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Post by spoon on Jan 10, 2022 17:40:36 GMT -5
I like X-Men: Hidden Years too (Though I know Byrne isn't everyone's favorite). Oh, I enjoyed this a lot as well. This is kind of a reminder to me to spend more time celebrating/enjoying Byrne's successes versus dwelling on the things he's said/done over the years that I find annoying. I get online and I find it easier to be grumpy sometimes, but actually I still love tons of his work (well beyond the 80's). This reminds me too of the back-up features in Classic X-Men. I haven't read any of them since the 80's, but IIRC that was the idea as well to explore stories set in the past. I love the Classic X-Men back-ups. Because they were mostly written by Claremont and often took place around the time of the reprinted story and/or were directly to it, they feel like consistent parts of the canon rather than some contradictory tales foisted into continuity. There was great John Bolton art in lots of them. They tended to be character pieces focused on one or two characters. They worked as complimentary stories that accomplished different than the more action-oriented lead features that involved the whole ensemble. I was hyped for X-Men: Hidden Years when it came out, but was less excited as it went on. There were elements like throwing Storm into the mix even though the Original 5 would meet her later and showed no sign of knowing her. There might have been an excuse created, but I don't remember what is was.
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Post by badwolf on Jan 10, 2022 18:17:02 GMT -5
The Classic X-Men backups were great when Claremont & Bolton were doing them but there's one in the Dark Phoenix hardcover that I wish wasn't. Naturally it retcons a bunch of stuff for when Jean was discovered to have never have died etc. etc.
(Actually just checked and Claremont did write it but someone else drew it and it looks mediocre. Maybe I'd have liked it more if Bolton did it...?)
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Post by spoon on Jan 10, 2022 18:24:26 GMT -5
The Classic X-Men backups were great when Claremont & Bolton were doing them but there's one in the Dark Phoenix hardcover that I wish wasn't. Naturally it retcons a bunch of stuff for when Jean was discovered to have never have died etc. etc. (Actually just checked and Claremont did write it but someone else drew it and it looks mediocre. Maybe I'd have liked it more if Bolton did it...?) Do you mean the one with the construction worker in the afterlife (or something like)? The one where Jean's Phoenix costume is white?
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Post by badwolf on Jan 10, 2022 18:24:56 GMT -5
The Classic X-Men backups were great when Claremont & Bolton were doing them but there's one in the Dark Phoenix hardcover that I wish wasn't. Naturally it retcons a bunch of stuff for when Jean was discovered to have never have died etc. etc. (Actually just checked and Claremont did write it but someone else drew it and it looks mediocre. Maybe I'd have liked it more if Bolton did it...?) Do you mean the one with the construction worker in the afterlife (or something like)? The one where Jean's Phoenix costume is white? Yah.
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Post by Farrar on Jan 10, 2022 22:10:45 GMT -5
I really liked the "Untold Tales" or origin-&-what-led-them-to-join-the-Doom Patrol back-up stories in the Silver Age Doom Patrol #100-115 (not in every issue though). The featurette started in late 1965 and filled in the some of the background of the team members (except for Elasti-Girl) before they joined the DP, though there were some inconsistencies with what had been presented a couple of years earlier in the team's origin story in My Greatest Adventure #80. This back-up feature included Robotman's origin and early events for a few issues; then Negative Man's (the most poignant stories in this feature IMO); and then Beast Boy, all written by Doom Patrol-meister Arnold Drake. Characterization, which IMO Drake excelled at, was at the forefront in these stories. Btw--and this may interest the Doom Patrol/X-Men conspiracists out there--the last DP back-up appeared in the same month (Sept. 1967) as the first X-Men back-up feature in X-Men #38. And Drake, who was no longer receiving DC assignments and was now working on Marvel stuff, even wrote some of these X-Men back-ups (in 1968) during his stint on the X-Men comic. And unfortunately just as with Elasti-Girl, there was no X-Men origin for Marvel Girl (apart from that silly one-shot feature about how she uses her powers to do make pies and do housework ...written by one-time Marvel staffer Linda Fite, who incidentally was married to Hern Trimpe back then). I guess the X-Men back up was discontinued at that time because Marvel understandably wanted more Neal Adams and so the main story was restored to full-length.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 11, 2022 11:45:03 GMT -5
Here's one I always enjoyed. It mucks about with continuity a bit, but what's a little ret-conning between friends? This is the one in which young Bruce Wayne makes his crimefighting debut in Smallville as the mysterious Flying Fox.
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