I'm definitely looking forward to USM. I hope we get to see plenty of Perpetually Exhausted Dad Peter in funny situations.
Western Comics thread
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@Shiebs said in Western Comics thread:
I was wondering if anyone would mention the relaunch of Ultimate Spider-Man
@Robby said in Western Comics thread:
And hey, Humberto Ramos! His art is usually pretty fun.
Sure you didn’t mean to write “funny” there Robby? Which even that is doing some heavy lifting on Ramo’s ugly art.
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@Time-Control-Magician said in Western Comics thread:
And hey, Humberto Ramos! His art is usually pretty fun.
Sure you didn’t mean to write “funny” there Robby? Which even that is doing some heavy lifting on Ramo’s ugly art.
It's stylized and very manga inspired, and I can see why that wouldn't be to everyone's taste, particularly in the character faces, but usually it's very dynamic with interesting camera angles and perspectives, and pretty expressive. And his toothy monsters are generally very monstrous, he does a wicked Venom.
He's been working with the same coloring team for like 20 years as well, so they do some crazy stuff together.
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Last week, I got Volumes 2 - 4 of The New 52 era Wonder Woman. Which I been meaning to get for awhile now. Since I really enjoyed volume 1.
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I mean, she's still an abusive parent who abandoned him, whoever the spouse is.
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The latest issue of the Image Transformers comic easily has the most "Optimus Prime being Optimus Prime" moment in decades.
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@Ubiq said in Western Comics thread:
The latest issue of the Image Transformers comic easily has the most "Optimus Prime being Optimus Prime" moment in decades.
You’re going to leave us with vagueness like that?
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Such delicious absurdity.
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You can practically hear "The Touch" playing while reading it.
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The new Transformers comics are fascinating; "How do we differentiate ourselves from IDW?" "Simple, we have Optimus fight like Brock Lesnar."
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I'm a 100% sure
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Spoilers obv
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Does anyone know if Jonathan Hickman’s G.O.D.S series is doing any good?
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Well, thanks to the generous Christmas spirit of my family, I've got a good amount of comics to read now.
I feel a little weird about reading the colorized version of Scott Pilgrim since I know it was originally B&W. Hopefully I'm not committing some cardinal comic sin by doing so.
And the lamb lies down on Broadway
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@Nobodyman
You lose this one joke.And since we are on colour's: Higgins' killing Joke > Bolland's.
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It'd be nice to just read a comic without worrying about which version you're reading and researching the 2 or 3 iterations of each comic and deciding which one you want to buy (if it's even available).
Can't we just leave a comic alone once it's published? Must we George Lucas this shit?
And the lamb lies down on Broadway
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@Nobodyman Your version of the Killing Joke is the Bolland's one. Is colored just as he and Moore wanted, but given the due weren't able.
It's kind of a flat coloring.Higgins' use more energetic colors and his palette gives some kind of dream aspect to the story.
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Yeah, the original colors are way better. Like, it's still a shitty comic, but the artistry to the original colors is clearly masterful.
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X time
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The only comic that needed recoloring was The Sandman.
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Finished the first volume of Scott Pilgrim and, yeah, this comic is a lot of fun.
The art isn't top-tier or anything, but it's really charming and really suits the story.
Really looking forward to reading the next five volumes, whenever I get around to that.
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@Nobodyman said in Western Comics thread:
Well, thanks to the generous Christmas spirit of my family, I've got a good amount of comics to read now.
I feel a little weird about reading the colorized version of Scott Pilgrim since I know it was originally B&W. Hopefully I'm not committing some cardinal comic sin by doing so.
Oh, man. I'm jealous. "The Killing Joke" is one of my all-time favorites, but I've never bought a physical copy. Actually, I should do that; the story and the art in that one are just gorgeous.
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@FatDogForMidTerms Ooh. Well, this might be a bit awkward.
I finished reading Killing Joke for the first time ever and, honestly, didn't really care for it that much.
There are nuggets of a really good story here. The art and atmosphere is, of course, brilliant, and Batman and Joker have some really poignant interactions.
But beyond that, the story seems underdeveloped, misguided and really sleazy. Shooting Barbara was one thing, but stripping her, taking photos of her and then showing them to Gordon (who is also naked for some reason) was just disgusting and exploitative.
