Sperg about comic books here

[AnOminous]

An extremely vague backstory is given that Sir -- whose real name is Martha Paterson -- transitioned after being assaulted.

You couldn't do the same today but if you did, it would be named "MAAAAAAAA'AAAAM!"

 

[Affluent Reptilian]

Soo as of March it seems Warren Ellis' Wild Storm is cancelled. The reason given is some problem with the artist and that they couldn't get anyone else to draw it. The former part appears true - said artist replied with something defensive saying yes he's been slow, but that he suffers from depression - but the latter sounds like a really fucking weak excuse. This is fucking lame (for people like me who are huge Wildstorm marks, anyway), and I have to think it's really Ellis losing interest one third of the way through a multi-year Wild Storm plan which so far had been pretty good. Now I have to wonder about when Ellis' New Universal was cancelled because supposedly his old laptop he kept everything on broke and he lost all his notes.

 

[Affluent Reptilian]

Anyone have any recommendations for some good Green Lantern runs, other than Geoff Johns', the current Morrison run, and Omega Men?

 

[Hummingbird]

This is from the She-Ra thread, but I wanted to share this SJW comic called Princeless and it's spin off, Raven. Given how Jeremy is a feminist who seems to hate his own sex (since most of his male characters are simps or jerks or hardly exist), a majority of his female characters are lesbians, have sapphic tendoncies, or are over the age of 12 and think boys are icky (I think he has a fetish); how long before the accusations hit?

 

[TchPiKinmup]

Wonder Woman's Sister, Nubia OGN From L. L. McKinney, Robyn Smith
Posted on May 28, 2020 | by Rich Johnston | Comments

Spoiler: That's some ugly art

LL McKinney is a novelist and poet, best known for writing A Blade So Black, A Dream So Dark, and A Crown So Cursed. An active member of the kidlit community, she's an advocate for equality and inclusion in publishing and the creator of the hashtag #WhatWOCWritersHear. She also looked through submission piles for publishers, serving as a reader for agents and by participating as a judge in various online writing contests.
Robyn Smith is a Jamaican cartoonist, currently based in New York City. She is best known for her minicomic The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town and for illustrating Jamila Rowser's comic Wash Day.
Together they are creating an original graphic novel, Nubia Real One, featuring Wonder Woman's sister, to be published by DC Comics at the beginning of February, 2021, in time for Black History Month. This is their first project for DC. Nubia: Real One will be coloured by Brie Henderson, cover colours by Bex Glendining and the book will be lettered by Ariana Maher.

The original YA graphic novel is an endearing tale filled with heart and wit and follows a teenage Nubia as she learns to embrace her true self in a world filled with racial inequality, school violence, and other timely issues affecting young people today. The book hits stores and online retailers on February 2, 2021, and today, DC revealed a first look at the story.
"What's funny is I didn't initially set out to pitch a Nubia graphic novel," said McKinney. "I was invited to pitch something else, but I made the decision when writing the pitch itself to add in Nubia. I've been a fan since pretty much birth, and I've watched her get moved around and appear in various iterations, none of them touching me the same way her original one had. I mean, this was Wonder Woman's twin sister, just as strong, just as fast, if not stronger and faster. And she was BLACK! So, I added her in to my pitch for the other project. I guess something about her stuck out to the team because they emailed me and essentially asked for a pitch about Nubia.
"Fast-forward and DC loved it. When the hunt for the artist began, I knew I wanted another Black woman on this project. DC was on board from the start and suggested Robyn, whose art I immediately fell in love with. Robyn has breathed life into this story and these characters, and it wouldn't be half as powerful without her. Everyone loves Nubia, we all want to do right by her, by the readers that have been searching for her the same as I have. I hope fans walk away from this story knowing that first and foremost."
"As an Afro-Caribbean artist, I've always strived to center the Black community in the comics I make, so being hired to illustrate Nubia was a dream," said Smith. "When I heard L. L. McKinney was the writer, I was even more excited. Working together has been great, especially since our artistic objectives seem to be the same: all Black everything. In Nubia, I wanted to focus my illustrations on creating something both light and emotionally resonant. Most of my work is heavily influenced by Harry Lucey's Archie, so finding a way to incorporate that charm and joyful feel into a story centered around more serious issues was important to me. I hope fans reading Nubia feel the same sort of excitement I felt illustrating the characters and their beautifully crafted stories."

