Sorry but I don’t follow the X-Men that closely to know where the Gen-X members ended up.
Jubilee has always been my favorite X-Men/Gen-X. If for no other reason, her “10 things I hate about Emplate” speach early on in the Gen-X run.
Question about her powers. Does she shoot fireworks out of her hands/fingers? or is it more of exploding the molecules around her?
Early on is was more of the pyrotechnics but during the Age of Apocalypse she was exploding Jamie Maddox’es trenchcoats and described as capable of creating a force equal to a nuclear explosion to stop the big bald guy from X-Factor even though she held back. Shortly after the timeline and book returned to normal, they visited New York and ran into the evil Morlock kids. There she was described as being POTENTIALLY one of the most powerful mutants on the planet. Did they ever resolve what her powers actually are? Somehow I don’t see shooting fireworks out of your hands as being all that powerful.
Well, like someone mentioned in the recent “lamest superhero” thread, Synch once used her powers to make a REALLY BIG EXPLOSION ™. I think the basic idea is that she excites the molecules near her into exploding. But she’s got some kind of psychological block that holds her back from doing anything much bigger than the little firework pafs. (I think they pulled a similar story with Iceman, where Emma Frost took control of him and did some really powerful stuff he didn’t know he could do.)
I don’t think she ever got over the block in the run of Gen-X, but it’s been a while since I read them… I think she might have let loose a bit in Issue 70-something, after Synch died and they went on that mission to save bunch of kidnapped kids, but I’ll check when I get home.
She’s such an endearing character. I started Gen-X only knowing her from the Xmen cartoon, where she seemed really silly, but she grew on me really fast. Nice to see her pop up in the movie briefly.
Speaking of lame comic characters, I recall reading a few times about how some one at Marvel cleaned house some years back by contriving a storyline where all the limpest, wettest supervillains that had appeared in the various titles over the years were somehow assembled in one place (a supervillain bar, or something) so that they could be collectively slaughtered by some new, gritty supervillain. Damn shame, really; I always felt that there was a certain charm to those goofy one-offs. Anyway, I never found out exactly what title this story occurred in. Was it a single issue or a series? And, for the love of God, did Big Wheel survive?
It’s throughout the Batgirl series, including the first issue, the “Batman Dies!” issue, and more than a few others. Basic gist – he’s Batgirl’s father. He’s one of the world’s greatest assassins, and he trained Batgirl to be even better, but she didn’t want to be a killer so she left, eventually ending up in Gotham during the NML and hooking up with Oracle. Although “abusive” would be a charitable way of describing Cain’s treatment of Cassie, he loves her dearly and is devestated by the fact that she’s abandoned him for Batman, which explains his motivation.
Batgirl, BTW, is an absolutely fantastic series when the regular team of Puckett & Scott are on it – I recommend it highly. (There are pretty frequent fill-ins, though, which are never nearly as good.)
That was the Scourge storyline referenced above. Went thru almost every Marvel book, but mainly ran thru Captain America. I remember being confused when someone tried to off Flash Thompson in Amazing Spider-Man because Flash was being framed as the Hobgoblin. Foiled, he killed the Wraith instead who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Justice is served!” said Scourge. “What the hell?” said I.
I read Byrne’s Alpha Flight long enough to see Vindicator/Guardian (James Hudson) supposedly come back from having been disintegrated, having been saved by ancient Jupiterian aliens and merged with his suit. What’s his story lately?
(Also: I had one huge crush on Aurora at the time. Mrrrrrr.)
…I seem to recall that another reason Spider-Man hasn’t joined any super-teams is because he found out most of them don’t pay anything, which would really interfere with trying to lead a normal life while “off duty.”
“But I’m Spider-Man of the Fantastic Five! I just saved the world today!”
“That’s great, sir. But you still need to pay for the groceries.”
A) I F*cked up the coding in the above quote. Everything below my name is Shodan’s
B) If you mean that there’s some OTHER T.H.U.N.D.E.R. thing than the Archive, it’s news to me and I want details, dammit!!
C) Daredevil’s reasoning for never joining a team is that there’s just too much confusion in a team setting and it fouls up his radar sense, although Englehart and Gerber did a little Daredevil/Avengers crossover around Daredevil #98/9 and um…whatever Avengers was out at the time (roughly #109 or so)
What superheroes and supervillains, or other major characters in big name books have been killed off and actually stayed dead?
These are all I can think of right now:
Barry Allen Flash (is he still dead?)
