Venom just opened to a chinese box office of 111 Million dollars. Second only to Infinity War‘s 190 when it comes to superhero movies.
Marvel Movies Thread - Holy Shitballs
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Da fuq? Why would Chinese be so interested in Venom?
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Chris Evans is a golden retriever.
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Ahahahahahaha!! It works.
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Stan Lee has died, at age 95.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/stan-lee-marvel-comics-legend-721450
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This post is deleted!
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At least he lived long enough to see many of his creations come to the big screen and thrill and entertain people the world over.
He's etched his name in history and will be remembered for all times. -
I made it a point to meet Stan when I started going to Comicon twenty years ago. Got a handshake, and saw him walk by a few times in the years since, but no actual stories or personal experiences to share.
It's often pointed out that Stan didn't create the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, etc. until he was in his forties, and that's often used as an inspirational point that "you can still create amazing things, even if you haven't yet." There's debate over how much he actually did and how much was the talent of the artists he worked with that he then took credit for, but it's undeniable that he had an impact and a presence unlike any other.
You changed comics forever Stan, and are one of the last of the big names from the start of Marvel. You will be missed
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IIRC the first time I went to NY Comic-Con, Stan Lee was going to show up. But it was on the Friday, when i only had tickets for Thursday.
:(
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This is right up there with the deaths of Walt Disney and George Carlin. sniffle
It's often pointed out that Stan didn't create the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, etc. until he was in his forties, and that's often used as an inspirational point that "you can still create amazing things, even if you haven't yet."
I keep telling myself that and Vera Wang didn't start making dresses until she was 40.
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I loved watching Marvel movies, it sucks we won't see Stan Lee make a cameo appearance anymore.
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Speaking of which, do we know if his last cameo appearance will be in Avengers 4?
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@joekido:
I loved watching Marvel movies, it sucks we won't see Stan Lee make a cameo appearance anymore.
I thought he did many in advance?
I don't have much to say about him. He's iconic and put out some iconic work. He lead a very long life. I got to see him once at LA's Stan Lee Comic Con. I'm in too many geek groups though. I feel like all I'll see for the next few days is stories covering his death and his life.
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Too soon Kage. Well learn it when it happens, don't ask these questions this soon.
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I don't have much to say about him. He's iconic and put out some iconic work. He lead a very long life. I got to see him once at LA's Stan Lee Comic Con. I'm in too many geek groups though. I feel like all I'll see for the next few days is stories covering his death and his life.
I am much more the anime/manga geek than I am a Western comic book geek, but even they have been influenced by him. I think My Hero Academia being the biggest. I wonder if the manga-ka will draw a Stan Lee memorial in next week's chapter.
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I am much more the anime/manga geek than I am a Western comic book geek, but even they have been influenced by him. I think My Hero Academia being the biggest. I wonder if the manga-ka will draw a Stan Lee memorial in next week's chapter.
Yeah I had a hard time with Western comics because of the artists changing, entirely different continuity, reboots etc.
I kinda do hope at least Horikoshi does something. He's nearly due for the results from the popularity poll I think. Maybe he could do a tie in?
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Yeah I had a hard time with Western comics because of the artists changing, entirely different continuity, reboots etc.
The best thing about Japanese comics is that the rights to the series/characters goes to the author, not the publishing house. It's why (although some still go too long), when a series ends we don't have to worry about it being rebooted and messed with. We have doujinshi for that.
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The best thing about Japanese comics is that the rights to the series/characters goes to the author, not the publishing house. It's why (although some still go too long), when a series ends we don't have to worry about it being rebooted and messed with.
That's fine there's still potential (like a a comic book) for the original writer to shit the bed anyway.
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Man there are some absolute hot takes coming out about Stan Lee's contributions with Marvel
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There's debate over how much he actually did and how much was the talent of the artists he worked with that he then took credit for, but it's undeniable that he had an impact and a presence unlike any other.
Even at it's most uncharitable description where Stan Lee was basically a glorified editor who stapled things together and wrote dialogue over story already inserted into the footnotes he still added his flair and it did alot for the characterization and the whole goofy sixties atmosphere of the earliest stuff. And that's not even counting the stuff he did for the structure and cohesion of the universe and the sheer spectacle he brought to the medium. And that's if you chose to take the Kirby did everything stuff at face value, personally i'd always reckon it was something akin to a 75/25 or 80/20 effort ratio in favour of the artist.
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Stan wouldn't have been Stan without Ditko, and Ditko sure as hell wouldn't have been Ditko without Stan.
Spider-man wouldn't be what he is today if Stan didn't reign in Ditko's "fucking HIPPIES" impulses.
