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Post by tingramretro on Nov 24, 2023 10:27:09 GMT -5
A day late, but I just thought I'd draw attention to the fact that yesterday was actually the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who. I was a little too busy to do anything yesterday, but today I'll be watching the newly re-edited and colourised version of the original Dalek serial in celebration.
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Post by tingramretro on Dec 27, 2022 9:09:41 GMT -5
A trailer for Doctor Who's 60th Anniversary Specials next year aired on BBC1 on Christmas Day, and while most of the mainstream audience have been talking ever since about the impending return of the tenth Doctor and Donna Noble, a select few of us were much more excited by the glimpses we were given of the upcoming villains. It seems that 43 years after their creation in the pages of Marvel UK's Doctor Who Weekly comic, none other than cuddly psychopath Beep the Meep and his arch foes the Wrarth Warriors are finally making their TV debut! What's more, while the Meep himself admittedly looks more like Baby Yoda from what little we've seen, the Warriors actually look 100% comics accurate! I actually can't remember when I was last this excited by Doctor Who...
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Post by tingramretro on Apr 29, 2022 15:37:07 GMT -5
Quite aside from being one of the greatest artists in comics history, Neal Adams was a pioneer in championing creators rights. His success in getting publishers to change their stance on returning original art to its creators gave artists an additional income stream that's been a godsend to many of them. A sad loss to the industry.
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Post by tingramretro on Apr 10, 2022 6:18:45 GMT -5
So you think comics should limit the kinds of stories they tell in order to be new reader friendly? To appeal to moviegoers? I don't. That sounds to me like a surefire way of killing innovative storytelling. And that's what I care about, it's what's kept me reading. I also think you're underestimating newer readers. Yes. They should limit the kinds of stories they tell. Good ones. No more staring down a deadline and the only things you can think of are ruining the character. He's dead! He's evil! He's gone! He's replaced! He's unmasked! Yes, they have been doing this stuff forever, but now it's ALL they do. Marvel and DC jump from one character-breaking event to another, just for a short sales bump, and expect people to still care about them. I don't. Look at people like Kurt Busiek... look how many good, really good, Astro City stories he's told without resorting to any of these character-breaking stunts. Look at his Untold Tales of Spider-Man. I mean, the man wrote stories BETWEEN Stan and Steve's stories and they are STILL good. Look at Wolfman and Perez's original run on Teen Titans... complex, rich, exciting stories, that didn't break characters, but built them up until you knew them. They built a whole new world of characters and situations. Are they dated? Well, yeah, 40 years on, they are a little... but still good. Tom King's Batman will not only be dated 40 years from now, but will be terrible to boot. Should they appeal to moviegoers? HELL YES. They should be AT THE VERY LEAST accessible and recognizable to movie goers. When I went to see X-Men 2, everyone in line got an X-men comic. It was the worst piece of crap I had ever seen... It only featured Wolverine, not in costume, and was part 2 of a 3 or more part story. It made no sense, and had absolutely zero resemblance or relationship to the movie. The trash cans were stuffed with them. Marvel does no better capitalizing on their movies, now, even though the Marvel movies are the most valuable IP in the world. It is estimated that 54 percent of all adults in America, 18-34, have seen one or more of the Avengers-related movies. 54 percent!!! Why would you NOT want to take advantage of that? You LITERALLY could not buy that kind of PR. But you sure can squander it. The stories they're telling often are good ones, they just aren't appealing to you. And why should they alter characters and storylines to resemble movies? They have a completely different audience most of the time.
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Post by tingramretro on Apr 10, 2022 6:13:39 GMT -5
I didn't mean to start any arguments. I haven't read the Clone Saga, so I didn't know Osborn returned in the 90s. The first part of Brubaker's Captain America run is somewhat self-contained, with the same core group of characters, but now that Bucky is part of the Avengers, it's opened the story up to the wider Marvel Universe. Hence, my confusion. Osborn has been a major player in the Marvel Universe as a whole, not just the Spider-Man books, for the last few decades. When SHIELD was disbanded, he was appointed head of its successor, HAMMER, and was a huge part of the Civil War and Secret Invasion events. He ran the government sanctioned "Dark Avengers" as the Iron Patriot.
