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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 10, 2021 15:49:30 GMT -5
I went by the output also. I think Bryne stayed too long doing lots of work for the big 2. It didn’t help his cause when he said Hispanic women with blonde hair looked like hookers.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2021 16:17:07 GMT -5
For me it's a simple matter, take the Eiffel Tower. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows the name Eiffel and the tower he designed that bears his name, but he didn't build it, He wasn't a laborer. No one knows the names of, remembers or appreciates the laborers who built it, no matter how skilled they were. They weren't creators. They don't have the legacy of creators in the mind of the public. If not for Eiffel, they would have toiled on something else, but the Tower woudn't exist if not for Eiffel's vision (it wouldn't have existed without the work of the laborers either, but if one laborer didn't work on t, another would have taken their place and the Tower would still be the same. Take Eiffel out and no matter how much skilled work the laborers do, there's no Eiffel Tower or tower of similar design with a different name.
Starlin, because of the characters he created which went on to become foundational pieces of the Marvel Universe, is an architect, the Eiffel of this metaphor. Byrne, no matter how talented or popular he was during the period he worked, left no real creative legacy. He's the laborer in the metaphor. He stuck to work for hire for most of his career and almost everything he designed was something old with a new coat of paint on it that made no lasting impact on anything in regards to the MU, the DCU or comics culture in general as a whole, and when he went on to creator-owned stuff, it was largely derivative and didn't make any kind of impact on the greater comic culture. At the end of the day, he was one of the laborers doing the job, not one of the people responsible for designing what was being built. If he didn't churn out the pages, someone else would have, maybe not as good, maybe better, but he was replaceable and interchangeable as a laborer.
As more time passes, Starlin's legacy will be remembered, and as the generation who read his work as it came out passes on, Byrne will become forgotten. All we need to do is look at the creators of the Golden Age to see this happening-the ones who created significant characters and added to the legacy of comics are still remembered, those who toiled producing pages, no matter how good or how popular they were in the moment, are largely forgotten now and their legacy is less substantial than that of the architects/creators in the mind of the masses and audiences. The personality of either man had absolutely no bearing on my choice at all. It was simply about their contribution to the legacy of comics as a whole for me. One left a legacy of characters and ideas others have built on and will continue to build on. One produced quality work for a period of time but his efforts resulted in nothing more than realizing the ideas of others and giving them form on a page.
-M
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Post by berkley on Aug 10, 2021 17:45:27 GMT -5
I think the deal was that Byrne got creation of Alpha Flight while Claremont got creation of the New Mutants (which actually came from an idea of Byrne's.) That would be fair, I suppose, although I think the New Mutants Byrne thought of would have been quite different from the ones we got; wasn't Kitty a member, as well as a kid with mental powers we had seen in Fantastic Four? In the case of Alpha Flight, some of the designs (Guardian and Snowbird) had been created a long time before the idea of Alpha Flight was developed. As I recall, Byrne imagined Snowbird as being the daughter of Nelvana, an earlier Inuit-themed Canadian superhero. As for Guardian, he's simply Canada's Captain America...with the power of super-apology!
Just our luck that Marvel's best-known (only?) Canadian superhero team had to be created by someone like Byrne, Canadian though he was himself. Still, to be fair, I don't mind the characters, from the little I've read of them - pretty much just that first story in the Claremont/Byrne X-Men. I'd probably take any single one of them over Wolverine.
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Roquefort Raider
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Modus omnibus in rebus
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 10, 2021 17:50:34 GMT -5
That would be fair, I suppose, although I think the New Mutants Byrne thought of would have been quite different from the ones we got; wasn't Kitty a member, as well as a kid with mental powers we had seen in Fantastic Four? In the case of Alpha Flight, some of the designs (Guardian and Snowbird) had been created a long time before the idea of Alpha Flight was developed. As I recall, Byrne imagined Snowbird as being the daughter of Nelvana, an earlier Inuit-themed Canadian superhero. As for Guardian, he's simply Canada's Captain America...with the power of super-apology!
Just our luck that Marvel's best-known (only?) Canadian superhero team had to be created by someone like Byrne, Canadian though he was himself. Still, to be fair, I don't mind the characters, from the little I've read of them - pretty much just that first story in the Claremont/Byrne X-Men. I'd probably take any single one of them over Wolverine.
As a reader noted back then, they were all pretty stereotypical until Puck and Marrina showed up; either with a First Nation or a northern theme, plus a guy draped in the maple leaf. Their design was pretty amazing, though; Guardian has the cleverest flag-themed costume I've ever seen, by far!
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 10, 2021 21:08:28 GMT -5
I really liked the vindicator/ Guardian. The book crashed after he was killed.
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Post by profh0011 on Aug 10, 2021 21:12:45 GMT -5
I went by the output also. I think Bryne stayed too long doing lots of work for the big 2. It didn’t help his cause when he said Hispanic women with blonde hair looked like hookers. Not to derail this thread... but this comment reminds me of when "ye editor" allegedly told John Romita, "Make MJ ugly!" So one issue, Mary Jane showed up on the last page, with CURLY hair, and fishnet stockings. She genuinely looked like A HOOKER.
And you know what? She was STILL more attractive than Gwen.
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Post by profh0011 on Aug 10, 2021 21:14:42 GMT -5
I really liked the vindicator/ Guardian. The book crashed after he was killed. "I've got a GREAT idea! I'm gonna KILL OFF the book's HERO!!! That oughta create a lot of attention!"
