Condemned by History cleanup thread

Oh, so that's what that Law and Order SVU episode was based on.

Should we remove Ultimate Marvel, then? I may point as well that the comic Ultimates #100 (completely unrelated to the Ultimate Marvel imprint, the title is a case of In Name Only), soon to be released, is including the return of the Ultimates from the Ultimate Marvel universe. This cover of the issue seems like a clear homage to the former title, not as the mockery we would require to talk about DTD.

Anecdotal evidence is pretty useless, but for what it's worth, most comic fans I know use the aforementioned Identity Crisis as a shorthand for "3edgy5me" writing in modern comics - not the Ultimate Universe.

It IS admittedly the fanbase that shows the most backlash and not creators themselves when it comes to Ultimate Marvel

However, the continuity thing is a very present. It became an example of a place where continuity basically didn't matter, where writers did whatever they wanted and ignored what previous writers did. See every run of Ultimates that had a new writer, where the unvierse is FILLED with examples of Aborted Arc. Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four had character personalities changing to fit their mainstream Marvel continuity before changing back before changing again.

While never clear if it was a DIRECT reference, Ed Brubaker's INCREDIBLY popular Captain American run had Steve Rogers show a deep respect of the French who fought in World War II, and disparage those who call them cowards. It came out not long after Ultimate Captain America said that he doesn't surrender, because the A on his head doesn't stand for France, which became a meme.

When it comes to hilarious edginess, I've found that the Ultimate Universe is referred to when it comes to darkening of characters. But it DOES come up when "edginess" is brought up. I've found that Identity Crisis is brought up usually when concerning dark RETCONS, while Ultimate Marvel is brought up for dark INTERPRETATIONS of characters. When it's just attempts to be dark and edgy in general, I've seen Mark Millar in general come up (along with other creators associated with "edginess") and some references to both Ultimate Marvel and Identity Crisis.

edited 2nd Aug '17 3:13:25 AM by FuzzyBarbarian

Also, regarding Ultimates #100, that's because the entirety of Marvel Legacy is specifically ABOUT honouring the past. That cover you linked is a reference to the Ultimates' most well-known cover... because it's a variant (as in not the most-used cover) specifically DESIGNED to do that. EVERY Marvel Legacy ongoing gets a variant like that. And even then, we don't know what's going to be done with them IN the comic, it might very well end up being a Take That!.

edited 2nd Aug '17 4:12:57 AM by FuzzyBarbarian

For the record, the comment about Brubaker can be seen here. As you can see, it is not a direct reference to the ultimates, it is just an alternative view on the issue of whether French are "cowards" or not. Have in mind that those comics were released by the time France refused to join the US in the War of Terror, and (notwithstanding who was right or wrong) MANY people in the US held that belief. Ultimate Captain America does not say that from out of the blue. Brubaker's Author Tract may not be necessarily adressing the Ultimates in this remark, but the general belief about the French that was out there in the real world.

Everything you said is true. However, Ultimate Steve was likely referring to the French in World War II, given the point of his character, and main Cap was EXPLICITLY referring to that era, so it may very well still be a reference. I believe there was a Comic Legends Revealed post that examined this, but CBR nuked its own site and things are weird, so I may be right and it's just hard to find or I may be wrong. But yeah, that's a weird one given the weird context.

Again, I simply added the Ultimate U because I'd noticed it seemed to have gone from a Better Than Canon option around the Civil War era to a joke punchline now. Maybe I've just been hanging around some very specific places or something, but that's just how it's seemed to me.

I think so. The initial cleanup has been done for a while, but the thread still seems to be serving a semi-regular purpose as new entries are considered and old ones reconsidered.

Just found this on She's All That:

• Deader Than Disco: Used to be a very popular film, but the end of the 90s and increasing parodization have reduced it to prime Snark Bait.

Weren't there always people snarking about that film?

Yup, it had 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, hardly universal acclaim. But it was incredibly succesful at the box office (over $100 million from a $10 million budget) so I guess it will depend on your definition of "very popular".

@Hamburger Time

Well, for what it's worth, we must hang around the same places then. Along with Julian Lapostat. It's one big party! But yeah, it does seem to be a common opinion, unless all three of us hang out around the same places, it's certainly not rare.

