Marvel Comics General

Speaking of which, was Uncanny Avengers any good? Because I tried to read Hickman's Avengers but that was shit, so.

I didn’t like it

The whole team was constantly angry at each other, Havok said that thing that made everyone angry, and the Apocalypse twins story was Pretty Stupid

That’s where I jumped off, when they destroyed the Earth

Did anyone ever tell Past-Angel or Angel in general that he had twins that almost destroyed the world?

×2

That was the first run though.

What about the others?

I was planning on checking out No Road Home at some point, but I'm a bit iffy on No Surrender. Mostly because it looks like the Grand Finale to an era of Avengers I haven't read.

It's the Grand Finale, technically, but you don't actually have to read what came before. I understood everything, even without reading Jim Zub's Uncanny Avengers run. (If you get a chance, however, you should definitely read Al Ewing's New Avengers / US Avengers run. Also, the last two issues of Ewing's Captain America and the Mighty Avengers before Secret Wars are so good and so tragic.)

Edited by alliterator on May 28th 2019 at 5:31:09 AM

Is that the one where you, the audience, is an Avenger?

That was good

Yep. The ending of Captain America and the Mighty Avengers is just so good. Ewing really knows how to tug at your heartstrings.

I completely forgot about Ewing's Avengers runs.

Maybe I'll go read those. They looked really darn good from what I saw of them.

I remember at least 2 cool things from Remenderd Uncanny run being Young Thor vs Apoaclypse & then Thor totally caving in the male Apocalypse Twins face.

Edited by slimcoder on May 28th 2019 at 5:56:24 AM

I’ve been reading Panther’s Quest and loving it especially the artwork. It also got me thinking of checking out more Black Panther. I’ve already read Don Mc Gregor’s Jungle Action, the Christopher Priest run, and started the Coates run. So, I was wondering should I check out the Jack Kirby run or the Reginald Hudlin run? Those seem to be the more divisive Black Panther comics.

The original Secret Wars comic is just... so much' dumb fun. It's this weird little microcosm of everything that was going on in Marvel at the time. It's so weird to go back to a time where Wolverine and Iron Man were just dudes. I've seen Wolverine get knocked over the horizon four times in three issues.

Christopher Priest spotlighted some obscurities in T'Challa's history when he talked of his inspirations for his run and TNC talked of Hudlin's run well. I think Hudlin is ripe for revival. People bashed him for not being Priest even if his run was more successful and so on. But now I think people appreciate it better

"Once I began researching Panther as a comics pro (whatever that means), I tended to agree more with Mc Gregor’s Panther than others. His obvious investment in logically thinking through the basic realties of the African continent and his fleshing-out of Wakanda are amazing and valuable assets to the Marvel Universe. His Jungle Action mega-arcs, what has been lauded as 'Marvel's first graphic novel,' were a real gift, and I saw no need to retcon, ignore or otherwise do away with what he or subsequent writer Peter Mc Gillis created...Denys Cowan and Dwayne Turner’s visions of Wakanda, as an ersatz African Epcot Center, opened my eyes to the unexploited possibilities; these men, both of whom are African American, together with writer Peter B. Gillis, created an African Asgard of sorts, and I just went, “Oh, my.”...Where paths diverge between my vision of Panther and those previous is the character of T’Challa himself. I can’t speak for Mr. Mc Gregor (whom I do not know), but my impression was he saw Panther as the ultimate realization of human potential whose bravery was exemplified in his willingness to risk his life in the service of others. I see T’Challa that way as well, but I defer to Stan Lee, whose bedrock for this character was he was a man who outsmarted Reed Richards and out-fought the Thing. Those key notes seemed missing from Mc Gregor’s Panther, and to me Stan (whom I do know) is Moses; his original concepts are the stone tablets of modern comics. Thus, it made absolutely no sense to me that Panther wouldn’t at least nominally protect himself from things like small arms fire or stabbing weapons, and that, at the very least, he’d carry an iPhone (which is what his Kimoyo card essentially is)."