Here's the solicitation:

Nubia: Real One
Written by L. L. McKinney
Illustrated by Robyn Smith
Colored by Brie Henderson
Cover Colors by Bex Glendining
Lettered by Ariana Maher
On sale February 2, 2021
MSRP $16.99
Can you be a hero…if society doesn't see you as a person?
Nubia has always been a little bit…different. As a baby she showcased Amazonian strength by pushing over a tree to rescue her neighbor's cat. But, despite Nubia's similar abilities, the world has no problem telling her that she's no Wonder Woman. And even if she was, they wouldn't want her. Every time she comes to the rescue, she's reminded of how people see her: as a threat. Her moms do their best to keep her safe, but Nubia can't deny the fire within her, even if she's a little awkward about it sometimes. Even if it means people assume the worst.
When Nubia's best friend, Quisha, is threatened by a boy who thinks he owns the town, Nubia will risk it all––her safety, her home, and her crush on that cute kid in English class––to become the hero society tells her she isn't.
From the witty and powerful voice behind A Blade So Black, L. L. McKinney, and with endearing and expressive art by Robyn Smith, comes a vital story for today about equality, identity, and kicking it with your squad.

Wonder Woman's Sister, Nubia OGN From L. L. McKinney and Robyn Smith.


Wonder Woman's Sister, Nubia OGN From L. L. McKinney and Robyn Smith.

 

[Zaryiu]

So I have a question: Is there a cutoff date as to when if some reading Marvel and/or DC Comics where it's no longer worth reading them? Is there anything worth reading sin e around Civil War I and Identity Crisis?
My LCS has a lot of old issues and I'm tempted to buy some of them at some point after the pandemic

 

[Tor Lugosi]

Anyone have any recommendations for some good Green Lantern runs, other than Geoff Johns', the current Morrison run, and Omega Men?

If you don't mind silver age stuff, there's Denny O'Neil's famous run that went from roughly #63 - #129. A large chunk of it teamed up GL and Green Arrow, defining both of their characters in ways that are still used today. It got fairly political at times, though. Well, 'political' by '70s and '80s standards, which was mostly just "racism bad" rather than the current political spergy you find in comics. Then there's the '90s GL comics. I grew up reading that stuff and haven't re-read it since, so it might just be nostalgia, but I remember enjoying it. Featured Hal's descent into madness and the introduction of Kyle.

So I have a question: Is there a cutoff date as to when if some reading Marvel and/or DC Comics where it's no longer worth reading them? Is there anything worth reading sin e around Civil War I and Identity Crisis?
My LCS has a lot of old issues and I'm tempted to buy some of them at some point after the pandemic

There's a couple of characters I could sperg about good start and end points for (in particular Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman) but in general for Marvel I'd suggest stopping once you hit the '90s. For DC I'd start at Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985) and stop at Final Crisis (2008‎); there's plenty of good stuff before and after those two stories but they serve as good, well-defined points to start and stop at.

 

[Overly Serious]

This is from the She-Ra thread, but I wanted to share this SJW comic called Princeless and it's spin off, Raven. Given how Jeremy is a feminist who seems to hate his own sex (since most of his male characters are simps or jerks or hardly exist), a majority of his female characters are lesbians, have sapphic tendoncies, or are over the age of 12 and think boys are icky (I think he has a fetish); how long before the accusations hit?
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Dictionaries are books, right?

 

[Hummingbird]

Dictionaries are books, right?

