Dave's perspectives on X-Men

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Dave's perspectives on X-Men

Post by Paty »

:magneto
Heh... yeah... well we know chris likes STRONG women...LOL but it was Chris who gave her the genetics lab on Muir Island, too... and the tinkering that made Magneto sane when he used his powers...so you gotta wonder what the story was for her to leave the genetics facility to play housekeeper for Chuck...at least I do...

And it's still chuckie...
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Dave's perspectives on X-Men

Post by SamKarns »

Maybe Moira did it for love and gratitude. As for Jean, I think he bounded with her because she has similar capabilities. When people discover they have something in common they tend to attach themselves more closer because of the connection. Jean's hormones were in overdrive ( based on her age) and she could have send a psychic pheromone link around the ones she cared about. Scott, Logan, The Black King, and Professor X.

Xavier could be discharging a link he's not aware of and simply believes it's just fate. I believe shit happens and there are no true answers when shit happens. Your speculations are interesting, but they are what they are. LOL!!! I believe in noble people and I see this in Professor Xavier. Did Chris Claremont and John Byrne think of him in this way?

Did X care about Jean? Yes he did? Maybe wanted to make love to her? Absolutely not. LOL!!! Professor Charles Xavier is a gentleman, a superhero, his standards are better than mine and your own.

Charles Xavier is a man who has resurrected mulitple times, he can read minds and control them as well. He can take his mind and form an astral plane (ala Obiwon Kenobi) to fight spirits or other demonic presence. He's not God? LOL!!! How do you know that? LOL!!!

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Sunfire was one member who I thought would have been a great addition to the team. Why didn't anyone push for him to remain on the team? How and why was Thunderbird killed?

Kitty's issues and her journey to The X-Men were born from John Byrne, Chris Claremont, or Jim Shooter?

As for the Phoenix tale. I thought Marvel Girl and Phoenix were separate entities? When Byrne concieved the tale of her return in FF #286, she remained under a watery suspended animation as the Phoenix entity took her role on The X-Men? Now it's was a part of her all along?
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Dave's perspectives on X-Men

Post by Paty »

:magneto
Byrne has tried to rewrite the history of every hero he could get his hands on...mostlly badly. but according to Byrne, himself, no one has been done right unles BYRNE has don them. and Byrne warps history to fit his view of it, so I tend to discount Byrne and his little fantasy world he occupies.

The movieverse sorta estableished that Jean had the fledgling power all along. Now, whether this was an extraneous power that had a life of it's own and was using her, or an extension of her own natural power is not clear. Things got so convoluted in the books, that they did make the Phoenix power a separate entity, I do believe ... but whether this carries over to the movieverse is a good question.
In the movieverse, we see Charles Xavier being more of a controlling bastard than we have ever seen him in the books... at least to date. the books hint at it but don't come right out and show it like the movie did. and I am right with Mags when he told Xavier he was wrong to shut the kid down...he needd to teach her to control the power, not supress it... cuz sooner or later it was gonna blow, like Vesuvius.. which it certainly DID.

a lot of the different ways people interpreet the characters and react to them is the fodder for fanfic and rabid disagreements on the net. theoretically, I should have liked Xavier cuz I liked bald characters. Yul Brynner was one of my favorite actors...I was madly in LOVE with his "King of Siam". I enjoyed him in almost every role he played...well.. except when he played "the deaf man" in a movie version of one of McBain's novels... and I liked him less as John Lafitte, simply because he did have hair...LOL...I enjoyed Telly Savalas as Kojak, too... I had a bald professor in college whom I adored. but Xavier creeped me out from the get go. If he is god, give me the devil! I never liked "god" as he is portrayed in biblical literature anyway... pushy, egocentric , arrogant bastard, if you ask me...no... wait...that's Byrne...
Actually it's both... Byrne thinks he is god. Probably more than Xavier does...

