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Post by Dizzy D on May 1, 2024 4:09:55 GMT -5
Random late night musing...you can tell you're getting on in life a bit when you watch Empire Strikes Back for the umpteenth time and it genuinely occurs to you, "wow, Vader doesn't ever have to run his staff terminations and promotions through HR".
You wonder if Vader also writes letters to the family's of his fallen soldiers: "It regrets me to say that your son died due to his own incompetence. But rest assured, he made the Empire stronger by his absence."
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 30, 2024 3:01:26 GMT -5
Fine Print volume 2. Not finished reading it yet, but enjoying it so far. Also saw that a new Sunstone will release next month.
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 27, 2024 16:23:45 GMT -5
G.O.D.S. #7 by Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti and Marte Gracia
What Happened Before: Wynn is a mage working for The Powers that Be, the Principal of Magic. His ex-wife Aiko is a scientist working for its counterpart: The Natural Order of Things, the Principal of Science. Dimitri works for the Principal of Science, but is assigned as envoy to Wynn as part of a treaty between both parties.
Plot: Dimitri is the child of two Soviet cosmonauts who disappeared during a mission when he was still a child. He has been planting monitoring devices this whole series to triangulate the location of his missing parents who are somewhere outside reality. For the final device he needs to place it within the Sanctum Sanctorum of Dr. Strange, something he failed to do earlier this series.
Art: The art is again OK, it does a serviceable job at telling the story, but as someone who has grown up with Ditko, Sienkiwicz and other great artists, the designs for the realm outside reality and its inhabitants are rather boring.
Writing: It's a really straightforward story and gives backstory to Dimitri and his motivations, but it remains to be seen how this ties into the ongoing story. The main impact on the larger story would be how it changes the relationship between Wynn and Strange, but that is not addressed in this issue.
For new readers: New readers should have little trouble following what is happening here: this is a story of man looking for his missing parents with the help of science and magic, but the story is too short and felt a little flat to me.
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 27, 2024 14:40:24 GMT -5
I know Image changed a kiss between Sarah Rainmaker and another girl at the last minute in the early/mid 90s. I'm not sure if the CCA would find it a problem, but the publishers may not have wanted to take the chance. Uh, Image submitted their comics to the CCA? Good point, never checked their covers. So they may just have feared advertisers or distributers.
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 27, 2024 13:45:26 GMT -5
I know Image changed a kiss between Sarah Rainmaker and another girl at the last minute in the early/mid 90s. I'm not sure if the CCA would find it a problem, but the publishers may not have wanted to take the chance.
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 27, 2024 11:08:57 GMT -5
I guess so, all the ones mentioned so far are post dropping the CCA in 2001. Maybe something in Marvel UK before? They had a bit more leeway, but nothing I could find so far.
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 27, 2024 10:36:02 GMT -5
I know Moondragon and Marlo Chandler kissed in Captain Marvel back in 2002, so that's at least before Deadly Origin. I know also that Mystique kissed a woman in her solo-series by B.K. Vaughn, but I think that was after that. (Quick check: 2003)
(Ah, Abattoir came before that anyway).
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 24, 2024 7:07:09 GMT -5
Here, just to please you. (my real opinion was earlier). I kinda wanted to vote for current Marvel as well, because I do think that they deserver more than 0 votes.
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 22, 2024 7:43:22 GMT -5
Incredibly slow and drawn out, yeah. For me, it's not even in the same league as Rogue One. Not by a long shot. Plus, I tend to agree with you that I'm not sure it was even a story that required telling. I guess you could legitimately say the same about Rogue one, but the proof of that was in the pudding and for my money the pudding was fantastic cinema. That said, Diego Luna was great reprising his title role in Andor and the production values are predictably high...and I also enjoyed the fact that, like Rogue One, it showed us the morally grubbier underside of the early Rebellion. But by far its biggest sin for me is that the story is unnecessarily stretched out, almost to breaking point, just to get 10 episodes (or whatever it was) out of it. It needed a good editor with the balls to say, "there's really not enough story here for a full series. Let's turn it into a feature-length TV movie." I really liked Andor... I thought it was some really interesting background on how the Death Star was built and the conditions of the average citizen in the Star Wars galaxy. Was the pace a bit slow? For sure. Alot like Bad Batch.. it's a great story being told in the Star Wars universe that I had no idea I wanted to hear about. If they MUST tell stories within the frame work of the existing movies (rather than moving forward) this is the sort of stuff I want.
I will also speak up for Andor, which turned out to be one of my favourite Star Wars projects, but it probably didn't even need the Star Wars connections to work. It's slow (though I would prefer to say it takes its time), but I didn't feel that the story was stretched out.