View attachment 1333145

So in other words the princess is a bitch?

 

[Overly Serious]

So in other words the princess is a bitch?

Ultimately "fair maiden" is just a thing knights say. It's kind of their jam. Rock up on a horse, say "fair maiden". Now sure, he could have called out "dusky maiden" or "tawny maiden," but something tells me a person like that would be angry with him no matter what he said. I'm sure there's a buxom wench in the tavern who'd give him a friendlier reception.

 

[Hummingbird]

Ultimately "fair maiden" is just a thing knights say. It's kind of their jam. Rock up on a horse, say "fair maiden". Now sure, he could have called out "dusky maiden" or "tawny maiden," but something tells me a person like that would be angry with him no matter what he said. I'm sure there's a buxom wench in the tavern who'd give him a friendlier reception.

In the next page she has the dragon watching over the tower beat him up so who know what condition he's in. The other bit I read (can't find the pages) where she confronts one of her sisters who she fumes how the sister has never really done anything with her life and let's say when the vain, full of herself diva sister is coming off as the more likable character you might want to rethink things.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

,

Used to be my favorite series as a kid, and now as a young adult, I’m loving it even more. It reminds me so much of Pogo, but with treasure chests and cave-dwelling monsters.

Spoiler

I even hear they’re making a Netflix version of this in the near future, but I would much rather read the comic before that streaming giant probably messes it up. I’ve seen what they did to the new version of Ghost In The Shell 2045 and let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty.

 

[Hummingbird]

View attachment 1341208

View attachment 1341209

,View attachment 1341214

Used to be my favorite series as a kid, and now as a young adult, I’m loving it even more. It reminds me so much of Pogo, but with treasure chests and cave-dwelling monsters.

Spoiler

I even hear they’re making a Netflix version of this in the near future, but I would much rather read the comic before that streaming giant probably messes it up. I’ve seen what they did to the new version of Ghost In The Shell 2045 and let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty.

Bone was a great series (I think Walt Kelly would've liked it). I have mixed feelings on hearing that there's a Netflix version. Hopefully Jeff Smith will have some creative control and they'll keep the SJW crap out of the way.

 

[Cyril Sneer]

Didn't you know, the author is dead?

Ironically, the author of "The Death of the Author" has himself been dead these past four decades.

(I read it a long time ago and that's how I like to remember it, I don't actually think Grant Morrison levels of drugged up navel gazing went into it)

Deadpool #14 (which introduces "The Box") was penciled by Walter McDaniel, who has a slightly different (but similar) art-style to that series' usual artist, Ed McGuinness. That might be the ultimate cause of your inference. I don't think there's any particular textual significance for McDaniel filling in for McGuinness for that particular issue, as the former was a pretty frequent pitch-hitter for the latter without regard to the tone of the story. After all, McDaniel was the one who drew The Greatest Panel in a Deadpool Comic Ever (i.e. DP kicking Captain America in the nads).

Was thinking about Gil Kane's abbreviated attempt at launching a comic in the magazine format back in 1968, His Name Is...Savage! , a forty-page story about a hard-boiled espionage operative. Kane wrote a treatment, Archie Goodwin wrote the script based on a treatment, and the result is a sort of illustrated novel. So 200,000 copies of the first issue were printed but alas, Kane estimated only 20,000 copies were distributed. Local distributors chose for unknown reasons not to carry the magazine, and returned their copies for credit, and the low sales led to Kane giving up on an issue #2. Fantagraphics reprinted it back in 1982 and even that can be hard to find, or rather hard to find at a reasonable price.

Spoiler

View attachment 1305952

I saw some time ago that Steven Grant had written a modern day follow up that was released in January, and from the samples I saw, the artwork was rather...generic. Certainly not a patch on Kane's work.

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Kane returned to the character for a brief four-page short that opened the first issue of Fantagraphics' 1986 anthology series Anything Goes! , as well as appearing on the cover.

