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Post by tingramretro on Nov 18, 2016 11:39:45 GMT -5
Incidentally, in the early 1980s The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe will tell us that Brian's family home is in Maldon, Essex. So, on exactly the opposite side of the country to where it's stated to be here.
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 18, 2016 11:25:33 GMT -5
Captain Britain #9 (Dec '76)Script: Chris Claremont Art: Herb Trimpe/Fred Kida "Demon-Fire!"  "Only moments ago, what should have been a normal landing at a private West Country airfield had turned into tragedy!" according to the opening caption of issue #9. So, Brian and Betsy Braddock's home is evidently in the West Country! You can't say the Captain doesn't get around. He's still pretty unpracticed at this superhero stuff though, as Dr. Synne...the elderly weirdo on the horse who is still boasting that his "demon dreams" have "destroyed Betsy's mind"...seems more than a match for him, keeping him off balance by chucking fireballs from his hands (which the Captain immediately knows are "real enough" before they even make contact, despite the fact that Synne has already more or less admitted to being an illusionist), appearing and disappearing, and then apparently opening up a portal to Hades to cover his escape, where CB is taunted by demons who accuse him of being responsible for his parents deaths! All illuory, of course, but a rattled Brian still protests that "That was an accident--and they forgave me!" so there's clearly some dark secret in his past. Nonetheless, Brian fights his way back to reality to find that he has inexplicably transformed back into his civilian identity-handily enough, as his brother Jamie and a Braddock family employee named Mick (who will never be seen or mentioned again) have come from "the Manor" to investigate the plane crash! Yep, this is where we get our first glimpse of Braddock Manor, which we are told has been the ancestral home of the family for "a quarter millennium" (for God's sake, Chris-just say "250 years", if that's what you mean!) since it was built by "a victorious General home from the European Wars" (uh, which war, exactly? There were a lot!) on land which has belonged to the Braddock's since before the Romans came! So, leaving aside the dodgy history: it now seems that in nine issues Brian Braddock has gone from being a student prodigy on work experience at a top secret nuclear research centre, to a kind of London based Peter Parker clone, complete with knock-offs of his supporting cast, to a minor aristocrat with a huge ancestral pile, servants, dead parents, a dark secret, a twin sister who lands her plane at a private airfield and a brother who has a racetrack behind the house. On the whole, I can't help thinking Claremont is getting just a tad carried away! Further exploration of the Braddock Dynasty will have to wait though: Brother Jamie has conveniently recovered from the terribe car crash which had Betsy so worked up just a few hours ago (a plot point hastily glossed over in one panel) but it seems, according to a grave faced Jamie, that the family and te entire area are in danger; Jamie's accident was no accident, it was a "declaration of war" caused by Dr. Synne, who "started his reign of terror a month ago among the local farms and villages", and who has transformed everyone who has opposed him (including the County's Chief Constable) into his "devoted slaves"! Everyone except the Braddock's, obviously. So, here we have a supervillain on a quest for "Power! Total and absolute", and he's started off looking for it in the West Country, an area best known for tin mining and the production of cider, cheese and clotted cream! That's a new and refreshingly original approach... Before Brian can really take it in, though, Betsy comes out of the daze she's been in since the plane crash and, duped by Synne's mesmeric influence into seeing her brothers as monsters (which she believes she remembers seeing kill them both), attacks Brian with an antique battleaxe! With a berserk Betsy lunging at him and Jamie too far away to grab her, Bri faces a terrible decision: "Only Captain Britain would have the power to restrain her! But if I switch to him now, I'll reveal my secret identity! And yet if I don't, Betsy may well kill us both!" See, this is why I hate family reunions. They're always so embarrassing... 
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 17, 2016 4:45:31 GMT -5
With the older issues of New Warriors. Issue 38 i assume was involved with some story arc where Rage was dying from something. I still like Speedball but I still dont know a whole lot about Speedball. Speeball a mutant or he get his powers from a lab accident or whatever? his powers work the same as Cannonball a little bit or different? A lab accident irradiated both Robbie Baldwin and his cat, Neils, and gave them both the same powers, which revolve around kinetic energy-nothing like Cannonball. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 17, 2016 4:42:40 GMT -5
I bought the book for about the first 50 issues and enjoyed it, but mostly because I was a Nova fan. Never much cared about most of the others, except Vance and Angelica.