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@Cyan:
Stan wouldn't have been Stan without Ditko, and Ditko sure as hell wouldn't have been Ditko without Stan.
Spider-man wouldn't be what he is today if Stan didn't reign in Ditko's "fucking HIPPIES" impulses.
Wonder if he still would've gone all crazy Ayn Rand guy if he didn't feel Lee screwed him over on the credit.
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Speaking of which, do we know if his last cameo appearance will be in Avengers 4?
He filmed bits for Spiderman 2, Avengers 4, Captain Marvel, Spiderverse, and Dark Phoenix. So there's still a few to go.
After that they may go the Deadpool 2 route and just have statues or photos of him in the background. Whichever one comes next will probably be dedicated to him.
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If only we had examples of what Ditko and Kirby's work was like when they weren't around Stan to see how much of an influence on Marvel's work he really had.
Sadly, this was never to be for all that material was lost to THE TIGER FORCE AT THE CORE OF ALL THINGS.
Seriously though, there's a reason that all of Ditko and Kirby's non-Marvel creations are more defined by what other people did with those characters than what they did. They were both tremendously creative men when it came to art but that didn't extend to the ability to write snappy dialogue or, especially in Ditko's case, to make likable, lasting characters.
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Well, there's the New Gods.
Who notably have never been popular as anything except Superman villains.
Massive creative energies on those artists, but yeah… not much after they split with Lee. Similarly, after Lee left those books, they stopped adding new characters that worked. There haven't really been any notable Spiderman or FF villains int he decades since except maybe Venom?
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How popular would, say, Darkseid be though without the DCAU version? Before that, people were probably more familiar with him as the fairly ineffectual villain on Super Friends than anything else.
If nothing else, that people pretty much associate him only with Superman seems as related to that as much as anything else.
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Well, there's the New Gods.
Who notably have never been popular as anything except Superman villains.
Massive creative energies on those artists, but yeah… not much after they split with Lee. Similarly, after Lee left those books, they stopped adding new characters that worked. There haven't really been any notable Spiderman or FF villains int he decades since except maybe Venom?
Well shit .
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Characters introduced in SPiderman while Lee was writing the book
Peter Parker
Uncle Ben
Aunt May
J. Jonah Jameson
Flash Thompson
Chameleon
Vulture
Tinkerer
Doc Ock
Sandman
Betty Brant
Lizard
Electro
Mysterio
Green Goblin/Norman Osborn
Harry Osborn
Kraven the Hunter
Scorpion
Smythe and the Spider Slayers
Molten Man
Gwen Stacy
Rhino
Mary Jane
Shocker
Kingpin
Joe RobertsonBasically every character of any importance was invented under Lee's watch. A couple others like Morbius, Hammerhead, Madam Web, Hydroman came under other people's watches later and you can pretend they're important and iconic if you want, but…
Black Cat (who while awesome lets face it is a blatant Catwoman clone) Punisher and Venom are the only ones of real note. You look at the wiki and it goes hundreds of issues without introducing anyone new, just regurgitating old characters. There's some one off characters but none of them stuck at all.
You go over the Fantastic Four and you get a very similar list including Doom, the Inhumans, Silver Surfer, Galactus, Black Panther, Skrulls, etc.
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Wow, I didn't realize Lee didn't invent Venom.
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Punisher
Who was created by Gerry Conway as The Assassin. Frank got his current name when Stan said that name didn't really work and calling him The Punisher instead would let him do more with the character in the future.
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It doesn't help that both Kirby and Lee have notoriously bad memories. Jack "sure let's go with that" Kirby and Stan "called him bob banner for an entire issue" Lee can't really be relied on entirely and add to that the years of getting screwed over for credit that fueled Kirby's grudge and you have a hard time sorting out the fact from the exagerrations. But it's fair to say that Kirby was the workhorse of the partnership and Lee doesn't really seem to dispute this. Ditko on the other hand never really seemed to claim that he did it all and that Stan did nothing but rather that Stan was a gloryhound (which is without a doubt true) and shortchanged him on what he felt were his accomplishments. Sadly Steve Ditko went full crazy person and withdrew from all attempts to shed some light on it beyond that one slam piece he published in like the 80's.
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Wow, I didn't realize Lee didn't invent Venom.
Nope, the black costume didn't come until the mid 80's, well after Lee's era. (And was submitted by a fan, apparently, though the actual design was in-house)
Creation of Venom as we know him now, was in 88 and goes to Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, who really didn't like Spidey in the black outfit and wanted him out of it.
McFarlane's take mostly had big muscles and a giant grin… the point teeth and giant tongue came a little bit later as other artists exaggerated it more.