I mean, I honestly like the general idea of the Joker's plan. Trying to get Gordon to go insane by subjecting him to the worst day of his life. That's a unique idea that's rife with possibility. Maybe we could have followed Gordon from sunrise to sunset, watching as increasingly terrible things happen to him and see his world unravel around him. It could have started with just minor announces, steadily getting worse and worse, until it culminates with Barbara getting shot. Instead, we just get Barbara being paralyzed and Gordon's carnival ride (most of which we don't even see), which, though that would of course be a horrible thing to go through, just feels like it doesn't amount to much. But I guess my idea would've required a lot more pages to explore.
On that note, and this isn't a criticism against the story since it is what it is, but I never realized Killing Joke was so short. It's just a single issue story.
Oh yeah, and we really didn't need a tragic backstory for the Joker either. The comic itself even seems to try to backpedal on it towards the end.
It was also kind of amusing reading the afterword for the comic as Brian Bolland almost seems apologetic about the whole thing. Though that could just be me projecting.
So yeah. Bit of a letdown for me, but oh well. At least I've crossed this off the ol' to-read list.
And the lamb lies down on Broadway
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Yeah, I really don't think that The Killing Joke is any good, especially considering it's treatment of Barbara. I really hate the obsession male writers and directors have with trying to use it as the basis for their modern Joker stories. The Killing Joke's sequel Three Jokers is honestly worse off for the way that it lionizes the comic.
She/Her
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Also, the deluxe edition comes with this weird extra comic about some random dude fantasizing about killing Batman, which ends abruptly and has nothing to do with anything.
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@Nobodyman said in Western Comics thread:
On that note, and this isn't a criticism against the story since it is what it is, but I never realized Killing Joke was so short. It's just a single issue story.
It was supposed to be an other world story but DC suits and readers like it a tad too much.
@Nobodyman said in Western Comics thread:
Oh yeah, and we really didn't need a tragic backstory for the Joker either.
He still didn't, he's an unreliable narrator. As Julie said, it was a mistake Three Jokers did and "canonized" the narrated bad day.
That being said I do like the "one bad day" take and the Three Jokers idea
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@JulieYBM said in Western Comics thread:
Yeah, I really don't think that The Killing Joke is any good, especially considering it's treatment of Barbara. I really hate the obsession male writers and directors have with trying to use it as the basis for their modern Joker stories. The Killing Joke's sequel Three Jokers is honestly worse off for the way that it lionizes the comic.
Do female writers use another basis for their joker?
I feel the killing is just well accepted by the bigger majority of batman fans be it female or male. Same with year one.
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@desa said in Western Comics thread:
@JulieYBM said in Western Comics thread:
Yeah, I really don't think that The Killing Joke is any good, especially considering it's treatment of Barbara. I really hate the obsession male writers and directors have with trying to use it as the basis for their modern Joker stories. The Killing Joke's sequel Three Jokers is honestly worse off for the way that it lionizes the comic.
Do female writers use another basis for their joker?
I feel the killing is just well accepted by the bigger majority of batman fans be it female or male. Same with year one.
I honestly don't know is women even get to write The Joker—or if they do, it's a very editorially mandated version of the character.
Women at DC don't really get to make the big, sweeping additions to the canon that the men do.
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@Nobodyman said in Western Comics thread:
@FatDogForMidTerms Ooh. Well, this might be a bit awkward.
I finished reading Killing Joke for the first time ever and, honestly, didn't really care for it that much.
There are nuggets of a really good story here. The art and atmosphere is, of course, brilliant, and Batman and Joker have some really poignant interactions.
But beyond that, the story seems underdeveloped, misguided and really sleazy. Shooting Barbara was one thing, but stripping her, taking photos of her and then showing them to Gordon (who is also naked for some reason) was just disgusting and exploitative.
I mean, I honestly like the general idea of the Joker's plan. Trying to get Gordon to go insane by subjecting him to the worst day of his life. That's a unique idea that's rife with possibility. Maybe we could have followed Gordon from sunrise to sunset, watching as increasingly terrible things happen to him and see his world unravel around him. It could have started with just minor announces, steadily getting worse and worse, until it culminates with Barbara getting shot. Instead, we just get Barbara being paralyzed and Gordon's carnival ride (most of which we don't even see), which, though that would of course be a horrible thing to go through, just feels like it doesn't amount to much. But I guess my idea would've required a lot more pages to explore.
