Sperg about comic books here

[Nick Obre]

Her character was a super-wealthy business woman who was one of the most Mary Sues of all Mary Sues. No powers but a Black Widow level spy, brilliant martial artist, financial wiz and generally most capable character in every scene somehow.

Ah, so they learned nothing from Felicity Smoak.

@Alexander Thaut I was asking about what they did with her in the CW shows, which @Overly Serious explained.

Accurate summary, though.

But I don't give much credit to a bad story for things better stories do later. Ralph's arc in 52 was fucking amazing, but it doesn't take away that IC was a mean spirited shitshow.

 

[Registration]

Just doing another read through of Punisher MAX: The Platoon. For me, this is and will be peak Punisher. None of the new garbage interests me. Though an arc of Punisher going Rambo in Vietnam after the war and rescuing POWs would have been nice.
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I am not sure if I prefer this or the Soviet one. That scene with Frank raising hand from distance is very much top kino.

 

[MirrorNoir]

They didn't get enough shit for the rape of sue dibny.

Did you even fucking read comics in the 00s?

DC GOT PLENTY OF SHIT. An infinite amount of shit for what they did to Ralph and Sue Dibney in Indentity Crisis.

DC COMICS. JUST. DID. NOT. CARE.

Meltzer, DiDio, Rucka, Winnick, and Jones ALL fucking have a huge god-damn hate boner for the JLI era of the Justice League. Killing Sue off was just phase one of them raping the JLI and fans complained and DC just doubled down on it, retconning Max Lord evil all along and killing off Blue Beetle.

There is a reason WHY the dark age of comics is widely acknowledged as being the year that ID Crisis and Avengers Disassembled came out; both were things fans explicitly HATED but Marvel and DC not only said "Eat shit" but doubled and tripled down on it and refused to repent.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

Did you even fucking read comics in the 00s?

DC GOT PLENTY OF SHIT. An infinite amount of shit for what they did to Ralph and Sue Dibney in Indentity Crisis.

DC COMICS. JUST. DID. NOT. CARE.

Meltzer, DiDio, Rucka, Winnick, and Jones ALL fucking have a huge god-damn hate boner for the JLI era of the Justice League. Killing Sue off was just phase one of them raping the JLI and fans complained and DC just doubled down on it, retconning Max Lord evil all along and killing off Blue Beetle.

There is a reason WHY the dark age of comics is widely acknowledged as being the year that ID Crisis and Avengers Disassembled came out; both were things fans explicitly HATED but Marvel and DC not only said "Eat shit" but doubled and tripled down on it and refused to repent.

I feel like the hate-boner for the JLI really didn't pan out because 90% of it was far too mean-spirited.

The idea that Max is a human supremacist? Sure, I could theoretically buy that if we didn't have J'onn scan his mind many times. Calling the JLI incompetent or weak isn't effective since the team had 2 new gods, a GL, J'onn, Ted Kord, Fire, Ice, and Booster. It was JLE that had Sue/Ralph, but even that was still a fucking strong team with veteran heroes.

If anything, I think it could have been snuck in and established that Max maybe nudged things, but J'onns existence fucking throws that idea out of whack.

On the other hand, the Booster Gold series post-IC was pretty good. It didn't have much to do with the JLI days.


Part of me thinks that they were all jealous of the JLI years. IDK how true this'd be though.

 

[Midwit]

the dark age of comics is widely acknowledged as being the year that ID Crisis and Avengers Disassembled came out

I thought the Dark Age started after Watchmen and/or The Dark Knight Returns came out?

 

[The Feline Solution]

Just doing another read through of Punisher MAX: The Platoon. For me, this is and will be peak Punisher. None of the new garbage interests me. Though an arc of Punisher going Rambo in Vietnam after the war and rescuing POWs would have been nice.
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Frank makes an appearance for an arc in one of the newer Fury MAX books, the one where Fury is basically retelling his entire military career. Barracuda is in it for a short stint, too, i think it was outside of 'Nam, the Sandinista gig in Lat Am IIRC. I liked it, Parlov's art improved greatly over the years and really grew on me. He's no Burchielli but his euro roots are running deep in his art and i like that a lot. Did not read the book you posted but will do so ASAP, Ennis and his Punisher is what brought me singlehandedly back to US comics after after all. Last thing i read of Ennis was Red Team, on a recommendation from someone in this thread, i thinks it was one of his better original IP work post-The Boys. Second volume a lot weaker than the first one but still solid.

