[Comics Wank]What It Would Take To Get Me To Buy Marvel/DC

Tumbling Down · Post by **Tumbling Down** » Fri May 31, 2013 1:22 pm

Chamomile wrote:You could make Punisher a Dread Pirate Roberts thing, where the original Punisher passes his mantle on down to another despondent veteran with similar but distinct personality, and then when he gets worn out pass him on to another.

That did actually happen in the recent Punisher: War Zone mini. Although it doesn't look like Marvel is going to run with it.

Lago wrote:Also, no sex or implied sex until Doc Ock is no longer inhabiting Peter Parker's body.

Yeah, you are really not going to like Superior Spider-Man.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri May 31, 2013 1:25 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote: And really, at this point I think it would be better to just come up with a new ultraviolent vigilante character altogether. Frank Castle isn't exactly a very complex character. The best characters in his stories are of those the adversaries, victims, and occasional allies. The character was basically an accident anyway.

What do you mean that he's an "accident"? That his character is an accident in-world, or that the existence of the character is an accident IRL?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri May 31, 2013 1:35 pm

The Punisher was a one-shot villain-of-the-week for Spider-Man. That could and probably should have been the end of it, but proved popular enough to do a bunch of team-ups and then got his own series just as the grim'n'gritty 80s were really getting under way.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri May 31, 2013 4:23 pm

Okay, so I've only read (mostly fawning) reviews and the TvTropes article, but I have to admit: Superior Spider-Man has made me hate One More Day slightly le--OH GOD IT DIDN'T!! SPIDER-MAN MADE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL TO ABORT HIS KID OH MY FUCKING JESUSCOPTERS

Dammit, I'm going into relapse.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri May 31, 2013 5:06 pm

The good: Doc Ock running around trying to be Spider Man using Peter Parker's memories is actually pretty fun.

The bad: Peter Parker's whiny bitch ghost is a waste of ink.

The creepy: Spider Man now remembers dating MJ and Aunt May. Ew.

-Username17

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Fri May 31, 2013 6:26 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Okay, so I've only read (mostly fawning) reviews and the TvTropes article, but I have to admit: Superior Spider-Man has made me hate One More Day slightly le--OH GOD IT DIDN'T!! SPIDER-MAN MADE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL TO ABORT HIS KID OH MY FUCKING JESUSCOPTERS

Dammit, I'm going into relapse.

I know it's stupid, but was there even a reason as to why he did it? Was it some stupid "The devil will take your baby so the earth can be saved" type thing, or was it more along the lines of "I'm Spider-Man and I don't want to be a daddy." Or was it done just for the shock factor, to prove that Marvel was "edgy"?

I mean, I really can't wrap my head around the concept that something like this could actually be allowed to happened on Gyub's fetid brown earth.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri May 31, 2013 6:35 pm

Aunt May was dying. Spidey tried everything, but even Dr. Strange and Maybe-Jesus told him it was just the old lady's time to die. Then Mephisto (the Devil) and offered to save her life, but if that happened he would take Peter Parker's marriage. And MJ and Peter agreed, and one of the side-effects is that their unborn kid was never conceived.

Sigil · Post by **Sigil** » Fri May 31, 2013 7:02 pm

That was literally when I stopped reading Spider-Man. Sacrafice the lives and happiness of your family (and whoever else, you're changing the time line), or let an old person die?

Wrong choice Spider-Man, wrong choice.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri May 31, 2013 7:11 pm

Rumour has it, because I can't be buggered to find the source, that this plotline was forced by the execs to get back to the character's roots and be more 'identifiable'.

Sigil · Post by **Sigil** » Fri May 31, 2013 7:20 pm

I wouldn't doubt it, what I do doubt is the part where they went "Yeah, we need to get Spider-Man back to his roots. Do it in the worst way possible, maybe use Satan?" That rests solidly at the feet of the writers.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri May 31, 2013 7:36 pm

It's not a rumor. Joe Quesada is a nostalgic fanboy who couldn't stand that Peter Parker wasn't a swinging bachelor anymore. So to appeal to his mid-life crisis a younger audience, he wanted Spidey not to be married. Because kids can't relate to married people, which is why stories about King Arthur are so unpopular.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri May 31, 2013 7:37 pm

Ancient History wrote:Aunt May was dying. Spidey tried everything, but even Dr. Strange and Maybe-Jesus told him it was just the old lady's time to die. Then Mephisto (the Devil) and offered to save her life, but if that happened he would take Peter Parker's marriage. And MJ and Peter agreed, and one of the side-effects is that their unborn kid was never conceived.