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Post by tingramretro on Apr 10, 2022 6:09:09 GMT -5
I've been reading comics for close to fifty years. I still buy, read and enjoy upwards of forty new titles per month. I understand them perfectly and have no trouble keeping up. I also have no trouble recognising the characters. Maybe the problem isn't the comics but your preconceived notions of what they should be like. You mean "good"? I wouldn't even pirate what DC and Marvel publish these days. But hey, that's just me. If you enjoy them, I envy you. I wish I wanted to drop hundreds per month on them. I really do. But they are good. This attitude really irritates me. The fact that comics are not the way they used to be doesn't mean they're bad. It means they've changed to suit the times and the requirements of the current audience, and you haven't.
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Post by tingramretro on Apr 10, 2022 6:06:08 GMT -5
Creel wasn't the brightest crayon in the box. He usually got tricked into absorbing the properties of something that incapacitated him, like gas or water. "Wasn't"? Creel's still around! He's even become rehabilitated and gone to work for the Alpha Flight program.
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Post by tingramretro on Apr 10, 2022 6:03:51 GMT -5
I’ve been reading and loving comics since 1971ish. And was buying and loving the 40s-60s stuff as soon as I discovered it. Still love the old and read it near daily. But the new stuff is much better imho. Well, except in the cost/time of reading equations…. I agree. The general standard of writing and in many cases art is much higher now than it was when I was a kid. As for the cost, sadly I think that's inevitable. Production costs and distribution costs are far higher these days and less people read comics (or much of anythng else) so those costs have to be passed on to the consumer.
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Post by tingramretro on Apr 5, 2022 16:36:37 GMT -5
I think that is his point. IF you’ve been reading comics for 20+ years, it isn’t confusing, but for someone who came to comics later, maybe due to liking the MCU, it isn’t quite as easy. Take Iron Man, for example. You had Tony as a person, Tony as an AI, Riri Williams, and now Tony as a person again, all serving as that character. What about Cap? Is it good Steve before “dying”, Bucky, good Steve again, evil Hydra Steve, good Steve again, Sam, or Steve and Sam at the same time? For you and me, probably not an issue to keep up, but if I were a new fan coming into this monumental fudge-up, I’d walk out of the comic shop and go find something easier to follow. Exactly... As I said, I've been reading comics for 50 years, and I HATE going into my local comics shop. I just see a wall of something I no longer understand. I no longer recognize the characters, and I couldn't possibly keep up with the numbering restarting every 3 weeks. I read classic comics every day, and buy collections all the time, but it makes me sad that I have no interest in anything on that wall of new releases, and haven't had an interest for at least a decade. AND I WISH I DID. That being said, I keep up with comics news, and I "know what's going on", generally, but still am still out of the loop. Imagine how a normie feels. I've been reading comics for close to fifty years. I still buy, read and enjoy upwards of forty new titles per month. I understand them perfectly and have no trouble keeping up. I also have no trouble recognising the characters. Maybe the problem isn't the comics but your preconceived notions of what they should be like.
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Post by tingramretro on Apr 5, 2022 16:32:45 GMT -5
I think that is his point. IF you’ve been reading comics for 20+ years, it isn’t confusing, but for someone who came to comics later, maybe due to liking the MCU, it isn’t quite as easy. Take Iron Man, for example. You had Tony as a person, Tony as an AI, Riri Williams, and now Tony as a person again, all serving as that character. What about Cap? Is it good Steve before “dying”, Bucky, good Steve again, evil Hydra Steve, good Steve again, Sam, or Steve and Sam at the same time? For you and me, probably not an issue to keep up, but if I were a new fan coming into this monumental fudge-up, I’d walk out of the comic shop and go find something easier to follow. To be fair, a fan of the MCU who went to buy comics and got a lot of Silver or Bronze Age storylines (or trades of that stuff now) would be confused too. Who's Mike Murdoch? Why is there two Spider-Mans running around, one is a clone wha? Why are there 4 people claiming to be Superman and none of them are Clark Kent? Why is Batman wearing armor and not Bruce Wayne? Why is someone besides Steve Rogers Captain America and who is The Captain? Or Nomad? Why is Tony Stark a teen-ager? Why is some guy that looks like a goat wielding Mjolnir? Why is the Hulk gray and calling himself Joe? etc. etc. There's the weird nonsense you are used to because it happened on "your watch" and you accept without issue, then there's the weird nonsense that you are not used to because it happened on "someone else's watch that people criticize. But an objective observer would level the same criticisms to the stuff you are used to and liked. But bias, nostalgia lenses, and neophobia being what they are, no one ever wants to see it that way. -M Absolutely right! I see this attitude all the time, from older fans. Particularly those who don't actually read new comics (it's particularly prevalent on Facebook). The same "fans" who'll gush nostalgiacally about how great it was when Marvel were coming up with stuff like the Living Eraser or the Impossible Man fifty-odd years ago scowl and snarl "ridiculous garbage" at far less silly notions today. It's infuriating. In the mid seventies, we had three different versions of Reed Richards running around; "our" Reed, a Reed who was the Thing from another universe, and an evil Reed from Counter Earth. Nobody was confused. Why are two or three Captain America's somehow worse?
