quote: Also Astonishing X-Men (written by Joss Whedon) is pretty good, and it's not too long either (issue 20 came out last month).
And you can get trades through 16 or so.
Plus, it's the best use of Kitty Pryde ever - best characterization, best use of her powers, best look into ... can't tell you that because of spoilers. It's no surprise that Joss writes a female hero well (at least from this boy's perspective ), but it's still fun to read. He had one too many threads to tie together, so it got kind of muddled around 18-19, but it's still my favorite run of the X-Men possibly barring classic Chris Claremont.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
First comic I read was Superman 222. It was a giant sized special with a 3 part imaginary story of Superman's twin sons. I was 8 years old.
And then I was over at my cousin's house, and she had some copies of Adventure with Supergirl starring. I got totally hooked, psychologically, at least. But it wasn't until I was in junior high and saw a cover with Clark Kent walking away from Superman and saying "I Quit" that I started getting the things every month. Every week, I mean. It's seriously an addiction.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
One idea spun out of "Civil War"...The Initiative actually has a lot of potential. Each state has it's very own official super-hero team!
Texas, for instance, has The Rangers...apparently because the Lame Stereotypes were already protecting Ohio.
And Utah has "that team of Mormon heroes".
(Ah, the wit and creativity of Mark Millar.)
I'm hoping Dan Slott's upcoming Avengers: The Initiative comic doesn't drop the ball like Millar and Bendis have.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Don't knock the heroic potential of a team of Mormon superheroes in Quesada's capable hands:
"My stars, Uberhepizechariadah, they're shooting at us!" "Never fear, Mega-Missy! Our magic underwear shall surely protect us from all harm!"
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: I always see Joss's twists* coming, and that never takes the fun out of it for me.
Did you see the events in Serenity having to do with Wash* coming?
*Ambiguously phrased to avoid spoilers, although at this point if you haven't seen Serenity there may be something wrong with you.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: One idea spun out of "Civil War"...The Initiative actually has a lot of potential. Each state has it's very own official super-hero team!
And the team in Sunnydale can deal with demons and vampires.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Tom, you seriously need to educate yourself on what Mormon heroes would look like. The Book of Mormon has a bunch of inspirational figures in it that would fit with super heroes.
I give you: The Sons Of Helaman!
Teancum: Capable of scaling walls, seeing in the dark, and hunting out his foe's weak spot. In battle, he wields an energy spear. Is ambidextrous. His temper gets him into trouble, though...
Captain Moroni: Passionately patriotic, even to a fault. Otherwise, is trustworthy, loyal, dedicated...he's not the best fighter, but he IS a great leader.
Alma: Able to astrally project himself when he enters a trance state. He has a dark, sordid past that he's always trying to get over.
Ammon: The lone wolf, bucking against authority. Nontheless, he is the greatest warrior on the team. His preferred weapon is the Yeung-Smythe Warsling, a pistol designed by Nephi Yeung; additionally, he has his playfully named katana, 'Cricket.'
Nephi: The builder. He can make anything from anything.
posted
The team I really feel bad for is the one stuck in California. Cause you know the Legislature will immediately form a committee to study the environmental impact of human flight. Plus, fire based heroes would be banned in wildfire season. It'd be a rough state to work.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
My favorite part about the Civil War storyline is Namor predicting that Banner will come back and kill everyone one of the remaining members of the Illuminati. Man, I nearly hope he does.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I almost wonder if this is as bad an idea as the electric Superman and his further split into Superman Blue and Superman Red. *shakes head* Such bad ideas.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: The most ironically ridiculous commentary on the death has to be by Colbert.
He tried to make a joke of how Cap died because Cap trying to protect free speech and privacy.
Yet the "free speech and privacy" in this case was the dubious "right" of masked vigilantes to beat other people up because they're "bad guys", and suffer no consequences because nobody knows who they are.
which just shows how unrealistic "realistic" super-hero comics are.
Maybe it's even more ironic then that last night on the show, Colbert revealed that Marvel sent him a letter and enclosed with it was Captain America's shield. It looked real too, it was all dinged up and it was actual metal, you could tell. And usually when he does stuff like that he's serious and not faking it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Don't knock the heroic potential of a team of Mormon superheroes in Quesada's capable hands:
"My stars, Uberhepizechariadah, they're shooting at us!" "Never fear, Mega-Missy! Our magic underwear shall surely protect us from all harm!"