And there hasn't been a new defining memorable character in Spidey in the THIRTY YEARS since. New characters, sure, but nothing memorable.
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Creation of Venom as we know him now, with the giant teeth and tongue, goes to Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, who really didn't like Spidey in the black outfit and wanted him out of it and came out in 88.
Ahhhh. Yeah, I can totally see the Todd McFarlane in it.
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I never really saw the appeal of Venom.
But i guess he just came at the right time and captured the zeitgeist
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Venom is a terrible character that only worked in his first couple stories.
But, he's the one popular character in the last 30 years so there ya go.
I think if Spidey hadn't worn the black costume for a couple years, and Venom had just shown up as is, he would have been forgotten pretty quickly. But its a decent origin story as is.
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And there hasn't been a new defining memorable character in Spidey in the THIRTY YEARS since. New characters, sure, but nothing memorable.
I think Mr. Negative is starting to join the ranks of well-known Spidey villains, but he has only just hopefully started to shine with the PS4 Spider-Man game despite debuting in the late 2000's. He's the only modern Spider-Man villain that's become a hit among the few who learn of his existence.
I feel like that just can't easily happen nowadays without new characters being inherited legacies creating lots of media buzz (a la every new superhero replacement that happens to be a minority or a big conflict event/reboot), showing up in new show/movie adaptations, or are the billionth anti-version of the hero that people always go gaga for (such as every new evil Symbiote or evil speedster). Otherwise, the mainstream crowd is going to stick with talking about is familiar and recurring because that is all they ever see on screens. That and nostalgia is a hell of a figurative drug.
Part of it is also that Marvel and DC rely on the most popular old school villains for their major stories way too often instead of reevaluating their more underused ones with untapped potential, which is why Joker is so over saturated compared to the rest of Batman's rogue galleries who are also well know but look like bit players in comparison relevance-wise.
I'm still waiting for the day that Penguin gets taken more seriously in the public eye than being a pseudo intellectual crime boss with silly umbrella and bird obsessions, or that Scarecrow does… anything interesting with his fear gas gimmick that goes beyond just scaring people for the sake of it. Ridder and Ivy get interesting stories once in a while but then those status quo changes get canned.
That said, there is a formula behind the old school Spidey villains that just has never been successfully replicated or substituted. Probably a mix of memorable kooky designs, shared animal/elemental/technological themes, and mirroring Peter accidentally getting powers or getting screwed over enough to succumb to their hubris.
How popular would, say, Darkseid be though without the DCAU version? Before that, people were probably more familiar with him as the fairly ineffectual villain on Super Friends than anything else.
If nothing else, that people pretty much associate him only with Superman seems as related to that as much as anything else.
This is exactly what I mean. And just look at MCU villains like Vulture and Killmonger. They were two-bit punks and are now sure to be viewed as B or even A-listers in the public eye because of how charismatic their depictions are. And that will leak over into future adaptation versions of them and their own comics even if it means blatant retconning/hypercommercialism.
I never really saw the appeal of Venom.
But i guess he just came at the right time and captured the zeitgeist
I think Venom could have come out at any time and be as beloved as he is now. Dark hero counterparts will always be popular. Even though I am extremely cynical towards Venom now, I definitely thought he was the bee's knees as a kid just because of being a darker scarier Spider-Man with looser morals.
And the hilarious part is that Venom hasn't been a villain since the 90's. And yet people will STILL hype him up as being one of, if not the best Spider-Man villain. which completely boggles the mind, especially when he hasn't really had lasting impact on Spider-Man's life in the same way Gobby or Ock had aside from maybe traumatizing MJ once. But the character's aesthetic is that appealing and the black suit arc is that iconic.
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Venom and Carnage are among the few 90s Comic Book Characters (Venom being late 80s notwithstanding) that can still get away with acting like it's the 90s.
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@Count:
I feel like that just can't easily happen nowadays without new characters being inherited legacies creating lots of media buzz (a la every new superhero replacement that happens to be a minority or a big conflict event/reboot), showing up in new show/movie adaptations, or are the billionth anti-version of the hero that people always go gaga for (such as every new evil Symbiote or evil speedster). Otherwise, the mainstream crowd is going to stick with talking about is familiar and recurring because that is all they ever see on screens. That and nostalgia is a hell of a figurative drug.
Eh, it can happen. It's just mostly that the old characters sell more copies, so its encouraged to always use the old guys. And, with a roster of like 5000 characters, there's less incentive to create something new (that you don't get residuals for anyway) than there is to just work with what's already there.
Deadpool for all that he was created in the 90's didn't become goofball fourth wall breaking Deadpool until the early 2000's. Take an old design and power, add a new spin to it. Or someone like Squirrel Girl.
