I think DeFalco's problem was that his biggest strengths were characterization, continuity, and making use of the supporting cast & subplots... but wasn't great at creating epics or otherwise memorable stories. So while his runs as a whole are great they often don't have any single, big story that are easily digestible, like Kraven's Last Hunt.
Apparently the reason Greg Rucka quit DC to go write Punisher for Marvel was because he was told he could have the WW book, but then they gave it to Morrison because he decided he wanted it so he could do a lecture on bondage.
I really like Ennis as a writer, but I do agree that he needs a strong editing hand to rein him in when he gets too self-indulgent. The Boys was aggressively mediocre, and the TV adaptation is liquid dogshit. Preacher and Just A Pilgrim are probably his best non-Punisher works, even though Just A Pilgrim absolutely shat itself at the end of the Garden of Eden story.
I'm re-reading Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, and it just might be the funniest comic book I've ever read. I have a very similar juvenile sense of humor to Garth, so I enjoy his humor writing.
As for Gravel, I liked it well enough, but I think it had a lot of potential that it didn't live up to.
Sorry for the additional sperging, I can't figure out how the get the mult-quote function to work. I was trying to reply to GoPro's post on page 221 about Ennis' work.
Pressing "+Quote" next to the post and "Insert Quotes" under the reply box will do the trick.
Ultimately, it all depends on your taste. I am disappointed to see all these good ideas Ennis has go to waste and wish he could do better.
For years I've longed to see a DoD Marvel comic about an honest effort to put a band-aid on the mutant threat, just a hardworking suit with a family that in inner monologues explains why they are a threat to everyone and why they are doing good work. That person is just one of the 8 billion normal people that don't have god like powers trying to keep their life intact without stressing out too much about what might happen, except he or she knows the full scope of the threat.
There isn't a good way to control mutant threat without putting something that would inhibit superpowers in water supplies. Banning most superpower use without specific licenses and banning certain abilities altogether is only a half measure. What if someone hits puberty, powers kick in, and they happen to tun that mutant into a black hole that sucks in everything within 100 mile radius? One incident like that would win enough people over to pass mutant control measures.
Most plots regarding superpower control won't happen. Too many of them would parallel gun control, eugenics, or objectivist philosophy too much. Similarly, tapping into effects of mutants on average people's lives and casting mutant outside of tired hero and villain plots would paint mutants in too much of a negative light. That really ruins the minority allegory. Deadpool 2 is probably the closest we will ever get to a mutant equivalent of a high school shooter.
What if someone hits puberty, powers kick in, and they happen to tun that mutant into a black hole that sucks in everything within 100 mile radius? One incident like that would win enough people over to pass mutant control measures.
That happened in Ultimate I think? Similar at least, the kids power was that everyone around him died. Killed his neighborhood involuntarily.
Xavier sent in Wolverine who could resist it. He talked to the kid, offered him a beer, then killed him. It could not be known to the world that a mutant can be like that.
I am pretty sure it was Ultimate's but the implication was that Xavier was sweeping more than that under the rug. From my recollection reading it, the tone was that this wasn't Logan's first time dealing with something that would make mutants look bad.
That happened in Ultimate I think? Similar at least, the kids power was that everyone around him died. Killed his neighborhood involuntarily.
Xavier sent in Wolverine who could resist it. He talked to the kid, offered him a beer, then killed him. It could not be known to the world that a mutant can be like that.
I am pretty sure it was Ultimate's but the implication was that Xavier was sweeping more than that under the rug. From my recollection reading it, the tone was that this wasn't Logan's first time dealing with something that would make mutants look bad.
There were two instances of a mutants so powerful, that they had to be "erased"
The first was Matthew Malloy, who could warp reality on a massive scale. Every few years, Chuck would visit him and reinforce mental blocks preventing him from accessing his power and remembering he had them. After Chuck got killed by a Phoenix empowered Cyclops, these safeguards weakened enough for his powers to manifest. Long story short, he ended up wiping out SHIELD's whole battalion, and the only way they stopped him was by Tempus using her time manipulation to go back before Matthew was born and have Xavier use his mental powers to prevent Matthew's parents from meeting.