I've read at least two references to the "maybe Jesus" character. Who is this?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri May 31, 2013 7:55 pm

RobbyPants wrote:
Ancient History wrote:Aunt May was dying. Spidey tried everything, but even Dr. Strange and Maybe-Jesus told him it was just the old lady's time to die. Then Mephisto (the Devil) and offered to save her life, but if that happened he would take Peter Parker's marriage. And MJ and Peter agreed, and one of the side-effects is that their unborn kid was never conceived.
I've read at least two references to the "maybe Jesus" character. Who is this?

Stan Lee?

Tumbling Down · Post by **Tumbling Down** » Fri May 31, 2013 7:56 pm

Sigil wrote:I wouldn't doubt it, what I do doubt is the part where they went "Yeah, we need to get Spider-Man back to his roots. Do it in the worst way possible, maybe use Satan?" That rests solidly at the feet of the writers.

No, that was an editorial mandate.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri May 31, 2013 7:57 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sensat ... ssue_40.29

There are only two times a regular comic book character meeting Jesus has worked: Swamp Thing and John Constantine.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri May 31, 2013 9:29 pm

Tumbling Down wrote:
Sigil wrote:I wouldn't doubt it, what I do doubt is the part where they went "Yeah, we need to get Spider-Man back to his roots. Do it in the worst way possible, maybe use Satan?" That rests solidly at the feet of the writers.
No, that was an editorial mandate.

You know? JMS blames Quesada for the whole clusterfuck, but the fact is he did fucking write the damn thing. And every other time he's been given the opportunity to write something it has sucked ass too. And usually involved a shitty time warp caused by Satan.

After he had Wonder Woman get her costume changed by having her history retconned by having Satan go back in time and destroy Paradise Island... After he had Superman decide to walk across America and give rants about how illegal immigration is bad... After he had Gwen Stacy sneak off to France to voluntarily give birth to Norman Osbourne's time dilated babies... How is this not a trend?

JMS always writes major shitty changes to the characters in his works that don't make sense. He frequently has these changes invoked by major time distortions that also don't make sense. He repeatedly invokes bullshit "Deals With The Devil" in order to usher in major changes that don't make any fucking sense.

JMS wrote three of the top five worst comic events of the decade (Sins Past, One More Day, and Grounded). And only two of them were for Spider Man. Grounded isn't even Marvel, so it obviously can't be Quesada's fault. Wonder Woman: Odyssey would probably be on that list, but it didn't even make enough sense to rate being the top of the shit pile (and JMS left the title six months early).

I know that for some inexplicable reason, J. Michael Straczynski has a lot of fans who refuse to acknowledge his culpability for the atrocity that was One More Day. But let's face facts: all his other garbage is just as bad and just as bad in exactly the same way.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri May 31, 2013 9:42 pm

Look, I ain't sticking up for JMS. If you can get a 'godDAMN that was a sicknasty burn' audience reaction when the insulter is the guy who draws fucking Funky Winkerbean, you probably rim more than a few elephant anuses.

However, as badly written as it was, OMD would've just been an embarrassing but forgettable fuckup like Ben Reilly or the Other if Joe Quesada wasn't using it as a stalking horse to rub his smelly fanboy microdick over canon. His snide attitude towards the fanbase and smug rationalizations just rubbed salt into the wound.

Taken as it is, is OMD really that bad? Not really. It's on the VIP list of bad comics, but it ain't no Ultimates 3 or Sins Past where people will drop their whiskey shotglasses and slam on the piano keyboard if you mention it in the saloon hall. But it's seriously like the "VOY:Alliances" of works, where it has to be viewed in context to appreciate how awful it was. The comic being retarded is all JMS, but even if fucking Bruce Timm and Glen Murakami did the comic it would have sucked all that was ass.

