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Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 18, 2020 11:21:37 GMT -5
Reading some early 80s Avengers I picked up... WAY too much time spend on membership regulations! So far my favorite was 203.. which was a side story with Beast and Wonder Man in a street level adventure with some really good stuff on parenting and child abuse.
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Post by beccabear67 on Nov 18, 2020 21:35:02 GMT -5
Fantastic Four #2 (Skrulls turned into cows at the end), #8 (first Puppet Master and step-daughter Alicia), and Annual #6 (first Annihilus) via modern reprints. Can anyone pinpoint when The Puppet Master's daughter Alicia was referred to as Alicia Masters? I see her referred to that way in #65, but she appeared many times before then as did the Puppet Master (aka Philip Masters). It was funny to see Reed and pals on a mission to rip off Annihilus' power pod thingy (to save Sue then giving birth to Franklin). That's almost like Spider-Man boosting Doc Ock's arms while he's momentarily stunned! Or Batman snatching The Penguin's bumbershoot and legging it! The best part of these old FFs though is the Thing's dialogue!
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 19, 2020 7:36:36 GMT -5
Fantastic Four #2 (Skrulls turned into cows at the end), #8 (first Puppet Master and step-daughter Alicia), and Annual #6 (first Annihilus) via modern reprints. Can anyone pinpoint when The Puppet Master's daughter Alicia was referred to as Alicia Masters? I see her referred to that way in #65, but she appeared many times before then as did the Puppet Master (aka Philip Masters). It was funny to see Reed and pals on a mission to rip off Annihilus' power pod thingy (to save Sue then giving birth to Franklin). That's almost like Spider-Man boosting Doc Ock's arms while he's momentarily stunned! Or Batman snatching The Penguin's bumbershoot and legging it! The best part of these old FFs though is the Thing's dialogue!This is what made Marvel comics great. DC had no one that was wisecracking back then.
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Post by brutalis on Nov 19, 2020 8:47:40 GMT -5
Fantastic Four #2 (Skrulls turned into cows at the end), #8 (first Puppet Master and step-daughter Alicia), and Annual #6 (first Annihilus) via modern reprints. Can anyone pinpoint when The Puppet Master's daughter Alicia was referred to as Alicia Masters? I see her referred to that way in #65, but she appeared many times before then as did the Puppet Master (aka Philip Masters). It was funny to see Reed and pals on a mission to rip off Annihilus' power pod thingy (to save Sue then giving birth to Franklin). That's almost like Spider-Man boosting Doc Ock's arms while he's momentarily stunned! Or Batman snatching The Penguin's bumbershoot and legging it! The best part of these old FFs though is the Thing's dialogue!This is what made Marvel comics great. DC had no one that was wisecracking back then. Untrue. Robotman/Beast Boy in Doom Patrol and Metamorpho as well. While maybe not quite as vocally acerbic as Aunt Petunia's fave nephew or Aunt May's fave nephew, they did do their own contributions.
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 19, 2020 9:04:06 GMT -5
They weren’t as funny.
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Post by dbutler69 on Nov 19, 2020 14:28:41 GMT -5
I think Stan the Man was great at writing humor. Even the FF issues that aren't very good are worth reading for Ben's wisecracks.
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Post by beccabear67 on Nov 19, 2020 14:34:16 GMT -5
Robotman had a bit of it, enlarged upon later.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 19, 2020 21:34:11 GMT -5
The Thing had the field to himself for a short time at least. The Fantastic Four first appeared in late 1961. The Doom Patrol doesn’t come along until mid-1963, and Metamorpho is even later than that.
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Post by spoon on Nov 19, 2020 21:38:25 GMT -5
This is what made Marvel comics great. DC had no one that was wisecracking back then. Untrue. Robotman/Beast Boy in Doom Patrol and Metamorpho as well. While maybe not quite as vocally acerbic as Aunt Petunia's fave nephew or Aunt May's fave nephew, they did do their own contributions. I love the humor in Doom Patrol, especially the verbal sparring between Beast Boy and whoever he was targeting. It might be recency bias, since I read Doom Patrol this year and haven't read Lee/Kirby FF in a while, but I remember the Doom Patrol as being funnier.
