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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2022 17:41:02 GMT -5
I suppose I was intrigued to see how Banner and the Hulk would handle life as separate entities.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2022 17:45:18 GMT -5
Roy Thomas leaving Conan left my favourite series into a state of utter disrepair for several years. Eventually new writers who knew how to write a proper S&S story would show up, but even these showed a near-complete disregard for the works of Robert E. Howard. By contrast, Roy's return a decade later was one of my happiest days as a comics reader! Agree on Thomas for sure, but curious what you thought about Busiek's take?
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Post by commond on Jun 19, 2022 17:52:57 GMT -5
Taking into account I was 11 when I first saw John Byrne’s art on Avengers 189( first time I got comics mailed to me) only to have Byrne’s run end in 191, 3 issues into my subscription, then Carmen Infantino who I did not get at all, then George Perez I was devastated. Then I finally started Enjoying GP’s art ( not knowing he did early Avengers,)only to again have the carpet ripped out from under me with his departure after 202. Those were tough times for neophyte collector. Only then to be followed up by my best friend at the time giving me a subscription to X-MEN starting with 143 and again having the proverbial carpet pulled out again with Byrne’s departure to have some “new guy” named Cockrum come on with 145. Yes, for me it was the time of JB Man, this is brutal!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2022 17:57:24 GMT -5
Taking into account I was 11 when I first saw John Byrne’s art on Avengers 189( first time I got comics mailed to me) only to have Byrne’s run end in 191, 3 issues into my subscription, then Carmen Infantino who I did not get at all, then George Perez I was devastated. Then I finally started Enjoying GP’s art ( not knowing he did early Avengers,)only to again have the carpet ripped out from under me with his departure after 202. Those were tough times for neophyte collector. Only then to be followed up by my best friend at the time giving me a subscription to X-MEN starting with 143 and again having the proverbial carpet pulled out again with Byrne’s departure to have some “new guy” named Cockrum come on with 145. Yes, for me it was the time of JB Man, this is brutal! not as brutal as Avengers 144 and 145 being your first two issues bought off the stands. 144 by Englehart Perez and ends on a cliffhanger. 145 part 1 of a 2 art fill in inventory story with Don Heck art completely confusing the 7 year old me as to how monthly comics worked, I couldn't figure out how you were supposed to get the rest of the story started in 144 since it was not in the next issue released, and no mention of of the previous status quo was given, not to mention the members on the team were different. After that I figured there was no point in trying to get continuous issues of a series and just picked out what covers looked cool for a few years. It wasn't until more than a year later (Avengers 161-162) that I got to see how comics were supposed to function and began buying one title (Avengers) on a regular basis. -M
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Post by commond on Jun 19, 2022 18:10:26 GMT -5
Roy Thomas leaving Conan left my favourite series into a state of utter disrepair for several years. Eventually new writers who knew how to write a proper S&S story would show up, but even these showed a near-complete disregard for the works of Robert E. Howard. By contrast, Roy's return a decade later was one of my happiest days as a comics reader! I was waiting for this one! As a modern reader of Conan, it's easy to stop once Roy leaves. I can't imagine what it must have been like if Conan was your favorite series, and you continued reading it for years after Thomas left. As an adult, I tend to read specific runs. It's rare for me to continue reading a book once the run is over. As a kid, it was the characters and the titles that attracted me. Of course, I had my favorite creators, but I was much more likely to read a book for the sake of the character than the creative team. I guess that's why I stayed with the X-books for so long after Claremont left, due to that misguided loyalty to the books and stubborn attachment to the characters. Did you collect Conan continuously until Roy returned? You never waivered?
