[polishgenius]

To be fair he was never gonna get sued by DC given he was writing it for them. But also very obvious expies of famous superheroes and villains are a part and parcel of superhero comics anyway - they do it to each other all the time, and there's several very high-profile creator-owned series with the likes of Image that are far more centered on those 'homage' characters than Planetary is.



Also as well as Ellis handled it I do think the shortening of Planetary is pretty clear- in particular there's one concept he introduces pretty late that becomes key and I think he intended to develop it waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more slowly before he hung the plot on it.

[Abyss]

TV related but belongs here too... the X-MEN '97 cartoon trailer just dropped.

https://youtu.be/pv3...Gs9xba7unPm86K9



Mind. BLOWN.

Jean pregnant.

Bishop grunting to the music.

The Wolverine Gambit thing!!!!

CYKE SAID THE WORDS HE FRIKKIN SAID THEM.



...i was thoroughly meh about this.
now? Hook me rtf up.

[JPK]

Abyss, on 15 February 2024 - 04:21 PM, said:

TV related but belongs here too... the X-MEN '97 cartoon trailer just dropped.

https://youtu.be/pv3...Gs9xba7unPm86K9



Mind. BLOWN.

Jean pregnant.

Bishop grunting to the music.

The Wolverine Gambit thing!!!!

CYKE SAID THE WORDS HE FRIKKIN SAID THEM.



...i was thoroughly meh about this.
now? Hook me rtf up.

Watching that makes me feel like I'm 10 again.

[Abyss]

 JPK, on 15 February 2024 - 04:30 PM, said:

 Abyss, on 15 February 2024 - 04:21 PM, said:

TV related but belongs here too... the X-MEN '97 cartoon trailer just dropped.

https://youtu.be/pv3...Gs9xba7unPm86K9



Mind. BLOWN.

Jean pregnant.

Bishop grunting to the music.

The Wolverine Gambit thing!!!!

CYKE SAID THE WORDS HE FRIKKIN SAID THEM.



...i was thoroughly meh about this.
now? Hook me rtf up.

Watching that makes me feel like I'm 10 again.

The ongoing debates online about what to call the (thoroughly ridiculous yet epic glorious) Wolverine n Gambit thing... my favorite so far 'a pair o' threes'.

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 12 February 2024 - 03:26 PM, said:

Abyss, on 05 February 2024 - 07:42 PM, said:

Abyss, on 05 February 2024 - 03:30 PM, said:

polishgenius, on 04 February 2024 - 08:50 PM, said:

Also picked up another couple of volumes of Radiant Black. Sadly the little comic shop in Berlin didn't have continuations of the Nightwing and Immortal Hulk runs I started at Christmas.

Humble Bundle has a Massiveverse offer up.

polishgenius, on 05 February 2024 - 05:55 PM, said:

Cheers, I'll probably take advantage but also why couldn't I see that three days ago ffs.

I think it only landed two days ago. The universe decided you need hard copies.

Relatedly just finished bingeing RADIANT BLACK vols 1-4. Good comics. Not wildly original - 'young goodlooking people find alien tech, get powers' isn't exactly groundbreaking - but fun, good pace, nice art, engaging story and characters, very well done action scenes. I enjoyed, am continuing to read the rest of the Massiverse set.

On to the MASSIVERSE crossover one shot. Fun enough. not brilliant, but Radiant Black meets Inferno Girl and Rogue Sun, they clash, they team up, they beat the badguys. The plot is blunt as hell but the action beats are so much fun i didn't care. I do like that the whole line seems to be leaning in on variations of the 'normal people find alien artifacts, become superheroes' angle rather than trying to make each origin so distinct that they inadvertently copy other titles. The alien artifact isn't wildly original itself, but making it a line-wide theme makes it all part of a bigger story, rather than trying to connect a bunch of smaller stories that echo typical/classic Marvel n DC stuff.

On the INFERNO GIRL RED vols 1-3. Striking shift to a way way more younger reader tone. Possibly too much, but ok, fine, i'm not the target for this. Still read it thru - if somewhat skimming at times - and enjoyed enough. There was a single panel clue in MASSIVERSE about where this title might be going that i find rather engaging.

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 26 February 2024 - 03:08 PM, said:

...
Humble Bundle has a Massiveverse offer up.
...
Relatedly just finished bingeing RADIANT BLACK vols 1-4....

On to the MASSIVERSE crossover one shot.....

On the INFERNO GIRL RED ...

...and then on to ROGUE SUN.
It was ok. I finished it because i'm enjoying the wider comic line, if i were paying for monthly floppies i likely would have bailed because the 'angst ridden teen gets powers, isn't very good at them' thing is just standard, nothing new here. I'll move on to another MASSIVERSE title from the bundle at some point.



On the extreme other end i just marathoned the first five TPBs of Gillen, McElvie and co's THE WICKED AND THE DIVINE and holy godsfucks how am i just getting to this comics gloriousness now it is BRILLIANT.

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 11 April 2024 - 03:23 PM, said:

...

