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Post by tingramretro on Nov 22, 2016 2:48:03 GMT -5
Don't you mean X-Factor rather than X-Force? Oy ! Yes, of course that's what I meant. Can you tell I haven't read a mutie comic in a really long time ? Looking back 50 years now and reading anything from the Silver Age, at least for some of us, is kind of rocky. Lee & Kirby, like anyone, had hits and misses, or some stuff better and some stuff not so great. To me, the original run up until Wein comes on, with the exception of Thomas & Adams, is mostly weak. Good ideas, weak execution. It's truly amazing when you look at the originals and then what it evolved  into later. Readers from back then loved Spidey, the FF, the Avengers; how often do you hear someone saying, "Oh yeah. X-Men was so great back then. It was my favorite. The best thing Stan and Jack ever did." I've heard about the aforementioned time and again, and I get it. I also get that anything ever produced was someone's favorite, but the original run was definitely the weakest group title they did IMO. To me, FF was the weaker group book. I've nothing against Stan and Jack's FF, but I've also never understood why it's so highly regarded. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 21, 2016 18:44:42 GMT -5
There are, I believe, currently four of us UK based regulars in the forum (me, tingramretro, tolworthy and Simon Garth) and I wondered if you were a fifth to add to our contingent. I'm not British although I did live in London for several years. I'm not an Anglophile exactly (I don't have an unqualified appreciation for everything British) although I've accumulated some very obscure British comics in my time. Define "obscure"? |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 21, 2016 18:40:37 GMT -5
It isn't so much the characters themselves are boring as their is something there that must have been on the mark or else those specific five and Xavier wouldn't still be around today. More appropriate to place the blame on writing as Stan Lee made no attempt's beyond stereotypical teen when writing Scott, Jean, Warren, Hank and Bobby. Also blame Roy Thomas for not investing any real efforts into the series or being able to find something to spark his imagination. Many of the stories come across as weak or even dumb at times and with very few strong villains and returning foe Magneto every few issues the series never could find a niche. Until Neal Adam's came along to provide CPR to an already dead series artistically the X-Men were always also ran's of mediocre story telling with a few highlights here and there. At least his few issues gave a jump start that was followed up on with the advent of the All-New All-Different multi racial X-Men. There is a lot of potential in the original's but even today's writer's have chosen to turn them all into some sort of twisted and damned individuals,focusing on failings rather than having them being the inspiring teen's for tomorrow. All of the team have had their dark arc's and can't recover from those story lines. So, if Neal Adams had never come along, would the X-Men had ever morphed into the ALL NEW, ALL DIFFERENT X-MEN?? Let's face it, ART trumps story in many ways!, OR, ART enhances STORY to make things GREAT!! The dynamic way Adams drew X-Men was so utterly appealing that if a lesser artist tackled it, would anything become of this book beyond reprint mode? I think if it were not for Neal Adams, the X-Men would be DEAD today!? Yeah You're both talking absolute nonsense! Magneto every few issues? Magneto was written out pretty early on and later returned in only three storylines in that original run, in one of which he was a robot! Mediocre storytelling? What about the brilliant Factor Three arc, or Mesmero and the Demi-Men? Or Sauron? Or the Savage Land saga? Adams the only savig grace artistically? Not remotely true! yes, Adams was by far the best, but I liked the art from pretty much the moment Kirby left, and what about Steranko? It was a great series! |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 21, 2016 18:32:31 GMT -5
Clearly, I need to get back to my review thread! I agree Angel and Iceman were pretty boring... With Warren being a cut rate Tony Stark with super lame powers and Bobby being a generic class clown... I suspect that's why they both have since been transformed (Angel a zillion times, Bobby now to the repressed Gay teen that only now is comfortable in his own skin). Why does everybody think Angel is boring!!? Angel-not the tedious, grim'n gritty Archangel, but the real Angel before they ruined him-is my favourite Marvel mutant by far, and probably one of my top five favourite comics characters! What's "boring" about him? What's so wrong with just being a guy with money and really cool looking wings? |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 21, 2016 14:02:20 GMT -5
I had to laugh at #1 when Professor X is telepathically calling the X-Men to appear, saying that "class is now in session", and then he says "TARDINESS WILL BE PUNISHED"!?? Sounds severe to me, like something more than a demerit. Professor X also didn't like to be interrupted, wonder if that warranted a spanking? Only for Jean. At least one of his thought balloons indicated his interest in her extended to extracurricular activities...the creepy old man! |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 21, 2016 14:00:00 GMT -5