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 17, 2016 4:41:00 GMT -5
Yeah nightthrasher was also known as Rage. I prefer his old name Nightthrasher Night Thrasher (Dwayne Taylor) and Rage (Elvin Haliday) are two completely different characters. Rage was created in The Avengers in 1990, and later joined the Warriors. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 17, 2016 3:37:17 GMT -5
Post-Crisis. The Bronze Age was when I got into DC and I still love a lot of that stuff, but I think the late eighties/nineties were when DC were putting out most of the best stuff they ever did, including Robinson's Starman, Sandman, Morrison's Animal Man, Moore's Swamp Thing, the JLI, and pretty much anything written by John Ostrander.
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 17, 2016 3:28:57 GMT -5
The the theme this week is 1950s style sci-fi, meaning either genuine fifties science-fiction or covers deliberately reminiscent of it. The Rules: - Post one, and only one, classic cover that fits tbe theme of the contest. - Cover must be from a comic book or collected volume published before Nov 2006. - Covers must be posted before voting begins - Voting begins Tuesday Nov 22, beginnig at 12.01 PST and ends at 11.59 PST. - Vote by posting the name of the poster whose cover best fits the theme or that you simply like the most. - Put the name of your choice in bold. - The winner of the contet is the entrant with the most votes after the voting period ends. - The winner chooses the theme for the next week's contest. - If you don't think the cover fits the theme, don't vote for it; please don't post disparaging remarks about it. - If a cover is more recent than the Classic Time Frame, kindly point it out and the poster can choose an alternate before voting begins. Here's mine...  |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 16, 2016 4:44:52 GMT -5
And the results are in. Embracing victory this week is tingrametro with 4 votes. Clinging on to second place is Theta Sigma with 3 votes. jodoc, Juggernaut, foxley, MDG, and pinkfloyd17 each wrapped their arms around 2 votes each. And a group hug for bry914, Farrar, the 4thpip, bert, and BaB who scored one vote each. Thanks, all! I'm off to Norwich in a few minutes, but the next contest will be up within 24 hours, either late tonight or early tomorrow morning (UK time, obviously). |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 16, 2016 3:26:06 GMT -5
My reaction when I saw that hideous cut-out was to wonder whether she had the power to make her stretch marks invisible. Stretch marks? What marks has Stretch made on her?  |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 15, 2016 3:29:21 GMT -5
Juggernaut, for subverting expectations.
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 15, 2016 2:03:58 GMT -5
I prefer single issues too I have a few trades, like Watchmen and Batman The Dark Mirror. But generally, I want to read it as it original appeared, in a single issue. Granted, that is impossible for many costly books which is why I will get the most interesting reprint possible (for example, I have the first 6 issues of FF as one of those pocket books Marvel put out in the 70's...or the first issue of Batman as the oversized Treasury they put out). If I can find the earliest reprint possible, that is my goal. I have that FF book, too, as well as the Spidey and Dr. Strange ones. Lovely little books. I used to read them on long car journeys as a kid. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 15, 2016 2:01:32 GMT -5
Case in point: will any writer ever reference events from Bruce Jones's run on Hulk? I doubt it... More's the pity, that was definitely one of my favorite runs on the Hulk. Mine, too. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 14, 2016 17:47:18 GMT -5
Really you can probably quit talking about Marvel continuity in the mid/late 80s when half the staff flew the coop to DC. There are probably selected comics over the decades that are in line with what went on before, but really the classic marvel run from say 62-87 is the real universe, everything afterwards is just echoes. There was odd continuity in those couple decades, but for the most part the style was always there. I'd agree with that. Though I'd have said 1986. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 14, 2016 10:49:11 GMT -5
It has gotten so bad Marvel has had like 4-5 soft reboots in as many years as they keep messing things ups in their universe as editorially nobody is making the writers follow history or characterization or current stories. Writer A says Wolverine can do this and Writer B rewrites that saying it was a dream and Writer C never read or Writer B and uses Writer A's version and then Writer D comes along destroying it all to write what he says is the new definitive version. Until that version turns to crap and a few years later his version is tossed aside. Case in point: will any writer ever reference events from Bruce Jones's run on Hulk? I doubt it... |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 14, 2016 8:26:41 GMT -5
I started buying a few Omnibus books, but DAMN, those things are just too big, heavy & hard to read & I feel that if I pick them up wrong they are going to break! I love the Marvel Omnibus line, as cumbersome that they are. However, they are a great way to read a long run collected in to one volume, and then put on the shelf as a sort of archive; maybe only to be picked up for reference on random occassions. They really do look lovely though! My only problem is that I need to get some bigger shelving in, as my standard bookcase won't hold them! My Captain Britain Omnibus is probably the most treasured book in my house, even though I have all the original comics. I reread it at least once a year. Love the Dalek Zeg avatar by the way, Stevo. |
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