What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

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Ares
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What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Ares »

Hey guys, figured I'd just include this here so we can keep each other up to date with what's going on at Marvel and DC.

So . . . they're apparently trying this weird option for including the Pre-Flashpoint Superman and Lois Lane back into their former roles as working at the Daily Planet. Namely, the Nu-52 versions of Superman and Lois Lane are dead, and a new 100% Clark Kent has been discovered, likely to soon die as well, allowing the "real" Clark and Lois to resume their roles. Which . . . is kind of messed up when you think about it. I mean, you have these two people from an alternate timeline just moving in to the lives of their alternate reality counterparts.

I know it was a way to try and please fans of the older Superman while keeping the Nu-52 continuity . . . but why even bother keeping the Nu-52 continuity at this point?
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Ares
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Ares »

Also, while not exactly new, I would like to thank Batman for some catharsis.

Image
Image

You SUCK Nu-Shazam.

Let's see, something recent and a lot more fun . . .

Image

Yeah, that should do it. :D
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Gamebook »

My attitude to continuity is: Whatever, is the current story any good? I like the current iteration of Clark and Lois, having them be an established married couple with a child. It's not something that I've read for them before and anything new is good, comics get so repetitive. Alternate reality shenanigans is par for the course with superhero comics, I can't even be bothered to keep track. Jon is shaping up to be an interesting character, a true son of Superman. Rebirth Superman is also very much a classical Superman, with a fortress of solitude full of weird artifacts and devices. I prefer this to Nu52 Superman who knew shockingly little about anything really and kept screwing up. Superman should be a really competent superhero.

Going back to some of the old setups with Rebirth just shows up more than ever what the entire of the New 52 thing was for. Erasing 'Cry for Justice' and the destruction of the character of Roy Harper. They'd painted themselves into a corner with that nasty storyline. The quality of the comics in New 52 was often pretty bad, indeed at times it was almost as bad as the ones published before the reboot. Undoubtedly the biggest success DC scored was with Harley Quinn, who has risen to become their top female character and achieved the nirvana of movie stardom. She is now effectively the DC equivalent of Marvel's Deadpool.

Marvel chugs steadily along, not having done anything really amazing in years. Their female characters have enjoyed a great surge, with popular newbies like Ms. Marvel and Spider-Gwen and the reinvention of Carol Danvers. The Inhumans are beginning to eclipse the X-Men in prominence and importance. I always found the mutants boring and tiresome and wouldn't mind finally seeing the back of them. Retreading the Civil War story has set the fans off again, but in time the status quo will reassert itself as it always does. The entire Secret Wars storyline, which took an interminably long time to set up and finish (it almost killed my Marvel reading for a while it got so boring) turned out to be solely for the purpose of bringing in the most successful elements of the Ultimate universe into the main Marvel verse. This in turn lets the comics be more like the stories and characters used in the very successful film franchise (which shows no sign of flagging despite all the prophets of doom).
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by MacynSnow »

Ares wrote:
You SUCK Nu-Shazam.

Let's see, something recent and a lot more fun . . .

Image
amen,brother!

As an aside:I don't really think Nu-Shazam was THAT bad,it just shouldn't have been Billy Batson the Wizard picked this time(i honestly think that was the main issue fan's had),as maybe a new Kid with that attitude wouldn't have been that bad...
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Jabroniville »

Anyone read Monsters Unleashed? I was contemplating not getting it, as it's Yet Another Event at Marvel, but the first issue was actually really good. Honestly... Giant Monsters attacking Earth, and all the heroes gathering to fight them? That's what comics IS ALL ABOUT. They're actually FIGHTING. Using STRATEGY. Fighting VILLAINS instead of each other for once. It's actually good, old-fashioned Super-Fights. And hell- they're using Elsa Bloodstone of all people in a major role.

So what's the Status Quo at DC, anyways? I know the Barbara Gordon character is essentially her "Peppy Young College Self" now, but what about everyone else? Did they just do a "we grabbed the favorite version of every character" again? I heard NuSuperman died. What's the deal?
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Jabroniville »

So now that the current run of books is coming to an end, with creative teams shuffling around (the Inhumans guy is leaving; Uncanny Avengers is ending; etc.), where were you on this generation of books, and what do you think about the upcoming one?

* I dug the Avengers Idea Mechanics stuff Ewing was writing in his "DaCosta-led Avengers" book. A very funny, quirky book, though he got into that bad habit of going "hey look! Two gay people in love!" with Wiccan & Hulkling, only to shuffle them away in like four issues because they weren't important to the story anymore. But seeing SUNSPOT of all people get an upgrade to this intelligent, sneaky, tactical genius was awesome. U.S. Avengers seems to be a bit more of the same, though I'm not a fan of "random Hulked-up normal guy", and Dr. Ho & Jokkinen/Pod/whatever were the least-interesting characters on the old book- basically tokens there for minority status.

* Inhumans: As eye-roll-inducing as Marvel's Inhumans push has been, it was a well-written book (I even liked the secondary title that only lasted twelve issues). Though they NEVER pushed those new characters as hard as they should- I still felt like I never knew any of the newbies, nor what they were capable of. The writer did a solid job of making Medusa interesting, at least. His two runs add up to a "pretty good" book that I don't regret buying.

* All-New X-Men: Or, as I call it, "The Best Book That Has No Reason To Exist". Seriously, WHY ARE THE TEEN X-MEN STILL AROUND IN THIS TIMELINE?!?! And yet... you kinda see why, as the characters had a solid foundation, and were rather interesting. The great Bagley art (MUCH better than his Fantastic Four stuff, which was probably the nadir of his work, sadly enough) was also a good addition. I'll kind of miss this book.

* Waid's Avengers: Easily the most-disappointed I've been in a new book. The obvious "Minoriteam" Replacement Character status of everyone, and the "Small-Time" day-saving they were doing, was just dreadful. He's much more into proper form in his new Avengers series, this one having lasted only a year.

* Uncanny Avengers: One of the best surprises, as I thought the book was funny, even if the roster was constantly buggered by Strange Events (Thor is Unworthy! Cap is Old! Now Cap is Gone! Now Cable's in charge and Johnny Storm is there for whatever reason! And we have an Inhuman character that nobody bothered to characterize that much- I think Marvel just forced one to be on the book!). MUCH better than the previous Remender run, which started ambling off and never improved. Apparently this one is ending, too.

I'm planning on dropping a bunch of stuff coming up- my shop was kind of doing a lot of "up-selling" ("Hey, we stuck this in your file because you bought a book by Artist X and Writer Y" to the point where I was getting 11-13+ books per month, which was just too much (expensive, AND time-consuming!). I'll cut down heavily on some stuff, and come back and read trades this time around. Much cheaper that way, and I don't end up with disappointments (ugh- a couple years back, they did that second Wolverine and the X-Men series? Which culminated with Logan dying and Quentin Quire was like the main character? And it was AWFUL and way worse than Aaron's run on the previous one? It was one of my "I'll read this later" books, and I've never been so annoyed by how lame and boring a book ended up being- twelve issues of dull).

What stuff are you guys looking forward to in the new books?
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Jabroniville »

I'll say this- much as I was DECIDEDLY unimpressed to have like five comics have crossovers with this event, thus pushing my "Comics Haul" up by a LOT this month (every one is six bucks Canadian, too...), Monsters Unleashed has been uniformly excellent. They've put great artists on it, the one-shots have been fun, and the heroes are doing this weird thing... where they're like, TEAMING UP with each other, and then SAVING LIVES. I mean, it's been so long since I've seen stuff like that, I almost forgot what it was like. This whole event has been some good, old-fashioned comics.

Granted, they're doing the "$$$!!!" thing by crossing it over with Moon-Girl & Devil Dinosaur (not interested) and a new Monsters book featuring the biracial kid at the heart of this book, but that's not holding me back from enjoying it. Also, it's a kick to see ELSA BLOODSTONE of all people being used as central to an Event Story. And all the monster designs have been bitchin'. My only issue is that some of them are incredibly-thought-out, but go down in just a few pages.
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Shock »

I avoid all big events as a matter of habit so I haven't read any of Monsters Unleashed. I mostly avoid all of the "big" titles anyway, just because they're always tied up in crossovers and generally overcomplicated or glacially slow stories. I haven't touched Avengers, X-men, Justice League or that type in a long time.
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Ken »

Shock wrote: Wed Mar 01, 2017 4:09 pm I avoid all big events as a matter of habit so...
... so, you've given up mainstream super hero comics entirely?
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Shock »

Ken wrote: Wed Mar 01, 2017 7:39 pm
Shock wrote: Wed Mar 01, 2017 4:09 pm I avoid all big events as a matter of habit so...
... so, you've given up mainstream super hero comics entirely?
Heh.... no, not really. Right now I get Batgirl, Birds of Prey, Nightwing, Batman Beyond and half of Wonder Woman (because they're alternating current time and origin/prequel) from DC. I don't think I'm getting anything regularly from Marvel at the moment.
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Ken »

Must be nice. I went to the comic store last night. I came home depressed because despite the few things I'd picked up, mostly I was reminded how much I hate 99% of modern comics, and how much I miss comics I really enjoy.
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Emerald_Flame300 »

I just started collecting Green Lanterns and Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corp. I used to collect Green Lantern but the 3rd army and Hal apparently going rogue, I let it drop. Now we have Rebirth, I thought that I would pick them up.

I also picked up the new Justice League of America book. In it, Batman starts to assemble a new Justice League from more "down to Earth" people.
Batman
Black Canary
Frost (formerly Killer Frost)
Vixen
Atom (new guy; same powers)
The Ray
Lobo ....yeah... THAT Lobo!!

Batman states that he wants to form a more down to Earth, more Human League without the God-like personalities.

After reading the first issue(s), I find that it leaves me wanting. I will give it a chance, but I miss the old gang.
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Shock »

Well, it doesn't get much more "down-to-earth" than a trash-talking, intergalactic bounty hunter. :roll:
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Miracle »

This is on Batman though. I understand he has to play things close to his chest some times, but why not tell this information before something like that happened?
Ares wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2016 3:05 amImage
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Ares »

Miracle wrote: Sun Mar 05, 2017 12:44 pm This is on Batman though. I understand he has to play things close to his chest some times, but why not tell this information before something like that happened?
From what I can recall, this instance was during a chaotic battle. The bad guys were taking Robin's body through a portal and Bruce had only seconds to act. He attached the grapple line to Robin's coffin tried to follow them through to quickly retrieve said body, being dragged along quickly towards the portal. Nu-Shazam, rather than try to retrieve said body, severed the line and then was proud of what he'd done.

As someone who loves the Marvel Family, I pretty much hate Nu-Shazam and found the sight of someone punching him and wiping that smug grin off his face very satisfying.
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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