— Christopher Priest, Interview by Zack Smith, Newsarma, February 18, 2018. Priest on Black Panther, Pt. 1: 'Everyone Kind Of Forgot Who PANTHER Was'

"I think one of the things that Priest did...I’ve been thinking a lot about this, mostly about him, Hudlin, and I know Hickman isn’t a Black Panther or writer but he kind of was and kind of made a contribution to the character...Priest had the responsibility to get people to take this guy seriously. The whole reason you have a movie right now is because of Priest. He had the challenge of getting a mostly white readership to take the guy seriously. Then I feel like the next thing Hudlin was trying to do was almost like trying to write this character for black folks. I was like not only is he badass but you know he is going to tell these white folks what time it is...He is like the dream that we wish we had. That’s what he is. And then Hickman just kind of deconstructed all of that. This is the year before I started writing and I was like, “What’s my place? Where am I going? What am I supposed to be doing here? What is this?” That was one of the big questions I had."

That's Rhodes in the armor, not Tony.

I actually legit think that Secret Wars (1984) is a masterpiece and a great comic in terms of art and story. It's imperfect, flawed and so on, but the pluses outweigh everything.

I'm well aware, but it's still the same armor taking the same amount of ass-kicking.

And also, Hulk's in this weird state of technically having Banner's brain, but also just being a big fucking whiny baby and a bully. It's weirdly entertaining to see a Hulk that's not tragic or this big, forboding, terrifying monster. He's just a dickhead.

And again, lets all remember the time that Spidey solo'ed the entire Xmen team.

Though I think the dude's writing at the time didn't like the Xmen all that much.

"Even if legislators vote for this bill and Trump signs it, it may be challenged in court as unconstitutional." I mean, Marvel itself successfully argued in court that mutants aren't human, no reason to think it'd be different in the comics. (It was some case regarding toy sales, I don't care enough to look up the details, but yes, Marvel went to court and argued that mutants aren't human.)

Anyway, you're applying more thought to the whole thing than Marvel ever does. The US passed a law banning mutants. Would that be constitutional in the real world? Who cares! In the story, the law passed, that's what matters. The law only matters in stories that are specifically about the law. If you see neither Matt Murdock nor Jennifer Walters in a comic, it's safe to assume any questions regarding something's legality are totally irrelevant.

Toy Biz, Inc. v. United States. Basically, a "doll" was subject to a 12 percent tax, but a "toy" was only subject to a 6.8 percent tax. The difference was that a "doll" was specifically human, while a "toy" was of something nonhuman (like an animal or robot). So Toy Biz, Marvel, and Ike Perlmutter argued that mutants were "nonhuman creatures" in order to get around paying a tax on them.

Technically, if you say humans are specifically Homo sapiens sapiens, then mutant aren't human, they are classified as Homo sapiens superior or Homo mutantis (depending on the Earth). But it's still a pretty stupid thing to argue.

Yeah, in-universe, the argument for mutants not being protected under certain laws would be that homo sapiens superior are explicitly a different species, and thus they're not human, and thus they're not a protected class.

Of course, in reality, there's all sorts of laws that allow for discrimination against various groups of people. There are 26 states where it's legal to fire someone just for being queer; things are even worse for people who are trans, and the Republicans are dead-set on making it worse.

So yeah, laws discriminating against mutants, and even outlawing mutants, aren't actually hard to believe. It's just exhausting, reading that story over and over. That's the real problem with this kind of X-Men story, is just how over-done it is.

I hate that there's no intersectionality between Mutants and other persecuted minorities. There's no allies, there's no support groups, there's no humans rallying on behalf of mutants, we just apparently hate Mutants as a species. We all took a group vote on it and decided that was the way it was, forever.

I do love the Iceman solo run. Like, more than I ever thought I would.

Re: Uncanny Avengers. The failure of this book makes me so mad because the conept should've been great, had it been handled by better writer but it was so bleh and then it just became another Avengers team.

Seconding (Thirding?) the recommendation for Sina Grace's Iceman. Hopefully the trade sells well for a another run.