Marvel Comics General

Ah. Now I want at least a miniseries about a typical month in that universe.

I actually forgot about AI. Wish is weird, because I loved that book. Loved it. I was so disappointed that it didn't sell better.

Edit: And yeah, Namor doing a Heel–Face Turn and a Face–Heel Turn is basically his thing.

edited 30th Aug '14 7:18:58 PM by Tiamatty

yeah but now hes killed multiple worlds. before he only killed his wives.

He married everyone on the planet just before he blew it up. No worries.

BIGAMY

I prefer Namor at his most dickish. Never understood the writer fascination with trying to make him a goody goody.

Well, Namor still has a good few years of WWII service in his backstory, so there's some grounds for that. Honestly though, I've always thought Namor was a dick even at his most 'goody'. I've never seen him as anything close to a straight-up hero.

I was reading about how David S. Goyer caught fire for claiming that She-Hulk was an extension of the male power fantasy with Hulk. While he was off with the thing about her being a "fuckable LI" I do think it's ironic just the same that Hulk's best known love interest was made into the Red She Hulk.

And basically all they do is fuck and break the world.

Reading a lot of old issues from the late 80's and early-to-mid 90's, it seems like there was a period where they were legitimately trying to make him a good guy, and it's weird.

I recently read a West Coast Avengers issue and a New Warriors one and his characterization in both of them seemed like a 180 from today.

By 'they', you might be referring mainly to John Byrne, who wrote the first run of his 90's series. This is the same man who turned the Vision into an emotionless husk because he thought that was how the character 'should be,' or ' originally was.' And in fact, he tried to explain Namor's mood swings away by saying that a lack of equal time spent in and out of water was what was responsible for them. Now, on the one hand, that's actually kind of clever, but on the other hand, not only does it attribute those mood swings to Namor's biological functions rather than his actual character, but it also gives Byrne an excuse to make him more of a 'good guy' by having him spend a more equal amount of time in both land and water. It's not nearly as bad a move as some of his other decisions, (I've mentioned one of them already...) but it is a bit... peculiar, to say the least.

edited 31st Aug '14 4:46:11 PM by kkhohoho

Oh yeah how dare the Vision have character development lets just boot him back to square one

thanks byrne

Ugggh, Byrne. Very talented, but in terms of personality there's not a more wretched man in in the biz. Spoilered for the weak-stomached: he's apparently a "pedophile rights" advocate.

edited 31st Aug '14 4:49:08 PM by HamburgerTime

Actually, he took the Vision right past square one, and into complete and total nothingness. The Vision was never an emotionless husk. Right from his earliest appearances, he had emotions, thoughts, and feelings, even if he wasn't the best at showing them, though he got better over time. This culminated in him becoming very emotional compared to how he had been previously, and he even had children with the Scarlet Witch. Well, not only did Byrne assassinate the Vision, but he inadvertently gave Bendis the idea for Disassembled. The basic ideas presented in that POS first showed up in Byrne's WC run, which probably helps to partially explain why Dissasembled is as bad as it is.

BYRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNE

Byrne was far from the firs to turn Namor into a hero. It was something that began in the '60s, really. He did have a solo comic, and he was usually portrayed as heroic there. In Roy Thomas' Invaders, Namor was a hero. Namor joined the Avengers sometime in the mid-80s, under Roger Stern. (I remember it was Stern because it was during the time when Monica Rambeau was a major character, and she was totally Stern's Pet Character.)

So, yeah, Byrne wasn't the only one trying to turn Namor into a hero.

As for what he did to the Vision: I've actually reached that stuff recently. Frankly, Englehart went way, way too far in humanizing the Vision. It actually made the character less interesting. Byrne just went too far in reversing that.

He also threw in some utterly pointless retcons, like revealing that Vision wasn't actually based on the design of the original Human Torch.

I thought you were one of the chief advocates of characters of characters actually being able to move beyond their problems and go on to other things. Heck, when I said that Wolverine having amnesia was more interesting and that perhaps they should go back to that, you spoke against it. So I don't really understand what seems to be not wanting Vision to develop and move beyond his problems, honestly.

Also, I saw Englehart's later treatment of the Vision as the conclusion of a character arc that had been brewing ever since Viz's debut. The problem was that this is comic books, and we can't have characters grow and change in an ongoing serialized universe where the characters have to keep going and going, can we? But you are right about John's treatment of the Viz'; he went far too far in reversing it, to the point where he went beyond reversing it. If I was in charge, I would have just had Viz and Wanda retire, living happily ever after with their kids. But, as I just stated, this is comic books.

edited 31st Aug '14 5:28:55 PM by kkhohoho

Oh, I'm all for development. And the Vision's development prior to Englehart was all good. But the thing is, the Vision has always been mechanical. He had emotions, but he was still a being of logic. He was human-like, but he wasn't, strictly-speaking, human. Englehart decided, "Fuck it, let's make him a normal person."

As soon as he dropped his unique speech bubbles and formal speech patterns, he ceased to be the same character. It went too far. Basically his entire personality was changed all at once, and it made him less interesting.

It was like the transition from Old!Spock to Abram!Spock. Emotions sometimes but mostly logical to ALL THE EMOTIONS, sometimes logical.

Heh. Dr. Strange #8, from 1989, opens with a bit of a Tales from the Crypt homage. The Crypt-Keeper stand-in - an old witch - says: "You say - Where's the Doctor? Doctor Who? Doctor Strange? Frankly, I don't think either one of them is going to show." A nice little reference.

Edit: Later in the issue, a guy is standing with a sign saying "The End Is Coming," with 'coming' crossed out and replaced with 'here'. He's saying, "I was right! This time I was right!"

Mephisto calls Satannish, "you leprous offspring of a rotting she-goat's offal and a swine's afterbirth." Mephisto has a way with words. I think he wins the fight based on that insult alone.

edited 31st Aug '14 6:48:36 PM by Tiamatty

Mephisto is great in pretty much everything but Spider-Man.

Yep. Mephisto's pretty awesome, a lot of the time. Also, I loved Ji M so, so much.

He's a snarky bastard.

I think I like him.

Satan should be a sassy bitch.

So, lets put comic Mephisto and movie Loki and Tony Stark together in a room.