Superhero Comics!

[Gannameade]

I was a longtime member of the classicmarvelforever.com forum, actually. 

But yep, it had it's flaws, though I figured out a few ways of streamlining it a bit.

If you every bring such a game back.  Holla at yo' boy! 

I miss it but no one seems to want dice around here.  :P

[Foxy DeVille]

If you every bring such a game back.  Holla at yo' boy! 

I miss it but no one seems to want dice around here.  :P

I could be down too if there's some randomness to chargen. Sometimes trying to figure out why your super-strong character had lousy endurance was half the fun.  :D

[Kadigan]

Not to hijack this into an "I Rp'd here" thread, but I took part in one called MarvelUnlimited that was huge before marvel had the streaming name.

In comic news. Just read Satellite Sam, pretty good (though a bit hard to distinguish characters). Men of Wrath, Capes, and The Otherside were also very good.

In more Superheroy ones, Earth One v3 Batman dropped today and I read it via my library streaming svc. I thought it was pretty good, though the twist wasn't SUPER great, the last couple panels made up for it I feel.

Side note, anyone who uses DCUI on their iPad anyone else having trouble w/ it crashing and not opening today?

[Foxy DeVille]

I had similar issues with Satellite Sam, which frustrated me a tad because I love Chaykin (I might be the biggest Dominic Fortune fan evah) and the idea behind it but hokey smokes I felt like I needed road map to get through it.

[Dhi]

I'll check out the Marvel RPG when it hits!

I had a chance to read Their Dark Designs and the first part of Department of Truth, both are terrific. The followup story in Batman, Joker War, wasn't doing anything for me so I skipped 100-105. There are a lot of elements, from Clownhunter to Joker zombies to Punchline, which pull me out of the story.

DC Pride is out this week and a nice surprise. The Batwoman story, also by Tynion, has so much heart describing something I experience even now, and it's clear Batwoman does too, despite the message of "it gets better" awkwardly inserted at the end.
Harley and Ivy are canonically a couple. It's weird that it happened here. I haven't been a fan of anything I've read by Mariko Tamaki, but the story is exactly how I've felt about Harley and Ivy and is frankly what the characters need.

Dreamer almost certainly will not be returning. As everyone behaves as though she's been here all along and all she does with her spotlight is punch some ninjas who are attempting to poison the water supply. Nicole Maines is listed as the only writing credit, and this is why I hoped she would co-write or receive plenty of guidance. The story feels like...the kind of thing you would see as in-universe fiction for a teen movie. The impression of a comic book, as imagined by someone with only cultural osmosis as a reference.

Across the X-Men books, the paradise of Krakoa seems poised to crumble but we don't exactly know how it's going to happen yet. We know that Magneto is going to be on trial for something in the near future, Mystique has some plan to get revenge on the Quiet Council for abandoning her wife, and in X-Men #21, Xavier and Magneto seem to be terraforming something in the night sky. Mars?

But I discovered following this event that I want to get intoExcalibur. That was something I read disconnected issues of from the 90s, where it was mostly separate from X-Men continuity as the British X-team. There were deep elements of mysticism owing to Captain Britain's weird history, and it seems like Marvel has now embraced Excalibur being a Justice League Dark kind of book. The story in Excalibur #21 resonated with me, and Macus To's art has a fun vibe.

[Foxy DeVille]

But I discovered following this event that I want to get intoExcalibur. That was something I read disconnected issues of from the 90s, where it was mostly separate from X-Men continuity as the British X-team. There were deep elements of mysticism owing to Captain Britain's weird history, and it seems like Marvel has now embraced Excalibur being a Justice League Dark kind of book. The story in Excalibur #21 resonated with me, and Macus To's art has a fun vibe.

Hmmm... I might have to give that a look. The X books pretty much lost me in the 90s when Xavier's dream turned into "let's all hide out in a mansion and only have personal relationships with each other when we're not busy forming paramilitary groups." Excalibur with its weirdness was the only one that interested me.

Speaking of weirdness, Trese debuts today on Netflix. I'm familiar with the comic because of writeups.org but haven't read it because I've never come across an English version. Preview looks good and faithful to the source so you like paranormal detective stuff and wanna find out about a mythology that doesn't get explored much in the West here's your chance...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKuSsvKjPBQ

[Kadigan]

I got out of the X series mostly right before Krakoa. The storyline just never appealed to me. I get what thy're going for but it's like "oh hey all you guys who tried to kill us before...s'cool." It's probably more nuanced then that, but still.

