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General Comics Chat: House of Great Ideas

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      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeAug 11th 2011
     
    Joe Quesada:
    "Hey Guys, thanks for coming round. We need a great idea for our next summer Event. Do you remember how everybody loved Civil War? Do you remember how Nitro blowing up that school was like 911, and the superhero registration act was a metaphor for the patriot act, and that negative zone prison was akin to Guantanamo Bay? Yeah? Do you remember how even though it was essentially a big fight it still had something to say about the real world? Yeah? Do you remember how, even five years later, it's still the best selling Marvel book at OK Comics?
    Well, we need something like that but its got to say something about peoples apprehension about the economy, or their concerns about the future of their country or children, or their fear of outsiders?
    Anybody got any great ideas?"
    Matt Fraction:
    "Yeah, me. How about we get Red Skulls daughter to be the new Red Skull, how about she makes a deal with Loki or something and she wakes up a snake at the bottom of the sea, and the snake makes loads of hammers like what Thor has but the snake, who we never actually see, gives all the hammers to supervillains and they start hitting stuff with them and Ben Grimm glows orange.
    Also. Red Skull's daughter is Ghost Rider too. Also, we'll spread it out over seven issues and across about 40 other comics"
    Joe Quesada:
    "Anybody else...? No?"
    • CommentAuthorLee
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2011
     
    For the record, I'm quite enjoying Fear Itself. Some of the tie-ins have been ropey, but overall it's enjoyable. Better than just restarting the whole of continuity, anyway...
    •  
      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2011
     
    But, but, but, how do you know? You haven't read the new continuity yet!

    Marvel seem to have taken a much softer approach to 're-booting' their universe. I'm enjoying most of their mew series, FF, Captain America, Daredevil, Punisher... Mighty Thor and Ghost Rider, not so much.
    But I'm really looking forward to Jason Aaron's Hulk and X-Men stuff!
    • CommentAuthorLee
    • CommentTimeAug 13th 2011
     
    I thought the new GR was awful, but we'll see. I've been liking Mighty Thor, but maybe only because of the pretty pictures. FF, DD and Cap have all been good (especially FF) and I'll hopefully read the new Punisher today and it will hopefully be like FrankenCastle never ever ever ever happened.

    And I know the Marvel stuff is better than the DC stuff because it has Marvel characters in it and they are almost all better than almost all DC characters. That's why 20% of DC's output has a Batman focus, whereas Marvel only release hundreds of X-Men books each week...
    • CommentAuthorLee
    • CommentTimeAug 14th 2011
     
    Yay! It was like FrankenCastle never ever ever ever happened! Buy the new Punisher from OK Comics - no neck-bolts or robot arms and more happens than in the last seven issues of Punisher Max.
    • CommentAuthorCaptain Si
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2011
     
    i think its a bit tiresome that we have to have these summer 'events'. its akin to big brother rolling around every year and just makes me want stab the people in charge of this nonsense with a spoon. repeatedly. until they stop.


    also, now i know the new GR is red skull's daughter. bah! although i'm not actually sure that's spolit things for me. at least i know who she is now...BECASUE HER OWN DAMN BOOK SURE AS SH*T AIN'T TELLING ME!!!
    • CommentAuthorLee
    • CommentTimeAug 17th 2011
     
    She is? Huh? When?

    The new GR book reads as if every other page is missing.
  8.  
    Well, I thought (and remain thinking) Civil War was a mess of empty garble so I'm guessing Fear Itself might not be for me.

    Unlike Cap'n Si, I really like these big Summer Events and the more tie-ins and cross-overs they have the more I like them. I like them because that means I can safely ignore 90% of the Big Two's output for about 6 months out of every 12.

    The new Daredevil comic is very, very, very good indeed.Yes it is.
    The new Ghost Rider comic was very, very bad indeed. Yes it was.

    Yay, the new Daredevil comic!
    • CommentAuthorLee
    • CommentTimeAug 18th 2011
     
    Not sure if this should be on the New DC thread or on a new thread or whatever, but...

    I like continuity and moan about retcons, but, actually, you just sort of adjust when things change or stop being mentioned. I think Marvel's usual approach (as seen with every GR relaunch) of just not trying too hard to explain any contradictions is better.

    Take the new DD - it is essentially a magic re-set. Matt had a crisis (li'l DC reference) that ended up with the Shadowland mess. Now he's back and, basically, he's like he was before Shadowland. But, crucially, Shadowland still happened. The Handbook entry for Daredevil will list it in his timeline of stuff, fanboys can still talk about it, it is his history. But also, sorta, it isn't. It was sad, it happened, it's a shame...move on. Same (please gods) with FrankenCastle. One of the many reasons that OMD and BND were so awful was that there was no need for the whole continuity fudge and all that weirdness and it just wasn't very Marvel.

    So why do DC need to keep doing it? Comic readers just deal with the fact that Bruce has been roaming the streets of Gotham for 73 years, just like it was fine that science prodigy Peter Parker took decades to finish school, and Franklin Richards will be about 100 before he hits puberty. I don't think it matters that these things make no sense, and I think DC make it worse for themselves by thinking that it matters.

    Unless, of course, they don't really care and it just a publicity stunt...

    I am supposed to be working, so this may just be a garbled, ranty mess. Soz.

    In summary: the new Daredevil and Punisher books are good. Ghost Rider is terrible. DC are making a pointless mistake that has sucked me in to the tune of ten new comics.

