Superhero Comics 101

[Deadlift]

Isn't he Ravage not Venom? It was some time ago when I read that one.
The new 52 ... Oh gosh where should I start on that train Wreck

Referred to as Venom thoughout the 5 comic story Arc, it's the one with Flash Thompson.

[Brakkart]

So all this chat about comics got me all nostalgic for when I actually used to get titles monthly rather than just buying TPB's. So with that in mind I went and signed myself up for a couple monthly titles at my local store namely Superman Unchained as it has just launched and the forthcoming Superman/Wonder Woman title too. Got SU #1 today and it is pretty good. Scott Snyder seems to have a pretty good handle on the Superman characters, the banter between Clark and Lois was great and Jim Lee's art is as amazing as always and showcased in this issue at least (not sure if this is an ongoing thing or just for the #1 issue anyway) in a 2 sided mini poster of 2 of the pages of the comic where Supes is tackling a Space Station that is falling to Earth! Having recently read the entire New Krypton/War of the Supermen story arc (10 TPB's long!!) which features Lois' alien hating dad General Sam Lane as a primary antagonist it was cool to see him again in this new title.

Also got a TPB in the post today one of 3 I've ordered from the Book Depository (I highly recommend them as a company, cheaper than Amazon generally, great range and the books arrive well packaged and in a timely manner. I rarely buy books from anyone else these days). This one was GI Joe: Cobra - The Oktober Guard which was okay but I think the title would profit from a better artist as the storyline is great but the overall quality suffers I feel from art that is kinda vague. The premise deals with the Joe's covert op's team coming up against both Cobra and also Russia's version of GI Joe: The Oktober Guard who make their first appearance in the IDW continuity (they were created and first introduced back in the 80's by Larry Hama during Marvel's original long running Joe series). I think the story needed another issue or two really (and much better art) as after reading it had I not already known these characters I don't think I'd be any wiser as to who they are, which is a shame as they featured in some very memorable stories back in Marvel's run.

The other two TPB's should arrive tomorrow hopefully and are JLA: Salvation Run which features a large group of DC's villains who are exiled to a remote planet to serve as their prison (as they are forever escaping prisons on Earth) and their efforts both to get home and to try and work together to do that as without heroes to fight they inevitably turn on each other. My other title is Supurbia by Grace Randolph which after being impressed with her knowledge of comics on her Think About The Ink webshow I decided to give the book she writes a try as it has pretty solid reviews.

[Brakkart]

So JLA: Salvation Run showed up today and Supurbia didn't, which means it'll likely arrive tomorrow and I get a parcel 3 days running. Win! Already read Salvation Run cover to cover and will likely do so again later on as it is very good fun. Having rounded up the various supervillains of the world the US Government (via its covert ops organisation Checkmate) has decided to do away with the lot of them as prisons are not effective to keep them under control. To that end they use Apokolitian tech to open Boom Tubes to a remote planet which is habitable and apparently safe and they drop the various criminals there in groups to fend for themselves. They provide them only with their costumes and weapons, nothing else. The planet though is not safe, it was just made to appear that way when Checkmate looked the place over. It is in fact a deadly wilderness populated by all manner of techno-organic creatures that seem to evolve whenever defeated and come back better than before. The criminals are loosely organised into two camps, one led by Lex Luthor who is adamant he can build a device to get them back home to Earth, and the other led by the Joker who are resigned to their exile and determined to embrace the inherent chaos of the place. There is also a much smaller third group led by Vandal Savage who intends to build a utopia in the only safe region on the planet under his "benevolent" paternal leadership.

It is very well written and the art while not spectacular is good and it is easy to tell the various characters apart which is important with such a large cast. There is some very good humour in this, such as the hunting party that returns with a great big dead lizardlike thing hung on a pole over their shoulders and announce to the camp "Coming up, roast... whatever this thing is. Get it while its hot".

My only gripes with it really are that the faction some characters side with are very out of character for them (Giganta siding with Joker's group when she's a pretty brilliant scientist and not at all crazy being a shining example of this) and some characters who don't really seem to belong there, the best example of which is Catwoman who was (and remains still) far more of an anti-hero than an actual villain and certainly not a threat to society like the rest are.

