AaronSuperior said:

That's true. It didn't last. Thank goodness... But those ten years or so were... NOT so good. I blame Moore and Miller

scififilmnerd said:

i'm sorry, this is just incorrect.

he was the reason Claremont left in the first place, and while Harras was EIC during the boom, things quickly and steadily declined, both quality-wise and sales-wise throughout the 90's. it wasn't until 2000, when he was canned and replaced by Joe Quesada that things turned around creatively and financially.

yes, he did hire Claremont back in the late 90's, but his title as an overseer was completely useless, until her returned to write the X-Men in 2000.

Harras is notorious for having "plotted-by-committe" all of the crappy crossovers and the general dire direction of things throughout the 90's. even Claremont's return to the 2 core X-books was meddled with by Harras and his crony Mark Powers. it was under Harras' reign that Marvel went creatively and financially bankrupt, completely.

sigh

all i know is that i loved John Byrnes xmen so much


i still buy his lobotomized crap today



sigh

<--- remembers when comics cost $0.30 each

hurm

bampf

AaronSuperior said:

Not true. Marvel filed for bankrupcy while Tom DeFalco was editor-in-chief. All the Infinity crap and die-cut covers and what have we happened during his reign. Bob Harras managed to turn it around.

From a creative standpoint - how good is the product as opposed to how well it sells - Marvel has never been worse off than it is now under Quesada. There is very little substance in their books these days. Look at Morrison's X-Men - he's been writing it for a LONG tiime now, and we've got, what? Twelve issues actual worth of story? Nothings happening.

Thank God for X-Treme X-Men. Chris Claremont is still the only good x-writer for me.
[This message was edited Sat Sep 6 15:57:07 PDT 2003 by scififilmnerd]

teller said:

Your age is showing.

shausler said:

I gave up on Byrne a long time ago. He is completely byrned out - pun intended.

- like Prince.

(Evil-edit)
[This message was edited Sat Sep 6 15:56:36 PDT 2003 by scififilmnerd]

nothing lasts forever

hey

who wants a song?

shausler said:

do!

scififilmnerd said:

on that last part, I absolutely agree. Claremont is still my favorite writer.

I totally disagree about the quality of books that came out while Harras was EIC as opposed to Quesada. Marvel, in the 90's, under Harras, steadily declined in both sales and quality. Onslaugh. Operation Zero Tolerance. Heroes Reborn. Spider-clones.

Under Quesada, while you may not like the stories, the level of quality has risen exponentially. Morrison on the X-Men or Strazinsky on Spider-Man may not be to your taste, but it is undeniable that the ideas and level of storytelling going on at Marvel now are better than they have been in a decade. So are sales.

I much prefer Quesada with Morrison and Strazinsky to the Marvel of Harras with Lobdell and Mackie. So do most readers, if sales are anything to go by.

scififilmnerd said:

Byrne is very much like Prince. He's bitter and old, and a shell of his former talent. That, and he burns every bridge he crosses by throwing a tantrum and walking out every time something doesn't go his way

Is this the same "Byrne" that did the "Man of Steel" ?

teller said:

yes. and the X-Men in the late 70's. and the Hulk, Avengers, and FAntastic Four at various points.
[This message was edited Sat Sep 6 16:32:40 PDT 2003 by AaronSuperior]

AaronSuperior said:

The spider-clone was a DeFalco-approved thing. The crossovers during Harras were limited to specific lines (except for Onslaught because of the Heroes Reborn deal with Liefeld and Lee) as opposed to DeFalco's company wide.
Harras reduced the number of monthly books considerably and focused on quality as opposed to DeFalco's quantity. The ploy worked. Marvel DID come out of the bankrupcy intact. Yes, sales have gone down, but that's not a problem related to Marvel, but the entire industry which you can hardly blame Harras for. (More, like, Image and DC which continued to spit out books in large quantities.)



Sales are only up because of the movies. Sales are still ridiculously low compared to the numbers sold in the eighties. Morrison's X-Men have gone down the sale charts. He is not selling X-Men like the X-Men sold before him, so apparently I am not the only one who thinks his stories are stretched WAY too thin. (I liked his Animal Man and Doom Patrol. Not so much his JLA, though.)

I like Straczynski's Spider-Man. Definitely an improvement. But those DO take longer than 5 minutes to read, so I am getting my money's worth on those.

Anyways, I doubt Quesada will last much longer as editor-in-chief considering the X-Men is now selling what got Ms: Marvel canccelled in the seventies. Unless the addition of Phil Jimenez as penciler manages to turn it around. Morrison and Jimenez were certainly good together on The Invisibles, so I'm hoping things will improve.

