New posts

Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="ATenderLad, post: 148037, member: 3864"] The setup with Darkseid made it sound like Absolute would be a "Darkseid Is" pit of despair, but you're right, it's just a modern revamp of the characters and the rest is pretext. It helps that so far it's been *damned good* revamps, too. There's such an interesting evolution of folk hero vigilantes going back to The Scarlet Pimpernel, Zorro, The Shadow, The Phantom, Doc Savage, etc. The abundant violence was pretty much inherited too, from the various men's magazines and "penny dreadfuls" that the writers all drew inspiration from. The Clock is a funny one, the writer *liked* The Shadow but thought: Where does he torture people? [B]Fuck, yes.[/B] Oh, y'all had a whole conversation about the Ultimate Marvel line, wild! I really struggled with most of those, and didn't have many favorites. U-Fantastic Four started out interesting, but it didn't take long to be the Reed Richards Show. (Carried on to this day with him being the "Maker" of the new Ultimate universe). U*Spider-Man was another one I bounced off of, I don't really think of him as a teenager. Mr. Daddy answered this pretty clearly, I just want to add that the question "How do we attract new readers who don't know the continuity" has been the Great Conundrum of American comics for decades. Crisis on Infinite Earths was one attempt, a line-wide reboot for a fresh start. Ultimate Marvel was inspired by that effort, they just figured they could have their "decades of comics"-flavored cake and eat it too! Edit: Shit, Octopus pretty much said the same further down. That cephalopod knows what it's talking about! [I]The Ultimates[/I] was *extremely* satirical, Mark Millar had a lot of fun using the Avengers to talk about the Bush-era GWOT. The well-known quote above came out the same year that we changed the Congressional cafeteria menu to say "Freedom Toast" and "Freedom Fries"; it's not so much "America, Fuck Yeah!" as it is "Yeah, Fuck America!" It's a loud and nasty take on a big American summer action movie. The artwork kinda exacerbates the whole thing too, Bryan Hitch was a big part of that "widescreen comics" visual change and they went really on the nose with the "actors" too. (Remember how Norman Osborn was just Tommy Lee Jones for awhile?) ...all that said, I don't actually like them that much! Millar is probably mainstream comics biggest provocateur, but he's always trying so hard to get a rise out of people; it's just exhausting after a point. [I]Ultimatum [/I]was...shit, I've got nothing nice to say about that book. A lot of people die but it feels empty and pointless, which is made worse by the big reveal at the end about mutants. "Meaningless" is kinda the theme of the book, which I guess it nails to it's...credit? (There's probably something to be said about writer Jeph Loeb and his personal life, having tragically lost his son Sam a couple years prior. He wrote some very touching stories dealing with that initially, and then went through a pretty dark period creatively....then again, maybe he thought this was good? I dunno, psycho-analysis is probably best left out of it). Yeah, pretty much! There's honestly a really fun story in [I]Secret Wars[/I] at it's core - involving Doom and Reed Richards primarily - but from an editorial standpoint the goal seems to have been "Make Miles Marvel". Miles Morales was the part of the Ultimate line they wanted to keep, and Hickman had been building that whole story for years at that point. Like most event books, [I]Secret Wars [/I]suffers from too large a scope; everything from the multiverse to the Infinity Gems to the Avengers and more actually turn out to be superfluous. It's really the end of Hickmans Fantastic Four story, and the clashing personalities of Reed and Doom. That would be fine, if I hadn't been buying years worth of other comics about other characters in the lead-up! At least the T'challa stuff kinda kicks ass, and the actual "sandbox" of Battleworld - Doom's new universe after the old one blows up - was a cool excuse for literally any story a creative team could offer. Ughhhhh, thanks for reminding me! They took the whole Logan/Kitty Pride dynamic and gave it the "Batman and Robin are fucking!" treatment. A lot of the Ultimates are some form of satire, but U*Thor was just a really fun idea. U*Hulk was definitely [I]less [/I]fun, but it was kind of ahead of it's time for that particular kind of *guy*. He's practically an incel! The most upsetting part of that was still The Wasp talking about incest like Cap was a caveman for being weirded out. That's a great list you got there! [I]Triumph and Torment[/I] is probably my favorite Doctor Strange story...and maybe my favorite Doc Doom tale for that matter, it's fantastic! I think Grant Morrison was the only person who really did the "prep-time Batgod" thing right, seeing as he's largely responsible for it. Even then, he still writes Batman getting his ass beat pretty regularly! I also think it's a bit of a crutch for comic book writers. Not to sound like a bitch, but writing mysteries is hard, and Batman has to solve them by the end; I imagine it's a lot easier if you can just say the Caped Crusader figured that shit out hours ago, he didn't need clues or a coherently plotted web of intrigue! (I like the extended Bat family, but I haven't read a single story that makes me glad Jason Todd came back to life). Fake would love this. (Personally I've read like two issues recently and mostly felt confused, the cast is enormous and I don't know a one of 'em). Oh there he is! I saw Geoff Johns was writing a "Highlander", I've got a few issues set aside to try. (It's been way on the back burner, his DC stuff was pretty grim for years). Glad to hear someone enjoyed it though, I'm excited to thumb through it! Completely unknown to me but I adore that cover image! [/QUOTE]

Verification

Online statistics

Members online: 183

Guests online: 199

Total visitors: 382

Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads: 9,634

Messages: 238,441

Members: 759,939

Latest member: tomtom311

Reply to thread

Online statistics

Forum statistics

Advertisers