Iris Allen
Bucky
Chemical King
Ferrous Lad
Gwen Stacy
Jason Todd
How do I convince my wife that spending $100 a month on comic books is actually justified? I have the subscriptions evened out so that I never have to renew more than four in a month, but that’s not enough. I’ve tried the “They’re an investment” argument, and that worked for a little while because it’s mostly true–keep the books in excellent condition and they appreciate in value–but she’s realized that I never intend to actually sell any of them short of needing to forstall a bank forclosure of the house (and actually that’s iffy–come on, is apartment living really so bad?).
Did Marvel start up the Fantastic Four as a result of the popularity of DC’s Justice League? Was the cover of Fantastic Four #1 really a rip off of the cover of Justice League #1?
If you were the mayor of a big city, which superhero would you want as your protector, keeping in mind that many of the major villains exist primarily to torment the main hero, so having a hero might actually attract disasters to your city.
What the hell happened with DK2 #3? The first two issues were a nice setup, but then we get a Deus ex Machina (Green Lantern), more Superman than Bats, and they don’t do anything with Plastic Man or the Atom after going to such lengths to set up their escapes.
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Gwen only sort-of stayed dead. There’s at least one, maybe two clones running around right now.
Iris is back (and has been for like, 20 years! (Flash #350) )
Baron Zemo is still dead (the original, the current guy is his son)
Uncle Ben
Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (depending on what happens in the
current “Blob of Protoplasm in the dead girl’s body infused with the angel’s soul” Supergirl book)
The Comet (the first superhero to die in comic-book history, circa 1940–Pep #17)
Heh…Deadman and Kid Eternity have been dead since their first appearance!
And, I don’t give a damn what Marvel says, that thing running around isn’t Jean Grey/Phoenix. She died in X-Men #137 and stayed dead, because no-one would be stupid enough to screw up one of the most important (and best written) storylines of all time, right? Right???
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Y’got me… I always used the “It’s an investment” thing on my parents and once they noticed that I had no intention of selling, I moved out.
I suppose divorce isn’t an option?
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Yes. JLA was the runaway hit book in 1960.
No. The covers have nothing in common. Fantastic Four #1 shows the FF fighting a big ugly monster,Justice League of America #1 shows Flash and Despero playing chess with tiny JLA members. As Flash moves a piece, the person vanishes.
Although, now that you mention it, there’s a pretty strong similarity between FF #1 and Brave and Bold #28 (The JLofA’s first appearance), which shows the JLA fighting Starro in a pose mirrored pretty damn closely in FF#1.
Huh. I never noticed that before. Cool.
Of the three covers, Justice League of America #1 is the best cover, IMHO.
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Flash. He loves the city, the villians are generally bank-robbers and he’s cool.
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Something happened between Miller and DC but I’ve never been able to find out any details. Note that Miller has stated that he hates Superman. I heard a rumor that Miller had done something horrible to Superman (like make him a child molester or something of that nature) and DC said “No way. Redo it”. But that’s just an internet rumor so don’t put a whole lot of faith in it.
Let’s not forget Captain Marvel - the Marvel comics version not to be confused with the SHAZAM kid. He died, appropriately enough, in a book titled “The Death of Captain Marvel”.
I have one of those compilation books that both DC and Marvel published in the 80’s–you know the trade paperback sized reprints–Marvel did the issues of continuity thing, in color, and DC did theme issues in b & w. Anyway, one of them is a JLA theme issue with a reprint of the first story (which I mistakenly referred to as #1). The guy who wrote the intro, obviously a DC fanboy, claims outright that Fantastic Four (and the X-Men and the Avengers) was a ripoff of JLA and that the cover of B & B you link to was directly copied for the FF #1 cover.
More questions:
I remember a Fantastic Four which dealt with Reed Richards’ trying to find a cure for the Thing. Ben had been trasforming back and forth seemingly at random, each time giving him hope that he’d remain human permanently. Reed finally reveals to him that he can control his transformation (just like the others), and that he always could. Reed had suspected this for a long time, but never said so, for some reason I don’t remember.
What is the current thinking on this? Can Ben transform at will, or is he permanently orange and rocky?
2a. Which is more important to the creation of a quality comic, the artwork or the writing?
2b. You have been endowed with supereditor power! This power enables you to choose any writer(s), and artist(s), from comics history and any book for them to work on. They can start over from scratch and reinvent the character(s), or take over from any given point in the book’s development. Your supereditor power ensures that they will work well together and will take directions from you without complaint.
Who would your writers and artists be, what book would you have them write for you to edit, and at what point in it’s continuity would you have them start? Would you sketch out a basic story idea, a more detailed story line, or just set them free to do as they please?