AaronSuperior said:

Too true!
[This message was edited Sat Sep 6 16:42:15 PDT 2003 by scififilmnerd]

.
[This message was edited Sun Sep 7 3:11:00 PDT 2003 by shausler]

<--- actually read Watchmen once, long ago, before he swore off comics forever

<---ok third person thing starting to concern shausler

shausler said:

Trademarks and gimmicks take time and nurturing, as you well know.

scififilmnerd said:

HEY! WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT SONG, YOU

I AM STILL WAITING!

...

Still waiting
Waiting for that love to come around

scififilmnerd said:

Harras did no reduce the number of books. They went up. The only difference is that there became less of everything else, and more X-books. As for the Spider-clones... that wasn't De-Falco. That was late-90's.

The decline in the industry is not to be blamed on Harras alone, but the low quality and low expectations created at Marvel in the late 90's are directly the result of Harras plotting the books and giving writers little to no control.




not true. sales on Spider-Man were way up MONTHS before the movie. the first X-Men movie coincided with the return of Claremont, and sales did go up then, and QUICKLY slid back down. Harras would not let Claremont finish stories he'd begun, and Harras was adamant about the books not looking or feeling anything at all like the movie. this was ultimately what got him fired. sales declined, even though X-Men was one of the biggest movies of the summer.



of course, but they are steadily increasing.




actually, his numbers are still above what they were before he came on board. it is always in the top 10, and is one of the top 5 books every month, if you discount nostaligia titles that debut high, and limited series.

[quote] so apparently I am not the only one who thinks his stories are stretched WAY too thin. (I liked his Animal Man and Doom Patrol. Not so much his JLA, though.)

I like Straczynski's Spider-Man. Definitely an improvement. But those DO take longer than 5 minutes to read, so I am getting my money's worth on those.[/quote


agree with you there.




how do you figure? X-Men is consistently Marvel's top-selling, montly, non-Ultimate book. it IS still the #1 Marvel Universe book. things are never going to be like they were in the 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's, and i'm glad for it. Quesada has managed to turn Marvels sales and creative quality around from absolute garbage.

and he isn't about to get fired. his contract was just re-signed.

AaronSuperior said:

Apparently we read the same things and the same sales figures and chart placings differently. Who is to say who is right?

But he Spider-clone saga DID begin during Tom DeFalco's reign. That cannot be discussed. Check out the issues and you will see who is listed as editor-in-chief.



I remember somebody else who signed a contract, only with WB...

It's fun discussing this all with you Aaron, but it's getting really late here in Denmark (half past two in the middle of the night) and I am getting tired, so that's why I'm stopping here.

Now I just want that song SHAUSLER promised! Mebbe it can lull me to sleep?

If you don't already, check out superherohype.com
Every once in a while they'll post something about the proposed (and slowly dying) Watchmen movie.
...and a l'il bit o' trivia for those who don't know...
The Watchmen was originally supposed to be a springboard to introduce the old Charlton comics characters into the DC Universe. But, because of DC's red tape, they nixed Alan's original idea. So, he changed the characters and created this wonderful story.
Need proof?
Nite Owl = Blue Beetle
Rorshach = The Question
Silk Spectre = Nightshade
Dr. Manhattan = Captain Atom
The Comedian = Peacemaker
...or, you could just find an interview with Alan Moore where he talks about that...

I think the last western comics I read was probably Sandman.. and Hellblazer. Years ago! Has anything wonderful happened since then? I quite liked other stuff like Lobo, Kid Eternity etc.

ian said:

there's a Rawhide Kid series out now... in which the Rawhide Kid is now gay.


which would be interesting, except that it's written by a hack, who no matter what he and his cohorts tell you are his credentials in television and elsewhere, do not make him a good writer, nor even a good comic book writer.

As a result of this thread, in a fit of nostalgia I ordered a few graphic novels from Amazon of stuff I had when I was younger, including:

Sláine the Horned God 1&2- I just love Bisley's art in this series
Ballad of Halo Jones
Watchmen
V for Vendetta
and a few old Dredd collections.

One of these days I'll get around to getting the Batman stuff again. I got rid of all my comics when I was a teenager, I didn't think I'd ever want to look at them again Including all of the UK Marvel Transformers comics from Issue #1!!


The great thing, now I'm a grown-up comics seem really cheap

There's a Dredd Vs Death videogame out soon... it looks a bit rubbish but I'll take a risk on it. Hopefully a few more of the old 2000AD stories will get made into games (like Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog, Sláine etc)

The Watchmen was originally supposed to be a springboard to introduce the old Charlton comics characters into the DC Universe. But, because of DC's red tape, they nixed Alan's original idea. So, he changed the characters and created this wonderful story.
Need proof?
Nite Owl = Blue Beetle
Rorshach = The Question
Silk Spectre = Nightshade
Dr. Manhattan = Captain Atom
The Comedian = Peacemaker
Hey I didn't know that I have even never heard of these superheroes and Charlton comics
Now I think that Watchmen is a sort of love letter to the super heroes/ comics popular culture of the past

ian said:

D-U-M-B A-S-S :LOL: