Captain America: Civil War

I hated Civil War in the comics, .

Why is that? Any story that truly makes you wonder which side you would belong on seemed good to me. It was drawn out in some ways and just as drawn out it was "forgotten" also.

The concept was excellent to me. Something not done before (maybe DC's Legends Limited series)
 

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delericho

Legend
One of the best things to happen in comics was Claremont's run on the Uncanny X-Men, where you had a single writer on the book for over 15 years.

That's great for the people who've been reading since the start of those fifteen years. Not so good for the kid wanting to jump in somewhere in the middle of year eight.

Problem is that the latter invariably outnumber the former.
 

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow
That's great for the people who've been reading since the start of those fifteen years. Not so good for the kid wanting to jump in somewhere in the middle of year eight.

Problem is that the latter invariably outnumber the former.

not really, especially as X-Men had the advantage of rotating line up, evolving storylines and crossover events. For instance I came to X-Men when Piotr was searching for his sister but soon caught up on personalities even if backstory came later. Then of course you got the merchandizing and saturday morning cartoons to fill in gaps
 

Staffan

Legend
That's great for the people who've been reading since the start of those fifteen years. Not so good for the kid wanting to jump in somewhere in the middle of year eight.

Problem is that the latter invariably outnumber the former.

The thing is that it was a continuous story - more like a soap opera than an "arc" show like Babylon 5. It was fairly easy to jump on and figure out what was going on, with plenty of exposition to cover the bits that needed to be covered.

For example, in 1981 there was a two-parter X-Men story published called Days of Future Past (the movie wasn't an exact copy, but shared some of the same concepts). It showed a dystopian future where Sentinels had taken over America, and mutants were essentially kept in concentration camps. This future came to pass because of the assassination of a senator championing anti-mutant legislation. However, the remaining X-Men succeed in a plot to jam their power dampeners, which allows Rachel Summers, a young telepath, to project the adult Kate Pryde's mind into her past self, Kitty Pryde. In the past, Kate/Kitty gets the X-Men to stop the assassination, but instead the senator's wife dies. That's a change, but not exactly the rousing success they hoped for.

However, three years later (in real time), Rachel Summers manages to travel through time herself (instead of just sending Kate's mind back), and thus enters the "mainstream" Marvel Universe. In these issues, the background is explained so you understand what's going on, but if you've read the original stuff it's a much deeper experience. And then, of course, while the team are having all sorts of other adventures, Rachel has to deal with being in a world where her mother died as the Phoenix instead of the more peaceful resolution in her time-line that eventually lead to her birth, and all sorts of stuff like that.

I think the secret sauce was that in most cases, the long-term plot development was handled like B-plots, with more immediate A-plots to get resolved. There's a bad guy who wants to do bad stuff, punching ensues, and in the background there's some character development happening. The reader gets the immediate pay-off from the punching bit, but is also enriched by the character development. Now, the A-plot takes six issues instead of one or two to resolve, and there pretty much isn't any B-plot.
 

Nellisir

Hero
That's great for the people who've been reading since the start of those fifteen years. Not so good for the kid wanting to jump in somewhere in the middle of year eight.
Problem is that the latter invariably outnumber the former.

As has been said, that's not necessarily a problem. I did start in the middle of year ten or so; the middle of the Mutant Massacre, to be precise. (Yes, the Australian X-Men are my X-Men.) There were long arcs and short arcs.
 

ccs

41st lv DM
That's great for the people who've been reading since the start of those fifteen years. Not so good for the kid wanting to jump in somewhere in the middle of year eight.

Problem is that the latter invariably outnumber the former.

(Sales) History shows us that it was NOT a problem.
 


Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
The people running the comics nowadays would seem to disagree.

On what basis do you say that? That they aren't doing it the same way today?

I don't think that's a fair basis. The 1980s market and the 2010s market are separated by 30 years, and all the changes that go with the passing of time - strategies that worked back in the 1980s may not work well today.

Moreover, in order to pull that off, you need an author who is actually going to stick around and write your comics for that long - long enough to get married, have a kid, and have that kid grow up and enter high school - so many changes in personal lives and careers that you cannot really count on it happening. It is not unreasonable to say that run was a bit of a fluke - it may have been a highly functional one in its day, but that doesn't mean it is easily repeatable.
 

delericho

Legend
On what basis do you say that? That they aren't doing it the same way today?

Yes, exactly that.

Moreover, in order to pull that off, you need an author who is actually going to stick around and write your comics for that long...

That's true. But they don't even try. Instead, comics these days seem to be all about the next big event - it seems they have a massive universe-changing event planned every couple of years.

Having said that...

The 1980s market and the 2010s market are separated by 30 years, and all the changes that go with the passing of time - strategies that worked back in the 1980s may not work well today.

This is certainly true.
 

Well a new trailer is out that goes father into what the conflict is about.
[video=youtube;dcI8KLgluPc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcI8KLgluPc&feature=player_embedded[/video]
 

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