This amused me to no end, because I could totally see the illustrations: Blonde-haired, blue-eyed athletic male approximately 5'11" tall standing with feet shoulder-width apart and toes turned out slightly. With his fists jauntily but firmly at his waist he sets his jaw in unabashed amusement at his evil enemies while his thoroughly modest white underwear (with the t-shirt tucked in, thank you) glows with a holy radiance.
Oh, and don't forget the crew cut.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Okay, for those (like me) who were a little disappointed with some of the Civil War stuff, read The Confession. It came out yesterday. It gives you some idea of Stark's reasoning, as well as what Captain America was thinking while he was in his little jail cell. It's pretty good.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Too little, too late for me. Despite his claims otherwise, Millar did his best to make Tony and the other pro-reg heroes EVIL.
Defilers of dead friend's bodies. Profiteers. Assassins. Secret combinations. Hypocrites. Liars. Thieves.
And Bendis seemed completely unaware that Cap was ranting at Tony for doing things Cap himself has done, just by being a super-hero of such a long, varied career.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh, I agree. It doesn't make up for the bad of Civil War. It was still one of the better Civil War issues though.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Too little, too late for me. Despite his claims otherwise, Millar did his best to make Tony and the other pro-reg heroes EVIL.
Defilers of dead friend's bodies. Profiteers. Assassins. Secret combinations. Hypocrites. Liars. Thieves.
I completely agree. But I wasn't aware that Millar claimed he didn't set up to make pro-reg-ers evil. Is he actually claiming he didn't? He's either full of it, or so wildly biased he just can't see it.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
He (and others at Marvel, including Quesada) have said that both sides were presented fairly and equally, that no side was being portrayed as the bad guy. When people kept bringing up evidence to the contrary, their explanation was something like "you only see what you want to see" and that people were automatically on Cap's side and that's why they saw Tony and Co. as evil.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, they're full of crap I don't think Captain America's side was right, but that doesn't mean I can't think they turned Stark into an evil SOB.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh, totally. I was on Iron Man's side at the beginning. Then they just made him do so many bad things (Clor, the new Thunderbolts, the prison in the Negative Zone). By the time Goliath had died, I felt like I couldn't support either side.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Millar and Quesada both claim that they always portrayed Iron Man's side as being just as good and right as Cap's, and that fans misunderstood because we jumped to conclusions.
I'm very much looking forward to Hulk smashing the puny Iluminati. This preview really whet my appetite.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Actually, Mark Millar has a history of making statements that call into question his ability to discern reality.
He claimed not too long ago that Alan Moore's controversial Lost Girls graphic novel did -not- feature underage classic children's fantasy characters in graphically adult situations. Even though Alan Moore's trumpeted just the opposite from the start of the project years ago.
And he's always claimed that The Ultimates is a comic mainly read and enjoyed by an audience of "bright 7-12 year olds". Right.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wait, he said that about Lost Girls, despite the fact that it was hyped as a pornographic comic with a story?
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
He didn't claim it wasn't pornography, but he did try to claim that there was no portrayal of underage sex in the book.
Moore himself never made such a claim, instead invoking the "you can only object to such portrayals if you can't tell the difference between fiction and reality." defense.
I have no intention of ever reading Lost Girls, and statements like Moore's won't change my mind...but at least he's more honest than Millar.
posted
ok, perhaps I read too casually, but I thought that the Thunderbolts weren't under SHIELD jurisdiction. We're led to assume that Tony chose the Thunderbolt members, and we're led to assume that Tony's the shadowy figure that controls Osborn's nanobots - we're led to assume these things, but we don't have the panels that show him actually doing these things. the closest we've got is the accusation by the newsie punks in FrontLine and the scene where Stark opens that door talking about the new team to bring in the superheroes and we see those crazy-psycho-villians.
I think time will prove that Tony didn't really make every horrible decision that we attribute to him, that he wasn't/isn't the villian so many writers alluded to him being. Peter Parker will damn well owe him an apology. I hope once Strazyinski's off the book they find a way for him to give it up.
I think the Confession explained it better - Tony made compromises. horrible ones, but compromises meant for the greater good for everyone, for the future. He realizes, at the end of the first story, that it wasn't worth it.