[Kirsten]

hehehehehehe

[URL=http://s1216.photobucket.com/user/KirstenIGMB/media/comic_zps99adc355.jpg.html][/URL]

[Wildeybeast]

So JLA: Salvation Run showed up today and Supurbia didn't, which means it'll likely arrive tomorrow and I get a parcel 3 days running. Win! Already read Salvation Run cover to cover and will likely do so again later on as it is very good fun. Having rounded up the various supervillains of the world the US Government (via its covert ops organisation Checkmate) has decided to do away with the lot of them as prisons are not effective to keep them under control. To that end they use Apokolitian tech to open Boom Tubes to a remote planet which is habitable and apparently safe and they drop the various criminals there in groups to fend for themselves. They provide them only with their costumes and weapons, nothing else. The planet though is not safe, it was just made to appear that way when Checkmate looked the place over. It is in fact a deadly wilderness populated by all manner of techno-organic creatures that seem to evolve whenever defeated and come back better than before. The criminals are loosely organised into two camps, one led by Lex Luthor who is adamant he can build a device to get them back home to Earth, and the other led by the Joker who are resigned to their exile and determined to embrace the inherent chaos of the place. There is also a much smaller third group led by Vandal Savage who intends to build a utopia in the only safe region on the planet under his "benevolent" paternal leadership.

It is very well written and the art while not spectacular is good and it is easy to tell the various characters apart which is important with such a large cast. There is some very good humour in this, such as the hunting party that returns with a great big dead lizardlike thing hung on a pole over their shoulders and announce to the camp "Coming up, roast... whatever this thing is. Get it while its hot".

My only gripes with it really are that the faction some characters side with are very out of character for them (Giganta siding with Joker's group when she's a pretty brilliant scientist and not at all crazy being a shining example of this) and some characters who don't really seem to belong there, the best example of which is Catwoman who was (and remains still) far more of an anti-hero than an actual villain and certainly not a threat to society like the rest are.

Would it not have been easier and cheaper to just shoot them all?

In other news, after it was short listed for the excellent Stan Lee Excelsior awards to pick up vol. 1 of the New 52 Supergirl, which was pretty good. However, I'm hoping some can explain to to me what the New 52 meta is all about. I'm getting that it's a reboot, but the why and how eludes me.

[Brakkart]

So the last of my trio of newly bought TPB's arrived in the post yesterday and the best one was saved for last. Credit to Grace Randolph, not only does she know a thing or ten about comics but she can write them too. Supurbia is... how do I describe it, think "Desperate Housewives meets The Justice League" and if you can picture that you're about there. There are some truly delicious twists on the standard hero tropes though, such as Sovereign, the Superman-alike character being all noble and such in public, in private though he is an arrogant b*st*rd with a severe god-complex who is keeping a former supervillainess (who swears she has reformed but old habits etc) as a housekeeper with benefits. As one of the other wives puts it "Oh she's doing hard time, between his sheets!" It is really good fun and I'm looking forward to the next volume now and I'm sorely tempted to add the monthly comic to my order.

[Brakkart]

Would it not have been easier and cheaper to just shoot them all?

In other news, after it was short listed for the excellent Stan Lee Excelsior awards to pick up vol. 1 of the New 52 Supergirl, which was pretty good. However, I'm hoping some can explain to to me what the New 52 meta is all about. I'm getting that it's a reboot, but the why and how eludes me.

Yes it would have been easier to shoot them all but as most are serving life sentences and are not on death row, it would also have been immoral and illegal to do so. They do explain that in the story and the exile is done without the knowledge (for the most part anyway) of the hero community or the public.

As for the New 52 the basic idea of it was to restart the DCU off from fresh without the "burden" of its 20+ year continuity as a way to entice people to get into the titles as they all started over with new #1 issues. A good idea in theory but in practice it didn't quite work out like that. Had they actually done a full reboot of the universe then while they would still have hacked off loyal fans they would at least have a solid foundation to build anew from. They know this because they did once before back in 1985 with a maxi-series called Crisis on Infinite Earths which did away with all previous DC continuity and started with a clean slate which they then built the pre-New 52 DCU from.

However certain of DC's writers have a lot more sway than others and they weren't anywhere near finished with their ongoing sagas so some titles were only soft rebooted (that is most of the backstory was still assumed to have happened only a few details had changed) most notably Batman's titles (the extended family got more heavily rebooted especially Batgirl and Red Robin) and some weren't rebooted at all, only the issue numbers changed and the story from before continued on without missing a beat (the various Green Lantern titles). As a result of this the DCU's current continuity is a complete mess which has angered long term fans and alienated new ones trying out these titles as the backstory is all over the place and many characters that were beloved are in limbo having not made an appearance as yet in the New 52 era and their previous stories largely retconned out of continuity. Furthermore the expected sales increase has dwindled away after a promising start and if anything sales are now lower than they were before the reboot happened.

[Wildeybeast]

Yeah, that does sound a whole big mess of stupid. A classic example of a business not having enough conviction in their reform to follow it through properly. Thanks Brakkart

[Brakkart]

No problem Wildey, happy to help explain things. I will say that while the DCU continuity is a mess right now, it has not stopped there being some damn fine stories in the New 52 era. Sagas like The Court of Owls and Death of the Family (Batman family titles), Rise of the Third Army and Wrath of the First Lantern (Green Lantern titles), Throne of Atlantis (a Justice League/Aquaman crossover), H'el on Earth (Superman Family titles) and pretty much the entire runs of Wonder Woman, Batwoman, Aquaman and World's Finest are as good as anything DC have ever produced, but since the reboot there does seem to be a fair bit more miss than hit these days.

[chicop76]

I only read one comic and it's the Thanos title which is out now. I think it's ok since it retcons his past, but it keeps true to his character which he comes off as a good person, but events make him evil. Through out his character history he has been bad, neutral, and somethimes work for good. He comes off evil, but seems to have an inner good deep within. Not saying it's a good ideal to plead to his good side. He has no problems in killing half the universe without a hestitant thought, but he doesn't act without purpose. What's good about the series he is trying to be good, but it simply not working.

I stopped really reading since 94 and picked up during civil war and stopped during secret invasion.

My problem with Marvel now they or the last few books I read, do a good job of building up a story and also get you interested in characters you would normally not care about, like the Skull Queen. The problem I see is they don't know how to really end big events or story. Basically all that work to go back to how things were before or a reshuffle, or kill/ cripple proffessor X again. I mean how many times are you going to kill Jean Grey and bring her back. Also once you feel invested into a character they kill them off.

Here is a list of characters from Marvel they killed of.
Adam Warlock: they brought him back and changed him to the magnus with no explanation and as soon as he became the Magnus kill him off. He would had been a good regular for Guardians of the Galaxy and he would had helped with the back story a lot with the GotG movie. One of my likeable characters killed off cause he is basically an extremly smart and powerful doctor strange and can actually go toeto toe with Thanos, due to smarts.

Black Bolt: killed him off. Actually was one of my favorites and very powerful. He couldn't talk cause he would and can level a city just with a whisper.

Moon Dragon: heck why not. Unless youread comics you didn't know who she was.

There are more, but for the most part they kill off less read characters to make a threat more meaningful. They advanced they're 20 year old side story and kill them off. If you kept up wih said character it will piss you off.

An example would be like superman went to go visit his planet and he died in a stupid manner like a piece of krptoninte just randomly hit him in the head killing him. Yeah most of the Marvel Deaths was like that. Besides Black Bolt most of them was very anticlimatic.

The reason I liked marvel or used to was they have the knack of having their hero's ctually be believable. Most of their characters come off as regular people with super powers. The villians come off as. I have to power to do whatever I want so I do it. You still get stupid story lines, but you can relate to the goals and concepts overall.

Marvel stands fo I Marvel at their work.

Supposdly they have an all girl X-Women team now. It has Psylocke, Storm, Phoenix, Jubliee off the top of my head.

Heroes for hire was a huge female orientated comic.

The only strong females in marvel I can really think off is in X-Men and in Fantastic Four, well Sue Richards you just don't mess with her. Everyone else just don't really. Mrs. Marvel can be said for Avengers, but she has too many issues.

Than we have DC.

DC= Dumb Comics

I will start off the only DC comic I only really collected was Batman. Sadly I think Batman is probably the best comic out there.

The problem with DC is you either good or you bad. If you are good you are to the extreme, and if you are bad it's the same. DC chacaters are hard to relate too simply because some character come off too good or too bad. A lot of DC character come off as crazy.

Batman works, because he is a normal man and although he is really intelligent he has a lot of emotional weight that hampers his intelligence. He still have a strong moral fiber, a lot stronger than most marvel heros, well all. Captain America is the only one that comes close.

Another problem is power level. In DC you are either retardly power or have little or no powers. Not too many inbetween people. Flash for example can run way faster than he should, superman is over the top, etc. ( the new 52 I heard toned down superman). Any way Arvel characters like Quicksilver can go as fast as Mach one which is still fast, but not out there fast. You have a lot of inbetween with little over the top or characters with no powers.

I always said all of Marvel can defeat all of DC, but if you said only what majority of the characters the public knows and no Phallax or Infinity Gauntlet. Than I would go with DC hands down vs Marvel. Heck Superman, Flash, Batman and Greenlantern can take on all of known Marvel and win.

Also I noticed, but not read the John Carter comics. It's based on the old Jon Carter books with a huge focus on his wife. In the books she as basically naked, so in the comic she is basically naked. I think however it might be a good read since the John Carter books inspired a lot of strong women in fiction. George Lucas have said the John Carter books princess was the inspiration for princess Leia which she was not a helpless damsel in distress and was fully capable od saving herself. It inspired flash as well, but not the girl soo much.