    So DC win.
    • CommentAuthorLee
    • CommentTimeAug 21st 2011
     
    By the way, Schism is way more exciting than Fear Itself.
    • CommentAuthorrah
    • CommentTimeAug 22nd 2011
     
    Comics are terrible.
  12.  
    Except the ones I like. Other than that, yes, comics are indeed terrible.
    • CommentAuthorCaptain Si
    • CommentTimeAug 24th 2011
     
    Hmm. sometimes marvel's 'just carry on' appraoch isn't all that. Spiderman has really been through the mill with this appraoch. Cloned parents, cloned spider man, aunt may dead and then not and then the mess with all those venoms and then unmasking in civil war and then saving his old and dying aunt at the cost of his marriage in a deal with the devil ... sigh. i think what i find a turn off with marvel is that they do these huge life altering events to their characters, and then unpick them all leaving you with a right mess that , in the long run, does the character no favours at all and leaves you thinking 'well, what was the point of that? did any of the stuff i was emotionally invested with not matter anymore? am i kidding myself that this stuff should matter? what am i doing with my life? screw comics, i'm off to the pub.' or, er other such ponderences. i suppose, ulitmately, i'd be happier with just well written character stories and stuff that invovles you rather than lurching from one stupid event to another that you know isn't going to matter diddly squat six months down the line. but in a dying industry, no one has the paitence to 'wait and see' anymore, its all about creating maximum impact and a short sales boost than encouraging any sort of longevity (which may go some way to explaining marvels stupid numbering system).
    • CommentAuthorLee
    • CommentTimeAug 24th 2011
     
    Obviously Spidey is an example of Marvel getting it horribly and repeatedly wrong...

    But the point about stories not mattering any more is interesting (well, to me). This is something I see quite often when continuity changes or numbers restart or people sell their wife to the devil to save their 146-year old aunt, or whatever. And I totally see what the point is, but I always figure that if you enjoyed reading it at the time, then isn't that ok? Isn't that enough? The old stories still exist - the MU may have forgotten Spidey is Pete and his wife is MJ, but we can still remember.

    Mike and, separately, Jared both pointed out to me that the most revered comics are often outside continuity (eg, Dark Knight Returns) with the point that continuity doesn't matter that much. My response is that it is the presence of the continuity that makes those tales great - DKR would simply not have been as good if it was Lee Man Returns. You need the 60-odd years of stories to add impact and emotion, but they don't really need to maintain perfect internal logic.

    Maybe that's the point I'm trying to make - continuity can be an important part of the stories, but it is the stories that matter. Continuity is a picky fact of character development and so on, but if over the course of hundreds of issues it doesn't really cohere, it doesn't matter that much. Not so long as the stories are good (or enjoyable, anyway).

    Unless comics are terrible, in which case I've wasted a truly upsetting amount of my life and money...
    •  
      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeAug 25th 2011
     
    Good point about continuity giving stories context. But a story like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven didn't require forty years of complicated back story to make sense.

    Previous stories sometimes matter. In a recent issue of Amazing Spider-Man Aunt May finally moved out of her little old house, and Peter walked around reminiscing "That's where Doctor Octopus attacked us, That's where Venom hung out the washing" etc. Pretty good, poignant stuff.
    But there are stories in my life that don't really matter today. Things that happened to me years ago, that may have put me on the path to wherever I am in life today may have seemed inmportant at the time, but don't now. I can get on with my life today without having to reference the time I killed my best mates dad with his own glider, or that time I was replaced by four different versions of me in different costumes, or that time I was married, or that time spikes came out of my arms and I could smell the wind... etc.
    I guess what I'm saying is, continuity isn't bad, but it shouldn't get in the way of telling a good story today.

    We're all a bit weird. We've all been reading comics for years. Most people read comics for a few years and stop, for whatever reason. So these long running continuity problems only occur to a small minority of people. Us.
    If DC refreshing their entire range gets more people buying comics, which it appears that it will, then surely that's a good thing.
    •  
      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeAug 25th 2011 edited
     
    Having said that, Barbara Gordon standing up and becoming Batgirl again is a bad move. Anybody can be a Batgirl/Man/Woman/Boy/Wing/Robin/RedWing/whatever.
    Oracle was a great inspiration for a lot of wheelchair bound comic enthusiast.
  17.  
    Hey, I'm not weird. But, yeah, everybody else is. I can smell the wind, though. Must have been beans again last night.

    I think when Wolverine and Spider-Man are both on two DIFFERENT Avengers teams at the SAME time, as well as being in the X-Men (Wolermungo) and the Fantastic Four (Spider-Coward) while also having more solo adventures than can fit in a single monthly book then continuity is what you make it. And that's fine by me. Matt Murdock walked down the street with Karen Page out of Daredevil (Vol.1) #233 and straight into the new Daredevil (Vol.?!?) #1 in my continuity. Pick'n'mix, innit. Like Woolworths. Remember Woolworths? Oh, byegone days of yore.
    •  
      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeAug 29th 2011
     
    Even Woolworths got a reboot. It's now available digitally... http://www.woolworths.co.uk/

    I quite liked the Jason Aaron Wolverine story that showed just how busy he is all the time.
  19.  
    NuWoolworths! 52 varieties of pick'n'mix!

    I liked that Jason Aaron story about how busy Wolvermambo was all the time. I used to enjoy Jason Aaron's Wolvermacaroon. Good days.
    •  
      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeSep 2nd 2011
     
    The latest issue of Wolverine hooked me back in. Pretty harsh stuff for a Marvel Comic.
    The tough time Aaron is giving Logan, and Frank in Punisher Max, has got me looking forward to his Hulk stuff.
    Hulk was created by Jack Kirby wasn't he?

    Anybody unhappy with the way Marvel are disrespecting founding father Jack Kirby should probably switch to DC. It looks like the new fifty two are establishing a post Kirby, pre Alan Moore universe.

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