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Post by badwolf on Jun 30, 2022 13:37:36 GMT -5
I think some writers declined in the 80s. 70s stuff is still good. Englehart is another.
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Post by badwolf on Jun 30, 2022 13:42:28 GMT -5
yes... something that didn't need to be done. Agreed! Btw I believe BB's Boltagon name was first revealed in 1984's Fantastic Four Annual #18 (BB and Medusa's wedding)--scripted by Mark Gruenwald. Medusa got a name too, "Medusalith." Ugh.  After the Annual, then that name--but with Blackantor changed to Blackagon--was used in BB's entry in the Deluxe Marvel Handbook. And the rest is history  Medusa's surname changed slightly from what's in FF Annual #18; it was changed from A naquelin (in the Annual) to what's been used ever since: A maquelin. I completely forgot that that was in that annual--and that Gru wrote it and Byrne only plotted.
I don't mind Medusa's as much... at least her "code name" isn't two obviously English words.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 30, 2022 16:14:36 GMT -5
Black Bolt's full name was first noted in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #2 (February 1983). Fantastic Four Annual #18 went on sale July 31, 1984, so it's that comic that has the misspelling. The entry for BB in the Deluxe OHotMU #2 (January '86) uses the "correct" form.
Cei-U!
I summon the timeline!
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Post by Farrar on Jun 30, 2022 16:35:49 GMT -5
Black Bolt's full name was first noted in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #2 (February 1983). Fantastic Four Annual #18 went on sale July 31, 1984, so it's that comic that has the misspelling. The entry for BB in the Deluxe OHotMU #2 (January '86) uses the "correct" form. Cei-U! I summon the timeline! I don't see it in the original printing of the OH of the Marvel Universe #2 as first published in 1983. But then again my eyesight isn't that great! His real name is "unrevealed."   Maybe it was added in reprints of this volume? |
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Post by badwolf on Jun 30, 2022 17:12:15 GMT -5
Black Bolt's full name was first noted in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #2 (February 1983). Fantastic Four Annual #18 went on sale July 31, 1984, so it's that comic that has the misspelling. The entry for BB in the Deluxe OHotMU #2 (January '86) uses the "correct" form. Cei-U! I summon the timeline! I don't see it in the original printing of the OH of the Marvel Universe #2 as first published in 1983. But then again my eyesight isn't that great! His real name is "unrevealed." Maybe it was added in reprints of this volume? It's in the next series, the "deluxe edition" with the Byrne covers. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 30, 2022 18:14:20 GMT -5
Black Bolt's full name was first noted in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #2 (February 1983). Fantastic Four Annual #18 went on sale July 31, 1984, so it's that comic that has the misspelling. The entry for BB in the Deluxe OHotMU #2 (January '86) uses the "correct" form. Cei-U! I summon the timeline! Dude, I said that a few pages ago. I know things … |
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Post by berkley on Jul 1, 2022 0:43:07 GMT -5
How I hate the Handbooks, or at least the idea of them since I've never actually held one in my hands to read through. But seeing samples like this online, they just get on my nerves with things like "can fly up to 500mph" . Why this need to quantify everything and make it so spuriously precise? I'll never understand the impulse behind this stuff, all apologies to the many comics readers who like it.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,259 
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Post by Confessor on Jul 1, 2022 2:20:08 GMT -5
How I hate the Handbooks, or at least the idea of them since I've never actually held one in my hands to read through. But seeing samples like this online, they just get on my nerves with things like "can fly up to 500mph" . Why this need to quantify everything and make it so spuriously precise? I'll never understand the impulse behind this stuff, all apologies to the many comics readers who like it. I'm inclined to agree -- especially from an adult perspective. I never had any interest in the various handbooks as a kid, as I would always have preferred to spend my pocket money on an actual comic book. But they were extremely popular with a number of my friends. Marvel really knew their market: geeky details like "can fly up to 500mph" were lapped up and discussed in tremendous detail in the school playground by us kids. I'm sure that was the experience of an awful lot of other 10-year-olds in Britain and America. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 1, 2022 3:47:20 GMT -5
Black Bolt's full name was first noted in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #2 (February 1983). Fantastic Four Annual #18 went on sale July 31, 1984, so it's that comic that has the misspelling. The entry for BB in the Deluxe OHotMU #2 (January '86) uses the "correct" form. Cei-U! I summon the timeline! I don't see it in the original printing of the OH of the Marvel Universe #2 as first published in 1983. But then again my eyesight isn't that great! His real name is "unrevealed." Maybe it was added in reprints of this volume? ...or maybe my index of OHotMu is wrong? Okay, no "maybe" about it: it's--and I'm--simply wrong. (In my defense, my copies are buried in the vault and I don't have scans of that series so my notes were all I had to go on.)