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Lee and Kirby have point blank admitted that FF was an attempt to cash in on JLA’s success and you could argue that Avengers was too. X-Men, however, has nothing in common with JLA, but there’s a weird bit of syncronicity between Doom Patrol and X-Men (and, IIRC) they showed up pretty close to the same time.
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This was from FF circa #244 (where it was revealed to a grown up Franklin). It was a retcon by John Byrne, but during his good period. The upshot was that the Thing thought that Alicia wouldn’t love him if she didn’t feel sorry for the fact that he was orange and rocky. Um…it was dealt with for a while: during the Secret Wars, he was able transform back and forth but lost the power. He’s gotten it back a few more times and just recently lost the power again. It’ll come back the next time an author gets stuck.
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IMHO, both…but with an emphasis on the writing. Englehart’s “Celestial Madonna” series in Avengers is one of the all-time great stories with abysmal art.
Until the mid-'80s everyone would have said "The art, duh. :rolleyes: ", however in the '80s, with Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing and (later) Neil Gaiman, things started to change and the “superstar writer” was born (Claremont, despite his current rep helped set the stage for the “superstar writer”)
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Bob Bolling on Superboy: set it in the '50s.
Carl Barks on Captain Carrot
Steve Englehart (circa 1977–not the modern Englehart) and George Perez on Justice League
Alan Moore and Stu Immomen on Superman (oh, wait. They did: Supreme! )
Mark Waid and Ty Templeton and Mike Parobek on Superman (One editorial directive: get back to the Silver Age: no more Manga/Hulk looking Superman. Luthor is a mad scientist again. Get rid of all the stupid villians (big dumb powerhouse types) and either invent new ones or fix the old ones*, Superman shouldn’t be a teeth-clenched grim’n’gritty book.
Paul Levitz and Alan Davis on "Untold Tales of the Pre-Zero Hour Legion. Pick the story up from just BEFORE the Magic Wars and go with them…but not to the the Magic Wars and the dreaded 5-year gap. Hell, bring Superboy back. I’m enjoying Legion, but I miss the grown-ups.
Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell on Dr. Strange.
Daredevil by Phil Foglio (No, I’m not insane. Daredevil for the first 80 or so issues wasn’t just the Batman clone he is now. Murdock was repressed and Daredevil was his only outlet for fun. He loved being Daredevil: it wasn’t that he was driven, he was just havin’ a good time. One of the most memorable bits had Daredevil swinging through the streets singing “Good Day, Sunshine” at the top of his lungs as civilians looked up, smiling. And the book was weird. Just for kicks, Matt created a second ID (Swingin’ Mike Murdock) who wore sunglasses all the time 'cause he was just soooo kewl and was a spy so he vanished all the time on missions for S.H.I.E.L.D. and who was so much hipper than his square brother Matt that he could easily sweep Karen Paige off her feet. Nowdays, as good as his book is, he’s Batman in red. Sigh. )
Miracleman by Gaiman and…um…Immomnen again maybe. Or better…Alan Davis! :D. Unfortunately, I suspect Todd McFarlane will have to die before it happens.
All I can tell you is that X-Men and Doom Patrol showed up within two months of each other, DP first. That, if I recall correctly, and I can’t remember where I read it in, but where I read it was the old museum of comic art castle… Before they moved to Florida. Anyhow.
The titles, despite strong similarities are not ripped off each other. They came out too close together to have been stolen from. The writers would have had to be collaborating in order to make them so similar.
As far as The Red Skull and Scourge, there is a scene in a Captain America, where Skull, in the Steve Rogers body presides over a meeting of his minions. A Watchdog is there, a Scourge, a Resistant… plot never went anywhere that I recall. I think it was after Left and Right Winger finally died.
I don’t find it at all hard to believe that Miller hates Superman. Considering the way he dealt with the character in both Dark Knight books. IMHO, DK2 was a waste of good paper and ink.
Also, regarding characters that stayed dead, Ferro Lad did stay dead, PreCrisis. Post-Zero Hour, no. The same goes for Lyle Norg.
The Levitz/Giffen era of Legion was the best. The post-5 year gap stories were very somber but I feel well written, except for that ridiculous retcon series to remove Superboy and Supergirl and replace them with Valor and Andromeda. The “Pocket Universe” concept wasn’t that bad of a save and there was no reason to erase it from Legion history, particularly since it still existed in Superman’s books, and ultimately reappeared in Legion anyway.
I really liked Foglio’s Stanley and his Monster from a few years ago, as well as his Angel and the Ape, incorporating the Inferior Five. I’d like to see those reprinted.
(Flash 
