Apparently it's about some awesome superhero in heels who saves the world with FUNK! When they gonna make that into a movie?

More seriously, the most awesome comic ever was... Watchmen, probably.

And my fave comic artist is Carlos Ezquerra. Best Dredd ever.

Yes, but... What happened to Ultimate Gwen Stacy? Did Ultimate Green Goblin also knock her up, throw her off a bridge and raise their motherless, fast-growing twin children as a single dad in Paris or what?
[Edited 6/9/05 13:07pm]

scififilmnerd said:

Not Straczynski's finest moment.

sextonseven said:

Now that's putting it mildly!

It was awful! Terrible! Bad! UTTER CRAP!

JediMaster said:

I've got a lot of the New Defenders stuff that u mentioned. I think it's some of the weakest comic storytelling to come from the early 80's, but I was into it anyway because it's got three X-people. Don't have anything before Defenders #118. Might have to sample some.

Does anyone have any of the Champions comics? That short-lived group with Angel, Iceman, Black Widow, Darkstar, Hercules, Ghost Rider., and maybe one other? How is it?

doctamario said:

#4 is written by CHRIS CLAREMONT!

The series is basically so-so. I mean, how good can anything be that is drawn by George Tuska?

I don't think the characters chosen for the group go well together, either. But the issues by Bill Mantlo and John Byrne are fairly good. They wrap up one of the storylines from the cancelled Black Goliath series and introduce the scary villain Swarm.

Darkstar is also introduced in this series, but following that, no one ever did anything interesting with the character, least of all Grant Morrison who killed her off in New X-Men. Which is weird, because she never was an x-(wo)man.

#16 is a crossover with Super-Villain Team-Up featuring evil Magneto who is so evil, he's practically drooling. The final issue has The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in it and this is where The Vanisher get stuck in mid-transportation in case you wondered where that happened when you read Bizarre Adventures #27.

All in all I think the series is fun to have, but there is nothing truly outstanding about it.

scififilmnerd said:

OK, sounds like something I need, then lol. Claremont used to be everywhere.

scififilmnerd said:

I think Morrison was just looking for forgotten mutants to make up the European X-Men team at the time. Darkstar being Russian was available and not so prominent that she could be killed without too many fans making a fuss. What's going on with her brother, Vanguard?

Back in the 70s and early 80s Marvel would always wrap up dangling plotlines from cancelled series in the oddest places.

sextonseven said:

Yeah, I miss those days. Made the Marvel Universe seem so much more cohesive and whole. I really liked that characters would turn up in each other's books at weird times, and that cancelled series would get a sort of conclusion. It was also cool that the writers back then would use minor little things to create huge stories later. Now, everyone is so concerned about being free from continuity. I know 30+ years of history can seem daunting, but somehow the writers bacl then made it work, even if you'd never picked up the issues they were referencing.

Im sorry but I have never been able to stand Jean Grey...At first I didn't like her character because of the nauseating relationship with Scott (which the dialog and storylines improved) But the whole "Phoenix" thing is what ticks me off...First if she is this all powerful alpha mutant she sure does not show it in battle (I mean when they actually were letting her in the field teams missions) and with that said she is too powerful. It's like the whole Im really powerful so let me power down to fight you...It just never worked for me..

I didn't like the way the killed her (recently) and the Emma and Scott storyline will never take a life of it's own if they keep bringing her back every 5 mins. If and when she permanently comes back hopefully they hook her up with wolvie which I think will be an excellent read...

Where have all the good writers gone??

JediMaster said:

I liked that back then they would actually list the comics that they were referencing in the bottom of the panel. Supposedly now it's 'too distracting' to place a tiny box at the bottom with an asterik saying "see New Mutants #20" or whatever. How are readers supposed to find the related back story if they are interested?

Does anyone here read Exiles? I am addicted to that comic...just has so much potential cause of the whole alternate reality concept...It is pretty good...Also any Warlock and Thanos fans in here? Starlin is the man...If Marvel wasn't a bunch of damn fools they could keep him around longer and try to bring back the Cosmic Superhero genre there...I miss all the cosmic comics and events...Surfer (well old surfer not this new version) Quasar, Captain Marvel ect ect...

sextonseven said:

That is the stupidest thing, I grew up with the asterisk in the read. Again, go with the tried formula people, stop trying to reinvent the wheel.