Legacy characters like Ms. Marvel or Blue Beetle III have a leg up with their names, absolutely, but I think those characters would have caught on in their own right without the legacy names with their particular marketing push and creative teams. (Or Invincible over at Image and that entire world…)
The X-Men are one of the few groups willing to actually introduce new characters constantly and see what sticks... but that probably boils down to being a team book that doesn't ever have to consider how the characters got their powers. And even then it tends to keep boiling back down to more or less the Claremont era roster regularly. (Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, Collosus, Nightcrawler, Kitty, Beast, telepath... with fluctation based on writer's pets or who is dead at the time.) But the format allows them to get characters like Rogue or Gambit ocassionally that work out. (Those two were introduced ten years apart! Kind of crazy given how perpetually linked they are now.)
And the hilarious part is that Venom hasn't been a villain since the 90's. And yet people will STILL hype him up as being one of, if not the best Spider-Man villain. which completely boggles the mind, especially when he hasn't really had lasting impact on Spider-Man's life in the same way Gobby or Ock had aside from maybe traumatizing MJ once. But the character's aesthetic is that appealing and the black suit arc is that iconic.
Comics aren't the same thing as the cartoons. Millions watch the cartoons, thousands read the comics. Is what it is.
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Eddie Brock Venom has that goofy over the top edgy appeal to him in the right hands. Some of the later stuff like Toxin and Anti-Venom felt just… not good. Too serious and god who cares.
Flash Thompson Venom is Venom But This Time He's Actually A Good Character and I stand by that. His stuff also has the only good/decent Girl Venom in the form of Mania, but that's mostly cuz I think Andi is fun in that same edgy spiky way as Eddie Venom.
Every other Venom is middling to awful with Lee Price at the top/bottom of that list because GOD
fuck Lee Price -
Venom has been able to escape his 90-ness from time to time. Having cute things like becoming addicted to chocolate instead of brains or Venom attaching itself to Deadpool and gaining a sense of humor because of it. Of course, the other stories of Venom attaching himself to others exist, but he was the most fun with Eddie. I mean, as much as everyone points to Venom being grim dark, my eternal memory of Venom will always be a wonderful, problematic idiot.
That said, yes: Carnage raw, straight up 90s grim dark, and nothing else. Right up to the 'serial killer who pushed his grandmother down the stairs toward her death as a child' backstory.
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Alot of characters have their time capsule that they work within. Like i enjoyed the tarantulas run there back in like the late 70's, but i realize that the 2018 market ain't too big on caricatured Spanish accents and that weird south america fetishism like Roy Thomas or whoever had in that period. It's sort of like with venom, i get that at the time the estetique and feel of him was right on the money, but as he is he's a relic. Doing a straight up old school venom is like making another version of the hate-monger who turns out to be Hitler yet again. Like it's had it's moment just let it rest in peace
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Since the cartoon has been brought up, I just want to mention that I'll never forgive Spider-Man:TAS for what it did to the Shocker. He was easily one of the best second-tier Spider-Man villains but just became a joke after that which got worse when that stupid hand gesture rolled around.
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Since the cartoon has been brought up, I just want to mention that I'll never forgive Spider-Man:TAS for what it did to the Shocker. He was easily one of the best second-tier Spider-Man villains but just became a joke after that which got worse when that stupid hand gesture rolled around.
Spectacular however just brought it right back where it should be.
Personally i liked the TAS incarnation. T'was my first exposure
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Spectacular is pretty much the only thing I can think of that even remotely points out that the Shocker is a Symbiote's most dangerous opponent.
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But the ultimate comic remains the worst offender when it comes to el Shockerino.
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But the ultimate comic remains the worst offender when it comes to el Shockerino.
Venom #164 is up there.
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! Note that the direct blasts aren't hurting him, it's the sound from the jewels vibrating instead that is. -
Since the cartoon has been brought up, I just want to mention that I'll never forgive Spider-Man:TAS for what it did to the Shocker. He was easily one of the best second-tier Spider-Man villains but just became a joke after that which got worse when that stupid hand gesture rolled around.
What stupid hand gesture.
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why have Shocker and Electro? Seems redundant. Unless their powers are different….?
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why have Shocker and Electro? Seems redundant. Unless their powers are different….?
Shocker's abilities aren't electricity-based.
his name was meant to be "shock" in the sense of, like, a shock in the mechanical sense (a sudden acceleration or physical excitation) because his schtick is that he can shoot blasts of hyper-vibrating compressed air or creating a vibrating shield of air to protect himself
but the idea of electrical shock became the most popular connotation of the word along the way (i blame pokemon)