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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 1, 2014 13:27:07 GMT -5
Byrne basically destroyed Scarlet Witch and Vision making them both toxic characters for the longest time, and pretty much showed he was no longer in touch with what worked in mainstream comics letting his ego get in the way of what was good mainstream storytelling. His art on that book was the first time it appeared to be a parody of his classic style, his dialogue was horrible and his plots were one bad idea after another leading him to get fired off the book...and it taking years to rehabilitate the damage he had done to some characters, and some (like Vision) never really recovered. It is quite possibly the worst run on Avengers ever until Liefeld took over on Heroes Reborn. I find it less palatable than the Crossing and that is the epitome of bad runs in my book, and even Kang puppet traitor Tony Stark becoming Teen Tony did less lasting damage to characters than Byrne's run did to the characters he malligned. -M Both Developments that occured to The SW and Vision made sense. She has been erratic in the past and the Visions attempt to take over the world was going to illicit an response. As far as Byrnes departure, I don't remember that he was fired. More likely he got mad over an editorial decision and quit like the baby he is. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2014 13:58:58 GMT -5
Byrne basically destroyed Scarlet Witch and Vision making them both toxic characters for the longest time, and pretty much showed he was no longer in touch with what worked in mainstream comics letting his ego get in the way of what was good mainstream storytelling. His art on that book was the first time it appeared to be a parody of his classic style, his dialogue was horrible and his plots were one bad idea after another leading him to get fired off the book...and it taking years to rehabilitate the damage he had done to some characters, and some (like Vision) never really recovered. It is quite possibly the worst run on Avengers ever until Liefeld took over on Heroes Reborn. I find it less palatable than the Crossing and that is the epitome of bad runs in my book, and even Kang puppet traitor Tony Stark becoming Teen Tony did less lasting damage to characters than Byrne's run did to the characters he malligned. -M Both Developments that occured to The SW and Vision made sense. She has been erratic in the past and the Visions attempt to take over the world was going to illicit an response. As far as Byrnes departure, I don't remember that he was fired. More likely he got mad over an editorial decision and quit like the baby he is. It only makes sense if you think throwing the baby out with the bathwater is a good approach to story telling, let's burn the village to save it. And the reports were that Byrne was told he couldn't do something and pouted, and was told get over it or you're fired. He didn't get over it, continued to make waves about it, and was taken off the book abruptly. -M |
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Post by badwolf on Dec 1, 2014 14:02:30 GMT -5
Byrne basically destroyed Scarlet Witch and Vision making them both toxic characters for the longest time, and pretty much showed he was no longer in touch with what worked in mainstream comics letting his ego get in the way of what was good mainstream storytelling. His art on that book was the first time it appeared to be a parody of his classic style, his dialogue was horrible and his plots were one bad idea after another leading him to get fired off the book...and it taking years to rehabilitate the damage he had done to some characters, and some (like Vision) never really recovered. It is quite possibly the worst run on Avengers ever until Liefeld took over on Heroes Reborn. I find it less palatable than the Crossing and that is the epitome of bad runs in my book, and even Kang puppet traitor Tony Stark becoming Teen Tony did less lasting damage to characters than Byrne's run did to the characters he malligned. I can't comment on what happened after his run because I only read one issue after it and then pretty much dropped out of superhero comics in general for a while (not because of Byrne!) But I am glad that he broke up the hideous state into which Wanda and the Vision had been written by Englehart. The explanation for their children (who made no sense at all) was ingenious, I thought, especially for tying it into an existing WCA foe. I didn't have any problems with the writing, in fact making me sort of like the U.S.Agent was quite an accomplishment. It certainly isn't my favorite work of his, but it's the best the book had been since Gruenwald. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2014 14:07:31 GMT -5