No... it is pretty obvious that Xavier's feelings for Jean went beyond a mentor into forbidden territory. To his credit, he squashed them but it took a Herculean effort on his part to do so. As I said, I don't think he is a total villain...any more than Mags is...but I do think there is darker shit there than is portrayed so far in the books... and there are writers who seem to want to explore this possibility, too. I am pretty sure Claremont never liked Professor X very much, either. He kept sending him off into space or some such so he wouldn't have to deal with him...LOL...and I think he was starting to explore some of Xavier's controlling aspects in Excalibur... especially in relation to Magneto...and the possible fallout from that scared the boyos so badllly that it was one of the reasons they yanked ithe book out from under him. I think he was going in the direction of making at least a part of Magneto's early craziness Xavier's fault. Of course, we will probably never know for sure, cuz i am pretty sure they will nevr give Mags and Xavier back to Claremont... they are too afraid of what he will do with that dialectic...especialy if the fans like it, too. I think there are a whole lot of fans out here who don't really like Xavier... possibly at least as many as those who DO like him as the almost saintly father figure.

But it is all interpretation. One can give examples to support one's views in any direction. and this is the beauty of the genre.. the complexity of the characters. If you understand that complexity and enjoy it, you are probablly a lot more aware of the multitude of facets of people you deal with every day.
One of Dave's characters in the Futurians, for exammple, is Silver shadow. I think he is my favorite because he has such possibilities.. ones that Dave, himself, didn't want to think about. I suggested tohim that since Silver Shadow used shadows to travel and do things, that the logical extension of his powers was to go into the shadows of people's minds... and Dave didn't even want to THINK about that possibility... but to me it would have ben a most interesting and logical extension of his power that could have been very exciting and caused the character untold problems and/or adventures. I tend to go for the subliminal and motivating stuff behind the facade of a character.
My mother, who was a social worker before she became Director of Rehab Therepies for the State of Maryland, was firmly convinced that I should go into psychiatry, cuz I did this even as a youngster... giving her insights into some of her cases that she said she would neverr have considered but which turned out to be very valuable in dealing with the patients under her care.
I suppose that penchant for digging at the subliminal and hidden motivations, among other things, of course, is one of the reasons I find the character of Magneto, as Claremont developed him, so wonderfuly interesting and exciting. The buff bod doesn't hurt either, of course...LOL...but it is the psychological convolutions I find absoutely fascinating.
Theoretically, Charles should be just as fascinating... but he isn't. He just creeps me out in a way i cannot even explain. Dave thinks it is because I have issues with father figures. and to a degree, he has a point... but I have no problems with his father, whom I call Daddy... and he is a father figure in spades... so that can't hold true for all father figures...and I don't think it holds true for Xavier. My aversion for him goes beyond the lack of trust in father figures generated by the fact that my father disappeared when I was three and we never saw or heard from him again. Now, that is a traumatic thing for a young child and I am sure it colored a lot of my childhood subliminally. but I don't think it plays into my aversion for Chuckie.
I think my aversion to Xavier is,from the very beginning, the possibility of the invasion of the mind...and we saw Chuck going into the kid's minds constantlly. And we also saw him constantly putting them in dreadful danger and then telling them "Oh, this was just an exercise (...or a test), my X Men " ... which meant one of two things... either he was controlling the antagonist... in one case, I believe, Magneto...and they weren't in any real danger... or that he ws putting them in danger just to test them and what would happen if they were not up to the job??? Would/could he have controlled the test and s stopped it? If not, then he was either lying about it only being a test, or he was irresponsible in sending them out to fight something he couldnn't control.
while the early adventures wer glorious and upbeat and stuff like that, the subliminal ramifications of sending children out to battle powerful villains is questionable in the extreme. Magneto, for exammple, was a world class power! His own hangups are the only reason the kids kept defeating him... or maybe not... if Xavier was controlling everything... INCLUDING Magneto. But that opens a whole can of worms, doesn't it?
Either Xavier was irresponsible sending partially trained children out to fight a world class power like Mags...or Xavier was controlling Magneto and knew the kids were not at risk cuz he wouldn't let them be hurt.
You cannot have it both ways. Either Xavier is controlling a lot more than he says or he is an irresponsible and possibly dangerous teacher for the kids. The first time they go up against Mags, they have barely begun their training with Xavier, so it is not as if they are seasoned Danger Room experts as they become in later years... they are novices... and either Magneto didn't want to really hurt the children or Xavier was controlling the whole situation...cuz Magneto had enough control of his power to blow them away a dozen times over.... no contest.

So it's things like this that don't ring true or kosher with me as far as Xavier is concerned.. and never have. there are too many things that are questionable on the face of it that if you are not ooking for subliminal or hidden motivations or consequences, you say,"Oh, yeah, sure..." but if you ARE looking at these factors, you say "WAITAMMINIT!!! ...WTF is really happening here???!!! Holy crapoly!!!"

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Dave's perspectives on X-Men

Post by SamKarns »

Yes all true but there's something you're missing. Xavier was not probing minds of just ordinary kids but kids who will become superheroes. I could see myself opposed to the subliminal aspects if the X-Men were regular--normal children. Hey this is why I love the adjective to the X-Men.

I have similar feelings for Bryan Singer as you have concerning Byrne. He has changed and disrespected the characters and insulted the genre. You talked about subliminal? This man has put a lot of his homosexual issues onto the films and has convince a lot of mindless readers that spandex is NOT cool if it's on superheroes. He takes no responsiblities for his blunders, when his superman did not do well at the B.O. domestically he blamed marketing. Guess what the mindless are telling me why Superman Retard didn't do well domestically? I am sick Singer and his Bullshit and I'm glad Superman didn't do well and I hope a sequel to that piece of shit never exist.

There are some things from Byrne I was very displeased with changing the codename of Susan Storm from the Invisible Girl to the Invisible Woman and not reverting the white and black uniforms where he left the FF book, nor did I like his run on West Coast Avengers (Even changing the title to AVENGERS WEST COAST bothered me), his Chapter One of Spider-Man.

I went to the recent SDCC and I asked about John Byrne to fellow comic book fans during Artist's signings because for the record I'M A HUGE FAN. The things these artists said or didn't say but the facial expressions were just shocking to me. One person mumbled "Second only to Jack. feh!" and another artist responded, "Yeah, if you put enough lines down, SOME of them are BOUND to be in the right place." All of a sudden there was a huge burst of laughter. I was embarrased and a little upset with myself for ever mentioning it. One of the artist told me it's not me they're laughing at.

He has made a truly negative impression on himself and it seems he can't accept his behavior or he simply doesn't see the errors he's done. He's hated. Byrne has said many times the reason for his woes are from the trolls (They run comic book stores, fans who read comic books too long, and fans turn pro) who lurk on the internet to slander him. He believes it's because they have never forgive him for leaving Uncanny X-Men.

I'm beginning to believe there is more to this than just slander. I am a member of the JBF and I am watching what I say about Byrne carefully. Because there are members who are also members here and I don't wish to offend them or Mr. Byrne. These are great people and very kind.

Magneto even considering having mutants explore their powers to full potential is insane. Reason why I like X-Men: The Last Stand so much, the gay message was gone, Magneto finally sees what a mutant can be if they explore this side of their powers. It will become too relishing to not stop and who will they test their abilities on? Humans should not be lab rats to gods. This kind of action will make them into monsters. Magneto just doesn't get it, he's raping these mutants' minds from their humanity. Xavier probes the people he cares about because he doesn't want them to be inhumane. It's a fundamental aspect to what humans and mutants need to achieve to live with one another. We as a people need to be humane because if we don't they are certain consequences to our actions. Magneto, and even John Byrne.
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Dave's perspectives on X-Men

Post by Dark Bamf »

You might be interested to know that the 'put enough lines down and some of them have to be in the right place' was a crack Byrne made on his own website about ME. That crack so infuriated Paty that she asked the editors of the Dave Cockrum Tribute Book to ban Byrne from inclusion in the book. I should also point out that while everyone else sent original art to be auctioned, to raise more mmoney to help with our medical expenses, Byrne sent his piece as a xerox. Nuff said.

