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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 20, 2021 20:21:23 GMT -5
I think I remember that Avengers 213 was already late. Maybe he thought that it was only a story and wasn’t worth the 5 or 10 grand it would cost to miss the shipping date. He had to answer to his bosses too. It’s ancient history at this juncture.
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Post by berkley on Jul 20, 2021 20:32:10 GMT -5
I think I remember that Avengers 213 was already late. Maybe he thought that it was only a story and wasn’t worth the 5 or 10 grand it would cost to miss the shipping date. He had to answer to his bosses too. It’s ancient history at this juncture.
But perhaps a good illustration of the business vs the creative perspective: good business, at least in the short term, but terrible creative decision, at least for that particular character. Ancient history business-wise - but apparently still very current, again in terms of that individual character.
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 20, 2021 21:23:19 GMT -5
As much as we see this as a bad decision, it was one made while a hundred other decisions had to be made. I doubt anyone put the thought into it we are. Creative decisions usually take a back seat. Comics have been canceled with little thought.
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Post by impulse on Jul 21, 2021 8:54:52 GMT -5
From what I've read myself and heard from others, Grant Morrison tends to misstep every time he has to write an ending. It kinda makes sense when he really has no consideration towards other creators endings. If it's not his character it's not his problem. Tear it up! It's one thing to kill a character but he will kill a characters future effectiveness. I admit I haven't read all of his work, but the most prominent one I followed was his New X-Men. I don't feel he necessarily disrespected the source, but man, you could feel when he was over Marvel and had that exclusive deal with DC inked in the writing. He just phoned it in and wrapped up an otherwise very ambitious and mostly well-written run. I've heard he did something similar with JLA but I didn't read it. He tends to do much better with his original works, or at least the ones I've read. He's a pretty unique dude, so a lot of his stuff can really hit or really miss for me. As much as we see this as a bad decision, it was one made while a hundred other decisions had to be made. I doubt anyone put the thought into it we are. This seems authentic to me. It was probably one of many quick decisions made in a hurry trying to run a massive publishing business. Obviously, in hindsight and with all of the notoriety, it seems like a massive blunder, but I could believe at the time to Shooter at least the importance of getting the book out might have seemed the "better" decision. Though IMO, the entire page needed to drawn differently to make the "guy agonizing to himself not realizing someone walked up behind him and accidentally striking them without knowing it as he flailed in despair" be plausible.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 21, 2021 9:00:07 GMT -5
I liked Morrison on JLA, but other than that, he's mostly miss for me.
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dave
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Posts: 44
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Post by dave on Jul 21, 2021 10:09:52 GMT -5
Peter David's Hulk run went off the rails following the destruction of the Mount/Hulk quitting the Pantheon. I've heard a lot of back and forth over the years about whose fault that was, but my main problem with it at the time was that David had spent years building these characters, giving them little side intrigues and mysteries and subplots, and then *poof* he suddenly writes them out of his own story and they're rarely ever heard from again. It just seemed like such a waste at the time... maybe the Pantheon couldn't have carried their own spin-off series, but at least give 'em a mini or let them pop up again from time to time in an annual or something. (I did some quick research and it looks like the characters have been used in exactly one Hercules story since David's Hulk run ended... I thought they were more interesting than that suggests.)
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Post by Graphic Autist on Jul 21, 2021 10:23:16 GMT -5
(I did some quick research and it looks like the characters have been used in exactly one Hercules story since David's Hulk run ended... I thought they were more interesting than that suggests.) They show up in the current Maestro limited series that is written by David.
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dave
Junior Member
Posts: 44
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Post by dave on Jul 21, 2021 10:46:31 GMT -5
(I did some quick research and it looks like the characters have been used in exactly one Hercules story since David's Hulk run ended... I thought they were more interesting than that suggests.) They show up in the current Maestro limited series that is written by David. Do they? Awesome, I'll have to check that out. The Maestro concept was never my favorite, so I was on the fence, but if the Pantheon show up (and do anything but get immediately trounced by an annoyed Maestro), that decides it for me.
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Post by profh0011 on Jul 21, 2021 21:23:22 GMT -5
I read that story recently... holy smokes. Maybe the most insane reveal I've ever read. I was reading that whole sequence wondering if I got some special weed or what... BONKERS. Of course, once he gets all the characters where he wants them, Englehart's GL run really takes off and (IMO) surpasses the Wein/Gibbons issues. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way!
I actually started buying GL regularly, when Wein & Gibbons took over, because I loved Gibbon's work on the Tom Baker DOCTOR WHO comics. He also did the 1st Peter Davison story.
But then Gibbons quit GL in mid-story, because he was bored. He wanted to do space stories-- Wein wanted to do Earth stories. When Gibbns quit, Wein apparently said, " Oh, well I might as well quit, TOO, then!" WTF?
What blew my mind was that incoming editor Andy Helfer only had ONE single fill-in, before the new team of Englehart & Staton were up-and-running.
I started going to art school in the late 80s, and got terribly behind on my comics reading. I actually somehow read the entire ACW run of GL before reading most of Englehart's, after-the-fact. (I also wound up reading a lot of other runs of books out of sequence like that.)
I was glad to see Carol gone... for awhile. (O'Neil, Owsley & Kane screwed that up big-time.) But much later, I was even more glad to see "The Predator" PROPERLY explained. It was just such a shame that the guy who fixed it got FIRED so soon after that. It's too bad the editor at the time didn't get kicked off the book, instead. Andy Helfer never should have left, right in the midst of things, after what he put Gerard Jones through.
I would have liked to have seen a character like Kyle Rayner introduced properly, naturally, WITHOUT having to DESTROY the life and reputation of his predecessor, needlessly.
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Post by profh0011 on Jul 21, 2021 21:33:18 GMT -5
I'm ready to buy the story according to which Bob Hall decided to make the scene more dramatic by having Hank willfully hit Jan, but Jim is the one who chose to run with the art as it was. "It was too late to change it?" Nah. It was apparently not too late for Jean Grey to be killed instead of depowered in X-Men #137, even though the book was already pencilled and the change required much more than one or two panels! Shooter had it in for Hank & Jan since his first run on the book, when out of left field, he had Hank have a nervous breakdown and attack the entire group as Ant-Man. (I always remember that as the period when George Perez finally stopped having obvious drawing errrors in his art.)
In THE DEFENDERS, Steve Gerber did a very nice job bringing Hank out of retirement. Soon after, Steve Englehart made a point of having him & Jan rejoin THE AVENGERS. Then Gerry Conway ran Englehart off the book (and out of the company-- Steve really over-reacted, I feel), but was gone before you could blink, so Shooter picked up 3 of his books.
Right after that "Ant-Man goes insane" story, Chris Claremont did a 2-part MARVEL TEAM-UP to rebut it, in which he showcased Hank & Jan, giving Jan a major upgrade to her powers.
So when Shooter returned much later, and the very first thing he did was F*** over their marriage... I was very annoyed.
My impression was that Roger Stern, who was left with finishing off Shooter's mess, was ordered not to have Hank & Jan reconcile.
Of course, it could have been something else. Years later, I noticed that Stern was responsible for stories in which Stephen Strange & Clea broke up... Peter Parker & MJ decided they "shouldn't" be a couple... and Hank & Jan's marriage disintegreated, "permanently". I began to wonder if Stern just had a thing against happy longtime romances.
Some have said the Hank & Jan problem goes back to Roy Thomas, who wrote them as if they were completely different characters during his long run on THE AVENGERS. He made Hank unstable, and Jan turned into an IDIOT. No matter how flightly and fun-loving she was earlier, she was NEVER an idiot in the original ANT-MAN AND THE WASP series in TALES TO ASTONISH.
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Post by tonebone on Jul 22, 2021 16:05:53 GMT -5
I liked Morrison on JLA, but other than that, he's mostly miss for me. Marvel Boy is pretty good. Arkham Asylum is great. But, yeah, I think he's overrated, for the most part.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 23, 2021 11:56:21 GMT -5
True, Arkam Asylum is also really good... I forgot that was Morrison.
I too was a big fan of PAD's 'professor' Hulk and the Pantheon. they definitely got the shaft, IMO.
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Post by commond on Jul 23, 2021 17:55:16 GMT -5
What about Doom Patrol, Animal Man, and Zenith?
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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 23, 2021 21:12:23 GMT -5
I'm ready to buy the story according to which Bob Hall decided to make the scene more dramatic by having Hank willfully hit Jan, but Jim is the one who chose to run with the art as it was. "It was too late to change it?" Nah. It was apparently not too late for Jean Grey to be killed instead of depowered in X-Men #137, even though the book was already pencilled and the change required much more than one or two panels! Shooter had it in for Hank & Jan since his first run on the book, when out of left field, he had Hank have a nervous breakdown and attack the entire group as Ant-Man. (I always remember that as the period when George Perez finally stopped having obvious drawing errrors in his art.)
In THE DEFENDERS, Steve Gerber did a very nice job bringing Hank out of retirement. Soon after, Steve Englehart made a point of having him & Jan rejoin THE AVENGERS. Then Gerry Conway ran Englehart off the book (and out of the company-- Steve really over-reacted, I feel), but was gone before you could blink, so Shooter picked up 3 of his books.
Right after that "Ant-Man goes insane" story, Chris Claremont did a 2-part MARVEL TEAM-UP to rebut it, in which he showcased Hank & Jan, giving Jan a major upgrade to her powers.
So when Shooter returned much later, and the very first thing he did was F*** over their marriage... I was very annoyed.
My impression was that Roger Stern, who was left with finishing off Shooter's mess, was ordered not to have Hank & Jan reconcile.
Of course, it could have been something else. Years later, I noticed that Stern was responsible for stories in which Stephen Strange & Clea broke up... Peter Parker & MJ decided they "shouldn't" be a couple... and Hank & Jan's marriage disintegreated, "permanently". I began to wonder if Stern just had a thing against happy longtime romances.
Some have said the Hank & Jan problem goes back to Roy Thomas, who wrote them as if they were completely different characters during his long run on THE AVENGERS. He made Hank unstable, and Jan turned into an IDIOT. No matter how flightly and fun-loving she was earlier, she was NEVER an idiot in the original ANT-MAN AND THE WASP series in TALES TO ASTONISH.
Interesting post. I made a quick search of the release dates of Avengers # 161 and MTU #59. MTU came out a week after the Avengers book. I have both books but don't remember if there's something stating which story comes first in continuity. Stern wasn't responsible for the break up of Jan and Hank. That happened during the Fall of Yellowjacket storyline. 211- 230. And I agree that Shooter probably outlined that they not reconcile. These characters are all subject to whatever the story requires, Especially the second tier ones.
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Post by profh0011 on Jul 23, 2021 21:45:11 GMT -5
I made a quick search of the release dates of Avengers # 161 and MTU #59. MTU came out a week after the Avengers book. I have both books but don't remember if there's something stating which story comes first in continuity. Stern wasn't responsible for the break up of Jan and Hank. That happened during the Fall of Yellowjacket storyline. 211- 230. And I agree that Shooter probably outlined that they not reconcile. These characters are all subject to whatever the story requires, Especially the second tier ones. Regarding Claremont & Byrne's MTU 2-parter, my impression was that Claremont may have heard what Shooter was doing, got pissed off about it, and decided he'd show Mr. "BECAUSE I SAID SO DAMMIT" what he thought of his willful abuse of a character 2 previous writers had worked hard to bring back out of retirement.
I'm pretty sure it was discussed on the letters pages.
Remember, Claremont also got pissed off about AVENGERS #200 and did AVENGERS ANNUAL #10 as a rebuttal.
I kind of assumed that Roger Stern (who these days, I don't really think was so great, but lucked into being NOWHERE near as bad as those who came just before or after him) was ordered, "Hank & Jan MUST get a divorce-- DO NOT have them reconcile". It just caught my notice later, when I noticed he'd been involved in at least 3 long-time relationships "permanently" breaking up.
In my view, "The Fall of Yellowjacket" is simply a story that NEVER should have happened. You know... like... "Identity Crisis". (Remember THAT one?) Or... Kevin Dooley's version of "Emerald Twilight". Or whatever that thing was that Mark Gruenwald FIRED Stern off AVENGERS for while Walt Simonson was happy to just phone it in and take the money without giving a S***.
Too much of corporate comics have become "Let's F*** over our characters!" instead of "Let's tell GREAT adventure stories!"
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