Byrne basically destroyed Scarlet Witch and Vision making them both toxic characters for the longest time, and pretty much showed he was no longer in touch with what worked in mainstream comics letting his ego get in the way of what was good mainstream storytelling. His art on that book was the first time it appeared to be a parody of his classic style, his dialogue was horrible and his plots were one bad idea after another leading him to get fired off the book...and it taking years to rehabilitate the damage he had done to some characters, and some (like Vision) never really recovered. It is quite possibly the worst run on Avengers ever until Liefeld took over on Heroes Reborn. I find it less palatable than the Crossing and that is the epitome of bad runs in my book, and even Kang puppet traitor Tony Stark becoming Teen Tony did less lasting damage to characters than Byrne's run did to the characters he malligned. I can't comment on what happened after his run because I only read one issue after it and then pretty much dropped out of superhero comics in general for a while (not because of Byrne!) But I am glad that he broke up the hideous state into which Wanda and the Vision had been written by Englehart. The explanation for their children (who made no sense at all) was ingenious, I thought, especially for tying it into an existing WCA foe. I didn't have any problems with the writing, in fact making me sort of like the U.S.Agent was quite an accomplishment. It certainly isn't my favorite work of his, but it's the best the book had been since Gruenwald. Byrne was basically the harbinger of married couples can't work and happily married with kids don't belong in super-hero comics with this run too. It is certainly the example everyone points to when they want to justify breaking up all the couples in modern comics (Peter/MJ, Lois/Clark, etc.) furthering the legacy of damage that run did as well. It's the bad gift that keeps on giving. -M |
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Post by The Captain on Dec 1, 2014 14:09:52 GMT -5
Second only to my dislike of Mantlo's Alpha Flight is my dislike of Englehart's West Coast Avengers, in which he made Firebird an annoying religious fanatic, Tigra a shallow sex toy, and Night Rider a rapist. And yet it was still head and shoulders better than Byrne's run on West Coast Avengers... -M So I should thank Englehart for writing such a crappy WCA that I refused to go past issue #40 or so, which saved me from reading Byrne's version of the team, which I've owned for years but have never gotten around to picking up? |
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Post by badwolf on Dec 1, 2014 14:17:19 GMT -5
Byrne was basically the harbinger of married couples can't work and happily married with kids don't belong in super-hero comics with this run too. It is certainly the example everyone points to when they want to justify breaking up all the couples in modern comics (Peter/MJ, Lois/Clark, etc.) furthering the legacy of damage that run did as well. It's the bad gift that keeps on giving. I totally agree with that stance. The only superhero with a family that has ever worked was Animal Man. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2014 14:52:22 GMT -5
Byrne was basically the harbinger of married couples can't work and happily married with kids don't belong in super-hero comics with this run too. It is certainly the example everyone points to when they want to justify breaking up all the couples in modern comics (Peter/MJ, Lois/Clark, etc.) furthering the legacy of damage that run did as well. It's the bad gift that keeps on giving. I totally agree with that stance. The only superhero with a family that has ever worked was Animal Man. And here we will part ways again, not being able to tell good or interesting stories with married characters is a result of poor storytelling chops on the part of creators not the inherent difficulty of the situation. I guess the FF never worked either if Animal Man was the only super-hero with family that has ever worked. Or Mircaleman/Marvelman. Or Swamp Thing Alec Holland marrying Abigail Arcane. Or the Eternals. Or the Inhumans. Or Captain Marvel (Fawcett). Or the Incredibles. Or Peter having to care for Aunt May as family. Or The Phantom being married and having kids (have to have kids to pass along the legacy). Or Bruce Wayne adopting and raising Dick Grayson. Or....yeah none of that worked to provide interesting or quality storytelling opportunities. -M |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 1, 2014 15:04:32 GMT -5