Edit: Yeah nevermind, just checked the covers out online, i read it already but can't remember much from it. Never reread it either which is unusual. This cover was the one that jogged my memory back into gear:

 

[Arthur Morgan]

I thought the Dark Age started after Watchmen and/or The Dark Knight Returns came out?

Yeah, it's basically when after those came out, writers tried to make everything dark and edgy, then that went into overdrive when the Image artists got more control, and then eventually left to do their own shit. And when that sold well, everyone tried to match, right down to the overexaggerated muscles. Then the speculator bubble burst, that era disappeared, and everyone calmed down.

Frank makes an appearance for an arc in one of the newer Fury MAX books, the one where Fury is basically retelling his entire military career. Barracuda is in it for a short stint, too, i think it was outside of 'Nam, the Sandinista gig in Lat Am IIRC. I liked it, Parlov's art improved greatly over the years and really grew on me. He's no Burchielli but his euro roots are running deep in his art and i like that a lot. Did not read the book you posted but will do so ASAP, Ennis and his Punisher is what brought me singlehandedly back to US comics after after all. Last thing i read of Ennis was Red Team, on a recommendation from someone in this thread, i thinks it was one of his better original IP work post-The Boys. Second volume a lot weaker than the first one but still solid.

Edit: Yeah nevermind, just checked the covers out online, i read it already but can't remember much from it. Never reread it either which is unusual. This cover was the one that jogged my memory back into gear:
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Fury: My War Gone By. It was four three issue arcs, then issue 13 was an epilogue. In each arc, modern day Fury, with three hookers sleeping in his bed, narrated a story from each decade he was an active operative, from the 50s to the 80s. The 70s was when Castle showed up and the pair did an op together in 'Nam. Barracuda showed up in the 80s, and despite being the Sergeant Major, he had both his captain and racist lieutenant under his thumb.

I agree Parlov got better, and his work on Barracuda added levity that that story needed, but I still wish Valley Forge, Valley Forge had been drawn by Fernandez or even Doug Braithwaite, who did Mother Russia since they were dealing with the generals from that arc. It was a solid ending to an excellent series, but the cartoony art style did not serve it well.

 

[el bandito loco]

I liked identity crisis a lot when it came out (I was a literal elementary schooler) I was like damn this is some crazy shit. I read it again in high school and thought it was okay but this time I noticed a lot character assassination things happening in it that as it's own thing it's whatever but as a mainline DC book it doesn't work at all. I read it again as an adult when I read the entirety of post-crisis Supes & Justice League and crossovers and shit up through when N52 started, and that time I think I realized what is specifically wrong with it. Brad Meltzer was born in like 1970, and my assumption the only comic books he had ever read were Watchmen and some sporadic JLI/DC shit of that era. He was under the faggy opinion watchmen is the only good comic and everything else sucks so he basically tried to write his version of watchmen, but shittier and took a huge dump on all the characters he scoffed at in mainline dc titles. is this the case? No idea but that's my theory. In any case it reads like it was written by any of those dudes got a copy of watchmen decided that's what superhero comics should be or it's the only one worth reading.

I think Jean Loring is kind of a funny character anyways. She exists exclusively to be a psycho or a whore. In the early comics from like the 60s to 70s she's always having mental breakdowns or going nuts due to supervillan plots. My favorite era of mainstream superhero books is 80s to like 92 DC because they did all kinds of weird and semi out there shit. Iirc Sword of the Atom from the early 80s, has it's plot start because Atom comes home and she's is a whore fucking a coworker or something so he just goes fuck it we're divorcing and I'm leaving and shrinks microscopic and goes on a fantasy adventure in a tiny realm or something. I might be mistaken and maybe she wasn't and he just thought she was having an affair but that's such a hilarious premise for a superhero comic. walking in on your woman with another man and going fuck you anyways bitch I'm going to use my superpowers to enter another realm and fuck a hot princess you be a slut for some faggot doctor or whatever I didn't need you anyways.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I think Jean Loring is kind of a funny character anyways. She exists exclusively to be a psycho or a whore. In the early comics from like the 60s to 70s she's always having mental breakdowns or going nuts due to supervillan plots. My favorite era of mainstream superhero books is 80s to like 92 DC because they did all kinds of weird and semi out there shit. Iirc Sword of the Atom from the early 80s, has it's plot start because Atom comes home and she's is a whore fucking a coworker or something so he just goes fuck it we're divorcing and I'm leaving and shrinks microscopic and goes on a fantasy adventure in a tiny realm or something. I might be mistaken and maybe she wasn't and he just thought she was having an affair but that's such a hilarious premise for a superhero comic. walking in on your woman with another man and going fuck you anyways bitch I'm going to use my superpowers to enter another realm and fuck a hot princess you be a slut for some faggot doctor or whatever I didn't need you anyways.

'80s Atom was a gigantic mess that's just pure comic books.

I read all of it a long while ago and am not gonna fucking wiki this, but it went

-> Atom fucks off to a tiny people civilization somewhere in the tropics or something
-> his waifu dies and the people he's with all die
-> the corporate/government agents after Atom for his size-changing belt all get fucked up and stuck at like 1 inch tall.
->Ray is assummed dead for a while. Some dude working with the Suicide Squad takes the equipment. IIRC he wasn't bad, but given the nature of the Ostrander Squad, he gets killed.
->Ray gets turned into a physical teen sometime in the 90s and leads one of the most forgettable iterations of the teen titans.

Somewhere, I wonder if '80s Ray met up with '80s Carter/Katar and '80s Ollie for a reflective gag on how fucked up their stories became. '80s Hawkman right before the Crisis involved some kinda "Shadow War".

 

[el bandito loco]

his waifu dies and the people he's with all die

I remember as a teenager laughing my ass off that's how they ended that status quo they just killed off all of that little magic village of mini people. I was like wow someone at editorial HATED sword of the atom

Somewhere, I wonder if '80s Ray met up with '80s Carter/Katar and '80s Ollie for a reflective gag on how fucked up their stories became. '80s Hawkman right before the Crisis involved some kinda "Shadow War".

That would have been cool. Too self aware for the period but would have been a neat thing when DC did those Retroactive one shots set in different periods a few years ago. Neither of them show up in Grell's GA and the post Shadow War ongoing was just Katar and Shayera continuing to fight evil Thanagarians and nobody else shows up besides there's a Zatanna issue and I think Superman is in an issue but can't remember. I like Katar Hol Hawkman a lot but every time something interesting starts happening to him it gets fucked up. That series got fucked off for Hawkworld which I like also, then Hawkworld got fucked by Hawkman vol 3 which became a weird clusterfuck trying to combine everything and then it got fucked by the return of Carter Hall. I'm not sure that all of those were actually caused by their successors or just kept getting cancelled and rebooted after but it always became a mess. In any case I still like how weird some of it is even if it isn't good or doesn't work.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I remember as a teenager laughing my ass off that's how they ended that status quo they just killed off all of that little magic village of mini people. I was like wow someone at editorial HATED sword of the atom



That would have been cool. Too self aware for the period but would have been a neat thing when DC did those Retroactive one shots set in different periods a few years ago. Neither of them show up in Grell's GA and the post Shadow War ongoing was just Katar and Shayera continuing to fight evil Thanagarians and nobody else shows up besides there's a Zatanna issue and I think Superman is in an issue but can't remember. I like Katar Hol Hawkman a lot but every time something interesting starts happening to him it gets fucked up. That series got fucked off for Hawkworld which I like also, then Hawkworld got fucked by Hawkman vol 3 which became a weird clusterfuck trying to combine everything and then it got fucked by the return of Carter Hall. I'm not sure that all of those were actually caused by their successors or just kept getting cancelled and rebooted after but it always became a mess. In any case I still like how weird some of it is even if it isn't good or doesn't work.

'80s Hawkman got kinda weird post-crisis. We had a moment where Katar was normal and Carter was fighting in a ragnarok dimension. Then we had "Carter Hall Jr." for a moment.

Then, Hawkworld popped up and gave us a different set of Hawks. Then they were set until the 90s and noone was allowed to touch the Hawks until Geoff Johns brought back Carter and sorta kinda gave us Kendra.

Anyways the Hawkwoman from the Hawkworld Hawk duo stuck around and apparently sacrificed herself in one of those Starlin DC Cosmic events they were putting out in the 2000s.

Anyone remember those? Hardcore Station, all the Rann-Thanagar Wars, and the background buildup of some guy named Synnar the Demiurge. It feels like it was supposed to be DC's answer to DnA's Cosmic Marvel conglemerating.

Anyways it all ended right at flashpoint.

lmao Rob. Cable may have been a high end B lister at one point. I'll even give you the possibility of maybe edging into being a very low-end A-lister that rode the coats of other characters/teams. But being bigger than Wolverine or Spidey is laughable.

