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Post by badwolf on Jul 30, 2020 9:39:46 GMT -5
But it isn't just Shooter. Lots of superhero writers are hooked on this kind of unimaginative one-upmanship, which is one reason (though far from the only one) why so many of these near-omnipotent characters end up being drained of all dramatic effect over time.
Maybe, but it does seem like a well he keeps returning to again and again. Korvac, Beyonder, Molecule Man...
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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 30, 2020 9:57:12 GMT -5
A champion is judged by the level of their opponent. Shooter also had them face Nefaria and the Masters of evil.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 31, 2020 21:44:16 GMT -5
I've been reading Iron Man from the beginning, like Tales of Suspense beginning, and while it has had some periods that weren't the best, most of it has been readable. Welp, I finally got to it. The last year of the original title, with the "Tony as Kang's puppet" and "Teen Tony" arcs, and if you've heard they were bad, that word doesn't even BEGIN to do justice to the awfulness. The first one is bad not because it is out of the blue, but also because one also HAS to read Avengers (OK), War Machine (mmmm...), and Force Works (dear God, why?!) to make even the slightest bit of "sense" of what is going on. The Teen Tony story is bad because it's poorly-conceived, poorly-written, poorly-drawn, and just plain stupid. Whomever thought people wanted to read about Tony Stark going to college and pledging a fraternity, while simultaneously screwing up each and every time he put on the Iron Man armor, didn't know their audience very well. Thankfully, this was over quickly and the big heroes got shunted into Heroes Reborn, which led to Heroes Return, which I will be starting on later tonight or tomorrow. Two arcs so bad, they not only ruined, but actually KILLED, an ongoing series of over 325 issues. Don't forget the 'Hands of the Mandarin' which was almost as bad as the Crossing... though that may have been part of the year of Tony being Kang's puppet. Also, it didn't JUST kill Iron Man.. at the time Iron Man was a family of books.. it also kills War Machine and Force Works, which never recovered. (I liked Force Works, sounds like you probably didn't) It wasn't even just Iron Man.. we also got the Wasp as an ACTUAL Wasp around then, too.
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Post by berkley on Jul 31, 2020 22:17:35 GMT -5
A champion is judged by the level of their opponent. Shooter also had them face Nefaria and the Masters of evil. I know that's how fans of the Nefaria story look at it and probably how Shooter would describe it as well, but to me Nefaria was such an obvious Superman tribute that it ended up feeling like "Look everybody - see how powerful Superman is?!"
I'm not saying that anyone else has to react the same way or even that it was necessarily the conscious intention behind the story but that's how it's always struck me. It's a personal bête noire, this reverence so many comics writers have for the Superman character - the Thor vs Superman scene in JLAvengers bugs me the same way, as do other tribute characters like Hyperion or Sentry.
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Post by coke & comics on Aug 1, 2020 1:08:26 GMT -5
The one that jumps immediately to my mind was the "One More Day" storyline that ran across the Spider-Man titles in 2007. In particular, the final part of that storyline in Amazing Spider-Man #545, which serves up a terrible conclusion to a godawful storyline and does irreversible damage to a beloved fictional character. I absolutely hated "One More Day". I actually threw my copy of Amazing Spider-Man #545 across the room in disgust upon finishing it for the first time. I've never, ever had such a physical or violent reaction to the contents of a comic book before or since. The deal that Peter Parker and Mary Jane made with Mephisto erased their marriage from continuity, ushered in wholesale character regression for Spider-Man and much of his supporting cast (especially for Black Cat, Mary Jane, Aunt May and villains like Sandman), and resurrected Harry Osborn for no adequately explained reason. In addition, there were also knock on effects throughout Spider-Man's past continuity, like the storyline in the '90s Clone Saga, in which Mary Jane was pregnant and lost her baby, never having happened. But perhaps the single worst thing that OMD did was to kill any sense of onward character momentum in the series dead. It rendered Spider-Man as nothing more than formula fiction and killed any interest I had in the ongoing life of Peter Parker. Although I hung on a fair few years afterwards, hoping things would improve -- and there were a few decent stories during that time, to be fair -- the Peter Parker that I loved...the character that I gave a crap about...died with OMD. To this day, Amazing Spider-Man #545 is the latest issue of ASM that I own and that's unlikely to ever change. This issue marks the moment when I lost interest in Spider-Man's ongoing adventures for good. I remember the venom and wrath of Spider-Man and Mary Jane fans throughout when that "hands tied behind him"-JMS written with editorial mandate and illustrated by Joe Quesada arc came out. It really hit the nerves of many Spider-Man fans. And then this brought to mind. The editorial sabotage that was the character assassination of Gwen Stacy in the 6-Part "Sins Past" storyline. This would be my answer. JMS' run started extremely strong and was still going decently well when this travesty happened. A hideous story paired with the worst Spider-Man art I've ever seen. My opinion of the writer and the run nosedived and has never recovered.
