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COMICS!!!|OT| July 2019 | No, More Mutants!
- Thread starter Messi
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Arguing Tom King comics on this beautiful summer? Hov(Ross62) did that so hopefully you wouldn't have to go through that.
Then it must just be a coincidence that your comment is indiscernible from someone who didn't read it that picked up something to be outraged about in the comments on Reddit.
Like, I get it, nine issues to find out Wally losing control of the speed force was the culprit all along isn't a fun ride. If that makes you hate the book, I get that. But to argue that everything else in that book is meaningless and should be ignored just because you didn't like that moment? Yeah, I stand by what I've said previously.
lmao, i don't get how you got all this from 1 post I made that was barely 10 words, calm down man
The root of investment in continuing serials like cape comics is the characters and that they not do things that poison the well. If you tell a profound narrative on the human condition and cap it off with Batman hanging a puppy, it doesn't really matter why that happened or what lead to it, all you're going to get is some angry fanboys seething about how Batman hanged a puppy. These aren't Tom King's characters. If he wanted to tell a story that wasn't fit for Wally, he shouldn't have written Wally.
And also, even beyond the character derailment hoisted onto Wally or the dour writing, I find it grossly insensitive on a personal level that a story was written about how mental illness makes you a time bomb.That's a stereotype I live with every day.
You're sensationalizing it to justify your tilt against me, justify dismissing everything I'm saying without any regard. You're falling into hyperbolic fallacy and if you're not willing to step back from it then we can't have an adult conversation.
Wow, some Self Aware Wolves shit here. You are the "angry fanboy seething." And all I did was call you out on that. I brought up Tom King writing meaningful character exploration and you were the one who replied by pointing specifically to Wally and rambling about him being a murderer.
I don't know how you think you're the one trying to have an adult conversation and then can say something like this with a straight face.
The concept of "superhero therapy" is good
The concept of "mass murder mystery at said therapy location" is bad
Yeah I meant the former. I find that stuff legitimately interesting.
OP
OP
My First Time Going Through The X-Men (House of M - 2005)
I haven't read an X-Men book since the 90s as a kid, but I recently finished Grand Design 1 which was enjoyable, but I found myself a little mentally stuck at the start of Grand Design 2. So I thought I would try something fresh, and cheated a little with my read-through to get myself going again, and I picked up House of M from 2005. The infamous Scarlet Witch event. I'm 112 pages into a 280 pages book, and find myself a little bit confused.
- In the very beginning it tells me Scarlet Witch killed and injured a bunch of superheroes and broke the world.
- She reality-warps a new reality where she gives birth to twins.
- Professor X stops her, but he eventually disappears, and the mutants suspects Magneto is using Prof X to plant positive imagery in their heads.
- Magneto visits Professor X who is actually dead, and I have this suspicion he is using Scarlet Witch to plant those visions.
- Wolverine meets a young girl who have seen the world break, just like he has.
Here's what confuses me. I don't know where exactly this book is taking place? World broke six months ago, but nobody but Wolverine and this girl have seen it happen. Is this something that is explained later? I just presume this book is set in the present day where Scarlet Witch broke the world six months ago. So I'm guessing the reason nobody have seen this happen is because Scarlet Witch is warping everybody's reality so that they think they're living a "good normal life."
Can somebody just de/confirm if I've completely lost the thread, or if I still got a good grasp on it? I haven't read an X-book for 2 decades (other than Grand Design 1, so I would expect to be a little overwhelmed getting back into it). NO SPOILERS please.
I haven't read an X-Men book since the 90s as a kid, but I recently finished Grand Design 1 which was enjoyable, but I found myself a little mentally stuck at the start of Grand Design 2. So I thought I would try something fresh, and cheated a little with my read-through to get myself going again, and I picked up House of M from 2005. The infamous Scarlet Witch event. I'm 112 pages into a 280 pages book, and find myself a little bit confused.
- In the very beginning it tells me Scarlet Witch killed and injured a bunch of superheroes and broke the world.
- She reality-warps a new reality where she gives birth to twins.
- Professor X stops her, but he eventually disappears, and the mutants suspects Magneto is using Prof X to plant positive imagery in their heads.
- Magneto visits Professor X who is actually dead, and I have this suspicion he is using Scarlet Witch to plant those visions.
- Wolverine meets a young girl who have seen the world break, just like he has.
Here's what confuses me. I don't know where exactly this book is taking place? World broke six months ago, but nobody but Wolverine and this girl have seen it happen. Is this something that is explained later? I just presume this book is set in the present day where Scarlet Witch broke the world six months ago. So I'm guessing the reason nobody have seen this happen is because Scarlet Witch is warping everybody's reality so that they think they're living a "good normal life."