Marvel tried to devalue Wolvy for almost a decade and that didn't really work out. All I felt was some relief in not having to see Logan in 50 books.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

What the fuck is Cable’s power? I read the Wiki and he basically has a grey goo nano machines being held off by telekinesis that he hypnotized himself into constantly using so he doesn’t fully become a machine or something.

I feel like it’d be better if he just overexerted his ability and has brain damaged preventing him from using telekinesis without having seizures of something. Like limited telekinesis and a cyborg commando is cool as fuck. His entire bullshit seems to be needlessly confusing.

 

[Nick Obre]

What the fuck is Cable’s power? I read the Wiki and he basically has a grey goo nano machines being held off by telekinesis that he hypnotized himself into constantly using so he doesn’t fully become a machine or something.

I feel like it’d be better if he just overexerted his ability and has brain damaged preventing him from using telekinesis without having seizures of something. Like limited telekinesis and a cyborg commando is cool as fuck. His entire bullshit seems to be needlessly confusing.

Extremely powerful telekinesis, telepathy, and has had limited precognition at times.
The telekinesis is weakened because he's always holding back the techno-organic virus. When he was free of the virus, his telekinesis was powerful enough to create an island nation and keep it always floating in the sky (and invited everyone to live in it so long as they followed his rules).

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

Extremely powerful telekinesis, telepathy, and has had limited precognition at times.
The telekinesis is weakened because he's always holding back the techno-organic virus. When he was free of the virus, his telekinesis was powerful enough to create an island nation and keep it always floating in the sky (and invited everyone to live in it so long as they followed his rules).

If he can halt the virus why not just amputate the affected areas. If he can stop nanomachines in a cellular level he can probably keep homeostasis going too.

It’d be easier to say that at some point he took so much damage in a fight that he used telekinesis to mimic his heart after someone tore it out and he suffered brain damage from overexerting himself.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

If he can halt the virus why not just amputate the affected areas. If he can stop nanomachines in a cellular level he can probably keep homeostasis going too.

It’d be easier to say that at some point he took so much damage in a fight that he used telekinesis to mimic his heart after someone tore it out and he suffered brain damage from overexerting himself.

because Marvel has telekinesis as a catch-all psychic power.

Apparently the technorganic-virus is resistant to psychic energies or some shit. I forget the specifics. I do know that Cable's entire deal is always going to make me feel bittersweet. They probably had some grander plan for the original Nate Summers in the same way they had some original plan for Hope Summers, but decided to fuck it up for one reason or another.

 

[Midwit]

His entire bullshit seems to be needlessly confusing.

It really makes me appreciate the simplicity of a guy whose power is owning a gun that shoots cold.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

It really makes me appreciate the simplicity of a guy whose power is owning a gun that shoots cold.

I mean I like the concept of a Superman permanently knocked down a peg. Cable from what I’ve skimmed was basically a failed super weapon and his clone/ brother is basically that made manifest under a genocidal maniac. It’s not the worst post-apocalyptic story. Just make him be crippled rather than fighting off nanomachines.

His mother being Jean Grey’s clone and then there’s some bullshit with Goblin’s seems retarded. They made her a villain because she’s right that they basically stole her child and husband. Feel like she’d be a good hero who’s a shit stirrer.

@Alexander Thaut
I feel like Telekinetics is cool if you have people use it in more specialized ways. Just doing monkey see monkey do can with it seems retarded. Some guy should use it to reinforce his body, another basic invisible structures, another bouncing shots or redirecting force.

 

[Nick Obre]

His mother being Jean Grey’s clone and then there’s some bullshit with Goblin’s seems retarded. They made her a villain because she’s right that they basically stole her child and husband. Feel like she’d be a good hero who’s a shit stirrer.

That's kind of where Maddie is now. She received the memories of Jean raising Nate (bit of a consolation prize but hey) and is now the ruler of Limbo, with an embassy in New York, giving mutants asylum from Orchis.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

That's kind of where Maddie is now. She received the memories of Jean raising Nate (bit of a consolation prize but hey) and is now the ruler of Limbo, with an embassy in New York, giving mutants asylum from Orchis.

I feel like the X-Men is like Bethesda trying ti write Fallout New Vegas.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I feel like the X-Men is like Bethesda trying ti write Fallout New Vegas.

I enjoy the X-Men but I swear to god, they're overhyped and overrated.