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Pat T
Full Member
Posts: 102
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Post by Pat T on Aug 1, 2020 2:02:22 GMT -5
Reading this thread, you wouldn't know that the Korvac Saga is widely considered the high point of the most acclaimed era of Avengers. Hell, Shooter won an award for it. Maybe it doesn't hold up today, over 40 years later, but come on. Are some posters here being contrarian maybe?
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Post by Cei-U! on Aug 1, 2020 6:21:50 GMT -5
Reading this thread, you wouldn't know that the Korvac Saga is widely considered the high point of the most acclaimed era of Avengers. Hell, Shooter won an award for it. Maybe it doesn't hold up today, over 40 years later, but come on. Are some posters here being contrarian maybe? Well, I can't speak for anyone else but I hated the Korvac Saga at the time it was published, so much so that I considered dropping my Avengers subscription. I'm glad I stuck it out, though, because what followed--including Shooter's second run--was soooo much better (with #200 as the obvious exception). And I've never heard it called "the high point of the most acclaimed era of Avengers" before today.
Cei-U! I summon one old fan's opinion!
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Post by The Captain on Aug 1, 2020 8:25:39 GMT -5
I've been reading Iron Man from the beginning, like Tales of Suspense beginning, and while it has had some periods that weren't the best, most of it has been readable. Welp, I finally got to it. The last year of the original title, with the "Tony as Kang's puppet" and "Teen Tony" arcs, and if you've heard they were bad, that word doesn't even BEGIN to do justice to the awfulness. The first one is bad not because it is out of the blue, but also because one also HAS to read Avengers (OK), War Machine (mmmm...), and Force Works (dear God, why?!) to make even the slightest bit of "sense" of what is going on. The Teen Tony story is bad because it's poorly-conceived, poorly-written, poorly-drawn, and just plain stupid. Whomever thought people wanted to read about Tony Stark going to college and pledging a fraternity, while simultaneously screwing up each and every time he put on the Iron Man armor, didn't know their audience very well. Thankfully, this was over quickly and the big heroes got shunted into Heroes Reborn, which led to Heroes Return, which I will be starting on later tonight or tomorrow. Two arcs so bad, they not only ruined, but actually KILLED, an ongoing series of over 325 issues. Don't forget the 'Hands of the Mandarin' which was almost as bad as the Crossing... though that may have been part of the year of Tony being Kang's puppet. Also, it didn't JUST kill Iron Man.. at the time Iron Man was a family of books.. it also kills War Machine and Force Works, which never recovered. (I liked Force Works, sounds like you probably didn't) It wasn't even just Iron Man.. we also got the Wasp as an ACTUAL Wasp around then, too. My feelings on Force Works are mixed. At the outset, it was a passable book, but it definitely slid downward as the series went on, especially when it was forced into crossovers with the other two books in "the family". However, I did not like Century at all, which probably colors my judgment on the entire series a little more harshly than it probably should. Yeah, "Hands of the Mandarin" was really bad as well, as was wasp Wasp. So many bad, poorly conceived ideas running through those books (and Marvel as a whole, to be honest) at that time, which is why Heroes Reborn/Heroes Return was a good thing (not perfectly executed, mind you, but not horrible), as it allowed them to reset themselves. I've been reading the beginning of the post-Heroes Return Iron Man book this week, and while no one will mistake it for high literature, there's something to it that FEELS better than what came before (granted, it doesn't hurt that it is Kurt Busiek instead of Terry Kavanaugh writing it).
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Post by coke & comics on Aug 1, 2020 9:26:27 GMT -5
Reading this thread, you wouldn't know that the Korvac Saga is widely considered the high point of the most acclaimed era of Avengers. Hell, Shooter won an award for it. Maybe it doesn't hold up today, over 40 years later, but come on. Are some posters here being contrarian maybe? I think it's a pretty awesome story.
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Post by spoon on Aug 1, 2020 10:41:50 GMT -5
Reading this thread, you wouldn't know that the Korvac Saga is widely considered the high point of the most acclaimed era of Avengers. Hell, Shooter won an award for it. Maybe it doesn't hold up today, over 40 years later, but come on. Are some posters here being contrarian maybe? I'm not being contrarian. I heard about the Korvac Saga and wanted to like it before I read it. Disappointment was my honest feeling. And you'd probably get lots of different answers for the most acclaimed era of Avengers from different people: Cap's Kooky Quartet, Thomas/Buscema, Kree/Skrull War, Englehart, Stern/Buscema, Busiek/Perez, etc.
