Comics IV

[red snow]

I haven't read Batgirl at all, but I think it's a weird/shitty decision. DC copped a LOT of flak for their Batgirl relaunch (and rightly so, it was and is a terrible idea). The fact that it was a moderate critical and sales success has a lot to do with Simone. There's rumours she was fired for refusing to carry out a distasteful editorial edict. Given the atmosphere at DC for the last few years, I guess that means Batgirl can expect some egregious cheesecake, or lots of rape in the near future. It's all so dark and gritty and edgy man!

She probably has to have a bat emblem cut out of her top so her cleavage is making it. Hopefully Scott Lobdell has time to write another book for DC...

Nephrite; how can you hate Talon? It's co-written by Scott Snyder so it's probably featuring the ULTIMATE Talon story. Plus the co-writer was chosen by Scott so he is probably the BEST understudy he has ever had and the only person who could write a more definitive Talon story would be Scott writing it by himself. (I do actually like Snyder's work but find his self-hype hilarious).

RE Cyclops and co's age. That's funny how Beast is 30 and a dozen years younger than the younger version as they said he was 12 in all new x-men 2 (they don't look 12). Someone else pointed out how Beast celebrated his 30th birthday in 1993 too. The Rogue Magneto thing is quite the age gap with her probably being 25 and him being at least 85.

[Nephrite]

Okay...what the fuck is the First Lantern?

The Guardians Original Fuck-Up. Some psycho they keep imprisoned inside a large box guarded by even more Smurfs-looking Guardians.

Now "our" Guardians have decided that how sometimes shit happens in the universe, that means that emotions are the cause of all problems and they want to turn everybody in the universe into braid-dead half-assed-designed zombies so that the universe becomes perfect.

It's a fucking Geoff! Johns! comicbook, so of course it's barely tangential with anything resembling possible or probable behavior of intelligent beings.

She probably has to have a bat emblem cut out of her top so her cleavage is making it. Hopefully Scott Lobdell has time to write another book for DC...

Man, you know that the Kool Klean-up Krew are Giffen and Jurgens.

Nephrite; how can you hate Talon? It's co-written by Scott Snyder so it's probably featuring the ULTIMATE Talon story. Plus the co-writer was chosen by Scott so he is probably the BEST understudy he has ever had and the only person who could write a more definitive Talon story would be Scott writing it by himself. (I do actually like Snyder's work but find his self-hype hilarious).

I don't think it's even self-hype. I think he wrote something half-decent by DC's standards and since then has lived in a DC shaped bubble where everybody is telling him how fucking brilliant he is since he doesn't drool on the keyboard like the rest of DC's writing staff. It's kind of like Wachowski Bros post Matrix. He probably thinks he can do no wrong. And why shouldn't he? They say he's the HEAD Batman writer. It's all because of him. And Mini-Todd McFarlane drawing that shit for him.

RE Cyclops and co's age. That's funny how Beast is 30 and a dozen years younger than the younger version as they said he was 12 in all new x-men 2 (they don't look 12).

He's not twelve. That was Kitty trying to be funny.

[Lady Octarina]

RE Cyclops and co's age. That's funny how Beast is 30 and a dozen years younger than the younger version as they said he was 12 in all new x-men 2 (they don't look 12). Someone else pointed out how Beast celebrated his 30th birthday in 1993 too. The Rogue Magneto thing is quite the age gap with her probably being 25 and him being at least 85.

Magneto was de-aged in the 90's, if I'm not mistaken. He should be about 60-65 now - which still makes his relationship with Rogue the creepiest thing in Marvel.

[red snow]

The Guardians Original Fuck-Up. Some psycho they keep imprisoned inside a large box guarded by even more Smurfs-looking Guardians.

Now "our" Guardians have decided that how sometimes shit happens in the universe, that means that emotions are the cause of all problems and they want to turn everybody in the universe into braid-dead half-assed-designed zombies so that the universe becomes perfect.

It's a fucking Geoff! Johns! comicbook, so of course it's barely tangential with anything resembling possible or probable behavior of intelligent beings.

Just how many times have the guardians created lanterns that try to eradicate all life? Now they think it would be a good idea to intentionally try it? Makes you realise Sinestro and red lanterns are probably the good guys in the sense their main goal was usually to eradicate these little fucks. I also love how the guardians always have very emotional responses to emotions.

I don't think it's even self-hype. I think he wrote something half-decent by DC's standards and since then has lived in a DC shaped bubble where everybody is telling him how fucking brilliant he is since he doesn't drool on the keyboard like the rest of DC's writing staff. It's kind of like Wachowski Bros post Matrix. He probably thinks he can do no wrong. And why shouldn't he? They say he's the HEAD Batman writer. It's all because of him. And Mini-Todd McFarlane drawing that shit for him.