Spoiler

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Does Kane have some sort of violence-to-the-mouth fetish? The primary bad guy in the Sword of the Atom Special got killed off with an arrow through his, in a layout very similar to page 2 of Savage up there...

Used to be my favorite series as a kid, and now as a young adult, I’m loving it even more. It reminds me so much of Pogo, but with treasure chests and cave-dwelling monsters.

I was never able to get into this. The juxtaposition of the realistic humans with the weird cartoon people (plus the lack of a knight or warrior-prince character) was just too distracting.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

Got back into reading the X-Men. I tend to binge on stuff and then get sick of it, dropping it for a while, and eventually getting back into it.

- Finally read 'God Loves, Man Kills' and was kinda lukewarm on it. It's well crafted, no doubt, but I feel like it wanted to be about ideology but ended up a fairly standard action/adventure story. A stronger emphasis on Xavier's, Magneto's, and Stryker's beliefs and how they clash would've made the story more interesting, rather than the story's actual focus on the X-Men fighting the Purifiers. Speaking of Magneto, he feels fairly toned down and softened in this story, as if Claremont feared (probably rightfully so) that a guy who runs around wanting to subjugate humans with a group called The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants would lend credence to Stryker's views.

Speaking to the graphic novel's main theme that 'prejudice is bad', the idea of mutant hate being an allegory for racism and homophobia never really worked for me. It works on the most basic of levels but the more you think about it the more it falls apart. Fearing someone because their skin tone is darker or lighter than yours is stupid but fearing someone because they might have the ability to explode objects at will, control your mind, or even rewrite all of fucking reality is pretty understandable.

Apparently they released (or are releasing?) an extended version of the story this year, but all I can find out about it is that it has a modern story framing device. I don't know if they're expanding the graphic novel's original story or if all the new content is gonna be that framing story.

- New Mutants is coming along pretty well. So far the only that bothers me about is Sunspot. I find his character to be thin and kinda crappily written. His origin story involves the supposed love of his life jumping in front of a bullet meant for him and dying... which seems to have had very little effect on him. Outside of fights, 90% of his page time seems to be spent flirting with the girls on the team, which often just comes across as creepy given that everyone on the team is like 13. I guess you could make an argument that he's in denial or it's his way of coping but nothing in the stories suggest that so far.

- Over on regular Uncanny X-Men Madelyne Pryor was just introduced, who will eventually snowball into the biggest blight on Claremont's X-Men tenure. Storm is going through an odd phase. Only a few issues ago she consistently refused to kill the Brood, even though they're genocidal aliens that want to wipe out all life in the universe. Now, suddenly, she's a hardass that goes all Ivan Drago "If she dies, she dies" when fighting Callisto (leader of the Morlocks), who she stabs in the heart. Characters mention the change in her, so I'm assuming it's going somewhere, but it's all so sudden that I'm not sure they can adequately explain the sudden 180 in her personality.

- Rogue finally joined the X-Men. Right before that, though, she had a stint in Dazzler's solo comic where she was an antagonist. She was written as such a cartoonishly evil villain to the point of it being hilarious, especially when contrasted with the regular heroic Rogue most people know about.

Spoiler: Ah love walnuts

 

[sKr0n]

Speaking to the graphic novel's main theme that 'prejudice is bad', the idea of mutant hate being an allegory for racism and homophobia never really worked for me. It works on the most basic of levels but the more you think about it the more it falls apart. Fearing someone because their skin tone is darker or lighter than yours is stupid but fearing someone because they might have the ability to explode objects at will, control your mind, or even rewrite all of fucking reality is pretty understandable.

It amazes me that the same people in the greater comic community that are outraged by any and all gun ownership, even that .22 that your grandfather had, is well beyond the pale but on the same hand people who have the ability to shoot Blasts out of their eyes that could kill someone is kosher and the people who want to just keep a eye on them are seen as blithering idiots. I am sure that will work out well.

