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.

President Biden gave, basically, his farewell speech at the Democractic National Convention

I'd missed Elon Musk's "Judge Dredd would drive cybertruck" tweet from July, luckily quite a few people who are familiar with the character were on hand to set him right.

And, speaking of cyberpunk dystopia's, if you have £3500 or so to spare and MUST have the latest tech toys, Apple's new VR headset has been released.

KAOS, a Neetflix movie starring Jeff Goldblum as Zeus in what seems to be "Dammit, Disney for Percy Jackson and we need to do something", has a trailer

And somehow I managed to not mention the Kraven trailer last week, I hope you appreciate that!

Comments

[numeronone]

Still hilarious to me that the GOP invested so much time and money into a Revenge Impeachment against Biden, and not only does it contain zero evidence...it also wouldn't make any difference seeing as he'll be gone in a few months!

Meanwhile, their Veep candidate has been handing out fake sperm samples to his supporters at MAGA rallies in a dig to...checks notes...Tim Walz's kids being conceived via IVF? And their Presidential candidate won't stop sharing obviously fake AI images of people endorsing him and/or his opponent being a communist? And they're pushing on a platform of "ending recreational sex"???

So, not beating the "big weirdoes" allegations...

[zachbeacon]

Can't help but think about how Hunter's laptop is suddenly unimportant.



Do you ever think about how the Supreme Court potentially gave far-left* Kamala Harris unlimited power next year?

*Citation needed.

[numeronone]

Weirdly, those two things (Hunter Biden and Trump evading a court date) do coincide in recent news.

The nuances of it all are odd. Every blow leveled against Harris/Walz by the rightwing nutters seems like either an own-goal ("She laughs too much! We hate laughter") or just limp, self-contradictory noodles ("All of her pledges are things she could have done as VP" vs. "How dare she be too busy being VP to do a vanity interview like Glorious Donald?" or "She's achieved nothing in her tenure" vs. "How dare she pass communist price controls on life-saving medicine!?")

[tripodeca113]

I don't object to them not hiring me because I'm not qualified, I just don't get why they invite me to job interviews when they know I'm not qualified.
Do I have to be qualified and chipper?

Hooray! Now I own all twelve volumes of Osamu Tezuka's unfinished masterwork Phoenix!

Looks like season two of the live-action Avatar The Last Airbender is going to feature a character called Bonesaw. Obviously the only sensible interpretation is that they created a new Earthbender pro-wrestler, who they decided to name after the star of Spider-Man 1.

Read Civil War. What an incredibly underwhelming story that was. It's not really about a tragedy which turns the public against superheros, it's not about superheros being accountable, it's not about superheros being tools of the government. It's not even a good story about Captain America and Iron Man fighting each other.
ummm....it has shots of She-Hulk's ass?

It's really vague about what the registration act is, which really hurts the story. I don't know what the law is, I don't know how it affects anyone. It seems like their doing a bunch of things which fall outside the issue of superhero registration, or don't really make much sense (each state is going to have it's own superhero team? Crimes down since the law passed, but only because they have armed super-soldiers on every corner?)
The reason Captain America is leading the underground resistance seems to be because, Maria Hill tried to arrested him to uphold a law that wasn't in affect yet?
So the pro-registration side won in issue two when the law was passed right? Like even if they beat Iron Man it's still going to be on the books, right?
I understand Sue Storm putting up a civil front because she doesn't want her children to get upset because Mummy and Daddy are fighting, but the night before she defects why does she have a romantic dinner and night of sex with Reed? Why does she want him to be happy?
They try to treat the whole conflict as being morally grey (Doctor Strange says there's 'no Right Side' anyway), but at the end Captain America surrenders because he was wrong and Iron Man winning is treated as a good thing. But Iron Man was running an inter-dimensional Guantanamo Bay, and is responsible for Goliath's death.
Also Goliath died. I only know about him from when Dwayne McDuffie parodied him in Icon, so I didn't care when he died, but man the imagery and the lady saying his death was his fault for disobeying the law....man that has not aged well. I'm willing to believe that Goliath and Ant Man went on adventures at some point, but I really doubt he and Iron Man were ever friends.
(Why is She-Hulk drawn without shoes?)

[zachbeacon]

The job market is an absolute nightmare. I basically took a part-time version of my old full-time job because no one else seems to want to hire at all.



Civil War is one of those events that's carried entirely by the better tie-ins...and even most of the tie-ins were pretty weak. The actual mini was just a mess. It doesn't help that the official Marvel stance seemed to be "both sides have valid points" while the actual story portrayed Tony and Co as cartoonishly evil.

[super_fly]

It also doesn't help that nobody can agree on what the new law actually means

[iamrman]

Nothing particularly exciting on my list this week. I was toying with revisiting some Daredevil. Should I start from the beginning, or start with the Frank Miller stuff? Ann Nocenti if I wanted to torture myself?

I also plan on revisiting Sensational She-Hulk. Just the John Byrne issues, because the non-Byrne stuff I read was pretty bad.

Just one new manga title on my list this week. Killer Shark in Another World sounds so ridiculous. Adventurers aren’t laughing any more when supposedly rubbish summoner starts learns to summon a creature that can change in to B-movie sharks. I’m expecting Sharknadoes and such.

I really enjoyed reading Death’s Head for the first time. The only other work by Simon Furman I had read before was his run on mainstream Marvel Transformers. I believe he also had a run on Alpha Flight? I don’t know how readily available it is, because I believe only the John Byrne issues have ever been collected.

In omnibus news, classic X-Factor is getting an omnibus. It doesn’t look like the issues between Mutant Massacre and Fall of the Mutants are getting collected any time soon, so I guess I will be shelling out for the omnibus.

Marvel’s Godzilla is getting an omnibus as well. I’m not sure how much I will like the series, because Marvel didn’t have the rights for any of the other kaiju and had to make their own generic monsters. At least we do get Godzilla fighting the Avengers though.

[skjam]

Marvel's Godzilla did have one of my favorite comic book moments, when Godzilla, shrunk to approximately human size and wearing trenchcoat and floppy hat, wanders into a dark alley in New York City. And foolish criminals try to mug the small G.

[zachbeacon]

Yeah, I have the Essential collection and it delivers on "what if Godzilla was a Marvel comic" even if it isn't usually what you'd expect from a Godzilla story.

[zachbeacon]

I'm partial to Karl Kesel's Daredevil myself. Shame that Kevin Smith threw it all away.

[skjam]

Work is work, backlog is getting out of hand.

Went to Autopia, a small press event, over the weekend, made a couple of authors happy by buying books. Also finally did another advance copy review for Netgalley.

Marvel Puzzlequest still on Deadpool and Wolverine mode, with special guest star Annihilus.

Over at my blog, I look at an Indiana Jones movie that helped inspire the creation of PG-13. https://www.skjam.com/2024/08/17/movie-review-indiana-jones-and-the-temple-of-doom/

[tripodeca113]

To me the violence was definitely the best part of Indian Jones and The Temple of Doom.

[numeronone]

Also, veering into on-topic: can't help but notice that Duggan's "Falling In Love On The Path To Hell" has had 3 issues so far, and having looked in all of them, it's sad to note that one of the key protagonists falls into the "Silent Asian" stereotype. Looks beautiful constantly. Does violent swords-and-martial-arts things effortlessly. Never says a word.

I'd say that I thought better of Gerry, but that's a lie. He's never been good at writing Asian women within Marvel, and if this is the best he can do on his own projects, maybe it would be better if he weren't writing anything at all.

[scorntx]

So Biden said that giving the job over to Harris was the best thing he's ever done.
Which, no offense dude, but if the best thing you've done in several decades of your job, including becoming president of your country, is handing the job over to someone else, that's a bummer of a career.


Slow week, stuff wise.
Found a copy of the last issue of Brubaker's Cap run in the back issues section of the local. So I bought it.
... but now I'm too scared of damaging it to open it.
Stupid neuroses.

Apparently The Acolyte will not be getting a season 2.
Which is a shame.
(Guess we'll just have to imagine how the Jedi would've utterly bungled things up with Mai and Osha.)