I'm sure Morrison ignores the teacher's pet and knows he's writing the main book. I'd love if Morrison's final story lampoons Snyder's brilliance.

He's not twelve. That was Kitty trying to be funny.

Thanks to Bendis's finely crafted Bendis-dialogue I can never tell whether he's being funny or not.Wasn't as bad as the kitty joke about BEast going potty at least, Maybe all of the Cyclops whining is ironic except for Beast who took it seriously?

EDIT: wow I just read Snyder's modest statement regarding his leaving of Swamp thing where he says he made the title a success (he did) and implied it was great because he takes risks like all the other classic Swamp Thing writers. Tells us the last issues will be amazing (probably why he's leaving as he can't top it) and then wishes the new team the best of luck (how can anyone follow his run up?)

[red snow]

Magneto was de-aged in the 90's, if I'm not mistaken. He should be about 60-65 now - which still makes his relationship with Rogue the creepiest thing in Marvel.

Well that was probably 2 years ago in Marvel time but Rogue may have aged 6 years during this time. It's less headache inducing than BAtman and the Robin's new52 timeline anyhow.

[delete this account pls]

Then there's characters like Johnny Storm (early 20s) or Iron Man (mid 30s) who dont seem to have aged at all since they debuted "over a decade ago". Tony Stark should be nearing 50 by now, even with Marvel's sliding timeline. At some point I think you just have to shrug and say "comics" and try not to think about it.

Finished Marvel: The Untold Story. Nothing to add to Winterfell is burning's nice review, except a couple of the footnotes that made me laugh. The first concerned John Romita Sr remembering when Playboy hired him and Stan Lee to do a comic for them; it started out innocently enough, and then got increasingly dirty, so much so that Romita, worried it might hurt his career, quit. He was shocked when Stan also quit in solidarity. It was, Romita claimed the first time he's ever seen Stan turn money down :lol: The second one was that, in the early 80s, editors shot down Claremont's plan to show that Professor Xavier occasionally liked to wear women's clothes, and was a casual transvestite.

[red snow]

Then there's characters like Johnny Storm (early 20s) or Iron Man (mid 30s) who dont seem to have aged at all since they debuted "over a decade ago". Tony Stark should be nearing 50 by now, even with Marvel's sliding timeline. At some point I think you just have to shrug and say "comics" and try not to think about it.

Finished Marvel: The Untold Story. Nothing to add to Winterfell is burning's nice review, except a couple of the footnotes that made me laugh. The first concerned John Romita Sr remembering when Playboy hired him and Stan Lee to do a comic for them; it started out innocently enough, and then got increasingly dirty, so much so that Romita, worried it might hurt his career, quit. He was shocked when Stan also quit in solidarity. It was, Romita claimed the first time he's ever seen Stan turn money down :lol: The second one was that, in the early 80s, editors shot down Claremont's plan to show that Professor Xavier occasionally liked to wear women's clothes, and was a casual transvestite.

That book does seem interesting.Never got to see that storyline re-addressed in Claremont's untold tales.

Yeah, we just have to live with the weird ageing of comic characters. I certainly wouldn't want to reading about a pensioner Tony Stark and co. I think most of the non-x-men got a bit of a break after the heroes reborn thing where they shaved a few years off them. Ultimately I don't mind but with the X-men story at the moment it just irks me as the "young x-men" are from 1997 not 1963 if they were at least sliding the timeline along.

[Nephrite]

Magneto was de-aged in the 90's, if I'm not mistaken. He should be about 60-65 now

Isn't just his body de-aged? He's still 85, he just looks 60.

which still makes his relationship with Rogue the creepiest thing in Marvel.

Don't worry, when Logan tries to bed Young Jean, Mags will get a chance to breathe a sigh of relief.

It's less headache inducing than BAtman and the Robin's new52 timeline anyhow.

One of these days, I'm gonna get drunk and make sense of Batman's current timeline.

"15 year old Bruce Wayne gets drugged by Talia al Ghul and harvested for sperm while wearing a Batman costume he won't design till 7 years into the future.

During his first year as Batman, he saves Jim Gordon's 6-month old son.

5 years later, Jim's son, now a 22 year old psychopath, is cutting people's limbs off and hanging them off hooks for cheap shock value"

[Winterfell is Burning]

Magneto became a baby (!) somewhere in the early 70's, and very early in CC's run, he became an adult again by Eric the Red II doing... something, but he didn't come back to his real age (which Eric the Red probably wouldn't even know).

Of course, by Marvel's sliding timeline, Magneto begun to act only when he was in his 70's, so they'll have to fix it somehow, adding more retcons, eventually.