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Post by beccabear67 on Nov 19, 2020 21:58:57 GMT -5
The Thing had that whole Yancy Street gang routine going for him too! I guess they were in the lower east there somewhere around the Bowery. I was just reading the True Believers reprint of FF #65 and just as he gets a parcel delivered from those boys he gets zapped off by Ronan The Accuser. The postman isn't sure what to make of it but considers a career change.
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Post by tartanphantom on Nov 20, 2020 15:18:37 GMT -5
Just completed reading the entire 13-issue run of Crime Classics, published by Eternity from 1988-1989. This series is a complete reprint of the short-lived Shadow newspaper strip, which originally ran from 1940 to 1942. The entire run was scripted by Shadow creator, Walter Gibson (aka Maxwell Grant) and illustrated by Vernon Greene. The best way to describe it is a slightly toned down version of the Walter Gibson pulp stories, which often focus more on the Shadow's detective skills and less on the mystery aspect. An interesting side-note: All of the covers are taken from actual strip panels by Vernon Greene... but enlarged and colored, of course. Still, a pretty enjoyable read if you're as big a Shadow fan as I am.
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Post by profh0011 on Nov 20, 2020 16:04:20 GMT -5
The 1979 BUCK ROGERS movie adaptation from Western (oddly, distributed by Marvel). The large book collects the first 3 issues of the then-current comic-book (not sure which was actually put out first), and crazy enough, the 3 episodes are each done by a different artist: Frank Bolle Alden McWilliams Jose Delbo I first saw Bolle doing some 2nd-rate inks for Marvel in the 70s. Later, I found he did some INCREDIBLE full art for Warren's horror books in the 60s. Much later, I found he was the artist for Magazine Enterprises' TIM HOLT comic, which evolved into RED MASK. I have a gallery at my blog where I did clean-ups of every cover of that series. Bolle also did Boys' Life BIBLE STORIES for 20 years, in the 80s & 90s-- I have all of those up at my blog, too. I love his work on most of these, but his BUCK ROGERS issue I'm not crazy about at all. Alden McWilliams did a few years of Boys' Life SPACE CONQUERORS! in the mid-60s, just before Gray Morrow (who, among MANY other things, did the short-lived BUCK ROGERS newspaper strip revival in the early 80s) took over. His issue is the BEST-looking part of the BR movie adaptation. Jose Delbo I mostly know from various series for DC Comics, including some BATGIRL stories, I think. Nothing he did ever really stuck in my mind. I'd describe his art as "servicable". Not bad, but not great. Even so, I'd rank his BR issue as way better than Frank Bolle's. Many times, those things are prepared before a film's even finished shooting, using early versions of the script. This one, many of the costumes are different, all of the Draconian ships are different, very little of the dialogue reflects what was in either version of the pilot film, and there are several scenes that were either CUT out, or, possibly, never filmed at all. This includes all the scenes with Draco, and the epilogue that revealed that Kane had RE-PROGRAMMED Dr. Apol before leaving Earth, and Apol had re-programmed all the defense ship computers, so that the Draconian fighters would know in advance every move they made if pilots left their fighting in the hands of the computers. Buck told Wilma in the comic, "You've got a SPY here-- but it isn't me!" It's crazy. The comics version reads rather awkwardly, and some of the art is very stiff... but story-wise, the damned thing makes MUCH more sense than either existing version of the film.
I strongly suspect there were in fact 3 very different edits of the pilot movie, but only the 1st one really made sense. Many changes were made beofr it got into theatres in March '79, and still more made before it was expanded to a 2-part story for TV in September '79. Apparently, given the film was distributed by Universal, there's little hope of any exised footage ever coming to life... 41 YEARS after-the-fact.
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Post by profh0011 on Nov 20, 2020 16:21:55 GMT -5
I like to think of Kirby's Black Panther as a flashback to the 60's after his debut in Fantastic Four. It is his solo series of adventures if Marvel had King Kirby create the King of Wakanda's monthly comic. A real could of should of moment given life years later. All hail the king baby! Someone (I'm pretty sure it wasn't me!) actually suggested that in the letters pages back then. I agreed.
Never mind how things played out in the published comics. It made ZERO sense for someone else, many months later, to try wrapping up Don's "KKK" murder mystery, and claim that the entire Kirby run took place in between episodes, during which T'Challa (ALLEGEDLY!) had amnesia.