I do highly recommend Whedon's run however, if you can seperate the man from the writing. It was punchy, had a lot of BDH moments (Big Damn Hero) and it was the first one in a long time that I thought wrote Scott as a believable non 2D character.

[Dhi]

I get what thy're going for but it's like "oh hey all you guys who tried to kill us before...s'cool."

Oh, whew! I hope you can explain it to me, because this feels like an idea mired deeper and deeper in bad decisions and I have just been waiting for a reboot to reset everything. For all the praise the Hickman run receives as being the best run of X-books, these characters are unlikeable and stagnant in a zero stakes environment where everyone's ludicrously rich and beyond death. Is it that he punches the nostalgia factor up to 11 with references?

Harley and Ivy's relationship is about to pick up speed. DC announced Harley Quinn: The Eat, Bang, Kill Tour for September which puts the two of them together unambiguously. It's an animated series spinoff, so it's not true canon, but even the Bombshells run would have a lil smooch and roll credits so this feels significant- both for fleshing out these characters' relationship the way it ought to have gone 15 years ago, and for DC's prolonged testing of the waters.

It feels like before the end of Stephanie Phillips's run on Harley Quinn I will be following the series again, so I should probably just spend the $16 or however long it takes to get there

By now most of the ComicsPRO titles teased have been revealed, but I'm looking forward to seeing what the Nubia book and dark ages DC have in store.

[LunarSage]

I hate the new X-stuff, personally.  I grew up reading X-Men books and loved them, but now they're not even trying to use their powers to protect anyone but mutants?  And they kidnap mutants from their parents and take them to their mysterious "paradise" whether they like it or not?  Because they know best?  In my opinion, the X-Men are not superheroes anymore... they're borderline villains.

[Dhi]

I think it might be worse than that. There are plenty of relatable, or at least interesting villains I love to read. The X-books need some kind of shakeup to work again, and hopefully that comes with next week's Planet-Sized X-Men. I'm giving it a chance.

[Dhi]

BUT, among the dozen and counting X-books out now, there are some gems.


Marauders is dope. It's about Kitty Pryde's mutant pirates taking charge of the Hellfire Trading Company and brawling in Madripoor.
It's got Kitty Pryde, Lockheed, Emma Frost, Iceman, Pyro, Bishop, and Storm (for now).

 

Excalibur is dope. It's about Betsy Braddock's magical mutants untangling mystic threats to the multiverse.
It's got a veritable D&D party in Betsy Braddock, Gloriana, Jubilee, Rictor, Gambit, and Rogue (for now).



Hellions is dope. It's about Mister Sinister's fabulous schemes fumbled by a misfit band of fuckups who despise him.
It's got Mister Sinister, Havok, Nanny, Orphan Maker, Psylocke, Greycrow, Wild Child, and Empath.

[Dhi]

DRAMA ALERT WOOP WOOP

CONTROVERSY IN COMICS

BATMAN DOESN'T EAT PUSSY

In an interview with Variety, Harley Quinn co-creator Justin Halpern recalled how DC instructed them to remove an instance of Batman going down on Catwoman because "heroes don't do that." And the internet loooves iiiiiit.

Planet-Sized X-Men is out and...

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

A team of omega-level mutants led by Magneto has indeed terraformed Mars, and transported the sister island of Arakko there as a mutant colony to the newly flourishing planet.

This solves the immediate problem of a million mutants from war-torn Otherworld suddenly inhabiting Earth, but does absolutely nothing to address the larger problems with the Dawn of X story. Arakko is being pushed off somewhere that it might be easily ignored by the larger Marvel universe, which is fine by me, but maybe don't introduce huge world-changing plot elements if you don't have any ideas on using them, huh?

Nightwing 81 sold out immediately and is already going into second print, this book continues to be hot. There's a reveal in this issue that could change the character of Nightwing for the better, give him a little more space to exist outside of the bat-family, and I like it. Another solid one from Tom Taylor!



Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow was an incredible surprise this week, an unexpected True Grit homage with notes of Heavy Metal adventure serials and Marvel's Conan the Barbarian. I don't think anyone was expecting a Supergirl series to be anything like this, but it works and I'm sold. This is amazing.



Static: Season One is the first book out of the gate for the new Milestone relaunch. Static Shock was always the most popular, and certainly safest hero in the Dakotaverse, and it's great to see DC is not squandering the opportunity to grow with a strong flagship title. Everything lands, the writing is fresh, the art is perfect, the layouts are poetry. This has me excited for the rest of the Dakotaverse titles.