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Post by commond on Jun 19, 2022 18:15:58 GMT -5
not as brutal as Avengers 144 and 145 being your first two issues bought off the stands. 144 by Englehart Perez and ends on a cliffhanger. 145 part 1 of a 2 art fill in inventory story with Don Heck art completely confusing the 7 year old me as to how monthly comics worked, I couldn't figure out how you were supposed to get the rest of the story started in 144 since it was not in the next issue released, and no mention of of the previous status quo was given, not to mention the members on the team were different. After that I figured there was no point in trying to get continuous issues of a series and just picked out what covers looked cool for a few years. It wasn't until more than a year later (Avengers 161-162) that I got to see how comics were supposed to function and began buying one title (Avengers) on a regular basis. -M This is also rough! My own personal frustration was whenever there would be a Rick Leonardi fill in issue in X-Men. I'm sure Rick Leonardi has done some fabulous work at some point, somewhere in his career, but he was one of the banes of my childhood.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 19, 2022 19:14:37 GMT -5
Adding to Perez on Titans, Marv Wolfman wasn't the same. Perez was co-plotting and Wolfman struggled, without him and has admitted to major writer's block issues. That was kind of the thing with Claremont & Byrne and Robinson and Harris. Claremont & Byrne were co-plotting, but had a tempestuous relationship that often resulted in a better synthesis than their own work. i liken it to The Police vs Sting solo music, as the animosity betwee Sting and Stewart Copeland made both better than when they got their own way (with Andy Summers in the middle). Harris and Robinson got at odds on Starman and Harris left, which seemed to alter some of the trajectory of the series, both in how some subplots paid off or were entirely abandoned. Added to that was the death of Archie Goodwin, who was a great mentor to Robinson that seemed to leave him at a loss. Robinson continued to the finale he had been hinting at, though it felt like the road got suddenly curvy and twisted, once you got there.
Both Stan & Ditko and Stan & Kirby were never quite the same apart. Stan really struggled to do the same level of memorable stories, without a strong plotter like Kirby or Ditko. If you compare his other collaborations to those two, they never rise to the same level, which shows that it wasn't only Stan's writing. by the same token, Ditko and Kirby were creative with concepts, on their own; but, the dialogue and characterization was rarely as crisp and interesting as with Lee. So, it also proves it wasn't just Kirby or Ditko. It was a true collaboration.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jun 19, 2022 20:30:53 GMT -5
Roy Thomas leaving Conan left my favourite series into a state of utter disrepair for several years. Eventually new writers who knew how to write a proper S&S story would show up, but even these showed a near-complete disregard for the works of Robert E. Howard. By contrast, Roy's return a decade later was one of my happiest days as a comics reader! Agree on Thomas for sure, but curious what you thought about Busiek's take? Oh, that was brilliant. In fact, I'm quite happy with most of the Dark Horse run, with the exception of the Brian Wood stint. Busiek, like Thomas, really relied on Howard's prose and extended the man's creation rather than impose his own ideas on it (like, say, introducing ninjas because ninjas sell). Busiek wrote one of my favourite Conan scenes ever, in fact!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jun 19, 2022 20:37:59 GMT -5
Roy Thomas leaving Conan left my favourite series into a state of utter disrepair for several years. Eventually new writers who knew how to write a proper S&S story would show up, but even these showed a near-complete disregard for the works of Robert E. Howard. By contrast, Roy's return a decade later was one of my happiest days as a comics reader! I was waiting for this one! As a modern reader of Conan, it's easy to stop once Roy leaves. I can't imagine what it must have been like if Conan was your favorite series, and you continued reading it for years after Thomas left. As an adult, I tend to read specific runs. It's rare for me to continue reading a book once the run is over. As a kid, it was the characters and the titles that attracted me. Of course, I had my favorite creators, but I was much more likely to read a book for the sake of the character than the creative team. I guess that's why I stayed with the X-books for so long after Claremont left, due to that misguided loyalty to the books and stubborn attachment to the characters. Did you collect Conan continuously until Roy returned? You never waivered? I kept buying Conan the barbarian and Savage sword for years. The former regained quite a lot of its former glory when Jim Owsley started writing the book. Owsley didn't keep to Howard's work the way Thomas had, but at least his Hyborian geography, politics and theology were accurate (in that he didn't have Turanians swear by Crom and didn't mention a Nemedian navy). Then Owsely left and the mag went back to generic S&S tales, and I dropped the book. When a "back to basics" approach was announced, with Conan being a teenager again, I gave it another chance... and it was the absolute worst Conan has ever been, no doubt about it. I only returned when Roy came back. Like you, I tended to stick to a book when I liked the character, and I also kept reading the X-Men for way too long after Claremont left. It was as if stopping buying a title was a betrayal!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2022 20:47:43 GMT -5
Agree on Thomas for sure, but curious what you thought about Busiek's take? Oh, that was brilliant. In fact, I'm quite happy with most of the Dark Horse run, with the exception of the Brian Wood stint. Busiek, like Thomas, really relied on Howard's prose and extended the man's creation rather than impose his own ideas on it (like, say, introducing ninjas because ninjas sell). Busiek wrote one of my favourite Conan scenes ever, in fact! Yeah, I like how you summarized that and very much agree!
