff outside the top selling mainstream books unless it is an owner who curates that type of stuff and cultivates that kind of clientele (Brian Hibbs type owners/shops, or Laughing Ogre in Columbus that won the Eisner Spirit of Retailer award recently are those kind of exceptional shops, but they are few and far between). So it's not surprising you won't find a copy of it on the shelf at the typical LCS, but you won't find copies of Alter Ego, Back Issue or most comics outside the top 50 sellers on the shelf at those shops either. There's too much product (with too much risk on the retailer end) and not a large and varied enough customer base for it to be viable to stock copies of that stuff on the outside chance someone who doesn't regularly buy it will come in looking for a copy or buy a copy if they see it browsing. -M
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Post by brutalis on Nov 29, 2021 11:58:00 GMT -5
With such a large stable of heroes found in Avengers I find as much love for the lower tier heroes along with the big guns. I loved Hawkeye before it was cool to admit. I loved Black Knight before he was a bigger deal. Swordsman earned my love in his struggle to redeem himself. Falcon finally making the team was long overdue. Seeing 70's faves Nova and Jack of Hearts was so bittersweet for their misused time upon the team. She-Hulk came into her own while with the A-Team. Wonder Man raised from the "dead" before he became a whiner scaredy cat was awesome.
Avengers provided ample opportunities for many a hero to shine, stepping up their popularity or providing additional depth to their characterization. Joining up with the premiere team of Marvel put many in the spotlight or bringing them new fans to help create interest in them.
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