I always remember the first time I met Don in Philly. I mentioned I'd heard they were planing to finish his story, and he replied by saying... "How can they? THEY DON'T KNOW HOW IT ENDS!"
Ever since I read Don's description of how he got assigned to write BP, I've felt if they were ever going to do a BP film series, a proper "first" film should be inspired by Kirby's globe-hopping adventurer... so that a 2nd film, based on "Panther's Rage", could follow Don's reasoning for writing his story. Don talked about how he read all of BP's appearances before writing is first BP story... and it really bothered him that the king of a sovereign country should not merely travel around the world to help people... but MOVE to NYC full-time, to become a member of a superhero team... and on top of that, create a secret identity so he could also moonlight as a school-teacher in Harlem. WTF?
In effect, "Panther's Rage" was a rebuttal against everything Roy Thomas had done with the character. T'Challa went home, and found out just how badly he'd screwed up.
The movie told a terrific story... although certain elements in it were terribly mis-guided... IF you think about it too much. Don's story was WAY, WAY better.
I think the most amazing thing about the movie was how it managed to combine the styles and elements of two writers who were so COMPLETELY different in every possible way without it feeling schizophrenic.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 20, 2020 18:46:23 GMT -5
I'm still making my way through 1970s Thor. I just finished the Marvel Masterworks volume that reprints Thor #229 to #241 - Loki! Firelord! Odin has amnesia! The Absorbing Man! Ulik! Kamo Tharn! Sif sacrifices her life essence to save Jane Foster! The gods of Egypt! Lotsa John Buscema art with Joe Sinnott inks! - and I moved on to the next volume. Today, I read Thor #243, which, in a way, brings me full circle because … this is the first issue of Thor I bought brand-new off the rack. I think it's also likely the first issue of Thor I ever read. It's the second issue of a four-story arc where Thor and company join up with Zarrko the Tomorrow Man (and his robot Servitor) to fight the backwards-in-time-traveling Time Twisters. I missed the third chapter in this arc but I did read the conclusion in #245. And then I missed two isses before I started reading Thor regularly with #248. Boy, does this bring back memories! I had been reading most of the other major Marvels for a few months and I knew who the supporting characters and the main villains were. But for Thor? I remember drawing little vignettes in my notebook, parodies of the Marvel heroes and their main villains. I think Captain America was Craptain America and his villain was Dead Skull. Dr. Doom was Dr. Doomed. But for the Mighty Sore, I had him fighting a parody version of the Servitor! I had not yet seen a comic with Loki! It boggles my mind to think of something that weird. Anyway, getting back to the Time Twisters … I first read Thor #243 and #245 back in 1976, so that means 45 years have passed since I read parts 2 and 4 of this arc … and I never read the first part until two or three days ago and I still haven't read part three. That's a long time to leave a comic book epic hanging in the air like that. I'm finding that it holds up rather well. Zarrko and the Servitor are interesting villains, even if Zarrko is a second-rate Kang. The visual design on the Servitor is stunning. And it's all beautifully rendered by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott. There's also a whacky sequence where they encounter a few bumps in the time stream and Thor fights a chubby dinosaur! Also the great supporting cast! Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg, Odin, the vizier. And Jane Foster infused with the spirit of Sif! (Which is a dumb idea that I hate. Jane Foster was fine the way she was. She tutored the New Men on Wundagore! She was almost Hercules's girlfriend! Tana Nile was her roommate! Jane Foster was turning into quite an interesting character about the time they wrote her out of the series in the 1960s.) I think Sif will be returning in just a few issues. The mid-1970s was a pretty good time for Thor. It's going to be fun reading the stories from 1976 that I've never read before and re-visiting the stories I haven't read for decades.
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Post by earl on Nov 20, 2020 22:15:02 GMT -5
Reading the Hulk and got up to when Gil Kane became the artist and was inking himself which leads up to when everyone finds out for certain that the Hulk is Bruce Banner and The Abomination first shows up.
I always like Gil Kane's artwork as a kid in the 80s, but these Hulk issues are some of the most lush I have seen of his work. You really can see some textures and aspects of his artwork that kinda show up in some Walt Simonson, Mike Mignola and even Frank Miller. I always figured Byrne really liked Gil Kane, but I think it some of the details that the inking on these issues that make some elements pop in other ways for me. There is some really nice 'cinematography' in some of the panel layouts. It really jumped out to me.
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