But he's wrong. given the events, Stark had no options. He did what he could to secure the best future he and Richards could see. While Rogers might have just died for his principles, and Stark had to sell his - Tony Stark's still around to change the world for the better. Stark's still around to see that the Marvel Universe doesn't have a Sentinel-powered genocide of all post-humans and mask-wearers. Stark's around to work to get the Marvel public to actually be fond of, and care about, their post-human, but still very human, protectors. Oh, and he's running SHIELD, so he has to fight the war on international naughtiness of all different sorts.
Posts: 58 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Peter Parker will damn well owe him an apology.
I'm afraid not. He lied, tricked, and eventually attempt to force Peter's cooperation through oblique threats against his family. He also stole massive amounts of detailed biometric data from Peter, and was doing this well before he ever had a hint of doubt in him.
Tony Stark isn't a hero anymore, he's a pragmatic betrayer of friends and builder of gulags.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
"Underage classic children's fantasy characters in graphically adult situations" is exactly what "Lost Girls" is about, start to finish. Did Millar ever read it?
Moore has said repeatedly that he set out to write pornography and he succeeded marvelously. Why try to take that away from him?
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I still don't get the whole Spiderman subplot. There were plenty of jokes made about how it didn't matter if Spidey revealed himself, everyone already knew who he was.
Yet the minute he goes public, we've got villains at his house looking for his family. Everyone already knew they could get to Spidey through Parker and therefore his family, but the minute we know it's the same guy, now his family isn't safe? Wha?
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Maybe villains have some morals? I mean maybe they see a difference between "I can get at Spider-Man by attacking this innocent guy Parker and his family" and "I can get at Spider-Man, who is Parker, by attacking his family." I don't know; it doesn't make much sense to me. The way it's played out so far though makes it seem like the people taking advantage of Peter revealing his identity are the ones who either a) didn't know already or b) hadn't (or had rarely) use the Parker and his family attack to get at Spidey. I mean I don't remember Kingpin harassing Aunt May or Mary Jane (although I could be mistaken); now that he knows they are related to Peter he hires a sniper to try and take out him and (if not him) his loved ones. *shrugs* I could be wrong though.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm really disappointed by the description of the volume 4 New Warriors series.
Instead of the older members still with the living trying to redeem the team name, it'll be a band of X-Treme RebelZ heroes even -more- rebellious than the New Avengers.
While all super-hero code names are silly...yeesh. "Renasense"?!?
Plus, for a Marvel Universe citizen, calling yourself the New Warriors would be like calling yourself the Timothy McVeigh Squad.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I really liked the New Warriors of the Nicieza days... it really went downhill after the second Sphinx storyline (where the team expanded the roster with Powerpax, Bandit, Dagger, and :shudder: Hindsight Lad).
Speedball and Nova were my favorite characters; I jumped on board the comic too late to love Silouhuette, but she had some extremely cool powers.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wait-- Speedball gets transformed into Penance?
That's just...completely wrong.
From Wikipedia:
quote:After the events of Stamford, Baldwin believed his powers to be burned out. However, they still exist, but now only manifest when he feels pain. While his powers are still kinetically based, they no longer appear to manifest as a "bubble field." Rather, his powers seem far more explosive in nature. In order to stimulate his powers, his Penance suit constantly rakes his flesh.
It's just completely immoral to change Robbie Baldwin from a wisenheimer to...this.
I hope Generation X's Penance comes and shreds Quesada into quesada-dillas in the night for this.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
I agree that it went downhill after the line-up expansion...I think because originally the plan was to spin off the founding members into a new comic called simply Warriors, and have the new members become the...er..New New Warriors.
Hindsight Lad turned out to be a traitorous jerk during Civil War.
Nova's doing fairly well these days, but Speedball is now a depressed masochist named "Penance". Ick.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Quesada always hated Speedball. I think he's behind the change.
The official reason given for Speedball=Penance is that Marvel already had a happy-go-lucky hero (Spider-Man) and apparently they're only allowed to have one.
(When was the last time Spider-Man was truly happy-go-lucky? The 1970s?)
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm really eager to see how Nova reacts to all the non-sense on Earth. I mean he knew about the civil war and all (as he mentions it in Annihilation), but he doesn't know the details. How's he going to react when he finds out some of his old teammates were the initial cause? I also wonder what the dialogue between Nova and Penance will be like.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |