[A little but not a lot OT] Marvel vs DC

[Korin Tempest]

to jump onto richards' post.. the original Supergirl just recently reappeared in the current Supergirl title..

 

[Richards]

Oh really? That's kind of cool. We're not talking about that chick with the short dark hair that showed up recently in that Superman 10-cent comic, are we?

Johnathan

 

[Korin Tempest]

sorry, couldn't tell you.. havent read the 10 cent... haven't been able to buy anything, been reading them off the rack at the local comic shop... been reading the usuals, plus the covers that catch my eye... but it's still weird

 

[Chun-tzu]

The Silver Age Supergirl showed up in Supergirl #75. Yes, the silver age one: young teen, blonde, Kryptonian Kara Zor-El. The series has been cancelled, and will end with #80. This last storyline will be collected into a trade paperback.

 

[Sulimo]

The Silver Age Supergirl showed up in Supergirl #75. Yes, the silver age one: young teen, blonde, Kryptonian Kara Zor-El. The series has been cancelled, and will end with #80. This last storyline will be collected into a trade paperback.

Yeah. I'm still angry with DC over the cancellation...

 

[Olive]

DC's later innovations were "dark" comics, which are usually over-rated or just outright poor and "mature" comics which are a complete and total mixed bag. For every hit that Veritgo has (Sandman, Preacher, and select runs of Animal Man and Hellblazer) there are 10 Vertigo titles that bomb. Many of the titles are just pretentious and for all the supposed good of comics FOR adults... DC has marketed Vertigo so poorly to mainstream America that it has had NO impact on the market.

Wait, DC hasn't marketed anything to the mainstream. Neither has Marvel for that matter. An entire industry that tries to survive without advertising? How amusing. I'll shut up now before I get angry again.

steve

no arguement on the impact of vertigo on the market, or the fact that most vertigo titles suck.

but how much advertising does WotC do to mainstream america?

 

[Moleculo]

i used to be a huge marvel fan. But in terms of quality, DC far exceeds Marvel, and i have since switched alliegences. By quality, i mean The Watchmen, Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, (my favorite) the Sandman, The Invisibles. DC caters it seems far more to the adult reader than Marvel, so thats why i like it more now i suppose.

 

[stevelabny]

WOTC promotes MAGIC: THE GATHERING with local tournaments and a PROFESSIONAL circuit.
MAGIC: THE GATHERING is available at stores OTHER than game shops.
Because of their handling of MAGIC, WOTC is bringing people from the mainstream over to game shops.
I've seen ads for Magic in various young male demographic magazines. Marvel and DC only advertise in their own products and the comic book magazines.
so although WOTC doesn't promote D&D directly, they are at least getting people into their neighborhood game shops.

which is more than half of the battle.

Almost every comic fan I knew during the industrys boom time in the mid 80s was brought into comics by the G.I.JOE comic book, which was ADVERTISED on TV. Myself included.

And not once did i ever want something i didn't know existed

steve

 

[Teflon Billy]

...the history of the marvel universe is RICH and INTERESTING not confusing and convoluted. as soon as you throw out the time discrepencies of "shouldnt they all be 50something if they were teens in the 60s". (i diagree with not aging them, but thats a whole nother rant) I didnt start reading comics in the 60s, but the 80s. When I first picked up a copy of Avengers and X-Men, i didnt say "these guys are cool, but they have a long history so i cant be bothered" , NO, i said "WOW, THESE GUYS ARE SOOOO COOL THAT I WILL READ EVERY MONTH, AND FIND BACK ISSUES SO I CAN READ ABOUT THEIR OLD ADVENTURES TOO" this is the pull of comics, and what keeps comic stores in business, and you cant have a business without comic stores.

Well, I bought my comics in a drugstore when I was a kid/teen, but I digress...

I'm not going to argue that the Marvel Universe is not interesting or rich. It is, I think this is displayed beautifully in the Earth X graphic novel...which tied a lot of Marvel's loose ends together.

But I really loved the restarts, because to be honest with you, the early Marvel comics just didn't make a hell of a lot of sense as far as character motivation.

I loved the Jim Lee retelling of the origin of the Fantastic Four in that Heroes Reborn restart a few years ago, because it attempted to put some kind of coherence behind things. It still included exposure ot Cosmic Rays, and the Mole Man and what have you...but it made sense (plot and motivation-wise) from a modern perspective.

I thin the sam can be said for The Ultimates. "Let's Get Together and Fight The Hulk" may have carried the day as an origin story back at the beginning of The Avengers, but to my sensibilites it reads awfully stupidly.

I like the idea that SHIELD is running things (cause I think we can all agree--with maybe a more informed worldview than the readership had back when The Avengers started up--that the government wouldn't likely keep it's hands out of things if The World's Mightiest Heroes decided to get together and do stuff)

I like that the characters themselves are more human. The Ultimates seem like people more than The Avengers (in my black and white "Essential Avengers" Graphic Novels) ever did.

Cap now acts like a Soldier. It's been a long time coming.

Thor up until now has always left me fairly cold. Ultimate Thor actually has some character outside of kicking ass and saying "nay"

4> the real puzzler is the logic. if the regular marvel universes history is confusing and convoluted what will they do in 5 years when the ultimate universe's history us just as detailed (translation: confusing and convoluted) ???? will they make the MORE ULTIMATE UNIVERSE? or the ULTIMATER-ER UNIVERSE? or the ULTIMATE TO THE INFINITE POWER UNIVERSE? how many of these will be published at the same time?