Finished Marvel: The Untold Story. Nothing to add to Winterfell is burning's nice review, except a couple of the footnotes that made me laugh. The first concerned John Romita Sr remembering when Playboy hired him and Stan Lee to do a comic for them; it started out innocently enough, and then got increasingly dirty, so much so that Romita, worried it might hurt his career, quit. He was shocked when Stan also quit in solidarity. It was, Romita claimed the first time he's ever seen Stan turn money down :lol: The second one was that, in the early 80s, editors shot down Claremont's plan to show that Professor Xavier occasionally liked to wear women's clothes, and was a casual transvestite.

Yeah, those were awesome, specially the Romita quote.

[Sci-2]

Makes you realise Sinestro and red lanterns are probably the good guys in the sense their main goal was usually to eradicate these little fucks. I also love how the guardians always have very emotional responses to emotions.

Yeah, we have manhunters, alpha lanterns, the third army, Krona who may or may not be the First Lantern. As Gwen Stifani would say, this shit is bananas.

[haLobEnder]

RE Cyclops and co's age. That's funny how Beast is 30 and a dozen years younger than the younger version as they said he was 12 in all new x-men 2 (they don't look 12). Someone else pointed out how Beast celebrated his 30th birthday in 1993 too. The Rogue Magneto thing is quite the age gap with her probably being 25 and him being at least 85.

Want more examples of Marvel's inconsistencies? I think Jubilee debutes as a 15 year old, is de-aged to 13/14 in Generation X and is currently supposed to be 17.

Gen X also established Emma Frost as being around 30 in 1997 or there abouts.

Oh and even worse, I'm pretty sure they say that Transsonic (the Gen Hope character) is nineteen in her first appearance issue, but while I was reading later Gen Hope issues, they mentioned she was seventeen... I think it was even the same writer writing both issues :P

Oh and then there's Pixie who is established when the decimation happened as being the youngest or second youngest mutant left (can't remember if Indra was younger), who is now on the roster of one of the adult X-Men teams and looks to drawn by Terry Dodson and Greg Land as some buxom 20-something.

Bottom line: Marvel doesn't give a shit about age consistency with their characters. You'd think it would be easy enough to maintain some sort of Official Guide to The Marvel Universe type database internally within Marvel ranks to at least keep a characters age consistent among themselves.

[Sci-2]

Never trust Greg Land on age, as it seems to me all his characters are copied from pics he finds in magazines.

[red snow]

Never trust Greg Land on age, as it seems to me all his characters are copied from pics he finds in magazines.

And the magazines he uses as a reference mean that the women in it have to be 18 years of age at least.

[Sci-2]

And the magazines he uses as a reference mean that the women in it have to be 18 years of age at least.

He does have those porn poses doesn't he? I'd forgotten about how bad it got as I try to avoid books he's on.

[Kalbear]

A great article both showing how weak Land is and how strong Opena is.

[red snow]

A great article both showing how weak Land is and how strong Opena is.

A nice piece. I think the author of the article overlooks that Psylocke looks like a sack of potatoes in the top panel of the 2nd page that doesn't gel with her figure in any of the other panels but when everything else is so good it's really nitpicking and there's no competition with Land. Better yet, Opena found a way to alter Psylocke's costume later in the series so that it was more practical while being faithful to that "ninja" style as opposed to bikini.

I do think that Opena is one of those artists that elevates a story (Remender's X-force didn't seem as good without him) and it does boil down to him having the characters act and I suspect it's Opena adding that level and not being directed by the writer. I hope Marvel has Opena locked down on a contract for a while as the guy is a superstar.

[haLobEnder]

I've heard criticisms of Land swiping from sources before, but figured there's no way he'd land a gig on X-Men and the like if he was a known plagiarist. But damn, looking at the articles, they leave little room for doubt.

It doubly pisses me off as someone who aspired to be a comic artist for the longest time but gave up when I realized my style and skill just wasn't where it ought to be. Man, had I known I could just trace my way to fame...

I really am curious why the son of Gene Simmons becomes a laughing stock when he does it, yet for others it kick starts successful careers.

[Galactus]

IIRC, the justification given for Land is largely that (presumably because he plagiarizes) he's almost never late.

[Nephrite]

The best thing about Land is that he used to draw. And draw well.

Then he just gave up.

And, I can't wrap my mind how is this thing he does now quicker. Surely he wastes a shitload of time finding references then composing them and resizing them to fit into panels. All this time he wastes on browsing porn could be used to... just draw the fucking thing from his head.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Gillen is an unlucky bastard- he gets Uncanny, yes, but it's drawn by Greg Land. Even with the most shameless artist in comics, and no Wolverine or Spider-Man, he makes it the top selling book at Marvel, and yet when comes an event that features the characters he's writing as key players...he doesn't even get an invitation to be a part of the planning, and has to play damage control. He does a good job at it, and his prize is...he's off the book. But at least he gets Iron Man, so it's not all bad... oh, wait, he's stuck with Land again.