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Dave's perspectives on X-Men

Post by Paty »

:magneto
You are telling me that if you were a mutant, you wouldn't mind Xavier coming into your mind willy nilly and doing whatever he wanted in there ? You are saying that mutants must be monitored by someone else because they are special and not capable of choosing right or wrong for themselves??? You are saying that because they are "special" that they basically cannot have the right to privacy that everyone is guaranteed the right to under the constitution?That because they are "special " that they are less than the humans who have every right to expect a modicum of privacy in their own heads?? Excuse me... am I hearing this right?
I am sorry... that doesn't work for me. Yes, they have powers and yes, ethics of using the powers as well as the ability to control them are the heart of the courses at Xavier's... but invasion of the psyche, even if benevolent, is right out! You are assuming that because these kids have powers that their brains must be monitored by someone like Xavier???
You gotta be kiddin'!!!
these kids have the same rights as every one else and the right to their own thoughts and the privacy thereof is paramount...otherwise NO ONE is safe from Big Brother Chuckie prying. Oh, he WOULDN'T DO THAT!!!??? Or would he? He does it to those kids throughout the series... and the only person who has the moxie...or possibly the partial immunity... to know what he is doing and complain is Logan!!! Get outta my HEAD, Chuck!!!

Yes, I assumed by your post that you are a Byrne fan... and that is OK...your choice. but let me tell you this. the only person Byrne has to blame for his generally bad rep and woes is HIMSELF! Of the two quotes thrown at you at the con, I can tell you the story behind at least one of them..the latter. the one about ",,,if you put enough lines down ONE of them has gotta be right." that little tidbit came from his board. A direct quote. And it was the backhanded slap he directed at a piece of Dave's art a person posted on his website. Well, on Byrne's board, I understand, you can only talk about Byrne... and onlyin glowing terms, at that. A recent happening there was that some longtime loyal fan of Byrne's had the temerity to say he admired the writing of Alan Morre...a hugely acclaimed writer in the comics genre...and Byrne's response was, I am told... cuz I don't really go there to Byrne's board... "You are disrespecting ME... get out!" and he chucked this long time loyal fan OFF the board... just for SAYING he LIKED another writer's work!!!!! The gall of that overweening asswipe!
In any event, going back to the "lines" remark... A fan, knowing that you can only talk about or post art with connections to his godhood, posted a piece of Dave's are he had acquired. a very unusual page of uninked pencils...with Kitty Pryde on it. Now the fan, knowing the rules, made sure they had been followed by pointing out that Kitty Pryde was Byrne's creation... well... he did the visuals, Claremont did her personality and development over the years... so taking credit for all of her is somewhat overblown, don't you think? In any event, this fan posted the art because Dave was in the news as being very sick... which he was... and near death... which he was... and a Tribute book was being done by an old friend, Cliff Meth... as a thank you for all Dave did for the industry... and a monumental get well card. It actually spiraled outta sight when scores of people came out of the woodwork to laud Dave...to his great surprise, by the way. Anyway, Byrne admitted these were what he called "unusually tight" pencils and then made the backhanded slap of "if youput down a thousand lines one of them has to be right" ...or words to that effect. In twenty five years, Byrne has, to my knowledge, never lauded another artist or writer without levelling a backhanded, or snide remark in the next breath. And he followed suit this time. when it was called to my attention, I had had enough of his arrogance, devoutly wished I had not saved his life some twenty five years before, and promptly called Cliff and told him the Byrne piece in the Tribute book was OUT! We didn't even know if Dave would survive to see the tribute book at the time, but if he did, I didn't want it sullied by Byrne's hypocracy... and I made no bones about it. Byrne's version was, of course, that i was mad that he took over Uncanny from Dave and was getting even after all these years... which was so ludicrous it boggles the mind. I just got tired of him getting away with lies and disrespect for anyone in the industry but himself.

Byrne has bounced back and forth from Marvel to DC for twenty five or thirty years... and you know why? Because he and his arrogance and mouth so disaffect people at one company that they tell him to get lost. So he goes over to the other company with his fan base and worksTHERE until he pisses someone important enough at THAT company and gets the boot there... then he goes back to the other company... who has by this time forgotten how Byrne can BE...and the dreary cycle starts all over again. And this has been going on for close to thirty years, now...
Now, I hear Byrne has been doing very lousy pinup drawings of the X folk and his fans are flooding the net with, saying Wow...aren't these great? And shouldn't Byrne be back on the X Men?" Which means that Byrne got tossed by DC... which apparently he just did with the cancellation of the Atom book...probably for badmouthing the movie and not shutting up about it when DC told him to cease and desist. Which he didn't do.

Consequently he is now unemployed and wants to gt back into Marvel. But Byrne burned his bridges at Marvel by sneering at Joey Qusada's grief when his parents died...and Joey was CLOSE with his parents...and from what I hear, and understand, Byrne will get back in Marvel over Joey's cold and rotting body!!! And rightly so! You cannot display that kind of arrogance and insensitifity to everyone else and get away with it forever. What goes around comes arougn and Byrne is overdue for a comeuppance...and the whole industry knows it. Hence the disrespect and snide remarks tossed at him or about him. He has earned them. He badmouthed Chris Reeve after his death and at that time I wondered why he was still working at DC. Everyone and his dog loved Reeve for not laying down and dying and fighting for quads everywhere and stem cell research to help those like himself who have lost all movility below the cervical vertibrae. And there are a lot of people, adults and kids, who would benefit from the things he was championing. He was a real hero... a real SUPERMAN... and Byrne badmouthed him, sneered at him and generally showed what the great God Byrne was made of...total shit. But it was no surprise for those of us in the biz that Byrne acted in such a cavaliere manner... it was Byrne as usual.
I basically don't care about his highness...he really doesn't exist for me except as he affects those I love... like Dave, Claremont and Magneto. and then... he attacks any of those...aTHEN he deals with ME! he is ALWAYS badmouthing Claremont ,whom he is wildly jealous of...and he is on my SHIT list... and you do NOT want to be on Paty's shit list! I have an unerring kill instinct and the bloodthirstyness to cut you off at theknees when I am angry. I'm not a nice person when I am angry... no... WAIT.. that's the hULK...
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAA

But you see what I mean about Byrne shooting himself in the foot with his big mouth. He sends his fans out to fill the airways with his praise... just to get what he wants or push for something.. he has done this for years...and people who keep watch on his board and movements within the industry know when something is up with him because of how his fanboys suddenly flush the net with Byrne crap.
The first quote was that...someone compared Byrne's contribution to Marvel as second ony to Jack Kirby's.. which is a laugh and a half. He created a fraction of the characters Dave did. And the ones he created were mostly shallow and not used very often...Kitty Pryde being a notable excpteio... and the recent stories with Northstar being another exception, as well. But Byrne didn't develop these characters into the interesting people they are today... OTHER writers did..notably Chris Claremont. whose idea Kitty probably was to begin with... Byren's fantasy world aside...

The thing about it is, that Byrne has been warping real history in his own favor so long, that some people have gotten to saving some of his more outrageous statements so that when he avers something diametrically opposed, later, they can toss his own words back at him... and then he promptly delets the thread and lays low for a while and then starts all over again with a new batch of fans. Personally I was not aware of this, since Dave and I are relative newcomers to the net... but I am assured this has been happening for close to a decade now...and from what I personally know of Byrne, I believe every word... especially when backed up by hard copy... which people have sent me to substantiate their Byrne horror stories.

I assure you, honey... Byrne's woes are of his own making. You are free to enjoy his work...but if you ever met him, you would probably hate the man himself....most people do.

And that is unfortunate. Because of his high profile, he has been a template for a whole lot of people entering the business in the past decade. As a result we have writers and artists who think THEY are gods, too. And this is where we have a disrespect for the characters, for canon, for the shared universe and the importance of the core characterizations of the characters that make up that shared universe. And that is why things are such a mess at Marvel right now.