I'm not positive yet that a modern treatment of the classic stories were done becasue anyone was confused. I think it was done because the old characters had a lot of Iconic Value ("Brand") but were so mired the flawed, early stories that more skilled creators were given the reins.

I have a great love for the work Of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby...but the early Marvel stuff just does not hold together. they got their act together quickly enough (Fantastic Four after about issue 40 was awesome judged by any standards...Galactus, The Inhumans, all kinds of good stuff....added to comprehensible plot and motivations.

5> the other problem with the logic is even worse. so youre 10 years old and just saw the SPIDER-MAN movie. wow, this guy is cool. you beg mom and dad to take you to the comic store (i know, you have no way of knowing that comic books or comic stores exist, but we'll pretend the local store was smart enough to send a young customer to stand in front of the movie theatre all weekend with business cards, flyers, coupons and free comics in exchange for a nice-sized customer credit even though NONE of the stores in nyc did this.) anywho, you go to the comic book store and ask for SPIDER-MAN comics. you are instantly asked "do u want regular marvel universe amazing spider-man and peter parker spider-man? or ultimate spider-man?" ***THIS*** is more confusing to new fans than anything else. Nobody who hasn't been reading comics understands the difference.

Confusing how? Spider Man is iconic in North American culture. The kid is not going to be puzzled by his array of Spider man comic choices.

He's going to pick the one with the coolest cover.

5a> of course, why do i expect logic? in the regular marvel universe, it was decide that no kids could relate to Spider-man anymore because Peter Parker was married, awaiting a child, his aunt was dead after admititing she knew he was Spider-man all along and his major villian was long dead, and replaced by his son who also died (but remember, spidey has the biggest and best rogue's gallery of ANY hero, so you don't need this guy)
so instead, they kidnapped his kid from the hospital during birth and as far as everyone is concerned the kid is dead. his wife left him. and it was revealed that his aunt who died wasn't really his aunt, but a paid professional actress with plastic surgery to look exactly like his aunt and she was hired by the original Green Goblin who hasnt really been dead all this time, but living in Europe and watching his son be Green Goblin and didn't start plotting his major revenege until his son died too. So he wanted Peter to lose his kid, his wife, his aunt and then come fight him.

if you think this is absolutely ridiculous and why you dont read comics you are 100% right. the only reason the story is THIS stupid is because they wanted to wipe out his marriage, his kid, Aunt May's death and the Green Goblin's death. Because even those modern kids can't relate to a married superhero with a kid, a dead aunt and no guy with a green goblin suit, THEY CAN RELATE TO A DIVORCED SUPERHERO WITH A LIVE AUNT, A DEAD KID, AND A GUY WITH A GREEN GOBLIN SUIT AS LONG AS HE DOESNT TALK ABOUT HIS WIFE, HIS DEAD KID, THE FACT THAT HIS AUNT JUST GOT BACK FROM BEING KIDNAPPED FROM A YEAR AND HE BURIED SOMEONE WHO LOOKED JUST LIKE HER. AGH!

And you'd be against them fixing this plotline... Because revision of flawed material is bad right?

6> if the ultimate universe is too sucessful. they will stop publishing comics in the regular marvel universe and make everything ultimate. and theres NO WAY that I'm going to allow that to happen

I'd hate to see that happen...but I'll be honest with you: the curent X-titles don't appeal to me the way 1980's Chris Claremont X-Men did. I don't buy them. The last titles I bought regularly were the Kurt Busiek penned Iron Man and Avengers. they weren't that great.

I wait eagerly for The Ultimates...that hasn't happened in awhile. Most comic people I speak to (at the shop I go to, so it's hardly a scientific sample) say the same thing.

7> On one of the comic book message boards, John Byrne bashed me for my BOYCOTT THE ULTIMATE UNIVERSE post as soon as they were originally announced. HE rattled on, putting words in my mouth, being a hypocrite, and calling me the "worst kind of comic book fan". i told him that if guys who spend 250.00 on comics every month are the worst kind of comic book fan, he better hope he doesnt get rid of the few of us that are left, because the whole industry would collapse. while i was there, i told him i'd return to him every comic from my collection that he wrote if he gave me my money back, but he didnt take me up on my offer. I'm not sure why it is, but almost every comic book professional who makes public statements or i've had interactions with is A COMPLETE JERK WITH NO SOCIAL SKILLS.

Well...I've never met anyone in the industry. But Kurt Busiek wa always quite nice in email correspondence. Again, Your mileage may vary as this is not a big sample group

For all these reasons and more, I have NEVER bought an Ultimate title.
Last year, on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, I did get a free FCBD-version of Ultimate Spider-Man #1. I read it. And it was awful.
I have NO idea why anyone bought issue 2 to see if it got better, thats how bad it was.

you say you never heard of FREE COMIC BOOK DAY?
(wouldnt be surprised, few did)

last year, the Saturday the day after Spidey's release was FREE COMIC BOOK DAY. all the major companies and some of the indies gave out FREE COMIC BOOKS. NO CATCH.

theyre doing it again this year too... the day after X2 comes out.

I apologize to anyone who actually read this whole thing, blame it on Billy and Oni for asking

I'll take the blame. And I had no idea about "Free Comic Book day"...maybe it's just in the USA.

I also haven't read ultimate Spider Man.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I post a big response and this thread scrolls off the page???

I don't ususally do this, but....

*bump*