Can somebody just de/confirm if I've completely lost the thread, or if I still got a good grasp on it? I haven't read an X-book for 2 decades (other than Grand Design 1, so I would expect to be a little overwhelmed getting back into it). NO SPOILERS please.
Foolkiller is the perfect JJ villain. Like, the comics can never use him, because the show beat them to it.
OR
KELLY. GURL. YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. YOU LISTENIN. I KNOW YOU ARE.
OR
KELLY. GURL. YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. YOU LISTENIN. I KNOW YOU ARE.
Hahah, I mean, that's definitely a point. But counterpoint, Moore hates everything. Moore would think us talking about superheroes in general is an embarrassment.
"I haven't read any superhero comics since I finished with Watchmen. I hate superheroes. I think they're abominations. They don't mean what they used to mean. They were originally in the hands of writers who would actively expand the imagination of their nine- to 13-year-old audience. That was completely what they were meant to do and they were doing it excellently. These days, superhero comics think the audience is certainly not nine to 13, it's nothing to do with them. It's an audience largely of 30-, 40-, 50-, 60-year old men, usually men. Someone came up with the term graphic novel. These readers latched on to it; they were simply interested in a way that could validate their continued love of Green Lantern or Spider-Man without appearing in some way emotionally subnormal. This is a significant rump of the superhero-addicted, mainstream-addicted audience. I don't think the superhero stands for anything good."
You can definitely make 100 arguments why Tom King is nothing like Alan Moore and they'd all be right. Moore's writing stems from a different world in comic books, what with the code and the political upheaval in the late 70s and 80s. King's writing is so much lesser than that. And yeah, I agree, I think that's a mark against his writing.
My argument is that, at his core, Alan More was an artist when it came to looking at the character within a character. He was amazing at looking at archetypes, and the shell of what a hero is, and then exploring who that person would be behind the shell. Moore was brilliant at this without changing the shell. Swamp Thing was still Swamp Thing, he just also fell in love, considered the nature of his existence, dealt with the realities of pollution. Rorschach was Batman, obsessed with crime fighting to the degree that he stopped showering, stopped seeing humanity around him vs. the ideal in his heart.
Tom King also explores characters within characters, which is how I think he can be considered a successor to Moore's ideas. But he's, yeah, wildly different too. He tries to find the reality-based human inside of characters. As if they live normal, average person lives in addition to their superhero lives. It's completely different from Moore's approach, but the same in many ways.
I don't think that's shallow. I also don't think it's as immediately interesting, but that it's still something rare and interesting. They're much more personal. And I don't really agree with the idea that King is writing them insincerely or hypocritically. Of course, as you say, that doesn't mean that King himself isn't taken by the ideas of, as you say, American exceptionalism and so on. I think that's a really interesting line of criticism. But I don't think King is forcing that so much as it's just innate to himself and that it's reflected in how he sees humanity. No different than how Moore saw himanity and reflected it in his own writing.
I think maybe the caveman and one of the other heroes brief scenes were the only thing I'd consider readable.
The whole book read as a satire more often then not.
We also have Jay Garrick.
This is what kept me from reading it, pretty much. Not what kept me from buying and owning several issues.
How fucking DARE you
You're more or less correct - at this point you've caught onto the fact that this is not the "real" universe and Wolverine, for whatever reason, is picking up on that. The actual mechanics of what is happening are explained later.
The "Scarlet Witch goes crazy and kills a bunch of people" plot is from Avengers Disassembled, for reference, but the details of that plot aren't really relevant.
Moore is also a lying sack of shit cause he rebooted Awesome Comics (which he had to read to relaunch he admitted), America's Best Comics, and 1963 all after Watchmen. Dude hates on shit it's obvious he loves and is a giant hypocrite, I don't get it.
Yeah, YES. Fuckin CoolestSpot with the shit I need. Thank you. I just want to talk about comics without the hot takes, man.
I totally agree! I think one of Heroes in Crisis' biggest problems is how much it doesn't take itself seriously and how, at times, it totally reads like satire.
You're my favorite, CoolestSpot.
I don't know if I'd call him a hypocrite for that. More that he wanted to write Watchmen and also wanted to write some more lighthearted fare afterwards.
His big stink about Geoff Johns using his Blackest Night concepts I think is more of a black mark than anything.
Reminder Tom King pitched it, and then they gave him the characters he had to use and make it work after his pitch was accepted.
Well sure, but he still wrote it and put his name on it. JMS had problems with One More Day but he still took the job. I don't think there's anything wrong with holding him accountable for the things he wrote.
Regardless, my actual issue with Heroes in Crisis, its big message of "Mental illness makes you a murderer", that's King. Wally can be fixed with a quick retcon whenever someone feels like it.