On that note, and this isn't a criticism against the story since it is what it is, but I never realized Killing Joke was so short. It's just a single issue story.
Oh yeah, and we really didn't need a tragic backstory for the Joker either. The comic itself even seems to try to backpedal on it towards the end.
It was also kind of amusing reading the afterword for the comic as Brian Bolland almost seems apologetic about the whole thing. Though that could just be me projecting.
So yeah. Bit of a letdown for me, but oh well. At least I've crossed this off the ol' to-read list.
Haha, yeah, it's one of those comics that was once considered a classic but is now starting to lose some of that shine. I still love it, though. For my money, it's the best Batman & Joker story. I mean, what Joker does to Barbara is just so brutal and fucked up; I like the extremity of it all. And the ending is just chef's kiss perfect.
It really affected me the first time I read it, and I gained immense respect for Gordon. He didn't break. -
Alan Moore himself has disowned Killing Joke and says "The Killing Joke is one of the worst things I've ever written." and he hates the effect it and Watchmen (combined with Dark Knight Returns) had on the industry for decades.
It's a fine one off what if but it really shouldn't be heralded as "one of the greatest Batman stories" and it REALLY shouldn't have been folded into the mainline leaving Barbara crippled for decades (even if her Oracle turn was cool.)
I wonder, if it had a lesser artist than Brian Bolland on it, would it have had the same impact?
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@Robby said in Western Comics thread:
Alan Moore himself has disowned Killing Joke and says "The Killing Joke is one of the worst things I've ever written." and he hates the effect it and Watchmen (combined with Dark Knight Returns) had on the industry for decades.
It's a fine one off what if but it really shouldn't be heralded as "one of the greatest Batman stories" and it REALLY shouldn't have been folded into the mainline leaving Barbara crippled for decades (even if her Oracle turn was cool.)
I wonder, if it had a lesser artist than Brian Bolland on it, would it have had the same impact?
Well, I herald it as one of the greatest Batman stories but I'm just some guy so maybe I'm allowed to have that opinion.
Dude, Alan Moore, as great as he is (probably my favorite comics person), says the craziest shit! He thinks he's a wizard! He's a batshit lunatic. Awesome fella, I love him, but a total nutjob.
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Cool, good that you enjoy it. I liked it when I first read it almost thirty years ago and it took a while to realize how bad it was.
It's still an awful story that had way too much influence on the direction of comics for decades and should not have been part of the canon..
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Cool, good that you enjoy it. I liked it when I first read it almost thirty years ago and it took a while to realize how bad it was.
It's still an awful story that had way too much influence on the direction of comics for decades and should not have been part of the canon..Well, I guess agree to disagree then?
For me, it's like Nirvana. A great band that inspired countless incredibly poor copies. The original comic was a fantastic story, but its value should not be diminished by the bad imitations that followed -
Does anyone know how Jonathan Hickman’s run on the X-Men would have differed than the route they ended up going? Has he discussed what his original plans were before he gave the keys over to the other writers?
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@Robby said in Western Comics thread:
It's a fine one off what if but it really shouldn't be heralded as "one of the greatest Batman stories" and it REALLY shouldn't have been folded into the mainline leaving Barbara crippled for decades (even if her Oracle turn was cool.)
Especially when you broke Batman’s back like what five years later and had that cured rather easily….and under no less problematic circumstances.
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Superman flat out died and they fixed that in a few months.
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@Shiebs
My understanding is that they are going for Hickman's proposed endgame, just not exactly going through the same path he would do.
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@pariston_hill said in Western Comics thread:
@Shiebs
My understanding is that they are going for Hickman's proposed endgame, just not exactly going through the same path he would do.Oh okay I thought they were going in a completely different direction than what was originally intended
Thank you for the response!
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@Robby said in Western Comics thread:
Superman flat out died and they fixed that in a few months.
How long did it take for him to get rid of the mullet?
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He first reappeared in the black costume during Reign of the Supermen right in the middle of 1993... and kept the long hair until he and Lois got married, in December 1996.
So 2 and a half years. He was only dead for five months! (And back in costume as the official Superman in seven)
It's crazy to look back and realize the entire Doomsday fight, death, funeral, Reign, and return all took place in only 10 month. Spread over 4 titles to be sure but....
