[Salt-Man Z]

I'm confused: how are the Watchmen the bad guys, when Watchmen explicitly takes place in a world without superheroes? Is it just universes crossing over or something? (This from someone who hasn't read a DC comic besides Watchmen since Rise Of The Supermen.)

Abyss, on 27 May 2016 - 06:13 PM, said:

CARTER was a bad movie killed by being bad first and bad press second.

YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 27 May 2016 - 06:13 PM, said:

Conversely, no amount of spin control will save a bad comic. I'll cheerfully stand corrected if REBIRTH turns out to be the next SINESTRO CORPS, as opposed to the next COVERGENCE which seems more likely.

The general consensus so far on Rebirth is that it's damned good, with some even saying that it's Johns best work in a long while. I've seen more positive thoughts about it than negative.

And Convergence comparison is unfair, that was purposely a b-lister event to tide everyone over while DC moved offices. This is literally them bringing back portions (or all?) of the classic DCU, and melding the New 52, amongst other things. This is as big event as they've done in probably a decade, and word of mouth so far is pretty much universally good as far as I've seen.

PROOF!

Salt-Man Z, on 27 May 2016 - 06:18 PM, said:

I'm confused: how are the Watchmen the bad guys, when Watchmen explicitly takes place in a world without superheroes? Is it just universes crossing over or something? (This from someone who hasn't read a DC comic besides Watchmen since Rise Of The Supermen.)

Abyss, on 27 May 2016 - 06:13 PM, said:

CARTER was a bad movie killed by being bad first and bad press second.

YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH.

Re: Watchmen as bad guys. DC has had the multiverse (infinite parallel universe earths) since the 1980's (on and off...while the New52 existed and for a portion of time during the 90's it was only one earth again). It basically allows for any and all realities to exist at the same time. So, for example, the villain of INFINITE CRISIS (the event that reinstated the DC multiverse after it went away at the end of CRISIS OF INFINITE EARTHS in 1985) in 2005 was a Superboy from Earth X...where he was the only superhero ever. Or there is another earth where WWII is fought over the course of 80+ years. The earth where the Watchmen exist is merely another of these alt earths within the DC universe. These earths cross over a lot of the time. Like Earth 1 has the Justice League, and Earth 2 had the Justice Society. It was DC's way initially of dealing with their sprawling, multi-era continuity.

And I agree about JOHN CARTER. That movie is a faithful, enjoyable, SOLID adaptation of the source material...that only failed because the marketing team did a piss poor job, and internet denizens assumed it was copying a bunch of movies that came before it...not realizing that it was what all those movies were copying in the first place. JOHN CARTER was ALL about mis-marketing. The film itself is great!

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 27 May 2016 - 06:51 PM

[amphibian]

John Carter is a flawed, yet very good movie. The beginning is clunky with a couple false starts before we get into the story proper. I have no idea what a fixed version would look like, but the marketing did it zero favors and that seems to be because the director tried to do the marketing himself after realizing the Disney machine didn't have a proper handle on it in the first place.

Edit to make this return back to comics:

Flex Mentallo is quite good. And now having read it, I get China Mieville's take on Dial H for Hero much better. The latter is probably more enjoyable to me due to it going somewhere concrete and Mieville's batshit/terrific weirdness having imagery to go with it.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 27 May 2016 - 09:05 PM

[QuickTidal]

Okay Rick Remender, you've had your chance. now I'm done with you. Three totally different series, and Remender is obsessed with overly gratuitous nudity and sex....to the point where every other page probably has something...and it RARELY serves any kind of narrative purpose. Nope. Out. Done. I'm not a prude, but this is excessive.

[amphibian]

QuickTidal, on 09 June 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

Okay Rick Remender, you've had your chance. now I'm done with you. Three totally different series, and Remender is obsessed with overly gratuitous nudity and sex....to the point where every other page probably has something...and it RARELY serves any kind of narrative purpose. Nope. Out. Done. I'm not a prude, but this is excessive.

Which series? I thought his X Force run was incredible.

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 09 June 2016 - 06:33 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 09 June 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

Okay Rick Remender, you've had your chance. now I'm done with you. Three totally different series, and Remender is obsessed with overly gratuitous nudity and sex....to the point where every other page probably has something...and it RARELY serves any kind of narrative purpose. Nope. Out. Done. I'm not a prude, but this is excessive.

