Post #83,407
2/22/03 2:45:31 PM
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Comic Books
This is continued from the Daredevil review. My first use of a new thread.
EC Comics was great, but usually not approved by the comics authority due to the subject matter. But for the horror fans, "Tales from the Crypt" and others were amazing.
Over the years, Marvel just dominated comics. DC tried to recover by having a "Crisis on Infinite Earths" storyline and saying that the old Superman, Batman, etc were on a different Earth in a different Universe, etc. Then they tried to combine them all into one Universe. Then later in the mid 1980's they tried to Marvelize the DC heroes, like Superman, to make him more human and give him more problems like they did Spiderman. So "The Man Of Steel" mini-series was born. John Byrne did a bang up job of it. But even then DC could not keep up, so they killed off Superman and then due to the upset fans, brought him back.
I stopped collecting comics when "Cable" became "Soldier-X", an obvious attempt by Marvel to stop paying royalties on the "Cable" character to the guy who created him, and to try and make the Cable comic more like "The Punisher" or some sort of "hardcode" comic. That to me is a bad thing.
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New and improved, Chicken Delvits!]
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Post #83,450
2/22/03 11:12:22 PM
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Re: Comic Books and EC
You're much better informed than I re the themes of the normal comics. For me, at (whatever age.. maybe 10ish) the fascinating aspect of EC was that - far better than the trite homilies of the popular stuff - each story had a moral of some kind:
The cruel chef who loved killing the lobsters in imaginitive ways, or just broiling them alive.. ends up trapped in his burning car. While I had no concept of 'karma' of course, it was a preparation for my later investigations - since already I'd rejected the standard religiosity or at least the accompanying hypocrisy. (I didn't know those words either.. but I had the ideas)
Later on, when McCarthyism was rampant == the exact cause of the "comics code" - I copped to what realy lies behind all censorship. So my appreciation for EC / William Gaines expanded. And remains.
So yeah, I recall the Capt. Marvel stuff too and would read whatever was lying around. Even the pop ones had their memorable issues (and Issues?) as well.
I *always* recalled a skit with either Superman or Marvel, wherein a kinda greenish alien w/pink? polka dots proved to be the cause of disappearing street signs (!). Hero finally spots him, slugs him, asks "Why, bunky?"
Tearfully he explains that his planet is running out of (steel= iron +). Hero accompanies him back; finds someone using a typewriter as big as a desk..
Hero shows him around Earth - Hey dummy, you people are *wasting* your resources. Polka-dot Gets It. Nice story conclusion; no heaped dead bodies or gunshots.
I was ready for the invention of the word ecology, henceforth. I owe that to that comic, not to some boring logical lecture trying to convince me. (Never mind that we are populated by millions who never saw that issue, still don't Get It -- and It Shows).
Anyway, from my experience: there were 'comics" and Then there was EC, and the quality of writing (and drawing) from Gaines was -- way beyond the usual crap. He invented MAD, etc. Amazingly still around, though I rarely buy a copy. Gaines isn't [still around] :(
Cheers,
Ashton
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Post #83,544
2/23/03 4:32:04 PM
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Spidey Super Stories
It sounds like [link|http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/title/spiderman_super_stories.html|Spidey Super Stories] that they used to pass out in school. It was a Spiderman comic book written for kids to learn how to read. They also toned down the violence, etc. So the green alien bit would have fit right in. Spiderman used to call people "bunky", so it may have been him. I remember it in grade school, it was the only comic book they allowed us to read in school. "The Electric Company" and Marvel did that as a joint effort, and sometimes "EZ Reader" would appear in it.
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Post #83,464
2/23/03 12:46:53 AM
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Marvel dominated in 80s
Marvel dominated in the 80s and early 90s, but today I would but them roughly even with each other. During the rought part of the 80s, DC basicly survived on the loyalty of buyers to Superman and Batman.
DCs catching up has more to do with Marvel going down hill then the improvements in DCs comics. Since their peak in the 80s, the quality of Marvels writing has gone down. The stories are more politically correct, more black/white and the stories more shallow then before.
Just compare the XMen's two great villians, Magento and Apocalypse. Magneto is a villian, but if you know his background you can understand why he feels the way he does. Much of his motivation is a desire to protect the mutants that is so irrationally strong that he is willing to destroy the rest of humanity to do it. He is designed such that you generally approve of his goals, if not his methods.
He also generally goes about achiving these goals in a manner that has at least some chance of working. From trying to build a haven for mutants away from humanity to training his own teams of mutants, you can see how his actions are aimed at achiving his goals.
Apocalypse on the other hand seeks to survive, gather power and rule the planet. Why? Because he can, he really has no deeper motivations. He really is nothing more then a bandit that has stumbled across power sufficent to reshape the world around him.
Luckily for humanity, he is fairly stupid though. If he used his vast power and technology in a sensible manner he would have taken over the planet long ago. Instead he regularly embarks on inane plans that are designed more to trigger stories then achive his goals.
Jay
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Post #83,537
2/23/03 2:22:38 PM
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Age of Apocalypse
Apparently if Professor Xavier hadn't stopped Apocalypse, then Apocalypse would have taken over the world. That was the whole plot of the series. Wolverine and Cyclops got into a battle that cost Cyclops an eye and Wolverine a hand. X-Man was born from Cyclops and Jean Grey's DNA. The Dark Beast was born, without Prof X's guidence. Etc.
Doctor Doom is another classic Marvel Super Villian. He seeks to make the world better by ruling it. He figures that being Emperor of the planet would bring about world peace and an end to hunger. That those in power stand in his way. He also seeks to free the soul of his dead mother from that bad place that Mephisto rules over. But mostly it is the rule the world plan that he follows. He makes robots called Doombots that look like him, and sometimes they get defeated. Ben Grim was often quoted as saying "I wonder if Doctor Doom was a real guy or a robot?" many times. Also his hatred for Reed Richards leads him to clash with the Fantastic Four a lot. Sometime happened between them in college and Doom blamed him for the accident that scared his face. In a "What If" comic book, they had Doom as a hero, who actually listened to Reed and double-checked his formula and it didn't blow up in his face and he wore gold armor and battled for good. So it is possible that Doom could be a hero. They also did this in the Doom 2099 comic book, that had Doom go up against villians.
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Post #83,656
2/24/03 5:40:27 AM
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I wasn't into comics like that.
In fact, all through my childhood I never wondered where they came from. I had a stock of quite random stuff, some from my father and the rest from I-have-no-idea-where.
Some of it was Disney stuff (including some Mickey/Goofy stories and a fair few Donald and Scrooge ones), some Superman stuff (one good one has the guy who "dreamed away" the population of Earth) and a lot of lesser known stuff. One I have is about a crew of time-travellers whose capsule is a funny spherical thing.
I borrowed "Crisis on Infinite Earths" from a friend once. I quite liked it, actually. I thought it was a clever way of putting two thirds of their heroes on ice as well as stiching together all these parallel earths to explain away so many of the inconsistencies.
Sometimes I buy new stuff. I have three Futurama comics, fr'instance. :-)
But I also developed a taste for Anime and Manga. Unfortunately, there is a *lot* of rubbish; much of which is translated just to cash in on the genre. I have a few Viz graphic novels of Ranma 1/2 plus one volume of Oh My Goddess and one of Maisson Ikkoku. Couldn't see US comic books doing those sort of stories (not even Ranma).
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
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Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
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Post #83,856
2/24/03 6:48:25 PM
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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
We're watching it. All the flying leaps. Suddenly, we break out in the Ranma theme song. :)
Ranma is awesome. But it will NEVER be done on US stations. :)
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