I kept up with the comics for several years after that, not entirely sure when I fell off. Probably when I started reading more of the X-men books, only so much budget even when comics were cheap. Even though I had unknowingly been mostly reading all of Superman since post-Crisis, young me had no way of knowing that my first superman comics in 87 or 88 were basically a fresh start, the numbering certainly didn't indicate anything. If young me had known I probably would have made a harder attempt to hunt down back issues, back when that was still the main thing comic stores did.
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@Shiebs said in Western Comics thread:
@Robby have you read any of Jonathan Hickman’s run on X-Men, house of x and powers of x
I haven't actually bought any ongoing Marvel comic since One More Day. Marvel says my investment and time doesn't matter, that's fine. I just sort of keep up with it secondhand, so my knowledge on Marvel falls off pretty hard after 2008. (Ultimates 3 was around the same time which was also a big FU) I also stopped with DC with new 52 in 2011.
I've picked up a couple random stand alone miniseries in trade form since then. Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow, Alex Ross's Fantastic Four story, stuff like that. But both companies giving a "clean jumping on point without any of the old continuity" was my jump off point after a lifetime, I don't deal with ongoings from the big 2 anymore.
Like its fifteen years later and Spiderman's deal with the devil is STILL intact? Even if they retconned it later to be Mary Jane's deal with the devil, o that Harry being alive again was unrelated, or that the organic webshooters went away because.... that's.... that's the sort of thing you address within a year, two tops. Not just the status quo for forever. Their marriage is STILL ended by magical act of devil.
I did follow Ultimate Spiderman a bit into the Miles era out of curiosity, got the first few trades,covering maybe the first 12 or 18 issues, but stopped before they nuked that universe entirely.
Usagi Yojimbo has never betrayed my time and investment. Invincible when it was still running. I actually did drop Savage Dragon about a year into the Malcolm era but that's because Larsen just wasn't following any characters I cared about anymore and after 200 issues it was time to stop. Saga is still great. Monstress, Isola... I have other comics to go to besides the big 2.
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@Robby that makes sense, I really don’t love the always keep the status quo in comics, I had stopped reading Marvel around 2010ish
I read a few things here and there since but mostly just kept to mangas, it wasn’t until this new run on X-Men by Jonathan Hickman that I got super invested in Marvel comics again
If you ever do want to read again I highly suggest the hardcover of Powers of X and House of X
But I can see why you quit and I definitely understand not wanting to read them again because of that
I can’t believe the MCU managed to take One more day and actually make a good story out of it
Although they left out the whole deal with the devil bit and just focused on the doctor strange part of it
I think anyways
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I do like how in the Midnight Suns video game in the Venom DLC Peter makes a deal with Mephisto with Mephisto gleeinf mentioning he’ll be seeing Peter.
I can only imagine the scorn that scene got from “certain people”.
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@Shiebs said in Western Comics thread:
I can’t believe the MCU managed to take One more day and actually make a good story out of it
That's because at it's core its an interesting idea. Peter desperately doing anything to save his loved one that is suffering because he chose to have his identity go public. The problems were mostly the editorial mandate.
-Peter was doing it to save his 100 year old aunt whose been on her deathbed countless times and even DIED before as far peter knew at the time and he was fine back then... and she even said it was her time and she was okay.
-Peter went around to Doctor Strange or the Fantastic Four and a whole bunch of people who couldn't deal with... a gunshot wound. Just silly.
-DEAL WITH THE DEVILSwitch it to MJ instead of Aunt May? Stakes. Have May actually die so that others being helpless to help makes sense. Have the resolution be basically anything else and there's a strong story in there.
The editorial mandate of "set the status quo back 25 years" was STRONG there, so they couldn't actually just kill May because she had to be around after the reboot, and the whole point was to avoid "Spiderman, divorcee" so they couldn't really do anything to MJ. So what are you left with?
Easy, easy fixes with editorial out of the way.
I mean, JMS wanted to take his name off the last issue and was talked out of it because it would be bad PR. (Editorial also screwed up Sin's Past... those were supposed to be Peter and Gwen's kids... not Osborne... but obviously they had problems with that)
But man, not only did they just undermine my decades of Spidey reading with that, they also basically wiped all of Civil War off the map too since they eventually mindwiped Tony to absolve him. (I think if the movie had been out a little sooner that whole thing would have been handled very, very differently.)
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Recency bias, but I think the current Peter/MJ content is even worse than OMD/OMIT.