Also, again, Chuck Austen shouldn't be on the page. He was never popular (even the linked article doesn't say that). He had one obscure, apparently good baseball porn comic and a War Machine miniseries that was never seen as anything GREAT. That was it. Everything else was the looooooooong fall. He's bad, but he was certainly never considered good.

edited 5th Aug '17 12:19:45 PM by FuzzyBarbarian

Found this on Shadows Fall:

• Deader Than Disco: At their peak, they were one of the biggest melodic metalcore acts (only Killswitch Engage and maybe As I Lay Dying hit it bigger at the time, though All That Remains eclipsed them much later on) and one of the bigger heavy acts in the world as a whole. Their attempted major label jump didn't go as planned, however, and they lost a whole lot of ground; by 2009, their sound was starting to become dated, and the overly hostile reaction to "Another Hero Lost" (their one attempt at a big radio hit) had scared them away from going in a direction that could have caught up with the times. By 2012, they had gone from a big-name headliner to a mid-level support act, and when they embarked on their farewell tour in 2014, dismal attendances at tiny clubs and bars were the order of the day. They weren't the only one of their peers to fall off, but none of them fell as far or as hard as they did.

Shoehorning. Fails the "man on the street" test, too obscure.

Also fails the "backlash" test, at least as written. "Didn't successfully progress, and became dated" is not the same as "became hated".

I'm sure Northern Exposure and 1st and Ten aren't universally hated, if it's remembered at all these days.

From YMMV.Transformers Film Series:

• Deader Than Disco:
  • In terms of reception, a lot of people thought that the first movie was actually pretty good at the time it was released, with sentiments along the lines of "I'd never thought I'd say this, but good job, Michael Bay!" became prevalent. With the perceived Sequelitis of Revenge Of The Fallen and its effect on the critical reception of every other movie, the movie is now considered to be tripe.
  • The series in general has become this in its native United States. Ever since Dark of the Moon, each movie generates less hype than the previous one, and every movie since then has grossed less than its predecessor domestically, to the point that Age of Extinction made less money than the first movie. With the rise of similarly effects-laden action blockbusters such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe that are much better-received by critics and audiences, not many people are stoked for new Transformers installments. However, in some countries outside the US, the series fared much better - especially in Asian countries such as China and Malaysia. This came to a head with The Last Knight, however, with it having a severe drop in theater attendance after its release, and the film being the first outright Box Office Bomb in the series.

Misuse?

The first Bayformers was heavily criticized from Day One for, among other things, focusing more on the human characters than the titular robots, the robot designs looking too similar to one another, and the action scenes having too much shaky-cam to see the action. It was very successful, but hardly universally beloved.

Misuse.

edited 7th Sep '17 4:28:21 PM by HighCrate

I have a question, is this a place where we can make suggestions for Deader Than Disco?

As much as I hate the Transformers movies, are clearly not examples. First they were never really universally acclaim, they were panned by critics and some fans of the franchise since the first one, second they're hardly universally hated, the last one bombed but having a bomb in a franchise with five movies is not unusual. The movie franchise as a whole was pretty profitable and is far from suffering from universal hate.

And yes.

edited 13th Sep '17 2:13:14 AM by Luppercus

Those Transformers films have always been dumb action flicks with lots of explosions. The only thing that's changed is who's loudest about their opinions.

Found this on Li'l Abner:

• Deader Than Disco: The strip fell into this pretty hard. For a couple of decades (40s-60s), it was the most popular comic strip in America by a mile, with an estimated daily readership of 70 million in the US alone (back when the country's population was ~180 million.) The strip produced omnipresent merchandise and even a few live-action films. Al Capp was called the modern-day Mark Twain. Characters from the strip, such as Daisy Mae, Sadie Hawkins, and Lena the Hyena were part of the Small Reference Pools. It also spawned an extremely successful spinoff character, the Schmoo, which was a cultural phenomenon in its own right. The main reason it died off in popularity was because of its complete alienation of the baby boomer generation. Al Capp became increasingly conservative in his later years, and the strip started taking regular potshots at the civil rights movement, hippies, and anti-war protesters, including an infamous feud with John Lennon. Perhaps even worse, in 1971, Al Capp got caught in multiple near-simultaneous sex scandals that led to many newspapers dropping the strip out of protest. Due to these two factors, the strip's popularity plummeted in the 70s, until it finally ended in 1977 by Capp himself. The result is that today, the strip is a footnote in the history of American pop culture if it's even remembered at all. Perhaps ironically, its biggest continuing legacy might be the concept of Sadie Hawkins dances.

We voted to cut Li'l Abner back when we were cleaning up the subpages. As written, that doesn't qualify as an example because it doesn't establish retroactive backlash, it just states that the strip faded into obscurity.