Indeed, it was Ellis who was getting Robbie from Penance back to his old self again during his run (not getting quite there, he was still Penance at the end, ut Ellis had Doc Samson helping Robbie coming to terms at what had happened and realising that his current direction wasn't helping at all). I was wondering what happened. I just read the first 3 issues of the current New Warrior series and he's a wise cracking silly guy again. It was pretty sudden, actually. He appeared in Avengers: The Initiative (which most people don't realize was secretly a New Warriors book), and Avengers Academy... he was back to being Speedball, but he wasn't his old self, he was definitely still having trouble dealing with Stamford, and was shown as having self-harm issues that he was hiding from everyone else. He then appeared in Nova and New Warriors seeming exactly like the 90s Speedball (and looking younger, too), without explanation. |
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Post by badwolf on Dec 1, 2014 15:12:32 GMT -5
I totally agree with that stance. The only superhero with a family that has ever worked was Animal Man. And here we will part ways again, not being able to tell good or interesting stories with married characters is a result of poor storytelling chops on the part of creators not the inherent difficulty of the situation. I guess the FF never worked either if Animal Man was the only super-hero with family that has ever worked. Or Mircaleman/Marvelman. Or Swamp Thing Alec Holland marrying Abigail Arcane. Or the Eternals. Or the Inhumans. Or Captain Marvel (Fawcett). Or the Incredibles. Or Peter having to care for Aunt May as family. Or The Phantom being married and having kids (have to have kids to pass along the legacy). Or Bruce Wayne adopting and raising Dick Grayson. Or....yeah none of that worked to provide interesting or quality storytelling opportunities. For the FF the family was the team. The problem with marrying long-standing characters off is that it messes with the integrity of those characters. Peter always had Aunt May, so nothing changed there--however didn't everyone get sick of it after a while? Imagine Bruce Wayne settling down (mentioning Robin is a stretch, and anyway he was part of the lifestyle, Bruce didn't have to be home by 8pm to tuck him into bed.) I have less of a problem with minor, less frequently-seen characters getting married, but for people like Superman or Spider-Man it just doesn't work. Nothing is more boring to read about than a married couple... and I feel that way about prose fiction as well. |
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Post by fanboystranger on Dec 1, 2014 15:30:58 GMT -5
I hated how Steven Grant wrapped up OMEGA THE UNKNOWN in a DEFENDERS arc. It was a given that he couldn't have finished things as Gerber would have, but Grant could've tried to keep the emotional tone. It was so bad, even the non-Gerber versions of HOWARD THE DUCK are models of fidelity. To be fair, Steven Grant hates how he ended Omega, too. He regrets having anything to do with that story and tells people to ignore those issues. He was just breaking into the industry, needed the work, and he was promised more work from Marvel if he would finish Omega off in The Defenders. Gerber wasn't happy with it, but eventually he and Grant became good friends. (They co-created and edited the "pro-zine" Words and Pictures in the '80s with Frank Miller, calling out shoddy treatment in the industry by publishers and distributors.) |
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Post by fanboystranger on Dec 1, 2014 15:38:28 GMT -5
For me, DC taking a character whose whole shtick was the mystery of his mission and origins in the Phantom Stranger (to the point tha twhen they did a secret Origins for him they did 4 versions and said maybe one might be the origin, maybe not) and reduced that to...nope he's Judas Iscariot and he does what he does to get rid of the 30 pieces of silver forged into a necklace he wears around his neck...I understand DeMatteis may have come on board and tried to do something interesting with the character after that, but that Didio reinvention had me out the door for good.... -M I hated that definitive origin, too. I think the Stranger needs to remain enigmatic. I was even disappointed earlier when Vertigo decided that Moore's angel that had refused to take a side was the definitive Stranger origin.
On the other hand, DeMatteis really made lemonade with the mess that Didio had left him with. One of DC's best in-universe books under DeMatteis' pen. Unfortunately, the follow-up, Trinity of Sin, has been a pile of garbage so far. Possibly the worst pairing of artist and subject matter that I've seen in quite some time.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2014 15:43:40 GMT -5
And here we will part ways again, not being able to tell good or interesting stories with married characters is a result of poor storytelling chops on the part of creators not the inherent difficulty of the situation. I guess the FF never worked either if Animal Man was the only super-hero with family that has ever worked. Or Mircaleman/Marvelman. Or Swamp Thing Alec Holland marrying Abigail Arcane. Or the Eternals. Or the Inhumans. Or Captain Marvel (Fawcett). Or the Incredibles. Or Peter having to care for Aunt May as family. Or The Phantom being married and having kids (have to have kids to pass along the legacy). Or Bruce Wayne adopting and raising Dick Grayson. Or....yeah none of that worked to provide interesting or quality storytelling opportunities. For the FF the family was the team. The problem with marrying long-standing characters off is that it messes with the integrity of those characters. Peter always had Aunt May, so nothing changed there--however didn't everyone get sick of it after a while? Imagine Bruce Wayne settling down (mentioning Robin is a stretch, and anyway he was part of the lifestyle, Bruce didn't have to be home by 8pm to tuck him into bed.) I have less of a problem with minor, less frequently-seen characters getting married, but for people like Superman or Spider-Man it just doesn't work. Nothing is more boring to read about than a married couple... and I feel that way about prose fiction as well. Here's where we part ways..nothing is more boring to me than a character that is not allowed to have story. Not plot. Story. Story is the result of character meeting conflict. If you worry about character integrity and preserving it, your concern is not telling story but maintaining the ease of plotting. However, if there is no story, there are no characters, just plot puppet which are boring as hell to read about and have no integrity whatsoever. Story is not plot. And plot is not story. If you strip the protagonist of the connective tissue which allows for consequences of your conflicts, you strip the ability of the character to have stories told about them. They can dance on the strings of the plot, they can maintain their costumes and powers and rogues galleries and all of the status quo in the quest for "integrity" and go through all the motions of a plot structured like a story, but it's not story and ultimately it's not interesting because none of it matters in the end to the growth of the protagonist. It cannot grow and preserve it's integrity in the way you frame it, so in the end it is just the same thing over and over and over again..which is boredom personified. The more connective tissue you have for the protagonist, the more potential you have for conflict and thus for story. Family, spouses, marriage itself is a grist mill for potential coonflict and thus for potential stories. If you look at the seminal runs of super-hero books, of the stories that become evergreen sellers and pointed to most often on best of lists, it is not stories that preserve the integrity of the character, it is stories that say to hell with that and tell good stories with consequernces for the characters and the connective tissues surrounding those characters. The common trope you hear all the time is that the best stories come form fringe characters because no one worries about preserving the status quo with those characters, i.e there are stories being told not plot exercises that have to maintain the integrity of the character. If maintaining integrity is the point, boredom is the natural outcome; there's no suspense, no drama, no story. I'm not advocating change for the sake of change-that's not story either, but set up a status quo, introduce the conflict, resolve the conflict and let the consequences of that conflict play out on the character and how he interacts with his environment i.e family, friends, antagonists, setting, etc. Family doesn't inhibit that, it's not an obstacle to interesting storytelling, it is a source of it. -M |
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Post by badwolf on Dec 1, 2014 15:53:22 GMT -5
I don't agree. I think you can tell an infinite number of stories while maintaining the essence of the character. If Peter Parker marries a supermodel, he's not the unlucky everyman we all knew and loved (and related to.) Superman and Lois? Well, that's just not believable, for reasons Larry Niven went into. And yeah, it made him boring.
If you have a loner character marry and have kids then you're going to have even more predictable stories than you would have had without. Bruce, why do you have to go out every night and risk your life...Bruce, we never spend any time together...Bruce, I can't take this obsession any more... Give me the status quo of singledom anyday.
Never mind that superheroes are a danger to their family; look what happened to Buddy's.
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Post by The Captain on Dec 1, 2014 15:59:23 GMT -5
For the FF the family was the team. The problem with marrying long-standing characters off is that it messes with the integrity of those characters. Peter always had Aunt May, so nothing changed there--however didn't everyone get sick of it after a while? Imagine Bruce Wayne settling down (mentioning Robin is a stretch, and anyway he was part of the lifestyle, Bruce didn't have to be home by 8pm to tuck him into bed.) I have less of a problem with minor, less frequently-seen characters getting married, but for people like Superman or Spider-Man it just doesn't work. Nothing is more boring to read about than a married couple... and I feel that way about prose fiction as well. Here's where we part ways..nothing is more boring to me than a character that is not allowed to have story. Not plot. Story. Story is the result of character meeting conflict. If you worry about character integrity and preserving it, you're concern is not telling story but maintaining the ease of plotting. However, if there is not story, there is no characters, just plot puppet which are boring as hell to read about and have no integrity whatsoever. Story is not plot. And plot is not story. If you strip the protagonist of the connective tissue which allows for consequences of your conflicts, you strip the ability of the character to have stories told about them. They can dance on the strings of the plot, they can maintain their costumes and powers and rogues galleries and all of the status quo in the quest for "integrity" and go through all the motions of a plot structured like a story, but it's not story and ultimately it's not interesting because none of it matters in the end to the growth of the protagonist. It cannot grow and preserve it's integrity in the way you frame it, so in the end it is just the same thing over and over and over again..which is boredom personified. The more connective tissue you have for the protagonist, the more potential you have for conflict and thus for story. Family, spouses, marriage itself is a grist mill for potential coonflict and thus for potential stories. If you look at the seminal runs of super-hero books, of the stories that become evergreen sellers and pointed to most often on best of lists, it is not stories that preserve the integrity of the character, it is stories that say to hell with that and tell good stories with consequernces for the characters and the connective tissues surrounding those characters. The common trope you hear all the time is that the best stories come form fringe characters because no one worries about preserving the status quo with those characters, i.e there are stories being told not plot exercises that have to maintain the integrity of the character. If maintaining integrity is the point, boredom is the natural outcome; there's no suspense, no drama, no story. I'm not advocating change for the sake of change-that's not story either, but set up a status quo, introduce the conflict, resolve the conflict and let the consequences of that conflict play out on the character and how he interacts with his environment i.e family, friends, antagonists, setting, etc. Family doesn't inhibit that, it's not an obstacle to interesting storytelling, it is a source of it. -M Wow. I was going to write a simple "F$^& That" to the bolded part, but you summed it up far more eloquently. Characters become boring when there is no sense of wondering what will happen next if a certain action or situation happens. If we know the outcome ahead of time, why bother reading it? People can say what they want about it, but I actually liked the Scott Summers-Emma Frost affair that happened all in their heads before moving into a physical relationship, because it wasn't the same old "Scott pining after Jean" that had been happening for years. The writers played up that the relationship wasn't working, but rather than having Jean run into someone else's arms (like Wolverine) and having the one to stray be Scott, it changed all types of dynamics, including the relationship between Wolverine and Scott after Jean's next death. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 1, 2014 16:06:05 GMT -5
I don't agree. I think you can tell an infinite number of stories while maintaining the essence of the character. If Peter Parker marries a supermodel, he's not the unlucky everyman we all knew and loved (and related to.) Superman and Lois? Well, that's just not believable, for reasons Larry Niven went into. And yeah, it made him boring. If you have a loner character marry and have kids then you're going to have even more predictable stories than you would have had without. Bruce, why do you have to go out every night and risk your life...Bruce, we never spend any time together...Bruce, I can't take this obsession any more... Give me the status quo of singledom anyday. I'm with you on the everyman part, but the problem was not Peter getting married: the problem was making MJ a supermodel. The two of them should have been depicted as the normal people they had been, and the comics should have exploited the struggles that a newlywed couple faces just as the first decades had covered the struggles than single people do. I would have loved to see Peter handling fatherhood and its little indignities: stains of baby puke on his spider-suit, his having to use his web-shooters in a diaper emergency, his rocking the baby to sleep dangling from a thread over NYC… The example of Swamp Thing was spot-on: the married life and parenthood can be successfully used as a rich source of material. It's a pity Marvel (and now DC) took the easy way out. |
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