Which series? I thought his X Force run was incredible.

LOW...and then STRANGE GIRL, and now TOKYO GHOST.

Basically he's all about dismal storytelling where no one is EVER allowed to be happy....and gratuitous sex and nudity for reasons I guess. I've not read his X-Force run. I think he just wore me completely down where I felt like I didn't want to be depressed while reading comics nor did I feel the need to stare at comic porno every other page.

This means swearing off ever trying BLACK SCIENCE, which is sad because it sounds interesting.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 09 June 2016 - 07:07 PM

[JPK]

I'll second the Uncanny X-Force and add Uncanny Avengers to it as well.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 09 June 2016 - 07:07 PM, said:

amphibian, on 09 June 2016 - 06:33 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 09 June 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

Okay Rick Remender, you've had your chance. now I'm done with you. Three totally different series, and Remender is obsessed with overly gratuitous nudity and sex....to the point where every other page probably has something...and it RARELY serves any kind of narrative purpose. Nope. Out. Done. I'm not a prude, but this is excessive.

Which series? I thought his X Force run was incredible.

LOW...and then STRANGE GIRL, and now TOKYO GHOST.

Basically he's all about dismal storytelling where no one is EVER allowed to be happy....and gratuitous sex and nudity for reasons I guess. I've not read his X-Force run. I think he just wore me completely down where I felt like I didn't want to be depressed while reading comics nor did I feel the need to stare at comic porno every other page.

This means swearing off ever trying BLACK SCIENCE, which is sad because it sounds interesting.

I recognize all of the flaws in his work that you raise - i have outright hated some of it - but BLACK SCIENCE doesn't suffer from them.
It's much tighter, the characters more human, the situations over-the-top mad sf brilliant. Minimal sex/nudity (offhand i can recall maybe two panels in 18 issues) and not gratuitous.

I have tpb vol 4 standing by and am utterly psyched for it after the (glorious) beating Remender put the cast and reader through in vol 3.

[Studlock]

Remender's best works are Uncanny X-Men, Deadly Class, and Venom--with Venom issue 22 being the best single issue he has ever put out. Black Science is not bad, but its the fantastic art that holds it together. Low, Tokyo Ghost, Fear Agent, Devolution, and so on, are all basic sci-fi stuff done better outside and inside of comics, all of which, however, have great art. If there's one good consistent with him its he's always working with great artists.

[QuickTidal]

TITANS REBIRTH was fantastic, if kind of a simplistic prologue.

Mild spoilers:

Spoiler

That moment from REBIRTH where Barry and Wally connect through the speed force lightning when they are close to one another and it triggers their lost memories from the pre-New52? This is pretty much that but with the old Titans team (Dick Grayson (Robin; now Nightwing), Roy Harper (Speedy; now Arsenal) Donna Troy, Garth (Aqualad; now Tempest), Lilith Clay (Omen) having the same experience as Wally tries to get them to remember. It's nice because the memories they trigger aren't anything big, but old small moments of bonding between Wally and each member.

I liked the most recent Titans team from the New52 (Red Robin, Beast Boy, Raven, Wonder Girl, Superboy, and Bunker)...but there was just soemthign missing...andf it turns out I preferred the old more original team more....event hough they are all adults now and not teen titans at all. And now of course I understand the difference between the rebirth titles. As there IS a Teen Titan's title still just not with these characters...and then this new one is just Titans. It's already on my comixology subscription list.

AND it's being written by Dan Abnett!

[amphibian]

Dan Abnett is terrific. I love his Hypernaturals series (short run, very cool).

[polishgenius]

I read the first volume of Steve Orlando's Midnighter comic. It's fucking awesome. Absolutely nails him as a character, great support turns from faces new and familiar, cracking art, top humour... I don't know if it's the best superhero book currently running, because I'm not able to keep up with many, but if there were many better I'm pretty sure I'd be hearing about how completely and consistently awesome the current world of superhero comics is. And I'm not.

Recommended.

Does anyone know if the Grayson post-Nightwing series is any good?

[Abyss]

polishgenius, on 16 June 2016 - 10:19 PM, said:

I read the first volume of Steve Orlando's Midnighter comic. It's fucking awesome. Absolutely nails him as a character, great support turns from faces new and familiar, cracking art, top humour... I don't know if it's the best superhero book currently running, because I'm not able to keep up with many, but if there were many better I'm pretty sure I'd be hearing about how completely and consistently awesome the current world of superhero comics is. And I'm not.