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Post by tingramretro on Apr 5, 2022 16:23:41 GMT -5
It's not confusing at all, if you've actually been reading comics since the 2000's. I think that is his point. IF you’ve been reading comics for 20+ years, it isn’t confusing, but for someone who came to comics later, maybe due to liking the MCU, it isn’t quite as easy. Take Iron Man, for example. You had Tony as a person, Tony as an AI, Riri Williams, and now Tony as a person again, all serving as that character. What about Cap? Is it good Steve before “dying”, Bucky, good Steve again, evil Hydra Steve, good Steve again, Sam, or Steve and Sam at the same time? For you and me, probably not an issue to keep up, but if I were a new fan coming into this monumental fudge-up, I’d walk out of the comic shop and go find something easier to follow. So you think comics should limit the kinds of stories they tell in order to be new reader friendly? To appeal to moviegoers? I don't. That sounds to me like a surefire way of killing innovative storytelling. And that's what I care about, it's what's kept me reading. I also think you're underestimating newer readers.
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Post by tingramretro on Apr 5, 2022 12:09:48 GMT -5
I just started Captain America: Reborn, and there's something called the Dark Avengers. Norman Osborn is alive again and wearing some sort of Iron Man outfit. Bullseye is wearing Hawkeye's costume. Hank Pym is the Wasp. My head is reeling. Basically, Marvel since the 2000's... scramble up characters' powers, identities, etc. OR just outright kill them. Or both. At any rate, just make sure that when someone accidentally stumbles into the comics store, looking for the characters they sorta know, it's as confusing as possible. It's not confusing at all, if you've actually been reading comics since the 2000's.
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Post by tingramretro on Apr 5, 2022 12:08:34 GMT -5
I just started Captain America: Reborn, and there's something called the Dark Avengers. Norman Osborn is alive again and wearing some sort of Iron Man outfit. Bullseye is wearing Hawkeye's costume. Hank Pym is the Wasp. My head is reeling. Uh, Norman Osborn has been alive again since about 1995...
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Post by tingramretro on Jan 12, 2022 18:44:59 GMT -5
I've not watched any of the show yet, but I have to say that I don't generally like it when filmmakers drop in little fan service Easter Eggs. For one thing, I think they're just a cheap, cheesy way of shooting a knowing wink to uber nerds that does absolutely nothing to serve the story, but a far more damaging aspect of them is that they make a fictional universe seem smaller. If every character or event starts to tie in with multiple others -- and Star Wars has been guilty of doing this since the Prequel trilogy at least! -- then instead of opening up a whole galaxy of possibilities with each new film of TV episode you're inadvertently making the fictional world shrink in scope. I know a lot of fans love this kind of stuff, but for me it just induces eye-rolling. Krrsantan's appearance in Boba Fett has proved to be considerably more than an Easter egg. He's a major part of episode three, and since Boba makes a point of releasing him at the end of the episode, I suspect we haven't seen the last of him.
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Post by tingramretro on Jan 7, 2022 11:42:00 GMT -5
I realise this isn't "classic" Marvel Star Wars related, but did anyone else watch the second episode of The Book of Boba Fett and notice what seems to be the screen debut of a character from the modern Marvel Star Wars titles? When Boba confronts the Hutt twins, their bodyguard is none other than the Wookie gladiator Black Krrsantan! I love it when franchises pull little fan pleasing stunts like this.
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