Sinister said:

The Avengers kind of had the same problem with Thor. Whenever they faced the weaker villians, Thor mysteriously wasn't around because you know the fight would be over with one swing of Mjolnir.

jerseykrs said:

I can't speak for DC or other brands but Marvel does not let the writers do shit...they want it their way and thats it...so they can never keep anybody...

sextonseven said:

Yeah but at least Thor has his own comic to explain his absence..."Where is Jean!?! Magneto is kicking our ass!" "Oh she is at the mansion teaching the kids about Genosha"

Sinister said:

BWAH HAHAHAHA

Sinister said:

DC is just as guilty. Save for a few of the ones that get away with whatever they want. And that's not always necessarily good.

jerseykrs said:

I'll third that. I never found the asterisk distracting. When I first started reading comics, I didn't have access to shops where I could pick up back issues, but it was still nice to see that little *. It let you know that they were referencing something from another comic or storyline, and helped the reader not be confused by the continuity. With the info the little sidebar provided, I was usually able to figure out what was going on.

JediMaster said:

I miss those days too.

I think that the contemporary attitude towards continuity - namely to ignore it - is born out of pure laziness. Like, when Grant Morrison came onboard the X-Men, he probably couldn't be bothered reading up on past stories. I think maybe he read Essential Uncanny X-Men by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and The Essential X-Men by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum and John Byrne, tops!

So I guess now we'll never learn what became of the 13 babies from Inferno which Freedom Force never delivered back to their parents - just to mention one of at least 100 unresolved plotlines I can immediately think of.

And you know... The thing that used to make me buy most every Marvel title was that one never knew where one might get the answer to questions one had been excited about getting the answers to. It was like all of the series was a small part of the big picture which was the Marvel Universe. And back then one knew that the answers would be coming eventually.

But up through the nineties, the answers stopped coming and the sense of an overall big picture dissolved. And if one storyline did get resolved, it would be in a fashion that left two or three brand new unresolved questions in its place. It was a very maddening and frustrating period.

Now I've given up on seeing anything unresolved getting tied up in a neat knot. I've gotten used to the way things are now and I don't buy anything expecting answers to anything in the past. I just buy what is done by creators I expect to like on characters I like. And when they leave a title after their six or twelve issue stint (typically equalling two storylines = two trade paperbacks), I leave too, unless the new creative team is to my liking as well.

And when a storyarc is done, so is typically the story. Subplots seem to be a thing of the past, which is a pity as I kind of like those. Thankfully, Claremont still use sub-plots to some extent, as with the one concerning Jamie Braddock in current Uncanny X-Men issues. Bless him. He's still my favorite writer.

I used to collect to get full runs of series - and I still get a kick out of buying back issues from the sixties, seventies and eighties to complete holes in my collection, but from the nineties and onwards I've got holes in runs that I have no intention of filling.

What used to make a series worth following was the sense of direction - that the writer had some long-term plan and specific places the characters were moving towards. In this new (trade paperback) story-arc era that sense is gone. An ongoing series seems more like an ongoing series of limited series as opposed to an actual ongoing series. Which I suppose is good if you want to save money. Every six months or so, a series has an ending you can use as an opportunity to jump off.

Sinister said:

I think it was only towards the end of Morrison's run that Jean became really powerful again. And lol, Magneto might be a bad example since it was faux-Magneto that killed her this last time.

Sinister said:

They've lightened up on that a lot in recent years though. Love 'em or hate 'em, JMS's "Sin's Past", Bendis's "Disassembled" and Waid's "Unthinkable" storyarcs would never have seen the light of day a few years back.

scififilmnerd said:

wow scifi, I agree on pretty much everything you said, especially the series with holes in them. The late 90's is just about when I stopped collecting for every reason you mentioned. I buy here and there now, but the prices are ridiculous. I mean, I understand the indies, but the big fucking two regularly charge 3-5 for 16 page comics. It's bullshit.

Oh, Chris is an incredible writer. I always liked Peter David also. Frank Miller needs to do more, I would buy it all. Neil Gaimen is overrated, although I loved Sandman.

jerseykrs said:

Oh, I dunno. I think DC is doing a good job of finding that balance these days. They let their writers come up with some cool ideas, but reign 'em in when they start to get TOO nutty with it.

scififilmnerd said:

Are you saying I'll never find out who the third Summers sibling is?

jerseykrs said:

I agree with y'all almost completely, with the exception of your comments about Claremont. He USED to be fantastic, but nowadays he's just lost it.

Oh, and Gaiman isn't underrated at all! He's fantastic!

JediMaster said:

That's just recently though. For the longest time, they were the WORST!

jerseykrs said:

I would also give Kurt Busiek credit for resolving seemingly every single Avengers dangling plot thread in the 'Avengers Forever' limited series.

sextonseven said:

Oh, Claremont will dig that up in Excalibur, and it will be something no one will even care about. That book is a prime example of how badly Claremont needs to retire.