Throughout the numerous behind the scenes of the books I mentioned, he says he's reading older comics again as inspiration and such. Dude in general seems ashamed of the medium that made him famous, or at least genre (he'll often say he loves comics, just not superheroes and they're holding medium back). There is something to be said about the same characters being used and forced into stories for decades as a media machine that limits storytelling, to point we have alternate universes to change characters and still use their name as branding, but Moore shits on the genre constantly after propping it up and it legit confuses the fuck out of me.
Warren Ellis is a better Moore.
Yeah, his brand of Psychopathy is the sort that She has ZERO patience for.
And here I thought no one listened to me and dismissed me as the "lucha comics guy"
Finally looked at the Gwenpool Strikes Back preview, and certainly looks nice.
They made her shorts longer
Honestly was hoping she'd get overalls in a redesign. I don't even know why.
Like I think there's value in seeing how cape comics have dominated the medium for so long, but we're not there anymore. Independent comics are booming.
I think my view on the perpetual superhero motion machine is that it's a feature rather than a bug. The characters are going to outlive us, and I think the obsession with beginnings and endings that we try to cram ongoing serials into hurts more than helps.
Thanks for the reassurance, I can comfortably continue my read! I did think there must have been a book with this huge event happening before House of M, but yeah, I think I can manage without it.
If I want to check it out sometime in the future I guess this is the Avengers Disassembled event? Although your Wiki says it's a 2004 event. And this one say it's 1998 with Finale from 2004.
1998 was when that run of Avengers started, as part of "Heroes Return" (which involved the Avengers and Fantastic Four being returned to the main Marvel Universe after spending 18 months on Counter-Earth due to their apparent deaths at the hands of Onslaught).
The series was renumbered to the old numbering for #500, but back in '98 it started at #1 again. "Avengers Finale" was a one-shot published after #503 that was meant to signal the end of the classic Avengers before Brian Bendis rebooted the franchise with The New Avengers a few months later.
Uh that's a hard disagree, I don't think that's even close to true. I would say the cast are way more fleshed out than that single scab King likes to pick at and can't leave alone with his work. There's aspects of the farm the black hammer cast actually come to like more than their old lives and generally the overall message is about coming together and finding the good in yourself, accepting yourself, and find good in the people around you and the world. They all have issues, but they work them out and the book posits something worth living for and getting to, it doesn't revel in misery needlessly.
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Oh shit, another Marvel omnibus listing popped up. WHO'S HYPE FOR ONE MORE DAY!?
Amazing Spider-Man by JMS Vol. 2
Amazing Spider-Man by JMS Vol. 2
My thoughts exactly. I liked the little confessionals King did for the most part (loved the Mr. Terrific one in particular), but the murder mystery's "logic" was just idiotic and the plot seemed to be little more than an excuse to kill off some B and C-Listers editorial wanted dead.
Real talk, I can't believe you guys spent money on this.
Those first 12 issues, the farm crew definitely come across as King characters. After that, yeah, not as much. I think Lemire kind of settles into who these characters are and the exploration of them dies a bit, replaced by just seeing how deal with what's going on. They're not changing. They're not struggling with themselves. Kinda why I've been let down by what's come since in the main Black Hammer series. Feels a bit like treading water. Excited for the end of Age of Doom tho.
Ah, I just couldn't disagree less. Inherently, I think Lemire sits down to say something hopeful about people and the world, inherently I think King often posits that things can't get better and instead how do we soldier through that anyway. I definitely respond to something more that doesn't just say how bad things are and why, but how they could be better and in fact here's the things getting better. There's nothing clever or interesting in the former. So no, I wouldn't say "definitely" they are Tom King - esque characters. The fact you have to caveat it by only considering half of the story and characterisation confirms that for me (and I actually disagree even on the premise of only discussing the first twelve issues) but I much prefer to focus on what I like in comics and discuss that, than who I don't. So I'm happy to leave it at that and accept you feel otherwise, just felt it was worth saying for folks who aren't familiar with Black Hammer.
Inhumans are pretty intrinsic parts of FF.
You kinda expect to see them in FF comics.
It's like Shi'ar in x titles
I think that's fair. Probably incorrect of me to say they were "Tom King characters" based on just the first arc of the book, given Lemire's intent to have them grow into the characters they are now. It's just a personal hangup of mine to distance that first arc from what came after because of I adore those initial comics and haven't enjoyed the main series since. It just feels like a major difference in writing, but your point still stands.
I can appreciate that, but a F4 character hasn't even appeared in a panel for 2 issues.
We really can't get away from HiC, can we? Can we talk about a better comic? Like Identity Crisis?
Holy crap 90s DC was good. Start with Impulse
Holy crap 90s DC was good. Start with Impulse
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