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Post by sabongero on Aug 1, 2020 13:13:04 GMT -5
I remember the venom and wrath of Spider-Man and Mary Jane fans throughout when that "hands tied behind him"-JMS written with editorial mandate and illustrated by Joe Quesada arc came out. It really hit the nerves of many Spider-Man fans. And then this brought to mind. The editorial sabotage that was the character assassination of Gwen Stacy in the 6-Part "Sins Past" storyline. This would be my answer. JMS' run started extremely strong and was still going decently well when this travesty happened. A hideous story paired with the worst Spider-Man art I've ever seen. My opinion of the writer and the run nosedived and has never recovered. I bounced back with the "Back in Black" Spider-Man titles crossover with the Sensational Spider-Man and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man at the time. Then One More Day happened, and all that time I invested in the Peter Parker / Mary Jane relationship went down the tubes. And I haven't read any since with the exception of the Otto Octavius Superior Spider-Man.
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Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
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Post by Crimebuster on Aug 1, 2020 13:58:17 GMT -5
I love the Korvac Saga. Love it! I've read I think every Avengers story up through 2005 or so, and Korvac Saga for me is only slightly behind the Mansion Siege arc as the best ever.
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Post by coke & comics on Aug 1, 2020 15:14:34 GMT -5
This would be my answer. JMS' run started extremely strong and was still going decently well when this travesty happened. A hideous story paired with the worst Spider-Man art I've ever seen. My opinion of the writer and the run nosedived and has never recovered. I bounced back with the "Back in Black" Spider-Man titles crossover with the Sensational Spider-Man and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man at the time. Then One More Day happened, and all that time I invested in the Peter Parker / Mary Jane relationship went down the tubes. And I haven't read any since with the exception of the Otto Octavius Superior Spider-Man. I was quite the opposite. Sins Past really upset me but didn't actually stop my buying. Back in Black is what finally broke me on Spider-Man, albeit very briefly. I never finished it or read anything between the start of Back in Black and the start of Brand New Day. Brand New Day is what brought me back. For me, the problem was that Aunt May was dead. And it was a good death. And then she was alive again, and that upset me, but I pushed forward. And now suddenly she was dying again and I just had no way to emotionally invest in that. Meanwhile, Civil War convinced me it was time for my completist mentality to end. Once I decided not to finish buying the Civil War series, I realized that just because I owned every Spider-Man comic for the previous 40 years didn't mean I needed to buy the next one. So I didn't. Starting with Brand New Day, which I think is really good, I've been buying Spider-Man in trade, usually a couple years behind in my reading.
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Post by spoon on Aug 1, 2020 15:27:25 GMT -5
But it isn't just Shooter. Lots of superhero writers are hooked on this kind of unimaginative one-upmanship, which is one reason (though far from the only one) why so many of these near-omnipotent characters end up being drained of all dramatic effect over time.
Not just in raw power, either. This one-upsmanship has also made at least one character I know of absurd - the Joker. As they keep escalating the amount of carnage and slaughter every time he repeatedly escapes from Arkham, it makes Batman/the police/justice system look increasingly awful for not finding a more permanent solution. I'm not even necessarily saying Batman should go nuts and kill him directly (though it's increasingly difficult to imagine he wouldn't considering the personal toll on Batman's circle due to him), but at some people he should be put into a maximum security prison, some federal space, or even executed by the state. Again, I'm not saying this would make for a good story. I'm moreso pointing out how they've painted themselves into a corner with this poor technique, and now the situation is just ridiculous. These are not all my ideas, mind you. I've picked up a lot of it from some comic forum or other (not sure if here or the other other place) but it makes sense to me. I haven't read any remotely recent Batman comics, but this relates to my negative feelings about Nolan Batman films. There are things I like about the trilogy, but I chafe at the claim that they incredibly gritty, real, and serious. The corruption, violence, and suffering are so immense that no city could sustain. The population would've collapsed as most people left the city, leaving on those so grievously poor they couldn't afford to move. A "realistic" Gotham would have a mix of prosperity and criminality that's plausible rather than an endless parade of corruption and horrific bloodbaths. Nolan's Gotham doesn't have that nuance.
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Post by profh0011 on Aug 1, 2020 15:31:23 GMT -5
I've run across a lot of people online who strongly feel nothing in Spider-Man was worth reading, once John Romita took over from Steve Ditko. Really.
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