I liked X-Force way better, though I remember a Comic Shop guy saying that the originals didn't sell the first time, why would they sell now ? Don't you mean X-Factor rather than X-Force? |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 21, 2016 13:19:00 GMT -5
To be honest with everyone here ... I never liked the term "Funny Books" at all to be it's degarotory towards Comics. I know many of you here use that term - but I don't. Sorry, everyone! On a related note, I know a Frenchman who has a theory that the reason why comic books are generally so maligned as low brow entertainment in America and the UK -- especially when an adult is reading them -- is because the name "comics", "funny books", or "funny pages" immediately trivialises their contents. Their very name makes them seem non-serious and a bit of a "laugh". In places like Europe and the Far East, where books that tell stories using sequential art and speech balloons are regarded as art -- and in the case of France and Belgium, reading matter for the intelligentsia -- comics are not referred to as "comics" or a similarly frivolous name. I tend to agree with your French friend. They're regarded as lowbrow entertainment because they sound like it. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 21, 2016 10:50:45 GMT -5
Yesterday I sat down and re-read X-Men #1 because it had been many, many years since I read it. It was pretty bad! I read half of #2 and had to stop, could not take any more! Lee's script was pretty childish & Kirby's art was bland and uninspiring. I never was a big Kirby fan on these very early Marvel books. It's actually hard to believe that the Jack Kirby who drew this mess is the same Jack Kirby who would later become an artistic god! Jack and Stan might've been running on empty at that point and coming up with a new hero book--with a group, yet--may have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Even if they were initially excited about it, they may not have had the time/energy they were putting into FF, Thor, etc. to do anything with it. Mormel mentioned how the characters were basic stock--they could've been the cast of a team book. And while Kirby could come up with intriguing character concepts all day (Blob, Juggernaut), he wasn't able to find too much novel for them to do. Stan was, admittedly, better at dialogue than any of the other writers he was hiring at this time, it feels like he was only looking at the books and characters issue by issue (if not panel by panel). It got better when Roy Thomas and Werner Roth took over. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 21, 2016 4:12:35 GMT -5
No, I'm a yank, from the middle of the country. My local public broadcasting station (WILL, Champaign, Illinois) has long been a broadcaster of British television. I started watching British comedies back in the late 70s, with things like Monty Python, Fawlty Towers and Doctor in the House. Also, Mystery, which featured the Jeremy brett Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Morse, Touch of Frost and Prime Suspect. I became a fan and have watched tons of stuff, been introduced to the alternate comedy world when MTV brought The Young Ones over, while I was in college, discovered Black Adder, Last of the Summer Wine and Yes Minister on the early version of the A&E Network (back in the mid-80s, and then saw people like French and Saunders and Fry & Laurie as they became available on cable and video. The internet gave me access to QI, which has taught me all kinds of obscure British history and stereotypes. As I've grown older, I found that British drama drew me in more than the bulk of the US offerings, as they are better written and more focused, and very character driven. Same with the comedy, as well as the British style of humor has always spoken to me. The by-product is that I have a very dry sense of humor and it takes friends and colleagues a minute to "get" a joke I just made, or realize I am joking and then burst out laughing. So, yeah, call me an Anglo-phile. I learned about Essex Girls from British comedians making jokes about them, the Wurzels from Never Mind the Buzzcocks, and a lot about UK life from police dramas. It is always a pleasure to meet someone who appreciates the finer things in life, and there are few things finer than Stephen Fry, though I can only apologize on behalf of my nation for Doctor in the House. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 21, 2016 4:06:37 GMT -5
I seem to be in the minority here, but I love the original X-Men. I first read them in the 70s in British reprint titles like The Superheroes, and always liked them; I've since collected the original run from #25-66, plus #16, #18 and #23, and am still on the lookout for reasonably priced earlier issues. The Thomas/Adam run is one of my all time favourites, but I actually like pretty much everything after Thomas and Werner Roth took over with #20. Angel is still my favourite X-Man, and Unus, Mastermind and Mesmero are still my favourite evil mutants.