The other was in the Ultimate X-Men, with another omega level reality warper named Elliot Boggs. Nick Fury escorted him to Xavier after he "wished" his parents away. They put him on the team and ended up fighting a version of The Brotherhood and beating them single handedly. Everything unraveled when the REAL Nick Fury came to take Eliot (now calling himself "Magician") into custody, which led to the team to understanding the Brotherhood and the fake Fury were subconscious manifestations of Magician's power, because he wanted them to like him. He nearly wiped out the X-Men until Wolverine and Jean get the upper hand and killed him. Later on he appears to Kitty and reveals that he made everyone forget he existed so he could live without worrying about the X-Men and SHIELD on his ass, then made her forget she saw him too.
One thing I love searching the internet for and learning about is old comics. For the same reason I love old books & films for a brief moment you kinda get to feel like a timetraveller and have a glimpse of a world that was around decades before you.
Assuming you're American Gasoline Alley was likely a comic strip your (Great) Grandparents read and enjoyed. It was started over 100 years ago by Frank King. King had the bold idea to actually have the characters age naturally with time. Today the main cast of Gasoline Alley are well over 100 and the comic strip is drawn lazily by an old fart of the characters pretty much going "Oh wow that's an iPhone, we didn't have that back in the day haha." I assume Gasoline Alley only continues to this day for the sake of the remaining newspapers to fill their tired "Funnies" section and to reap whatever miniscule syndication it continues to get.
Brilliant post. It's very sad to me that old comic strips were so inventive and well done, but have been unnaturally stretched out into complete shells of their former selves. Even something like Beetle Bailey had a vibrancy and fun in the art, especially compared to how stiff it is now. I imagine that more people would enjoy and respect these works if there weren't decades of crap overshadowing the good stuff.
That happened in Ultimate I think? Similar at least, the kids power was that everyone around him died. Killed his neighborhood involuntarily.
Xavier sent in Wolverine who could resist it. He talked to the kid, offered him a beer, then killed him. It could not be known to the world that a mutant can be like that.
I am pretty sure it was Ultimate's but the implication was that Xavier was sweeping more than that under the rug. From my recollection reading it, the tone was that this wasn't Logan's first time dealing with something that would make mutants look bad.
I might make a thread about The Viz because its more of a magazine than a comic but i read a lot of the Copper’s Torch annual recently but as much as I love The Viz I can tell it’s written by like, people my dad’s age. Its satire of Trump and wokies is very gen X. I feel if they got younger people to do the satire it could help a ton. Because young or just younger people like a Jreg, like a psychicpebbles, like a DJ peach cobbler, like a Nick Mullen, like a Tim Dillon, like a friendlyjordies, know how to make more original comedy on these things. Even if you view them as cringe zoomer nonsense they can make more up to date jokes than “lel triggered millennials” and “lel tangerine skin”
I might make a thread about The Viz because its more of a magazine than a comic but i read a lot of the Copper’s Torch annual recently but as much as I love The Viz I can tell it’s written by like, people my dad’s age. Its satire of Trump and wokies is very gen X. I feel if they got younger people to do the satire it could help a ton. Because young or just younger people like a Jreg, like a psychicpebbles, like a DJ peach cobbler, like a Nick Mullen, like a Tim Dillon, like a friendlyjordies, know how to make more original comedy on these things. Even if you view them as cringe zoomer nonsense they can make more up to date jokes than “lel triggered millennials” and “lel tangerine skin”
It's amazing how the two guys that make Hen Cabin, Drunken Bakers, George Bestial, Driving Mr. Beckham and other stuff like this: View attachment 3587536
There was an old strip one I can't remember the name, not made by Farmer/Healey, about a tv-presenter who emboddied every stereotypical male trait. It was really funny.
I gotta say: I did not like John Romita Jr.'s run on Spectacular Spider-Man. His art was, to put it kindly, absolute shit.
But I do like what he's doing currently on Amazing Spider-Man. Its weird how refreshing it is to see an actual, experienced, professional artist working on a comic book in 2022 instead of some rando from Portland whose shit wouldn't even cut it on deviantart.
Last I heard, Tom Taylor's having his comic journalist cronies try and salvage his rape of the Superman franchise by claiming "Gay Jon is outselling Straight Clark!" even though sales for both books are at record lows.
