Ask the comic guy 2

Cafe Society
21

Hey Mockingbird, m’friend. It’s possible to not like Kyle or the last few years of GL without being a member of HEAT! :slight_smile: (And FTR, yes. I am disgusted with Donna Troy’s death. Especially the pointlessness of it. [sub]Kinda like what they did to Hal!—GD&R, very verrrrrrry fast!!! :smiley: [/sub])

Regarding Green Lantern, the first couple of years of Kyle were, IMO, utterly dreadful. It’s now known that the editor, not the writer was more to blame, but

A) the constant, non-stop, whining from Kyle as he’d snivel to each succussive hero in an apparently never-ending parade “Am I as gooooooood as Haaaaaaal yet?”,

B) his constant losing of the power ring (didn’t big, dumb, mindless Validus manage to get the ring from him once) and

C) the constant prick-teasing of “Hal’s back…oops! Jes’ foolin’!”, “Corps are back…oops! Jes’ foolin’!” that happened roughly once every twelve issues or so,

combined with the general annoyance of screwing up of Hal Jordan (Why did he go insane anyway? Can’t be the “Coast City was destroyed” excuse: that was dealt with about 10 issues before Hal went nuts) made the first five years of Kyle’s career (roughly issues 50-100) an exercise in pathetic. (IMO, of course…except the Hal thing. That was just stooooopidly done. :smiley: )

Frankly, I thought that Kyle didn’t come into his own until Grant Morrison started writing him in Justice League and took him beyond his Emotionally-Needy Lad personna, and I thought whatshisname…(Winnick? Whoever did the fantastic Ion storyline) transformed Kyle into a really great character.

And I agree with DK2: I hated the recent GL/GA crossover and don’t like Raab’s stuff at all.

I dunno about the Unthinkable storyline in FF. It was wonderfully done, but the characters didn’t sound or act right. I dunno. Doom was waaaaaaay off, Sue shouldn’t be swearing, however mildly (I have no problem with characters swearing. Ben or Johnny? Fine. Reed? Maybe. Wasp or She-Hulk? No problem. But Sue??? No. It’s out of character, IMO.) and Reed read completely wrong, IMO. Reed’s reaction to < not spoiling > Doom’s last trick: Reed should shrug and say “Oh well. My family’s safe and Doom is gone. If this is the only lasting consequence, we got off easy.”

Like I said, it was a powerful storyline, and it was paced perfectly, leading into a satisfying conclusion, but dammit, I wish it had starred the Fantastic Four.

Plus the new FF logo just blows chunks. Really. The original classic logo works. The teeny little claustrophobic current logo doesn’t.

Fenris

22

You’re right, Doc – I must have been drunk when I posted that. :wink:

–Cliffy

23

whats the deal with Ashley Woods Mythica . his website just has coming soon and some artwork for it.
anybody got the dope for it?

which reminds me i need to pick up popbot 4, which im sure is going to be hideously expensive in the UK…

24

[bump]

I picked up a couple of things and I was wondering what the general feeling about them is from the comic community:

Batman/Planetary: I loved it a lot and thought it was not only a great crossover but a great…I dunno…homage? Tribute? Something to Batman.

JLA: Welcome To The Working Week: A fantastic book, good writing and great portrayal of the lives of DC’s greatest heroes. I absolutely loved it.

Your opinions/thoughts?

25

Loved Batman/Planetary but I only thought the JLA Working Week was…eh. Not bad or anything but nothing stunning either.

26

I never really read GL until he showed up In Morrison’s JLA. I like him there. For you Hal fans, there was a mini series titles “Brave and the Bold” with some “lost” adventures of Barry Allen and Hal. It was a fun read.

Books I’m reading right now, New X-Men, G.I.Joe (both titles, the regular series and Frontline), Powers, The Ultimates, JLA (only in TPB format), Greg Rucka’s Wolverine, and a little bit of Ultimate Spider-man (only because a co worker buys them, and lets me read through them).

I also just started collecting Mike Mingola’s “Hellboy” in TPB, which I am enjoying, as well as Erik Larsen’s “Savage Dragon”.

Favorite series all time, The Claremont/Byrne Uncanny X-Men.

There’s a rumour of them teaming up again for a run on JLA next year. Feud and all, the fact they’ve put little of note in 10 years and all, I was excited by this.

27

I also loved Batman/Planetary and thought it was a fitting tribute to the Dark Knight. The most memorable scene in the book IMO was when the Dark Knight Returns Batman appeared and grabbed Elijiah Snow by the neck, that was awesome. As for JLA: Working Week I didn’t have a chance to pick it up but I may next week.

Here’s a news tidbit. It looks like Marvel Comics has decided not to use Princess Diana in the upcoming X-Statix comic written by Peter Milligan and drawn by Mike Allerd. Marvel has decided to go with a fictional celebrity instead.

Thanks to newsarama.com for the information.

I was witholding judgment on the whole Princess Diana situation untill the thing was released but now it looks like we’ll never know if the storyline would have been in poor taste or not.

Speaking of Peter Milligan, I can’t wait untill his Human Target series which will debut in August. His Human Target mini-series was terrific and his X-Statix book is the best X book on the market. I also consider him my favorite Batman writer (even though his run on the book was short) and loved his Shade, the Changing Man.