Daredevil: Born Again might have White Tiger in it. Woo! Finally!
... but since he's showing up in Daredevil it sounds like they're adapting that Bendis storyline where he came back, got arrested and then killed.
Boo!

... Annihilation is getting an Epic Collection. Which is a little odd, since I didn't think events got Epic Collections? Just omnibuses and regular, non-Epic collected editions.

Speaking of Epic Collections, the actual proper start of PAD's Hulk is coming out this week.
Apparently.
Supposedly. (Websites seem a little unclear, so the only way to see is to find one on the shelves.)
Is the timing of the release related to the fact Ultimates issue 3 was about Hulks, or is it just coincidence?
Because if it is, it's a pretty odd one.

As a weird intellectual exercise, started thinking about a rewrite of the early New Mutants.
So far, no Donald Pierce (which, uh, does admittedly make covering the origin story difficult, but it's a work in progress), no Empath, no Selene, no Demon Bear, no Shadow King, and utterances of "nigh-invulnerable when I'm blastin'" are down 90%.
Though removing Shadow King does seem to have somehow resulted in Karma being abducted by Viper instead.
Also, for... reasons merged Karma and Mirage (to see what would happen, to avoid unfortunate dated depictions of Vietnamese and / or Native Americans or pure madness? I don't know.)
... conceptually merged. Not, y'know, physically. Just so we're clear.
(Not sure whether to keep Magik in or not yet. At the moment, she remains an uncollapsed wave function.)

[icon_uk]

Why remove Empath and Selene in particular?

Empath is, IMHO, an interesting examination of an actual up and coming supervillain, perhaps the only one of the Hellions who fit that category.

And Selene's intro is a bit of a confusing one, but "Immortal ruler of a lost Roman outpost" seems solid enough in comic book terms, with a dash of H Rider Haggard.

[scorntx]

Well... various reasons.
In the case of Empath, because he's an irredeemable little snot, with absolutely no depth whatsoever. He's Draco Malfoy without what little charm he has.
He's just there to be an evil, obnoxious pile of creepiness, who uses his powers on people because he's tremendously evil at all times. And I just don't find that very interesting.
Another is trying to cut down / out some of the plot beats Claremont tends to overuse; a villain who enjoys being evil and using their powers to enslave / control / enthral / corrupt / etc. others is right up there.
And villains who are racist / sexist / classist / any-other-ist, because they're difficult to stomach reading, much less writing.
(same reason Donald Pierce is out.)


If Selene was just an evil priestess who enjoyed ruling over her little enclave, or Amara's evil grandmother, that'd be one thing, but she's along similar lines as Empath.
(Also, just seeing what happens if a majority of the writer's pet characters are excised, and Selene definitely qualifies for that.)

Though, again this would leave the New Mutants without a lot of actual enemies to fight... and it can't be their own internal struggles all the time.

Emma Frost's in a grey area here. For one thing, there's her over-use in the last two decades. And she's, at least in the 80s, also a pretty stock Claremont character a lot of the time, up until Magneto's trying to be good.
On the other, leave her out, and it does open up more problems. Not least that by this point the X-Men would suffer a severe gap in capable female villains.
There's still Mystique, but she's more "pain in the behind" that "severe threat".
(At the moment, Emma's in a sort of limbo. Someone runs the Massachusetts Academy, they're a Mutant, and they're with Hellfire, but beyond that?)

...
haven't thought through all the details yet.

[icon_uk]

I agree those are all traits that Empath possesses, but given that he is still a juvenile, that's the bit I found interesting.

Giving credit where it's due, the Hellions are an excellent idea, rivals for the New Mutants, via the Hellfire Club having their own training division. And the motivations of them being there were nicely varied; Jetstream because the Hellfire Club saved his life by making him a cyborg, Roulette because her father is a corrupt businessman who's probably already a lower level meber of the Club, Tarot because her cards told her to, Thunderbird to get revenge on Xavier, Catseye because she looks on Emma as her primary caregiver, and Empath because it's a path to personal power lacking in any need for scruples..

Of them all, he's the only one who is on a fast track to being a member of the Inner Circle, and I found it interesting that, just like so many young people in comics decide to become selfless heroes, here was one who chose to say "Sod that, I want power and I'm going to get it". Plus "aspiring actual supervillain in training" isn't something you saw too often in younger characters in the 80's

[iamrman]

Do I want to know what happens to Wolfsbane in your version?

Also, how will we know Sam is nigh-invulnerable while blastin' unless he keeps saying so?

[scorntx]

Don't worry, Rahne suffers at least 30% less.
A whole 30%!
(For one, she's not convinced she's a witch and / or demon and automatically damned. And there's no angry mobs wi' torches and pitchforks trying to lynch her. She just runs off to Moira because Craig sucks that much.

Also, the stuff with Ani-Mator and Birdbrain ain't happening. Ever.)

[iamrman]

Well, that made my day. Is it safe to assume that the Louise Simonson issues never happened in your version?

[scorntx]

Haven't really thought that far, though probably, yes.
(No Cable to begin with, partly because so far all time travel's out, but also for... other reasons related to Cyclops...)

[cygnia]

Waiting to hear back on an audition...really hope I get a role as the script looks great ("This Side of Crazy", if anyone is familiar).

Root canal is on hold as it's not deep/painful enough.

Trying to urge myself to finish "Inscryption" to get it off my Steam queue (on Act 3, for those familiar with it)

Hubby's 7th Sea game is going great though. Been enjoying playing my homage to Fr. Guido Sarducci. :-D

Got the 1st 2 issues of Titan's Doctor Who w/15. And got a copy of "The Celestial Toymaker" so hoping to watch that soon for date night.

[shakalooloo]

Good luck!

[cygnia]

Sadly, just got the e-mail -- I'm not cast :-/

[shakalooloo]

Next time!

[knight_moves]

Something vaguely brain-wrinkling in how beloved feminist comic icons Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis turned out to be sex offenders, while Garth Ennis, Mark Millar, and Frank Miller might write edgelord stuff, but then they just go home and watch Netflix instead of violating women.

Who could've called that shot when the WHORESWHORESWHORES meme was first floating around?

[dewinged]

Wasn't Millar called out for something fairly recently?

[cyberghostface]

Was he? I haven’t heard anything about him mistreating women and there’s nothing on Twitter to indicate it.

[metadronos]

Nor is there anything of that sort in Millar's Wikipedia entry, not even in the "Talk" page where breaking but not yet verified stories tend to appear.

----

Part of me wishes we didn't have to hear about bad things art creators allegedly or demonstradedly do, but whenever I wish that, I sternly remind myself that no one is above being called out for serious crimes or simply for bigotry, nor above facing the appropriate consequences.

That said... the list of creators I once greatly admired, but who've turned out to be allegedly or confirmedly undeserving of admiration, continues to grow: Bill Cosby (confirmed serial rapist), Woody Allen (alleged child molester), J.K. Rowling (confirmed transphobe), Neil Gaiman (alleged sex offender).

It almost makes me wish our culture could go back to the days of unknown or pseudepigraphical authorship, as with many ancient and medieval epic poems, so that we could enjoy creative works on their own merits, without elevating creators to celebrity status which they may then abuse to hurt others. But the "catalogue of ships" has long sailed on that, hasn't it? :-(

[cyberghostface]

It really is surreal seeing how Rowling has made that her entire personality.

[dewinged]

I remember him siding with some comic store owner complaining about "wokeness" in comics or something, with folks like Van Sciver and stuff.

[zachbeacon]

He has a history of saying pretty terrible things and falling back on the "I was just joking" defense when called on it but I don't know that he's ever been as bad as EVS.

The Millarworld forums were a hive of scum and villainy, though.

[cyberghostface]

That doesn’t have anything to do with mistreating women. Also that shop owner wasn’t talking about wokeness but writers using characters as self-inserts. (I know people were conflating that with anti-wokeness but he never said anything about that.)

[shakalooloo]

I was semi-joking when I said my copy of the 'Iron Man is Dr Doom' What If issue would appreciate in value, but well, there you go. I guess not even me holding the issue in my hand in the photo put people off from spending way too much on a single comicbook issue.

[cainofdreaming]

Maybe they thought the hand was included? Hope you don't get a bad review from a modern day doctor Frankenstein.