Cei-U! I summon Steve Martin ("Well, excuuUUUUuuse MEEEEEE!")!
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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 1, 2022 4:22:15 GMT -5
How I hate the Handbooks, or at least the idea of them since I've never actually held one in my hands to read through. But seeing samples like this online, they just get on my nerves with things like "can fly up to 500mph" . Why this need to quantify everything and make it so spuriously precise? I'll never understand the impulse behind this stuff, all apologies to the many comics readers who like it. I'm inclined to agree -- especially from an adult perspective. I never had any interest in the various handbooks as a kid, as I would always have preferred to spend my pocket money on an actual comic book. But they were extremely popular with a number of my friends. Marvel really knew their market: geeky details like "can fly up to 500mph" were lapped up and discussed in tremendous detail in the school playground by us kids. I'm sure that was the experience of an awful lot of other 10-year-olds in Britain and America. Yes , my understanding was that this series sold like hot cakes. I always considered information gathered from handbooks to be not as valid as a story depicting a persons abilities. Although, as a good Marvel zombie, I bought them all.  And I don't think any writers actually referred to this handbook before writing anything. |
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Post by badwolf on Jul 1, 2022 8:24:51 GMT -5
I loved the Handbooks and devoured them (not literally). I was 13 when the first ones came out and a lot of stuff about the MU was still a mystery, there were characters I had never heard of, etc. I loved reading the histories of the characters, most of which I hadn't read yet in the regular comics. I didn't really care whether someone could fly 500 mph (I'm sure I didn't have a real conception of what that was anyway) but other things were explained, for instance in the page above, what those weird antennae on BB's mask do.
I still like this stuff as an adult. I have a DK "coffee table" type book of DC characters. Most of them are capsule entries apart from the most major characters but it is fun to page through. It's useful when I pick up a random comic that has a new character to me, and I can check the reference for a quick recap. Some say the books become outdated but I don't think they do, because I mainly read comics from the era in which they were published, or earlier.
I'm hoping to get the DC Who's Who omnibus, as I passed on that series when it first came out. I guess the fact that they are doing omnibuses at all shows that someone up there doesn't think they are outdated.
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Post by tonebone on Jul 1, 2022 8:26:45 GMT -5
How I hate the Handbooks, or at least the idea of them since I've never actually held one in my hands to read through. But seeing samples like this online, they just get on my nerves with things like "can fly up to 500mph" . Why this need to quantify everything and make it so spuriously precise? I'll never understand the impulse behind this stuff, all apologies to the many comics readers who like it. The purpose of the Handbooks were multi-fold. One of those purposes ( as stated by Eliot Brown in a TwoMorrows mag of some sort) was to supply "difinitive" stats for role playing gamers. I do much prefer the DC Who's Who version, which just gives a bio, a first appearance, and superior artwork. They (rightly) never got bogged down in who was faster, stronger, etc. than who. |
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Post by badwolf on Jul 1, 2022 8:29:05 GMT -5
Oh, I also loved looking at the pictures. The Marvel ones had some beautiful art by folks like Alan Weiss and Sandy Plunkett, who you didn't often see in the comics.
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Post by tonebone on Jul 1, 2022 8:36:44 GMT -5
One of the worst things about Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was that they canonized "Blackagar Boltagon" in the MCU!  Regardless of the name, I will say it's interesting that costume designers have come a long way in being faithful to comics movie costuming. Not too long ago, the Marvel costume designers would have practically killed themselves to avoid the half-face mask design we see here... but in this instance they have embraced it and remained surprisingly faithful to the comics. Oddly, I think we have the WB Arrowverse shows to thank for this. (I think I threw up in my mouth a little just typing that). |
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Post by berkley on Jul 1, 2022 10:14:16 GMT -5
I can certainly understand a kid getting into them in a similar way to how I was into hockey cards as a kid and could rhyme off all kinds of stats from reading the backs of them over and over.
Anyway, Leaving aside my personal likes and dislikes, it just occurred to me that if they were part of the MU itself, every superhero and villain would be carrying them around in their back pockets: "Black Bolt's on our tail! Quick, check the handbook - just as i thought. Luckily, our new jet plane can fly up to 501 mph, he'll never catch us!"
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And I don't think any writers actually referred to this handbook before writing anything. 