Don’t forget Mark Millar makes his big announcement tommorow. It will either be on his “Chosen” mini-series or something else but knowing Millar it’s usually good.

28

Man, I sure hope they take that and run with it, even if it means accepting the fact that the “S” shield was somehow the Superman family crest on Krypton (although I guess the “yellow sun” symbol Jor-El used to wear didn’t make a whole lot of sense either, really). I have to say that seventeen years of Byrne’s super-sterile, no-personality take on Krypton was about seventeen years too many. Dunno how they plan on working the transition, but even if they have Mxyzptlk show up and beat Supes about the head with the Retcon Stick, it’ll be worth it in the end. Krypton should be cool, dammit! That’s why having it explode was a bad thing! I still haven’t entirely forgiven Jeff Loeb for his evil, taunting “Return to Krypton” storyline: “See how awesome it was to have over four decades of interesting Kryptonian characters and settings? Too bad! It was all a dream!” I’m sure he meant well, but…

29

A coupla’ comics questions…

  1. Superheroes and supervillains are often mocked for their fondness for spandex costumes. That leaves me to wonder, are there any “super” characters who don’t wear some kind of uniform? In short, are there any “Supers” in “civies”?

1a. Addendum to the above; A cursory web search has revealed that Spandex wasn’t even invented until 1958. What, then, did “Golden Age” heroes make their costumes out of? Wool? Cotton? Patent leather?

  1. In modern-day comics, are there any character who can bring dead people back to life? Timer-Travelers don’t count. And clone-makers are “iffy.”
30

Tights have existed for centuries, and yes, they were made of wool, linen or cotton. Boots and belts were naturally always leather. Interesting factoid: Captain America’s cowl is made of chainmail.

31

I agree 100%. Grant Morrison’s Animal Man run was sheer genius. Easily my all-time favorite. I will read anything Grant writes. BTW, be sure to check out the recent issues of Hawkman to get your Animal Man fix!

I guess the best series I’m currently reading is Astro City. Good to have it back, even if it is bi-monthly. Warren Ellis’s Global Frequency is not bad either.

32

Y - The Last Man is the best series being put out by the Big Two right now. Global Frequency is also very good, albeit somewhat inconsistent. I also like Alias, although since I read it in trades I’m somewhat behind the current issues.

–Cliffy

33

Answers to #1:

Ressurection Man
Starman(Jack Knight)

I’m sure there are more, but that’s what comes to mind.

1a answers:

Leather in many cases, and jhodpurs in others such as Green Lantern, Liberty Belle, Spy Smasher, and quite a few others.

34

The Golden Age Starman’s costume was red, green, and yellow.

35

The Question wore a powder blue business suit.
Dr. Occult wore a business suit.
The Golden Age Sandman originally wore a tan business suit.
Jonni Thunder wore a black and white business suit. I’m not really sure she counts as a superhero.
Do “jungle girls” count as superheroes? Almost all of them wore tiger stripe bikinis.
I’m not sure if this counts either, but Kurt Busiek’s hommage to Captain Marvel-“The Getleman”- wears a tuxedo.

36

Ranchoth: The Spirit wore a domino mask with a blue business suit, white shirt and red tie. Mr. Mystic, a lesser-known creation of Will Eisner, wore a turban with a fancy tuxedo, as did DC’s Sargon the Sorceror.
Doc Savage and his men dressed for the occasion, usually wearing standard business suits, Ham’s suits being the dernier cri in male fashion and Monk’s being spectacularly colorful, cheap, and unfashionable.
Kristin Austin of The Southern Knights usually wore street clothes or exercise garb, and her teammate Dragon wore nothing at all. (I guess dragons have retractable genitals).
Toward the end of his career, Dr. Manhattan wore nothing at all, and the Swamp Thing was never clothed.

37

In quite a few of the issues I have, the whole suit is chainmail.

Other Materials-
From some time in the Golden age until Crisis, Superman’s outfit was made from the Kryptonian blankets he’d been wrapped in.

No Tights-
Iron Man comes to mind.

When John Blaze transformed into a demon biker, his leather suit didn’t. When Dan Ketch transformed into the spirit of vengance, hic civies transformed into motorhuckle boots, leather jacket with spiked epaulettes, and pants of indeterminate material.

Silver Surfer-Norrin Radd is covered in a second skin of silver, and nothing else.

Namor-The Submariner prefers a pair of green speedos to tights.

38

'nother question…

We all know that Batman has developed schemes to “neutralize” the other members of the JLA, in case they go insane, or some such thing. But…what would everyone else do if Batman lost it? Say, at some point in the future, the pressures of life finally “crack” Bats’ psyche, and he decides to “cleanse” Earth of it’s superpowered population…Is there really any way to stop him?

39

Ranchoth Oooh, I like it! The way I see it, the JLA etc try and fail(miserably) to stop Bats. It seems that no one can stop the Dark Knight. Until Jim Gordon drops him with a scope, rifle and a heavy duty tranquilizer dart.

“The monsters took my son. They took Barbara’s legs. But, I never thought they could take you Bruce. I never thought th…”(begins to sob uncontrollably)

40

Shoot him.