One nitpick I've seen is that Static throws you right into things, Milestone Returns does the job of introducing you to this world and then Static doesn't really rehash it. But I don't think that's what's really going on- I think some folks are looking for a justification to not read the books. The inciting incident of these stories is so straightforward I can summarize in just one sentence:

Police in Dakota City use experimental gas to disperse civil unrest, and those who survive develop superpowers.

Done. You're all caught up.

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr 3 continues its narrative of mortality and the shape life takes under its shadow with a beautiful chapter narrated by a cigarette shared by death and burning down to embers with a dawning notion of the universe. The ending is a laugh out loud release to some thought-provoking material, and I have an idea now of how this story ends- but I don't want to even utter it, because I don't think many people are reading this book yet, and I think everyone deserves to go into the inevitable graphic novel fresh.


Laila Starr; pussy eater; the hero we deserve.

[Foxy DeVille]

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow was an incredible surprise this week, an unexpected True Grit homage with notes of Heavy Metal adventure serials and Marvel's Conan the Barbarian. I don't think anyone was expecting a Supergirl series to be anything like this, but it works and I'm sold. This is amazing.

Cool. I was intrigued by the pulpy look of an ad for it so I'll definitely check it out now. Might hop on Nightwing, his initial ongoing is an all-time fave of mine but I've had mixed feelings about subsequent ones (except Grayson which ruled the heavens and the earth). Sounds like a good time to give him another look

[Dhi]

I've never been a Nightwing reader before, so I can't compare it to earlier runs. I only know the current run, starting with 78, is very good.

September previews are coming in, and there's a cover for Harley Quinn: The Eat, Bang, Kill Tour.



So now we officially have the horniest cover in the history of comic books, and it was made just for me, yay! Thank you, DC.

And, Marvel is bringing back the Darkhold!



This is exciting for me. Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins made a big impression on me as a young comic book reader. Vicki Montessi led a group of paranormal investigators on the trail of Marvel's version of the Necronomicon. Anywhere a dark wish was uttered carelessly, a grinning dwarf might appear with a black velvet envelope to deliver a page of the Darkhold, saying This one's for you. The feckless who recited the words therein would find their desires twisted in the most gruesome of monkey's paws, and it was so good. It was so good, but it was also so 90s, and a more modern interpretation could be great.

Doctor Doom and Scarlet Witch seem to feature. Those characters are boring and stinky and nobody could care about them so I'd like to see Vicki return in some way. As far as I know she was one of the first openly lesbian characters, way back in 1992, and unlike a lot of the Midnight Sons era has aged like fine wine.

 

[TheGrandAdmiral]

The new Infinite Frontier is interesting, though am not sure I like the idea of another Crisis coming that soon. Though I like how DC started to tie things together and acknowledge past events.

I am interested to read Checkmate.

A NSFWish pic

[Dhi]

A big Crisis reboot would be a terrible idea when DC has so much good going on. It's hard to imagine Infinite Frontier will result in anything drastic, but yes, it makes me nervous. The first issue sold me on the miniseries, at least. Especially great was the development of Roy Harper, who is just minding his own business being bullied by multiverse bounty hunters when...

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I was also reluctant going into the new arc of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, since Sophie Campbell has handed off art duties and she was what did it for me.

So for quite a while April has been working for Baxter Stockman and this is an incredibly perilous situation, because there's no secret April is an uppity journalist and Baxter is up to his mustache sleazy schemes. There have definitely been times I found myself questioning why Baxter tolerates her, why he doesn't arrange some kind of accident.

This week, Baxter fucked around and found out.



Turn a corner and it's great again! There are slow issues, there's some wheel-spinning, but these payoffs are worth it. I like this series.

Kind of following the X-books to the end of the Hellfire Gala, and in S.W.O.R.D., things got really weird with Storm...

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Shortly after the mutants terraformed and effectively claimed Mars, Doctor Doom has demanded to speak to the leader of all Mars, whomever may be audacious enough to claim that title.

Storm declares this to be her. She's the Regent of Mars now.

Very disappointing that this was what necessitated writing Storm out of Marauders, a title I'm enjoying, a title she was terrific in. Who would want this? What sense does this make? Now we'll barely see Storm at all barring a drastic change in creative direction, and it was all for a splash page in a book I don't suppose anybody much is reading.

Still digesting Marvel's Voices: Pride, it's actually a huge book. Angela doesn't actually have a story in it, which feels like a bait and switch considering she's prominent on most covers. A number of the stories are heartfelt, though. There are "date night and a smooch" duds, the same as DC Pride, but overall I really liked it. I'm glad Marvel and DC put these out.

