Marvel Comics General

Has Marvel ever used the Collector to spoof the speculator boom because if not why do they fail forever?

I haven't read all of Spencer's recent comics, but from the ones I have read, I can see that he sometimes can be really clever and on point with political humor, but other times it falls flat because of the extent that someone is just a Strawman Political.

Like I thought Beetle's "Hilary Clinton of drug lords" speech in Superior Foes was great because it sounds quite inspirational until undermined by that Breathless Non Sequitur that fits the character. And similarly, with Viper in Captain America and Power Broker in Ant Man, among other instances, there's these nice black comedy moments where the character's otherwise normal pro-capitalist comments are combined with reminders that they are a murderous supervillain. However, I think it worked better in some of these circumstances than others. Like the Power Broker has it as his whole character to be a (more) evil Tech Bro, but in other cases it can feel a bit like someone being out-of-character in service of a political joke.

The Bombshells are obviously a way less successful version. I know that the KKK expy guys making a comment about having to press 1 for English got a lot of criticism in conservative spheres (and may have prompted Spencer to include the Bombshells for "balance"), but I thought it was a good joke. Same kind of Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick as the other successful examples. Not to mention, no one really should expect a KKK member to make insightful political commentary, whereas although "SJW's"/ college students can be aggravating, you're talking about legitimate concerns and people for whom you'd think there should be some nuance in presentation.

Lastly, not really a fan of that line with the Green Skull to the effect that "The inconvenient truth that you all must die!" Although the Green Skull character is kind fo a joke as it is, it's the same kind of easy joke/just having the character state their ideology that was done with the Bombshells.

Tl; dr- It can be really funny and effective to do in-character political humor (see also some recent riffs on Superior Spider-Man and Peter/Ditko being Randians), but it doesn't work to just make a character who is nothing more than a broad political caricature.

Edited by Hodor2 on Aug 7th 2018 at 11:07:50 AM

You know the thing that actually pissed me off about Spencer's "SJW" parodies? As petty as it's going to sound, what pissed me off was using safe spaces and trigger warnings as punch lines. Because these are real things that serve real, legitimate uses. And conservatives always make fun of them, treat it like it's just people being overly sensitive and shit. But their dismissal of safe spaces and trigger warnings is actually harmful. And Spencer played right into that shit. He insulted the concepts of safe spaces and trigger warnings. And that was wrong.

And that's what pissed me off.

Though Spencer didn't create the Green Skull, he was an existing bit part gag villain whose whole thing is that he's an idiot comparable to DC's Floronic Man in that Swamp Thing story where he tried to wipe out all non-plant life to "save" the Earth.

I thought the Green Skull was an amalgamation of the Red Skull and Lex Luthor.

Turns out, Ike Perlmutter has been running the VA secretly.

I do think the Green Skull is pretty amusing, and I especially liked that detail in USA Avengers suggesting that he might be the father of the plutocrat villain Golden Skull. Really, anyone who is a Costume Copycat of the Red Skull is not someone with the best of judgment.

But I think the Green Skull's lines in Captain America are kind of similar to those of the Bombshells in terms of being barely altered jargon. What makes it work better though is that it's the difference between having a villain express a parody of an ideology and attacking the ideology itself.

The Fantastic Four are finally back. However, my opinion is that they should have ended the arc of marvel two-in-one before, because their plots are conflicting right now, but will probably make sense with the ending. And which was the rush, anyway? We are still years before a new film is released

So I've finished the 1960's cap run in Tales of Suspense. Just as I expected it was dated but still entertaining. This is actually my first experience with Jack Kirby's art and I understand why he was called The King. While probably not his best work his artwork is still strong. Their's also a surprising amount of 3 and a couple of 4 parters though I think this has to do with Cap only having half a comic (funnily enough it feels Iron Man got more covers d dedicated to him than Cap).

Uncanny X-Men creative team announced. Ed Brisson (meh), Matthew Rosenburg (meh), and Kelly Thompson (yay!) are writing; Mahmud Asrar, R.B. Silva, Yildiray Cinar, and Pere Perez are penciling. Starts off with an event called Dissembled (missed opportunity for Diss-X-mbled). Looking at the cover, it looks like white Psylocke is here to stay.

Edited by MegaJ on Aug 10th 2018 at 10:42:26 AM

Wow.

Didn't know Byrne did that.

Disappointed.

He has also, IIRC, defended pedophilia and insulted Christopher Reeve when the latter was on his deathbed.

Ah Christ.

But sure, Marvel, give that guy more work.

...um...

Wait, wasn't it his decision to have Jean destroy an entire inhabited planet (which wasn't in the original draft of her time as Dark Phoenix)?

So it's kinda his fault that Jean was hit with her first death, isn't it?

Yeah, I think Claremont wanted her to eat a star, Byrne decided to make one of the planets inhabited. And then Shooter said that couldn't go unpunished.

Huh so now we know who to blame for that.

Whats interesting is that Shooter didn't stipulate death. Just not happily walking into the sunset with Scott after destroying an entire race.

I think he suggested space prison but Claremont decided that if Jean were put into space prison the X-Men would never stop trying to bust her out so decided she gotta die. Which he later admitted was a better ending than 'happily walks off into the sunset to marry Cyclops'

Still, its not hard to see artist writer friction like that as why Byrne and Claremont stopped collaborating on X-Men.

Although of all things that could have been the final straw, it was apparently a panel of Colossus pulling up a stump.

I don't think the Broccoli Genocide was really a case of miscommunication or tension. Claremont and Byrne were collaborators, which meant Claremont was fine with Byrne adding details. I mean, I doubt the resulting demands from Shooter helped Claremont/Byrne's relationship, but I also don't think it was a big source of conflict between them. Byrne got pissy when Claremont would change the tone of what he intended with the art. Things like, yes, Colossus straining to pull out a tree stump.

Byrne also apparently had trouble working with quite a few editors. The guy at my LCS has punned on "Byrne'd bridges."

So it looks like Singularity's going to show up in an issue of Ms. Marvel, which is awesome. I love Singularity and I've missed her. And seeing her interact with Ms. Marvel is bound to be pretty dang adorable.

Oh nice! I've missed Singularity too!

Stan Lee Has Been Granted a 3-Year Restraining Order Against His Former Manager and Guardian

https://io9.gizmodo.com/stan-lee-has-been-granted-a-3-year-restraining-order-ag-1828422713

Ironheart is getting a new solo, now under the pen of Eve Ewing.