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Post by commond on Jun 19, 2022 21:12:35 GMT -5
I was waiting for this one! As a modern reader of Conan, it's easy to stop once Roy leaves. I can't imagine what it must have been like if Conan was your favorite series, and you continued reading it for years after Thomas left. As an adult, I tend to read specific runs. It's rare for me to continue reading a book once the run is over. As a kid, it was the characters and the titles that attracted me. Of course, I had my favorite creators, but I was much more likely to read a book for the sake of the character than the creative team. I guess that's why I stayed with the X-books for so long after Claremont left, due to that misguided loyalty to the books and stubborn attachment to the characters. Did you collect Conan continuously until Roy returned? You never waivered? I kept buying Conan the barbarian and Savage sword for years. The former regained quite a lot of its former glory when Jim Owsley started writing the book. Owsley didn't keep to Howard's work the way Thomas had, but at least his Hyborian geography, politics and theology were accurate (in that he didn't have Turanians swear by Crom and didn't mention a Nemedian navy). Then Owsely left and the mag went back to generic S&S tales, and I dropped the book. When a "back to basics" approach was announced, with Conan being a teenager again, I gave it another chance... and it was the absolute worst Conan has ever been, no doubt about it. I only returned when Roy came back. Like you, I tended to stick to a book when I liked the character, and I also kept reading the X-Men for way too long after Claremont left. It was as if stopping buying a title was a betrayal! The odd thing about Claremont's X-Men was that it was such an atypical super-hero book. The biggest problem Claremont appeared to have with Bob Harras and Jim Lee is that they wanted to return the book to a Chris Claremont/John Byrne status quo, but Claremont was tired of telling the same stories over and over again. It almost felt like Claremont was riffing at times. I used to love those one page set-ups where Claremont would introduce a future plotline, but you can count on one hand the number of them that were resolved during the last five years of his run. Tom DeFalco has hinted at times that retailers weren't exactly thrilled with Claremont's riffing even though the book still sold well. I can't say I blame them. There was that lengthy period where there wasn't even a team anymore after they went through the Siege Perilous. Rumors have it that Harras began shooting down a lot of Claremont's ideas once Jim Lee got hot, and that it was Lee that was plotting a lot of the stories during the run they had together on Uncanny. Claremont has actually stated that Lee was so slow delivering the pencils that he often had to script the book overnight to meet deadlines. As bored as Claremont may have been, I do find it ironic that his future ideas for the book were mostly rehashes. They sounded great to me as a kid, and they probably would have been better than the stories that we did get, but given how I've been hating on Wolverine: Enemy of the State lately, I'm not sure Claremont's version would have been much better. I'm kind of disappointed that Michael Fleisher didn't have a better run on Conan. I love Fleisher's work on Jonah Hex and the Spectre and would have him to have a good Conan run as another feather on his cap.
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 19, 2022 22:47:38 GMT -5
As much as I hated seeing Brunner leave Dr. Strange, I still loved seeing Colan back on the art chores.
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Post by berkley on Jun 20, 2022 0:16:46 GMT -5
Byrne leaving X-Men:
I'd forgotten about this one because I did keep buying the book for several issues afterwards. I had been around for the earlier Cockrum run and had liked his work so I wasn't averse to his return, even though I did prefer Byrne over him; but Cockrum's art in his second X-Men run wasn't nearly as good as in his first, and I dropped the book sometime around #150. So in retrospect, Byrne's departure did more or less lead to the end of my time as an X-Men reader.
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Post by berkley on Jun 20, 2022 0:21:27 GMT -5
As much as I hated seeing Brunner leave Dr. Strange, I still loved seeing Colan back on the art chores.
Yes, even though he was much more subdued in his second stint on the character. I used to think this was because of the reduced page count - that 17 pages didn't leave him with enough space for the wild experiments he was known for in his '60s Doctor Strange. But someone here mentioned awhile back that it was an actual editorial directive, can't recall from whom, that imposed the change. He still produced great work in his '70s Strange, though, especially with Tom Palmer - and there was still a difference between the Colan/Pamer artwork on Strange and the Colan/Palmer artwork on Tomb of Dracula during the same period.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2022 4:33:28 GMT -5
Thinking about the fascinating responses here, I am reminded of how lucky us Brits were that some - and I stress some - writers/artists stayed on certain British strips for the duration. For instance, didn’t artist Joe Colquhoun stay on Charley’s War for its entire run?
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