If Dark Crisis doesn't fucking erase everything from the Bendis run and the Taylor run, then all hope is lost because of the way that the only fucking point of doing Dark Crisis would be to purge the vineyard of all of the shit that DiDio wouldn't let Snyder reset because of 5G.
There isn't a good way to control mutant threat without putting something that would inhibit superpowers in water supplies. Banning most superpower use without specific licenses and banning certain abilities altogether is only a half measure. What if someone hits puberty, powers kick in, and they happen to tun that mutant into a black hole that sucks in everything within 100 mile radius? One incident like that would win enough people over to pass mutant control measures.
Most plots regarding superpower control won't happen. Too many of them would parallel gun control, eugenics, or objectivist philosophy too much. Similarly, tapping into effects of mutants on average people's lives and casting mutant outside of tired hero and villain plots would paint mutants in too much of a negative light. That really ruins the minority allegory. Deadpool 2 is probably the closest we will ever get to a mutant equivalent of a high school shooter.
The bigger issue is that mutant powers are 100% a crapshoot and basically for every Legion or Havok or Magneto or Jean Grey you get 10-20 deformed mutant who if they are lucky get basic bitch super strength and/or agility powers or like the guy with a see through blob body who's body is a literal abomination and who's "power" is that he's near "indestructible", meaning he can't even kill himself to put himself out of his misery.
Hell, even Morrison wrote Xavier as a hypocritical piece of shit, doing Handmaiden Tales (TV show version) shit where at a public meet and greet/open house event, he ordered Xorn (IE Magneto in disguise) to take the freak mutants into the woods for the weekend so they were out of sight entirely so that Xavier could pass off the Stepford Cuckoos and other normal looking mutants as the rank and file student body of the school. Which ended up backfiring as Magneto, in the guise of Xorn, basically used the experience to basically bind the misfits together to help him burn the school to the ground and take Xavier hostage.
Worse is the fact that, since Morrison, there has been the push to "normalize" the freakish mutants over the normal ones as part of the whole "Mutants as a culture" thing Morrison pushed. I know Joe Casey wanted his X-Men team to be filled with freak mutants (he ended up settling for Chamber, Nightcrawler, Angel, and the character Stacy X, who had skin like a snake) and this has become WORSE since the SJW garbage took over the X-Men.
It's why storylines about mutant cures always fucking suck because Marvel have themselves written into a corner where the X-Men MUST stop any cures from being mainstreamed and available for usage because "muh genocide". Or worse, you get shit like Krakoa where Xavier GLEEFULLY mindrapes Reed Richards so his brain will NEVER ALLOW HIM to create a neutralizer/cloaking device to hide mutants (something that has shown to be absolutely motherfucking CRITICAL in every variation of the Days of Future Past timeline) and left him knowing what Xavier did to him purely because Xavier has gone full super-villain.
It's crabs in a bucket syndrome but far fucking worse, given the number of mutants who would GLADLY give up their powers to be normal because being a deformed mutant or having a literal curse power (Rogue for instance) but are forever denied this chance because Magneto and Xavier would then be out of business. To the point that it makes Wanda all the more right in terms of all of the shit she's said about mutantkind over the years and why she spent the bulk of her life avoiding that hell and instead chilling with the Avengers and her robot husband.
It's crabs in a bucket syndrome but far fucking worse, given the number of mutants who would GLADLY give up their powers to be normal because being a deformed mutant or having a literal curse power (Rogue for instance) but are forever denied this chance because Magneto and Xavier would then be out of business.
Like with the First goosebumps books we don't have an exact publication date for the first appearance of Spider-Man. Just that it was sometime in august of 1962. So since we're halfway through the month let me be the first to wish ole' Peter Parker a happy big 6 0 years and counting. For better;
and worse:
(from sins past..the comic that once said Gwen Stacy slept with norman Osborn)
Like with the First goosebumps books we don't have an exact publication date for the first appearance of Spider-Man. Just that it was sometime in august of 1962. So since we're halfway through the month let me be the first to wish ole' Peter Parker a happy big 6 0 years and counting. For better;
and worse: View attachment 3599740
(from sins past..the comic that once said Gwen Stacy slept with norman Osborn)
I haven't been following comics for most of this year or last year, is there anything Marvel or DC put out that is worth reading? (for someone who enjoys things from before or during the New 52 era)
