Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

[icon_uk]

In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like.

Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.

Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.

It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.

The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than me.

In the UK, the furore over the Governments latest migrant policy was somewhat (and some cynical souls might think conveniently) derailed by a lot of people being stirred up over Gary Linneker, a noted sports commentator's comments about how bad he throught the scheme was and how the language used was reminscent of Germany in the 1930's. Now he does work for the BBC (and their highest paid star I believe) and they are supposed to be politically neutral, but the rules they have about that aren't usually applied to those who aren't already political commentators or new journalists, and he was neither, plus he was posting on his own Twitter account, not a BBC one. His suspension on Saturday led to pretty much the rest of the BBC's sports presenters walking out in sympathy, and he was reinstated this morning.

Since it's 3-14, that makes it Pi Day in America! (If April had 31 days, the rest of the world could enjoy a Pi Day too.)

The Oscars were a lot more entertaining than last year, with Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio winning best Aimated Feature, Brendan Frasier winning Best Actor and teveryone involved in "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" basically taking home everything else. It was delightful to see Michelle Yeoh win Best Actress, Jamie Lee Curtis get Best Supporting Actress and Ke Huy Quan get best Supporting Actor (Honestly, if joy was a power source, you could have lit up a small city for a month off those three alone).

I'm thoroughly enjoying Picard Season 3, even if it is a bit more "Let's wallow in some nostalgia rather than try something new" that previous seasons, becasue I think they've earned it a little of that. And extra marks for Todd Kershaws performance as Captain Shaw who, whilst an absolute asshole throughout, managed to describe his experiences in a certain major even in Star Trek history with a raw horror and power that really sold the moment.

The live action version of The Little Mermaid has a proper trailer, with the first glimpse of Melissa McCarthy as Ursula and Javier Bardem as Triton.

There's also a new clip released from the Dungeons and Dragons movie... spot the surprise appearances! :D

Comments

[iamrman]

I am starting to think the Epic Collections might be starting to scrape the barrel a bit. I mean, New Avengers is getting an Epic.

[icon_uk]

Robin isn't in many of the early episodes deliberately, because they weren't sure he would work in the stories they were telling, but as time goes by he shows up more. Starting the series when Dick Grayson was at college meant they had a buil-in reason for his absence, which didn't seem contrived and could easily have him guest star if they wanted.

[icon_uk]

The fact you refer to the 2010's as nostalgic, just makes me feel OLD....

[zachbeacon]

"Ghost Rider"

Nothing like a turn four Infinaut.

"Patriot"

Not to be a broken record but you should get Mystique.

I know I don't see nearly as much Patriot as I used to but I just love that there's a card that suddenly makes cards like Misty Knight, Shocker, and Cyclops useful. Heck he's just about the only reason people use Ultron and he makes Doom (an already great card] even better.

[iamrman]

It turns out I do have Mystique. She is in my Wong deck.

I have Squirrel Girl, Ultron and Ka-Zar in my Patriot deck too.

[scorntx]

-If you aren't going to bother with that then what are you even doing?-

This. So much this.
I mean, that's kind of the whole freaking point of Iron Fist.

(And why, yes, Shang-Chi was a very good Iron Fist movie.)

[scorntx]

... Whut.

(But we already have collected editions of... buh... guh...
SCORNTX HAS ENCOUNTERED A FATAL ERROR.)

[iamrman]

The Clone Saga and The Crossing too. At least The Crossing has been out of print for a long time. For good reason? I don't know, I have never actually read The Crossing.

[zachbeacon]

I went into Shang-Chi hoping for a do-over on Iron Fist but I meant "I want a quality martial arts thing" and didn't expect it to be so literal what with the magic punching, immortal fighters, hidden cities, and dragons.

I want to stress that this is NOT a complaint (though I get why it might be off-putting to some Master of Kung Fu purists).

[zachbeacon]

Speaking as someone who liked the Clone Saga at the time (mostly) ...

Isn't this what "Complete Collections" are for? Seems weird that they're making Epics of easily available material when they should be skipping to the Post-CS/Pre-Reboot DeFalco run.

Or better yet, an 80s/90s Spider-Man comic that ISN'T Amazing. Its starting to feel like Marvel has some weird vendetta against Spectacular.

[iamrman]

There are several volumes of Spectacular Spider-Man available as Marvel Masterworks. It would be nice to have a collected edition of Web of Spider-Man that weren't part of crossovers.

[zachbeacon]

The long out of print Essentials cover less than half (up to 114) of Spectacular and the Masterworks cover half of that (up to 66). Most of the Post-Stern stuff only gets reprinted if it ties in with Amazing (Alien Costume Saga, Kraven’s Last Hunt, Cosmic Spidey/Acts of Vengeance, Maximum Carnage, Clone Saga, ect)

We’ve got one Tombstone trade from the Conway run. Isolated issues of the DeMatteis run get used for “Best of [Insert Villain Here]” collections but most of his run remains untouched. That other guy’s Death of Jean DeWolff story gets reprinted about once a decade (like in 2020’s Road to Venom trade).

That’s about it.

But you're right that its hard to find recent Web collections that include more than just that first issue (also in Road to Venom). I have Essentials covering the first 32 issues and past that it got hit even harder than Spectacular with Marvel's "we only collect crossovers" mentality.

I just happen to consider Spectacular the best Spider-Man book and I don't like how hard they've made it to fill holes in my collection.

The best thing about the Epic Collections is they hit issues that don't normally get collected because they aren't part of some famous storyline and I hate that Amazing is the ONLY Spider-Man comic getting this treatment.