OK.. that is a bit of a simplistic explanation, cuz there is a lot more office politickingh going on than meets the eye... but I think it is a valid observation for all of that.

I was not sanguine about the Superman movie. I do think Bryan Singer dropped that particular ball. The guy who played Supes was great, though. I had issues with Luthor, his portrayal and superman's interaction withhim. It should have been a great movie and it wasn't. and that is too bad. I actuallyhope there will be another superman movie...hopefullyNOT directed by Singer, though.

I did not mind what Singer did with the first two X movies, My one caveat was the I wished they were in their "colors"...and especially Magneto. but I think the black costumes were used bcause they wanted the audience to take these characters seriously, and the only superhero movie... shor of the original Superman movie, that had been successfully done, was Batman... and he dressed mostly in black... so the theory was that to be taken seriously, you had to dress superdoops in black... which the first spider Man movie shot to hell in a breadbasket. the FF fmovie, too...LOL...so we got a little more color in the third movie, thank goodness. they are working wtwards the yellow spandex...maybe...LOL...
I thought the characterizations were pretty good, considering you had to introduce complex standing characters to a whole audience who didn't know them from adam. Everyone knows Superman and Batman... but these X Men... who are they??? so you had to introduce not one but half a dozen characters, to not only the fans who knew them and would jump on any diviation... but to hundreds of thousands of citizens who didn't know these characters and needed to be won over to them in two hours! A daunting task... and i think Avi Arad and Singer handeled it well, given the problems they faced. The third movie I found choppy in itls pacing and some of it's logic, but enjoyable if only for Magneto... who was FINE!!!... but then, I am somewhat Mags-centric... LOL... so you see my bias, don't you? LOLOL

But why,might I ask, is Magneto wanting mutants to explore their powers to their full potential insane? That is basicaly what Xavier is supposed to be helping his charges do. So why is it insand if Magneto wants the same thing? He wanted Jean to be taught to use and control her budcing Phoenix power as it grew within her... a logicalway to approach it. Charles felt she was out of control at that time and supressed the power... something Mags knew wouldn't last, no matter how big a cork Xavier put in it... and sooner or later it would blow, be really out of control and mad to boot. That was a scenerio for disaster and Magneto knew it. Xavier thought he could control it... but Mags knew better. And, as we saw, once again, Magneto was RIGHT!

It is amazing how often Magneto is right...
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:magneto
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Dave's perspectives on X-Men

Post by SamKarns »

Magneto is wrong. Although Magneto was well aware the supression wouldn't last, Xavier knew this as well but he was not willing to sacrifice his mansion or, better yet, human lives so Marvel Girl could get a series of at bats before she can finally hit a slider. It's similar to scientist trying to control fusion. It can not be done... yet. The best way is to contain it. Containing it won't hurt people and the ones attempting to channel it. To continue this unknown venture for power is suicidal and who will have to pay for this when the milked is spilled? Innocent lives. Always the results. Xavier cares so much for humanity, he doesn't want it to be desdtroyed by people like Proteus and Dark Pheonix.

The remark about Dave and others. I heard about it but honestly I didn't expect the kind of embarrassment occurred at Comic Con to me. I am aware of the internet slander Mr. Byrne has informed his members but I never thought it would turn to laughs and snickers. I felt ashamed I mentioned his name to several artists at this particular booth, who I will not mention, it was if I was out of the loop of some huge joke. Not a good feeling... even if one of the artist notice how shitty I felt and told me it not me they're laughing at. Sigh.

I thought Brandon Routh was completely wrong as Superman. As I mentioned on another thread, Clark Kent was mono-syllabic and Superman was micro-syllabic. That costume is just too... sexy. That's not Superman. He has a bastard child? What in the world Singer is going to do with this piece of crud of a tale?

Spandex insult is all Singer from X-Men. It's clear to me He was embarrassed by the costumes because he's not a fan of the books. I honestly believe Singer is not a fan of comics. He got into comics material because it was his calling card to produce another successful Marvel film. Blade was the first successful Marvel film which a lot of people forget.