This is pretty much where I'm coming from, anyway, if you get tired of my pointless vulgar similes: http://sfdebris.com/inprint/essays/nmsm1.asp

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri May 31, 2013 9:52 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:I know that for some inexplicable reason, J. Michael Straczynski has a lot of fans who refuse to acknowledge his culpability for the atrocity that was One More Day. But let's face facts: all his other garbage is just as bad and just as bad in exactly the same way.

I don't pay much attention to mainstream comics, but I'm not enough of a Straczynski fanboy to try and defend him; that does sound impressively bad. How did he manage to get something as good as Babylon 5, but then break out the retarded with storylines like that?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri May 31, 2013 10:02 pm

Babylon 5 is a sort of rose-tinted glasses thing. There was some good material in there, but people tend to overlook the vast amounts of stupid that went along with it...and it didn't help that Star Trek: DS9 routinely outperformed it. His stuff isn't always bad, but he has a very strong weakness for trying to make major, emotional changes, often by contrivance - which works great on a short, self-contained arc or miniseries, but works very badly over longer periods (where things just sort of build up into a catastrafuck) or tying in with other's work (see: Marvel's Civil War).

Silver Surfer: Requiem for example was a solid miniseries. Ten Grand is looking to be good, in no small part because of the art by Ben Templesmith.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Fri May 31, 2013 10:06 pm

virgil wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:I know that for some inexplicable reason, J. Michael Straczynski has a lot of fans who refuse to acknowledge his culpability for the atrocity that was One More Day. But let's face facts: all his other garbage is just as bad and just as bad in exactly the same way.
I don't pay much attention to mainstream comics, but I'm not enough of a Straczynski fanboy to try and defend him; that does sound impressively bad. How did he manage to get something as good as Babylon 5, but then break out the retarded with storylines like that?

Nevermind B5. How the mighty have fallen!

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Fri May 31, 2013 11:17 pm

What's Sins Past? I don't remember hearing about this extremely dire comic.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri May 31, 2013 11:23 pm

Ugh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwen_Stacy ... Remembered

Long Story Short: At some point before her death, Norman Osborne and Gwen Stacey had sex, and she got pregnant with twins.

She went to Paris, had the kids, dropped 'em off somewhere and came back without Peter or anybody being the wiser except Mary Jane. Twelve* (sliding time scale!) years or so later, they arrive in New York as fully grown, fast, superstrong adults that think Peter Parker/Spider-Man is their father. Except PP knows that he isn't their dad because he never had sex with Gwen (despite the fact that she was a tremendous slut back in the day), and Mary Jane clues him in on the story. Turns out they're dying yadda yadda Green Goblin formula will stabilize them yadda yadda the male twin takes it and goes crazy while the female twin doesn't...it was a terrible, terrible story.

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Fri May 31, 2013 11:27 pm

It's always weird to me when authors attempt to provide in-universe explanations for retcons. Like, do you really have to say "oh yes in Spider-Man there was a Deal With The Devil and now he's young and single again"? Can't you just... announce that you're gonna write Young Single Spider-Man stories and just put out new issues?

See also: Flashpoint, Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri May 31, 2013 11:32 pm

nockermensch wrote:
virgil wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:I know that for some inexplicable reason, J. Michael Straczynski has a lot of fans who refuse to acknowledge his culpability for the atrocity that was One More Day. But let's face facts: all his other garbage is just as bad and just as bad in exactly the same way.
I don't pay much attention to mainstream comics, but I'm not enough of a Straczynski fanboy to try and defend him; that does sound impressively bad. How did he manage to get something as good as Babylon 5, but then break out the retarded with storylines like that?
Nevermind B5. How the mighty have fallen!

hey, i actually have that series on my server O.o

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri May 31, 2013 11:38 pm

John Magnum wrote:It's always weird to me when authors attempt to provide in-universe explanations for retcons. Like, do you really have to say "oh yes in Spider-Man there was a Deal With The Devil and now he's young and single again"? Can't you just... announce that you're gonna write Young Single Spider-Man stories and just put out new issues?

See also: Flashpoint, Crisis on Infinite Earths.

They actually do that with the Punisher. Used to do that with Hellblazer. Works rather well.