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.

Texas has introduced one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the USA, including the right for lawsuits to be brought by private citizens against those who aid, abet or perform abortions carried out after six weeks.

The UK Government has denied it has plans for an October Lockdown, so we might as well plan for that happening.

El Salvador has become the first country in the world to approve the use of BitCoin as legal tender.

The house Jim Henson lived in when he was in London, is to receive an official English Heritage blue plaque.

ABBA has released two tracks from their forthcoming new album Voyage, their first in over 40 years. "Don't Shut me Down" is classic ABBA pop with their typical melancholic twist, and "I Still Have Faith in You" is a classic ballad. Given that both the lead singers are now in their 70's, their voices are amazing!

Finally watched the end of Schmigadoon. It was a little over-obsessed with referencing specific classic Broadway musical numbers at times, but that that did give us Kristen Chenowyth's shot in one go and sung live "Tribulation and Strife", ("Ya Got Trouble" from "The Music Man") and Jane Karkaowski's Cole Porter inspired "I Always, Always, Never Get my Man".

And a Happy Rosh Hashanah to those who celebrate the Jewish New Year!

Comments

[iamrman]

I quite liked their run on JLA, but that's about it. The less said about their New X-Men the better, amirite?

[tinygaylaura]

Things I like about New X-men: Emma Frost, BEAST IS A KITTY, the Stepford Cuckoos

Things I didn't like: Where to begin....

Destruction of Genosha (BOOOOOOOOO)
Cassandra Nova
Why is everyone so awful
What is Sublime what even is going on
Comparing a Jewish holocaust survivor to the Nazis which is a new low for Marvel comics. The bar was practically on the floor but they limbo-ed under it like Hermes Conrad himself
Quentin Quire

[scorntx]

Sublime was... hold on, gotta check the Grantlator... an angry immortal bacteria.

Yeeeah.
"So it turns out it's not simple human prejudice that's responsible for the long history of human-mutant violence, it's an ANGRY BACTERIA manipulating everyone."

... sometimes the way other writers tend to just ignore whatever Grant does can be mildly annoying, but with that, and just straight up "NOPE"-ing the ***** out of their depiction of Magneto, it's pretty easy to see where they're coming from.

[tinygaylaura]

I can't think of anything they have written in the past 20 years that I DON'T want every other writer to ignore/pretend never happened honestly

[scorntx]

Not even Dick and Damian?

(and there were a few ideas in Multiversity which were intriguing.
So naturally they're ignored until someone wants to Mad Stan 'em.)

[tinygaylaura]

I think pretty much all the good writing Damian got came from writers other than Morrison to be honest

As for Dick...eh

Not really that bothered either way. And I think the stories Morrison wrote with him were meh at best. Only one that really interested me was the one where Batwoman guest starred

[iamrman]

I quite liked their work on 52, but then again they were backed up by other writers.

One of my favourite parts was the island full of mad scientists. To me that part seems to have Morrison's fingerprints all over it.

[scorntx]

Morrison is the one who did the mad science island. And Egg-Fu.
They're especially proud of bringing back Egg-Fu.

Despite all the reasons they shouldn't be.

[laughing_tree]

We3
Seven Soldiers
All-Star Superman
New 52 Action Comics
Klaus
The Heavy Metal stuff with Rob Liefeldian Jesus Christ

[icon_uk]

I mean, the TRULY weird shit about Sublime is that it's not even the ONLY life-manipulating-sentient-slime-mould-from-the-dawn-of-Earths-evolution in the Marvel Universe.

John Byrne introduced That Which Endures back in 1989

[tinygaylaura]

Somehow this does not surprise me

[thanekos]

Nothing at all says multiple distinct long-lived bacterial entities can't exist simultaneously in a fictional history.

[iamrman]

I am in full agreement with you there. Why do writers keep trying to make Quentin Quire a thing?

It's a pity artists couldn't stay on-model with feline Beast. Bodacious Bouncing Beast will always be my favourite.

The art was particularly bad as well. Why did people look like melted candles?

[scorntx]

You pay for Frank Quitely on art, you get Frank Quitely on art.

[iamrman]

Is that a good thing?

[super_fly]

His faces might not be everyone's cup of tea, but his layouts and framing are perfect

Also, the way he draws shoes, IDK

[icon_uk]

Quentin Quire is the snarky, anti-establishment pain-in-the-ass that can be useful for some teams which need a shake up.

The thing is I can't blame Morrison for his continued presence. They introduced him and killed him off in the same arc. It wasn't Morrison who brought him back... repeatedly.

And he now has the same problem as Johnny Storm: How many times can he learn the necessary life lessons to become a more mature character as part of an arc, when the narrative requires him to be his original self.

[tinygaylaura]

Yeah one of the artists who worked on the book drew everyone like a cursed waxwork and it was unsettling

The only time I can remember liking Quenting was West Coast Avengers

The rest of the time I...tolerate him at best.

I do find it very bizarre that a character created as an expy of a school shooter got turned into a hero by Marvel. I know that a lot of villains have turned hero but Quentin was created to resemble a very specific real world evil so his hero turn is as strange to me as Marvel trying to make the Purple Man a hero

[super_fly]

Don't also forget:
Beast: So it turns out the human race has an extinct gene that's about to kick in, this will surely be important

LATER

Beast: So hey I can fix that extinction gene thing no problem

[tinygaylaura]

Which Morrison then revealed was a lie but the whole extinction gene thing never got brought up again.

[icon_uk]

But again, is that a fault in Morrison's writing, or those who came after him?

[icon_uk]

It had it's flaws, especially in it's handling of Magneto and making Lorna his actual daughter decades after it was revealed (in the story it was introduced) to be a throwaway deception.

But it did actually do some long overdue societal groundwork that no other writer had bothered to do, like the establishment of a mutant culture outwith the spandex set, so we had things like mutant fashions and mutant poetry (I think) being mentioned for the first time.

[tinygaylaura]

That's true I really liked that as well

I don't think it was Morrison who re-established Lorna as Magneto's daughter tho. I think that was Austen

[icon_uk]

I thought it was Morrison, during the story early in that run where the are exploring the remains of Genosha, and Lorna senses some sort of plot device thing Magneto had left for her to find as his daughter and she does slightly insane about it.

[tinygaylaura]

You might be right about that actually

Also it makes me sad how often "Lorna goes slightly insane" has been the only story writers did with Lorna