Please note, that just about a year later, the CREATOR of the book, who was stupid enough to PULL this stupid stunt... LEFT his own book in the hands of people EVEN WORSE at doing it, than he was.
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Post by profh0011 on Aug 10, 2021 21:17:22 GMT -5
I'd probably take any single one of them over Wolverine.
I gotta be honest here. I NEVER liked Wolverine... NEVER...
...until this guy came along.
Cool article:
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Post by tarkintino on Aug 10, 2021 21:51:36 GMT -5
Starlin, because of the characters he created which went on to become foundational pieces of the Marvel Universe, is an architect, the Eiffel of this metaphor. Byrne, no matter how talented or popular he was during the period he worked, left no real creative legacy. He's the laborer in the metaphor. He stuck to work for hire for most of his career and almost everything he designed was something old with a new coat of paint on it that made no lasting impact on anything in regards to the MU, the DCU or comics culture in general as a whole Well said. ....and Byrne's slapped-together Star Trek: New Visions books were a mess.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 11, 2021 5:20:17 GMT -5
I'd probably take any single one of them over Wolverine.
I gotta be honest here. I NEVER liked Wolverine... NEVER...
...until this guy came along.
Cool article: Dude, I feel the same way. I think I have a man crush on Hugh Jackman. I might be the only person who Like the Wolverine: Origins movie.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Aug 11, 2021 7:40:02 GMT -5
I'd probably take any single one of them over Wolverine.
I gotta be honest here. I NEVER liked Wolverine... NEVER... ...until this guy came along. Cool article: Funny how any comic book reader knew any live action X-Men movie would star Patrick Stewart as Xavier, yet we never knew there was some unknown actor that would play Wolverine better than he knew he was capable of.
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Post by badwolf on Aug 11, 2021 12:43:15 GMT -5
I really liked the vindicator/ Guardian. The book crashed after he was killed. "I've got a GREAT idea! I'm gonna KILL OFF the book's HERO!!! That oughta create a lot of attention!"
Please note, that just about a year later, the CREATOR of the book, who was stupid enough to PULL this stupid stunt... LEFT his own book in the hands of people EVEN WORSE at doing it, than he was.
Byrne was never interested in doing AF in the first place, but he was hired for it so he did a professional job with it. He really wanted to work on the "classic" characters so why wouldn't he swap for the Hulk when he got the chance?
I'm not saying I'm glad Mac (actually one of several heroes) died, but the book was still good afterward.
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Post by profh0011 on Aug 11, 2021 15:39:08 GMT -5
Dude, I feel the same way. I think I have a man crush on Hugh Jackman. I might be the only person who Like the Wolverine: Origins movie. It's nuts... I haven't seen that one yet.
What Hugh Jackman did, to me, was be almost entirely accurate to the guy in the comics... while simultaneously "smoothing out" the rough edges. Not much. JUST enough, to make him LIKABLE! That aspect of his personality is what almost got him fired from the 1st movie... but thankfully, it didn't, because that's exactly why I wound up enjoying the movie so much.
As they decided to show the "new" X-MEN, and not go back to the very beginning, it was a brilliant move to make Wolverine the "audience identification" character. it was thru him we all got to see the whole "world" of the X-MEN-- the characters, the school, the whole situation.
By making Rogue the other such character, and, making her so vulnerable and put-upon, they also took someone I had genuinely HATED in the comics-- and made me fall in love with her. Wow. She took the place of Cyclops from the earliest comics, as the "tragic" one whose powers were a danger, even to herself. In the films, Cyclops has been doing this so long, he no longer suffers from a massive self-confidence problem.
At some point, I kinda gave up on Marvel movies. Part of it was my financial situation. I just don't get to the movies much these days. But, Stephen Bissette (long before I got fed up with his bad attitude at his FB page) highly reccomended the film "LOGAN", so I went to see it. WHOA. Amazing piece of work.
You know what blew my mind? Sometime later, I ran across a story Jack Kirby wrote that could well have been the main inspiration for that film... and it was in some comic he did in the late 50s, years before X-MEN ever happened. (I wish I could remember which one... it wasn't for Marvel, but I can't recall which publisher. It might have been DC.) The whole thing about a group of mutant kids being held prisoner by the military, hoping to use them as weapons... it was all there. (Come to think of it, it was also there in the early-60s British film, THESE ARE THE DAMNED.)
DVDs are so cheap, compared to videotapes years back, who knows, I may go after some of these eventually. I'm having WAY more fun buying DVDs lately than I was buying foreign comics over the last several years.
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Post by berkley on Aug 11, 2021 23:43:58 GMT -5
This just occurred to me after seeing an entry in the new Cover Contest, and I'll have to look into it a little further to see if my memory serves me, but anyway:
As artists I think Starlin was much better at covers than Byrne. Byrne had some nice ones, but not as many as I'd expect from someone whose interior work I liked so much, while I think Starlin's covers were among the best of their time and usually lived up to the interior work. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a Byrne cover that I'd rank with my personal favourites but I can think of a few of Starlin's - even his average covers often stood out from the pack, though like anyone I'm sure he must have produced a few duds along the way. For both guys I'm thnking only of what I consider their peak period, the 70s.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 14, 2021 19:56:00 GMT -5
I heard a podcast recently that disclosed the Cockrum hated Byrne. He drew most of the early X-men covers in order to screw Byrne, and he was art director so he used his power to do so.
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