Do we have any Batgirl fans? I really want to get into Batgirl.

[Dhi]

Closing out Pride month, I had a bit to say about the X-books and how I think three of them compare.

In Marauders, we see Emma Frost and Kitty Pryde discussing not having time for relationships, and wow that stung.



It's been nearly a year since Kitty came out and we have not developed that at all. Does Marvel realize that relationships are a huge draw for female readership?

At the same time, Excalibur is phenomenal with its relationships.

 

Brian/Meggan is a True Pairing from ye olden days of Excalibur, and I believe they are married and have a daughter at this point- I fell off in like the 90s. Their dynamic is all kinds of lovely storybook chivalry and it's great. But, oh, Nightcrawler/Meggan was a thing once upon a time, and Marcus To so perfectly mirrors that old flame in an exchange where Kurt helps Meggan to her feet. So perfect.

Gambit/Rogue have been together forever and in the pages of Excalibur they work so well.



Here Gambit's congratulating Rogue on becoming one of the X-Men team.
( Are the characters somehow aware of X-Men being the highest profile book in our world? I don't understand the significance otherwise. )
When asked if he's disappointed he didn't make the cut, Gambit is only happy for Rogue and plans to stay home and take care of their cats. Tini Howard gets it.

Also under Tini Howard, Betsy Braddock is getting subtext for the first time in the eight years since she came out as queer.



Off in the background to the right can be seen Kitty Pryde, getting zero play, toooo busy for relationships, who under multiple writers and decades has failed to get with Rachel. You snooze you lose, Kitty.

Rictor/Shatterstar are seen getting back together in the very same issue.



I don't actually know the history of their relationship- I'm guessing it's had problems. But I liked what I saw in Excalibur 21, and I'd like to see more.

At the same time, Way of X 3 ruined that series for me.



Queer characters Loa and Mercury need the help of insufferable dipshit Legion in order to be intimate, because they cannot work out how to navigate their powers between them. Already this is poison. Legion refuses to respect their privacy, blithely ruins their fun together, and goes so far as to, I'm sorry, take a peek? And bring an unwilling participant along.



If Simon Spurrier's goal was to make Legion absolutely disgusting, mission accomplished, but I also have no interest in reading any more of this book. Future crossover issues are going to be a pass from me, provided Way of X even has legs to survive until Inferno. Nobody is being written well here, least of all the main character of Nightcrawler.

There's a real problem under Hickman's vision for X-Men that villains are being forgiven but not redeemed, and heroes are being soiled by callousness and complete abandonment of moral compass. If they can't continue to abide their principles when they're beyond consequences, then they are not good people. We're being demonstrated that a number of our favorite characters are not good people.

[Kadigan]

Rando Reading Ramblings.

Just read Apocalypse Al, a fun older read, which is basically a very attractive (in comics you say, never!) woman who is the only child in a lineage of monster hunting men, so she takes up the mantle. Basically reads like a dresden files, supernatural kind of thing. Written by JMS so it has his usual sense of humor to it.

I've been reading on DCUI Teen Titans by Geoff JOhns and forgot how very good it was. I forgot how many characters he was responsible for introducing, Miss martian (hope he gets a piece of that YJ action on HBO), Zachary Zatara, Bombshell, Kid Devil (Yes, I know he didn't create him, but he made him relevant).

And I had more, but I am sleepys.

[TheGrandAdmiral]

Pixie was adorabs in the Way of X. The latest issue was the horniest so far  ;D

[Kadigan]

Side question, just read Underworld Unleashed on DCU and one plot point that never was definitively resolved.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Does Neron still have Joker, Luthor, etcs Souls? Or are there Superman/Batman issues later where they get them back?

[Foxy DeVille]

Side question, just read Underworld Unleashed on DCU and one plot point that never was definitively resolved.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Does Neron still have Joker, Luthor, etcs Souls? Or are there Superman/Batman issues later where they get them back?

Per Neron's Wikipedia (which explains it better than I could trying to remember it 25 years later)...

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Captain Marvel makes a deal with Neron to release Earth and all of his fellow superheroes in exchange for his soul and nothing else. Neron accepts and tries to take Captain Marvel's soul, but as the deal was made for purely selfless reasons, the soul is too pure for him to touch; Neron, however, still had to honor his side of the deal by his very nature, and rejecting the deal led to the undoing of most of his other deals (although a few villains would retain their enhanced powers and details such as the death of Blue Devil's friend Marla remained despite the deals ending).

So sounds like his deals got reversed and the souls returned.