I discovered the new X-Men only in the late 70s (I think #111 was the first issue I found, in a newsagents in Hastings, though I'd already "met" Wolverine and Nightcrawler elsewhere) and admittedly, I liked them too, enough to have tracked down the bulk of the issues between #95 and today, but the originals still have something for me that the later team don't. And I really am not that fond of anything after about issue #175.
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 21, 2016 3:47:02 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't know if Roy got tied up with other books or what. Adams was busy with other things and it was a couple of years before they did the Kree-Skrull War together. The first X-Men I saw was Giant Size X-Men #2, in August of 1975, which reprints the Sentinels story, minus the Living Monolith story (which leads into it) and the Sauron story, which acts as an epilogue, then moves to the new story. At the time, I though Cyclop's eye-beams were generated by his visor, as it looked like Quicksilver was using them. i had to reread the story to realize that the X-Men change places with Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Toad, and that Cyclops' eye-beams were self-generated. It didn't help that he used to have to press a button on the visor to open it up, to fire the beams. The early stories are definitely run-of-the-mill team stories. it could have been The Champions, for all of the personality there. Roy was a bit more in sync with the younger voices and gave them personality. Prior to Adams, though, the Steranko issues (50 and 51) are visual treats. I have them in a turtleback edition (library-oriented format, where a tradepaperback is bound into a hardcover, with the original cover laminated to the new hardcover) of Steranko's non-Nick Fury stories, that was deleted from a library. I wanted to scream "What is the matter with you people?" at the library; this is classic stuff. It features those issues, the three Captain America issues, the Tower of Shadows story, and his romance comic story, from Our Love Story. Yeah, man, Steranko did a romance comic! Heck Kirby (and Joe Simon) the King of Action (and Comics), created the romance comic genre. He was married to Roz for over 50 years, so he knew a thing or two about romance. The sales were still awful. Adams wanted the book because he wanted one of the their worst-selling books. I think that sales went up a bit with Thomas/Adams, but not enough to keep the book from being cancelled...or in this case going to reprints. Actually, from what I can gather, sales of the Thoma/Adam issues were indeed high enough to kep the book afloat-if those sales had been taken into consideration when deciding on whether to continue it. But the decision on that would apparently have been based on a quarterly or bi-annual (I forget which) report, and the figures used only went up to just before they hit their stride and sales started to rise. The book was actually cancelled outright with #66, dated March 1970. It was revived as a reprint nine months later, with #67 dated December. It was cancelled again with #93 in April '75, and revived four months later with the new team. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 20, 2016 10:40:49 GMT -5
Maybe he was a fan of the Wurzels and thought his plan needed a brand new combine harvester... Ooh, arr! I gotta ask Cody, are you in the UK? I've wondered this for a while, based on your knowledge of UK pop culture and geographical stereotypes, but then, other times, your posts seem as if you're American. There are, I believe, currently four of us UK based regulars in the forum (me, tingramretro, tolworthy and Simon Garth) and I wondered if you were a fifth to add to our contingent. We need more recruits, if we are to achieve our ultimate objective: Power! Total and absolute! |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 20, 2016 7:43:27 GMT -5
IT'S SOOOO BEAUTIFUL!! I forget, whatever happened to Toro? They retconed him into being an Inhuman.. he was in James Robinson's last Invaders series a bit. not sure if he turned up in either of the Inhumans titles that are going atm. Toro is still around and acting as an agent of Queen Medusa. Most recently, he's been appearing in Squadron Supreme. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 18, 2016 18:35:03 GMT -5
They're all funnybooks to me. But that makes no sense. Most of them aren't funny. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 18, 2016 18:33:13 GMT -5
I've always hated it. Seems like a term originated by people who were ashamed of reading comic books, so they had to make it sound more sophisticated. Since "comic books" is a term that was never in common usage in Britain while "graphic novel" perfectly describes a lot of the European stuff in particular, I totally disagree. I like it. |
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into later.