On the extreme other end i just marathoned the first five TPBs of Gillen, McElvie and co's THE WICKED AND THE DIVINE and holy godsfucks how am i just getting to this comics gloriousness now it is BRILLIANT.

and Just Finished the last four. Gillen doesn't just stick the landing, he sticks the landing, the wave to the crowd, the victory lap, the victory drinks, the victory pizza, and probably the victory sex but that's just a guess i don't know the guy the point is, as a complete run comic, beginning to end, THE WICKED AND THE DIVINE is an amazing work in every respect, story, art, colours, letters, fragrances, all of it.


Also read the first 25 floppies of WORLD'S FINEST, Mark Waid's retro story about Bats and Supes' early buddy days. I'm not certain basing the entire thing around a particular alt-reality character, to contradiction of other earlier stories about that same character, was the bestest choice here, but it was very much a fun comic story and i enjoyed the read.

[Abyss]

Storyline implosion is never enjoyable in comics, particularly Marvel. There's this almost painful moment when it becomes clear almost everyone involved is phoning it in the just get the work done, and the few who aren't are having to work around the mess anyways so it's lose/lose/lose for everyone.

Thus, the current 'Fall of X' storyline. There were a couple of fun moments at the start... Kate Pryde going full ninja, Cyclops being awesome even w his back broken and his eyes sewn shut, Nightcrawler pretending to be Spider-man... but it's all just fallen apart into bad event coordination, weak storylines, senseless jumps (wow Cyclops sure did heal that broken back quickly and hey his eyes look great), poor planning (if the Avengers were always happy to beat up the badguys why did Iron Man have to wait until after sex w Emma Frost few more times), and Jean Grey being dead yet again which is just stupid by now. This is why i prefer to only return to the xbooks like twice a year.

More enjoyable is Victoria Schwab's SHADES OF MAGIC: THE STEEL PRINCE series, which is a sequel to her Shades of Magic triogy and really captures the feel of the books nicely, with solid art (even if the art team maybeeee enjoys drawing flowing scarves just a wee bit too much). Halfway thru the first tpb, this is a fun fantasy story. The MC appears to be a typical spoiled prince type but shoved off the become a man at a remote military post, quickly shows he's more than that, then also quickly shows he is way out of his depth. I like his sidekick soldier squad and i adore the pirate queen character the author seems to be setting up as the main antagonist.

[JPK]

 Abyss, on 25 April 2024 - 02:17 PM, said:

Storyline implosion is never enjoyable in comics, particularly Marvel. There's this almost painful moment when it becomes clear almost everyone involved is phoning it in the just get the work done, and the few who aren't are having to work around the mess anyways so it's lose/lose/lose for everyone.

Thus, the current 'Fall of X' storyline. There were a couple of fun moments at the start... Kate Pryde going full ninja, Cyclops being awesome even w his back broken and his eyes sewn shut, Nightcrawler pretending to be Spider-man... but it's all just fallen apart into bad event coordination, weak storylines, senseless jumps (wow Cyclops sure did heal that broken back quickly and hey his eyes look great), poor planning (if the Avengers were always happy to beat up the badguys why did Iron Man have to wait until after sex w Emma Frost few more times), and Jean Grey being dead yet again which is just stupid by now. This is why i prefer to only return to the xbooks like twice a year.

See, I just can't get into the Fall of X storyline at all because I just think the entire thing is dumb. They have a fantastic setup that they could build interesting storylines around for years in The Krakoa Era, but instead they're choosing to just go back to the same old status quo. It just feels like an absolute waste of Hickman's setup.

[Abyss]

JPK, on 25 April 2024 - 02:46 PM, said:

Abyss, on 25 April 2024 - 02:17 PM, said:

Storyline implosion ... This is why i prefer to only return to the xbooks like twice a year.

See, I just can't get into the Fall of X storyline at all because I just think the entire thing is dumb. They have a fantastic setup that they could build interesting storylines around for years in The Krakoa Era, but instead they're choosing to just go back to the same old status quo. It just feels like an absolute waste of Hickman's setup.

I can live w them ending Krakoa. I agree it could have lasted longer but fine, we got five years and even Hickman always planned for it to end.
But they're going about it so so badly. Most of it reads as the filler it probably is.


The next phase is also weird... kudos to them for resisting the obvious 'return to the mansion', but instead we're getting Cyclops leading a team out of Alaska, which is just Morrison redux, Rogue n Gambit leading a team out of New Orleans, which is Carey or Byrne or godhelpus Claremont 2.0, take your pick, and Emma and Kate teaching a class of new mutants, which is like three middling runs i can't attribute off the top of my head. They're trying to seel this as 'new' and none of it is remotely new. The creative teams are good to potentially great, FFS they gave Gail Simone her own title, i'm in... but it's barely a veneer of 'new'. It all feels very much like an interim effort before the disparate teams all get back together and ... wait for it.... return to the mansion.

[Tiste Simeon]

Not really a comic tbh just a short story told in a manga format, but has anyone read The Enigma of Amigara Fault by Junji Ito?

It's a horror story and ever since I first read it, it's stuck with me. Quite disturbing tbh.

Anyway it's very short and someone has put the whole thing on Imgur:

Drr... Drr... Drr... https://imgur.com/gallery/5rcNS