Really the most significant thing was that it managed to make the Trickster look cool while still wearing stripes.

[Dhi]

DC told us to stay tuned for a new Barbara Gordon Batgirl costume in a week's time, but that was almost two weeks ago now. Maybe it's not testing well internally? I'm looking forward to it, as I've recently realized I am definitely a Batgirl fan...and, now that I'm liking Tynion on Batman and Taylor on Nightwing, I am ready to follow an ongoing book.

Picked up The Shield from Rob Liefeld this week. I liked these characters in the 90s when DC published them under the Impact imprint. Liefeld is a strange choice. I think anyone who does remember those clean-cut characters probably has mixed opinions on Liefeld, and he's made himself an even more controversial figure now. Certainly nothing has changed with his art. But I want to see Flygirl, Comet, and especially Black Hood. So I'm happy to support this Archie Comics experiment in hopes they will develop what I really want.

Black Cat 2021 Annual bills itself "Infinite Destinies" on the cover, but there's actually nothing about that in the Black Cat story? There's a backup with Nick Fury being beat up by a silhouette I'm positive is Nighthawk from the recent Heroes Reborn event. Felicia also references Hyperion in her story, which is unusual. So the Squadron Supreme is going to try to use infinity stones to restore their offbrand DC version of reality? I remain open to it.

And the Black Cat story in the annual was great, I loved it. Felicia travels to Seoul to help Korean super-spy White Fox, and flirts it up. This was great because ever since Felicia was confirmed as a hero who definitely does that, her flirtation with women has been dialed back. Not so here. It did strike me that nothing in the story feels even a little bit Korean in flavor, and I'd like to see Felicia return to Seoul at some point with a more genuine dive with White Fox. If I have to be the one to write it here on Elliquiy, I guess I will. This story again confronts Felicia with godlike power, not for herself, but in the hands of someone ready to abuse it. Certainly seeds are being planted for Infinity Heist in a few weeks. It's weird that Black Cat is one of my favorite Marvel books in 2021.



Got this blurb for the upcoming Inferno event from the July issue of Previews:

Denied what she was promised, Mystique will take her vengeance on those she believes betrayed her —the mutant rulers of Krakoa — in the next chapter of Jonathan Hickman's X-Men saga, Inferno, coming this September from Marvel Comics!

The island nation of Krakoa was built on a secret shared by three people — Moira MacTaggert, Charles Xavier, and Magneto — that mutants inevitably fail in their struggle for equality and acceptance. To protect this secret, Xavier and Magneto jointly agreed never to revive a precog in order to keep the future hidden and mutant society secure. That decision sits uneasily with Mystique. Her wife, Destiny, was a powerful precog until she was killed by Xavier's son. Tired of waiting for Destiny to be revived like other once-dead mutants, denied the love of her life, Mystique's fury will shake the mutant world to its foundations, and she will burn the mutant utopia of Krakoa to the ground!

Described by Jonathan Hickman as "the follow-up to House of X/Powers of X," Inferno is the next phase of Hickman's X-Men saga. Joined by artists Valerio Schiti, R.B. Silva, and Stefano Caselli, the four-issue Inferno mini-series promises to reveal the secrets that lay hidden in the mutant utopia, see characters unleash long-gestating revenge, and threaten long-standing relationships. No Krakoan will be left unchanged when Mystique unleashes her Inferno!

The conflagration ignites this August in Jonathan Hickman and Valerio Schiti's Inferno #1 from Marvel Comics, and every X-Men fan will want to watch the blaze!

Marvel Previews #13 goes further to call this "the culmination of Jonathan Hickman's X-Men," which is not the same as saying his run ends here, but there's already been a lot of speculation that this is the third and final act.

It's now Summer 2021 and no sign of Valiant's scheduled relaunch of Harbinger, which I've been waiting for to get into the Valiant universe.

[Skynet]

I feel so bad that I can't keep up with all these stories and releases. Still interesting to read, tho.  :D

[Dhi]

Pixie was adorabs in the Way of X. The latest issue was the horniest so far  ;D

I do like Pixie. She's the one thing I will miss from Way of X. But I'm not actually that familiar with the character, and in that first issue she gleefully commits suicide by cop purely to give some religious zealots guilt complexes. That's...not great.

I would love to see more Pixie under a different writer, preferably a different book. Wrangle her into Excalibur, she can replace Rogue. Pixie + Jubilee + Gloriana, all the pretty sparkly princesses of power. It's perfect.

[LunarSage]

I can't express how much I have always adored Jubilee.  She's my comic book crush.