Recommended.

Does anyone know if the Grayson post-Nightwing series is any good?

Wasnt it canned just before they announced Rebooth?

[Studlock]

Yes, along with a number of pretty excellent books that came with DCYou. It, apparently, didn't sell very well (the entire line), so that kind of super shitty. At this point I've pretty much sworn off DC because they kept cancelling my favourite books, and kept the garbo ones around.

[polishgenius]

Studlock, on 17 June 2016 - 02:54 AM, said:

At this point I've pretty much sworn off DC because they kept cancelling my favourite books, and kept the garbo ones around.

While I don't like that it's been cancelled, you can't really blame them for cancelling, now that I read around about it, one of their worst-selling books. Perhaps it could have been promoted better, but it's not their fault that the broad public keep reading the crap and ignoring the gold.


Still, I'll be getting the second volume when it drops in October and hope Orlando got a chance to wrap things up semi-nicely. Also that Midnighter will keep popping up in the DCU and get another chance someday. He really should be a chance for DC to make a Deadpool-style breakout (okay, Harley Quinn is doing that at the mo, but Midnighter is a very 'today' sort of superhero, especially the way Orlando's written him, and I reckon there could easily be an audience for him if they played it right).

And I'll defo have an eye out for Orlando's Supergirl.

[Abyss]

Deadpool started out as a Spiderman spoof who happened to be a killer merc, but evolved over time. Midnighter has never managed to evolve much beyond being a spoof on the Grant Morrison Batman who happens to be gay. As 'cool' as he is, as potentially fun as he is to read, once the initial wow at what Warren Ellis did with him worse off, he's never quite risen to where he might.

And to call a spade a spade, it's probably because of the gay thing, which is sad.

[polishgenius]

Abyss, on 17 June 2016 - 04:38 PM, said:

Midnighter has never managed to evolve much beyond being a spoof on the Grant Morrison Batman who happens to be gay. As 'cool' as he is, as potentially fun as he is to read, once the initial wow at what Warren Ellis did with him worse off, he's never quite risen to where he might.

He's always had the potential to to be though, and in fairness, I think this comic is where he did (his first solo effort was to be fair rubbish). That's why it's such a shame it's cancelled.

[Abyss]

SAGA tpb vol 6 streets next week, and I'm conflicted whether to order the always oh so pretty dead tree version or just give up and switch to e-format.

I have a stack of gifted and borrowed dead tree GNs and TPBs I have yet to read... and not crap... BLACK SCIENCE, SANDMAN, FABLES, SIN CITY... they receive marginally more attention than my not-electornic TRPFH, which is to say I look at them occasionally and wish I was reading one.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 29 June 2016 - 03:52 PM, said:

SAGA tpb vol 6 streets next week, and I'm conflicted whether to order the always oh so pretty dead tree version or just give up and switch to e-format.

I have a stack of gifted and borrowed dead tree GNs and TPBs I have yet to read... and not crap... BLACK SCIENCE, SANDMAN, FABLES, SIN CITY... they receive marginally more attention than my not-electornic TRPFH, which is to say I look at them occasionally and wish I was reading one.

I've kept up with only SAGA on my Pull List (everything else I went digital a while back) as I keep thinking one day this series will be worth something in original floppies...but I know that's a pipedream these days. Still, I can't help myself. I might switch over to digital one day.

[Abyss]

Reading SECRET WARS (2015) on the Marvel Unlimited Crack App...

Read the first two core books, all good, but got distracted reading the byblow series. These are generally better than I was expecting...

OLD MAN LOGAN despite a neat start, was him just bouncing between worlds, but was a fun read even so. The Old Logan character gets some solid development to separate him from the usual Wolverine.

INHUMANS ATTILAN RISING was filler. Meh. Even Kamala Khan and a steampunk Ghost Rider couldn't make this more than ok. Semi-saved by solid art.

SECRET WARS 2099 was weak on story (Peter David can do so much better than this), but great on character concepts.. the Avengers and Defenders 2099 were fun.

MODOK ASSASSIN... is fucking hysterical and has no right being as funny and entertaining as it is.