Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on May 20, 2016 0:37:36 GMT -5
It should be noted that T'Challa battled the Klan in that three issue Marvel Premiere run. I don't know whether this addressed the dangling plot threads left by the sudden end of McGregor's run or not; maybe someone more knowledgeable about Black Panther could answer that.  |
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on May 20, 2016 0:53:04 GMT -5
I just read one of the weirdest series I've read in a long time, namely the 18 issue run of The Comet from the early 90's Impact imprint. The Impact line was DC comics using the Archie/Red Circle heroes, which DC had licensed from Archie. So, the first 14 issues or so of the series are standard, and pretty uninspired, superheroics. Really, nothing very interesting about any of it unless you're a Red Circle fan like I am, in which case it's kind of interesting to see DC's take on the Red Circle universe and how they develop and grow it. Otherwise, though, really run of the mill, cookie cutter stuff. And then, holy crap. So, the entire Impact line ended kind of abruptly after The Comet #18 - all the other titles were also cancelled the same month I believe, and a follow-up mini-series that was supposed to relaunch the Impact universe ended up just being an epilogue for it instead. I'm speculating here, but with the writing on the wall and a line-wide reboot in the works, writer Mark Waid apparently decided to just say the hell with it and wrote one of the craziest, whiplash-incuding endings to a series I've seen. Basically, The Comet - who is a young dude named Rob - has been trying to find out what happened to his parents, who went missing in issue #1. The Comet himself had a weird memory lapse at the same time - weeks if not months have apparently passed that he has no memory of, and now he has super powers. Suddenly, at the end of the series, The Comet discovers that he and his parents were kidnapped by aliens. One of the aliens accidentally mind-switched with Rob. So Rob is actually a human mind in an alien body, and his super powers are alien abilities.  But that's just the start. See, the aliens didn't randomly pick Rob. Actually, the whole thing was orchestrated by Rob's girlfriend! Now, for the entire series, Rob's girlfriend Victoria has basically been Lois Lane; she's a TV reporter, and while she and Rob have had some fights over his role as The Comet, she's mostly been supportive of him, though in recent issues their relationship has wavered, potentially driving her into the arms of a police detective named Ben who has also been a supporting character since #1. But forget all that! Actually, she's a ruthless harridan who set up Rob and his parents after cutting a deal with the aliens to get them human specimens to experiment on! And she's been faking her love for Rob all along just to get all the scoops about The Comet's activities! Now she unmasks him as an alien on live TV! But wait, there's more - see, Ben, her new love interest, is actually one of the other aliens! Seriously, this just totally comes out of nowhere, upending everything the series has been setting up for over a year. It's crazy. So, anyway, there's an alien trapped in Rob's real body. Except, one of The COmet's villains figures out Comet's secret identity and murders the alien! There goes Rob's human form. Now he's stuck as a giant green monstrosity with one eye. Huntd by pretty much all humanity, The Comet ends up tracking down and killing the other aliens - two of which are impersonating his parents - and in an effort to save his parents, who are in a deep freeze, he fights Ben. Except, after they get off of Earth and into space, the spaceship explodes, killing all of them! THE END!! What the hell just happened?! There's tying up loose ends, and then there's nuking loose ends into oblivion. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 20, 2016 6:16:58 GMT -5
It should be noted that T'Challa battled the Klan in that three issue Marvel Premiere run. I don't know whether this addressed the dangling plot threads left by the sudden end of McGregor's run or not; maybe someone more knowledgeable about Black Panther could answer that. I haven't read it myself. It's my understanding that it resolves all or most of it (including explaining why the storyline was abruptly cut short for so long -- the Klan hypnotized T'Challa into forgetting about them or something), but I don't intend to seek it out since it isn't McGregor. McGregor's strength on Panther was never the plot lines themselves; it was the themes, philosophies, and characterizations. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 20, 2016 6:19:04 GMT -5
Suddenly, at the end of the series, The Comet discovers that he and his parents were kidnapped by aliens. One of the aliens accidentally mind-switched with Rob. So Rob is actually a human mind in an alien body, and his super powers are alien abilities. But that's just the start. See, the aliens didn't randomly pick Rob. Actually, the whole thing was orchestrated by Rob's girlfriend! Now, for the entire series, Rob's girlfriend Victoria has basically been Lois Lane; she's a TV reporter, and while she and Rob have had some fights over his role as The Comet, she's mostly been supportive of him, though in recent issues their relationship has wavered, potentially driving her into the arms of a police detective named Ben who has also been a supporting character since #1. But forget all that! Actually, she's a ruthless harridan who set up Rob and his parents after cutting a deal with the aliens to get them human specimens to experiment on! And she's been faking her love for Rob all along just to get all the scoops about The Comet's activities! Now she unmasks him as an alien on live TV! But wait, there's more - see, Ben, her new love interest, is actually one of the other aliens! Seriously, this just totally comes out of nowhere, upending everything the series has been setting up for over a year. It's crazy. So, anyway, there's an alien trapped in Rob's real body. Except, one of The COmet's villains figures out Comet's secret identity and murders the alien! There goes Rob's human form. Now he's stuck as a giant green monstrosity with one eye. Huntd by pretty much all humanity, The Comet ends up tracking down and killing the other aliens - two of which are impersonating his parents - and in an effort to save his parents, who are in a deep freeze, he fights Ben. Except, after they get off of Earth and into space, the spaceship explodes, killing all of them! THE END!! What the hell just happened?! There's tying up loose ends, and then there's nuking loose ends into oblivion. Sounds like a late 1990s Spider-Man storyline. I had the first issue of this series as a kid. Never would have guessed it went there! |
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Post by The Captain on May 21, 2016 16:23:23 GMT -5
Shaxper -
You are far more kind to the Kirby Black Panther run that I would be. I read it in the recent past (within the past few years) and found it painfully ponderous. Granted, I'd never read any other Kirby-written work previously, so I was going in blind, but the science fiction elements seemed completely out of place for the character, particularly as follow-up to what I felt was the far superior McGregor run on Jungle Action that focused on the natural aspects of Wakanda and the Black Panther.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 21, 2016 17:21:43 GMT -5
Shaxper - You are far more kind to the Kirby Black Panther run that I would be. I read it in the recent past (within the past few years) and found it painfully ponderous. Granted, I'd never read any other Kirby-written work previously, so I was going in blind, but the science fiction elements seemed completely out of place for the character, particularly as follow-up to what I felt was the far superior McGregor run on Jungle Action that focused on the natural aspects of Wakanda and the Black Panther. Yeah. Like I said, if you go in looking for McGregor,you're going to be disappointed. You really have to already be a fan of 7OS Kirby to get it. |
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Post by Action Ace on May 21, 2016 18:04:14 GMT -5
I just read one of the weirdest series I've read in a long time, namely the 18 issue run of The Comet from the early 90's Impact imprint. The Impact line was DC comics using the Archie/Red Circle heroes, which DC had licensed from Archie. So, the first 14 issues or so of the series are standard, and pretty uninspired, superheroics. Really, nothing very interesting about any of it unless you're a Red Circle fan like I am, in which case it's kind of interesting to see DC's take on the Red Circle universe and how they develop and grow it. Otherwise, though, really run of the mill, cookie cutter stuff. And then, holy crap. So, the entire Impact line ended kind of abruptly after The Comet #18 - all the other titles were also cancelled the same month I believe, and a follow-up mini-series that was supposed to relaunch the Impact universe ended up just being an epilogue for it instead. I'm speculating here, but with the writing on the wall and a line-wide reboot in the works, writer Mark Waid apparently decided to just say the hell with it and wrote one of the craziest, whiplash-incuding endings to a series I've seen. Basically, The Comet - who is a young dude named Rob - has been trying to find out what happened to his parents, who went missing in issue #1. The Comet himself had a weird memory lapse at the same time - weeks if not months have apparently passed that he has no memory of, and now he has super powers. Suddenly, at the end of the series, The Comet discovers that he and his parents were kidnapped by aliens. One of the aliens accidentally mind-switched with Rob. So Rob is actually a human mind in an alien body, and his super powers are alien abilities. But that's just the start. See, the aliens didn't randomly pick Rob. Actually, the whole thing was orchestrated by Rob's girlfriend! Now, for the entire series, Rob's girlfriend Victoria has basically been Lois Lane; she's a TV reporter, and while she and Rob have had some fights over his role as The Comet, she's mostly been supportive of him, though in recent issues their relationship has wavered, potentially driving her into the arms of a police detective named Ben who has also been a supporting character since #1. But forget all that! Actually, she's a ruthless harridan who set up Rob and his parents after cutting a deal with the aliens to get them human specimens to experiment on! And she's been faking her love for Rob all along just to get all the scoops about The Comet's activities! Now she unmasks him as an alien on live TV! But wait, there's more - see, Ben, her new love interest, is actually one of the other aliens! Seriously, this just totally comes out of nowhere, upending everything the series has been setting up for over a year. It's crazy. So, anyway, there's an alien trapped in Rob's real body. Except, one of The COmet's villains figures out Comet's secret identity and murders the alien! There goes Rob's human form. Now he's stuck as a giant green monstrosity with one eye. Huntd by pretty much all humanity, The Comet ends up tracking down and killing the other aliens - two of which are impersonating his parents - and in an effort to save his parents, who are in a deep freeze, he fights Ben. Except, after they get off of Earth and into space, the spaceship explodes, killing all of them! THE END!! What the hell just happened?! There's tying up loose ends, and then there's nuking loose ends into oblivion. The Comet was my favorite !mpact Comic. I also liked The Fly with Mike Parobeck on art and The Legend of the Shield. The story of The Comet continues (and ends --much like the line itself) in The Crucible mini series. |
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2016 23:42:08 GMT -5
Shaxper - You are far more kind to the Kirby Black Panther run that I would be. I read it in the recent past (within the past few years) and found it painfully ponderous. Granted, I'd never read any other Kirby-written work previously, so I was going in blind, but the science fiction elements seemed completely out of place for the character, particularly as follow-up to what I felt was the far superior McGregor run on Jungle Action that focused on the natural aspects of Wakanda and the Black Panther. Yeah. Like I said, if you go in looking for McGregor,you're going to be disappointed. You really have to already be a fan of 7OS Kirby to get it. I am (a fan of 70s Kirby) and I love that Black Panther run, especially the earlier issues. I like the McGregor run, but like most of the things I have read by him, he gets too impressed with his own authorial voice and thinks he's more clever than he is, and it makes parts of the run a real slog to read through. McGregor is someone I feel needed a stronger editorial hand in pulling back his self indulgent tendencies which often ranged into the excessive range. He's good, he has great plots and themes, but his pacing and prose lose me at times. Same thing happened with Killraven and Sabre when I read them, I just had to put it down, walk away and read something else for a while before I could come back and finish it. -M (and yes, Kirby could be self-indulgent as well, but the strength of the visuals and the pacing of the books kept that self-indulgence from slogging down the books). |
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on May 22, 2016 4:20:24 GMT -5
This is the first I've heard of these. Are they anywhere near as good? I liked the Panther Prey mini, read it when it came out, but I never bought MCP regularly, so I've only read bits and pieces of Panther Quest. McGregor was a writer who often tried to be relevant (it's part of why I struggled with the later parts of Sabre as it didn't age well) and some of the themes of the Jungle Action run were germane to the time it was written. The same is true of both Quest and Prey as well, as they feature threats and themes relevant to the time they were written-so it's a question of is there enough there that is timeless or do they age poorly. I haven't read either in a long time, so I can't answer that. Panthers prey was all about fighting apartheid in a thinly veiled way...subtle as a brick comes to mind...and was it Dwayne Turner or Denys Cowan  |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 22, 2016 8:46:15 GMT -5
Yeah. Like I said, if you go in looking for McGregor,you're going to be disappointed. You really have to already be a fan of 7OS Kirby to get it. I am (a fan of 70s Kirby) and I love that Black Panther run, especially the earlier issues. I like the McGregor run, but like most of the things I have read by him, he gets too impressed with his own authorial voice and thinks he's more clever than he is, and it makes parts of the run a real slog to read through. McGregor is someone I feel needed a stronger editorial hand in pulling back his self indulgent tendencies which often ranged into the excessive range. He's good, he has great plots and themes, but his pacing and prose lose me at times. Same thing happened with Killraven and Sabre when I read them, I just had to put it down, walk away and read something else for a while before I could come back and finish it. -M Ewww. You just lumped Panther' Rage and Killraven into the same category  |
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Post by JKCarrier on May 22, 2016 9:34:08 GMT -5
The Marvel Premiere issues are interesting, if only to see the plot gymnastics they go through to try and reconcile the Kirby and McGregor storylines. And they do provide closure for "Panther vs. the Klan", although I'm sure it's completely different from whatever McGregor had in mind.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 22, 2016 9:37:33 GMT -5
And they do provide closure for "Panther vs. the Klan", although I'm sure it's completely different from whatever McGregor had in mind. Exactly why I've avoided it. |
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2016 22:05:47 GMT -5
I liked the Panther Prey mini, read it when it came out, but I never bought MCP regularly, so I've only read bits and pieces of Panther Quest. McGregor was a writer who often tried to be relevant (it's part of why I struggled with the later parts of Sabre as it didn't age well) and some of the themes of the Jungle Action run were germane to the time it was written. The same is true of both Quest and Prey as well, as they feature threats and themes relevant to the time they were written-so it's a question of is there enough there that is timeless or do they age poorly. I haven't read either in a long time, so I can't answer that. Panthers prey was all about fighting apartheid in a thinly veiled way...subtle as a brick comes to mind...and was it Dwayne Turner or Denys Cowan Without double checking to be sure, I am fairly certain it was Dwayne Turner. -M |
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on May 24, 2016 21:00:25 GMT -5
I tried to read the three issue Blackhawk mini-series from Howard Chaykin. It was very well received at the time (1987) but I found it to be a dense, nearly incomprehensible mess. I gave up after one issue.
I also read the entirety of Y: the Last Man. It's interesting, despite being more or less written for the trade, I suspect the series actually had a much greater impact reading it month to month. There's a passage of time that is important to the characters but that didn't fully come across reading them all in one go; four+ years pass over the course of the story, but I just didn't feel that as much as I think I would have if I had been reading it monthly. Overall I thought it was really good, though it fell just a little short of great for me.
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Post by impulse on May 24, 2016 23:06:42 GMT -5
I also read the entirety of Y: the Last Man. It's interesting, despite being more or less written for the trade, I suspect the series actually had a much greater impact reading it month to month. There's a passage of time that is important to the characters but that didn't fully come across reading them all in one go; four+ years pass over the course of the story, but I just didn't feel that as much as I think I would have if I had been reading it monthly. Overall I thought it was really good, though it fell just a little short of great for me. I have very mixed feelings on Y: The Last Man. I think the first 2/3 were fantastic, but the last 1/3 just wasn't up to par. It kind of got lost and ambled a bit aimlessly. dragged a bit. and felt disconnected from the characters. I really did not care for the ending, either. |
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