Spoiler: KONG WAS RIGHT

Spoiler: When will your learn? That your actions have consequences?

Spoiler: I guess someone really should have kept an eye on them.

That line BMB wrote near start of USM always makes me laugh considering how unflattering and destructive the mutants ended up being portrayed in the Ultimate Universe.

 

[Water-T]

Speaking of Magneto, he feels fairly toned down and softened in this story, as if Claremont feared (probably rightfully so) that a guy who runs around wanting to subjugate humans with a group called The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants would lend credence to Stryker's views.

This was around the time when Magneto started to question his hardline anti-human stance, which eventually led to him jaoining the X-men and taking over as head of the school when Xavier had to go off with Lilandra to space.

Storm is going through an odd phase. Only a few issues ago she consistently refused to kill the Brood, even though they're genocidal aliens that want to wipe out all life in the universe. Now, suddenly, she's a hardass that goes all Ivan Drago "If she dies, she dies" when fighting Callisto (leader of the Morlocks), who she stabs in the heart. Characters mention the change in her, so I'm assuming it's going somewhere, but it's all so sudden that I'm not sure they can adequately explain the sudden 180 in her personality.

Storm was in space and away from Earth for a while, so this affected her powers and personality, which are connected to Earth's biosphere. This will get reflected soon when Storm adapts her punk look.

Rogue finally joined the X-Men. Right before that, though, she had a stint in Dazzler's solo comic where she was an antagonist. She was written as such a cartoonishly evil villain to the point of it being hilarious, especially when contrasted with the regular heroic Rogue most people know about.

Rogue was also still being drawn with the white on the sides of her head, instead of at the top of her head like she does now. Once she was on the road to reformation, the change was made to make her look much younger since she was now the "daughter" of Mystique and Destiny.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

This was around the time when Magneto started to question his hardline anti-human stance, which eventually led to him jaoining the X-men and taking over as head of the school when Xavier had to go off with Lilandra to space.

I know, but even then he still feels oddly sanitized. He still has a pretty violent temper in the last few stories he was in, whereas here he's fairly... subdued.

Storm was in space and away from Earth for a while, so this affected her powers and personality, which are connected to Earth's biosphere. This will get reflected soon when Storm adapts her punk look.

Yeah, the Brood story. It just happened a few issues ago. She hung out with some hippy, psychic space whales and doubled down on her 'all life is precious' spiel... and now is suddenly stabbing people in the heart. Claremont knows he's writing her different, hence the characters commenting on it, but still the transition from where she was at the end of the Brood arc to where she is at the start of the Murlocks arc is non-existent.

It amazes me that the same people in the greater comic community that are outraged by any and all gun ownership, even that .22 that your grandfather had, is well beyond the pale but on the same hand people who have the ability to shoot Blasts out of their eyes that could kill someone is kosher and the people who want to just keep a eye on them are seen as blithering idiots. I am sure that will work out well.

Those USM Kong pages reminded me of something I also wanted to bring up regarding this: anytime a character rightfully points out that "No, it isn't like regular racism or prosecuting the Jews - Mutants can kill you with their eye lasers" either the scene changes or the conversation otherwise abruptly ends or shifts to something else. Has a character ever been able to present a counterargument to that point?

 

[The 3rd Hooligan]

How the hell does Two Face drinks/eats? He has a massive hole on his burnt side.

 

[Liquid Kent]

So I have a question: Is there a cutoff date as to when if some reading Marvel and/or DC Comics where it's no longer worth reading them? Is there anything worth reading sin e around Civil War I and Identity Crisis?
My LCS has a lot of old issues and I'm tempted to buy some of them at some point after the pandemic

Oh boy, coming from experience where my first job was working at the comic book store for 4 years from '08 to '11, I could go on and on, but I'll say that the prime time was before geek culture exploding into the mainstream in 2012 was the best - The period from '04-'05 till about 2012 is pretty accurate.

The Mayans were right.