It's basically 4 movies in 12 episodes: - Episodes 1-3: Andor gets into trouble with the law
- Episodes 4-6: The heist - Episodes 7-10: The prison break - Episodes 11-12: Andor returns home
With all the stories follow several different characters living under the Empire. I think in the whole series only 4 characters are pre-existing Star Wars characters (and two of them only appear very briefly).
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 19, 2024 8:48:53 GMT -5
As a small child, the ending to Blake's 7 was a big downer. But OTOH I still remember it vividly decades later, so it does have something going for it.
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 19, 2024 8:41:22 GMT -5
I have problems deciding on any of the three major (I remember Blackthorne BTW. They made some 3D Star Wars comics (you know the old ones where you needed red/green glasses))
Each period had some titles I enjoyed and some titles I thought were absolutely terrible.
I have a far bit of nostalgia for the old Marvel comics and I agree that the amount of leeway they got, made them to me a lot more interesting than later series. The build-up of Luke first facing space pirates and criminals then minor Imperial nobility and bounty hunters before finally facing Vader was a great bit of storytelling. The issues between ESB and ROTJ were probably my favourite. Post ROTJ the line lost a lot of motivation, unclear where they'd need to go from then on. Still I have fondness for the Duffy/Martin stories even though they were very uneven.
Dark Horse: Had some really good stories, but also had some problems with "let's just do the same thing again.. and again." The Old Republic had probably 2 good mini's and a couple more that just repeated the same basic plots. I really liked the comics that Ostrander did for DH.
Current Marvel: Had some solid talent and artists, but I've not kept up with them as they basically just have been streamlining events that happened between the various movies. I really liked Gillen's Darth Vader series and Doctor Aphra gave us a new character with some new adventures.
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 15, 2024 14:02:15 GMT -5
Jeffrey Veregge, cover artist for Marvel, IDW, Valiant and others, as well as known for his murals, died last week from a heart attack (as a result of a long battle with the Lupus) www.jeffreyveregge.com/
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 11, 2024 10:01:50 GMT -5
So, er... forgive my lack of knowledge of current events, but fan websites pretty confused when it comes to such things. Is Charles Xavier still dead? Why is Magneto in a wheelchair, are there no mutant healers anymore? Are Scott and Jean still married since death did do them part (a few times over)? Has the school been destroyed once again? Did Banshee ever come back? What about Moira? Did Beast ever recover from whatever happened at the end of Bendis's run? AND WHEN WILL EL TIGRE BE REVEALED AS THE ONE WHO HAD BEEN PULLING THE STRINGS ALL ALONG???
We're currently in the middle of a storyline and I'm a bit behind (up to Immortal X-Men volume 4), so answers so far:
- No, Charles Xavier is currently (end of Immortal X-Men volume 4) alive and has been for the past few years. - Magneto is currently dead, but as there is a mini-series running now called "The Resurrection of Magneto" which today had its final issue published, probably not for long. - I don't know if they are legally married, but they lived together during House of X/Power of X and its follow-ups. - School is abandoned for now, but will be in use again when the new series will start later this year. - Banshee is alive and well the last I checked. - Moira ... long, long story. She currently is an evil cyborg (which was a terrible bit of writing of Benjamin Percy, because that is definitely not where Hickman left her when he left the series). - I haven't read Bendis X-Men, so I don't know what happened there. As far as I know (haven't been following the series myself); there are currently two versions of Beast running around: the original who is at odds with basically everybody and a younger version from around the time he was with the Defenders who now lives together with Wonder Man. - El Tigre was revealed as the mastermind behind the Nimrod Project in the Extremely Important X-Men #5 last year.
These are the upcoming series that have been announced so far:
X-Men by Jed McKay and Ryan Stegman. Cyclops, Magneto, Beast, Psylocke (I guess), Magik, Kid Omega, Oya and Juggernaut
Uncanny X-Men by Gail Simone and David Marquez: Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue, Nightcrawler and Jubilee.
Extraordinary X-Men: Eve Ewing and Carmen Carnero, Emma Frost, Kate Pryde and a lot of new students. Seems to be focused on the school aspect.
X-Force by Geoffrey Thorne (his first comic AFAIK, normally screenwriter) and Marcus To: Forge, Tessa, Surge, Rachel Summers and Betsy Braddock (and somebody I don't know)
Phoenix by Stephanie Phillips and Alessandro Miracolo: Solo Jean Grey series, cosmic adventure.
Details on NYX and X-Factor have not been revealed yet.
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 5, 2024 2:20:35 GMT -5
If JLX is left out, wouldn't the Magnetic Men also be left out for the same reason?
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Post by Dizzy D on Apr 1, 2024 4:57:57 GMT -5
Valero is the co-writer, the art is by Lapone.
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