The problem with Singer's Superman film is it doesn't feel like a SUPERMAN FILM. This should have been an epic movie but it's a small melodrama like HIS X-MEN. I'm sick of this guy getting credit for nothing, it's not like his world was visionary like Tim Burton or Richard Donner. He's taking what was established and making it his own and God DaMn his own is a piece of shit. Blah. I understand he wants to do a remake of Logan's Run... well it figures.

Why I asked about Bobby Drake, it appeared during the late seventies and early 80's he was all over the place. I think he was on the Defenders and Champions and Marvel Team-up? Did they know what to to with him?

And could you answer my SunFire question?
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Dave's perspectives on X-Men

Post by Paty »

:magneto
We are gonna have to agree to disagree about Xavier and Mags... cuz I am still firmly in the Magster's camp. Xavier had enough money and resources to help Jean rather than shut her down and ignore her for years until the phoenix power blew. If he KNEW it was gonna do that, then shutting it down while it was still forming, was the totally wrong thing to do. If he didn't know he couldn't control it for the rest of her life, he has some excuse in thinking he could control it... but he was still wrong to do it... cuz what would happen if he died and the power busted loose, still uncontrolled and madder than hell? Mags saw this and warned Xavier and Xavier didn't wanna hear it.
Throughout the history of the books and the movies, Xavier has to have it all his way. He never listens to anyone else... never questions his own objectives and motivations...and deeds...or if he does, he absolves himself with ease. He brainwashes everyone around him. Possibly unconsciously, but he does it anyway. I had issues with how xavier did things from the get go.... and others should have too... but for the most part... there's always Wolvie.. they didn't. It just read really really wrong to me.

You would have to ask Dave about Sunfire's dismissal from the group. they did that when he and Chris were doing the book. Personally, I found Sunfire's abrasive personality not applicable to the group's congenial ambience. and his mask sucked moose. I hated that mask... it made the costume stupid...and it wasn't a bad costume otherwise... But I think it was his personality that got him booted. A gregarious group doesn't do well with an arrogant member, and Sunfire was always arrogant.
Y'see, that's Byrne's problem, too.. only he isn't gtting away with it any more. You ran into a wall of disrespect that Byrne has built himself. It ihas just taken a long time for it to finally reach the overflow point and manifest. and the fact that Byrne got away with bad behavior and badmouthing others for so long made him think it was OK. It wasn't and people are finally gtting tired of the lies and disrespect to other pros as well as the fans, themselves. Intelligent pros know that their whole livelihood depends on those fans out there. Byrne built himself a large fan base... before the fans knew what he was really like... and because of it, he thought he could act any way he wanted. .. and is continuing to do so. But that fan base grew up and saw his bad behavior in the industry for exacty what it was. and new pros came in and said "who does he think he is? Gawd?"
well.. yes... but he no longer gets away with it and it has finally cught up to him because he no longer has a massive fan base to wave in the faces of editors. You got slapped by the tip of the iceberg, honey... I don't think you wanna explore the festering resentment that lies beneath the calm waters...

Iceman...well... that is a character whose popularity has come and gone. He has disappeared and reappeared as writers who wanted to write him have come and gone. If he appeared in singular stories ... sorta out of the blue...it was probably because they had to use him or forfiet the trademarks and logos and registrations... publishing legal stuff. You gotta use a character every so often or lose the trademarks and registrations on them. You don't wanna do that, cuz someone else will snap them up.
Bobby is popular right now because of the movies and because sometime in the nineties, someone wanted to develop him and did so, giving him the totally ice body during a "secondary mutation" kind of thing. that happening and his reaction to it have carried him as an interesting character to the present day, where the movieverse and his place in it have cemented his popuarity once again. For particulars on Bobby, you would have to seek out an Iceman fan...I am sure there are websites dedicated to him.

OK...let's see, did the blind eye miss anything lse?
LOL
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Post by Dark Bamf »

Regarding Sunfire--we never meant to keep him in the X-Men. He was included in the original 'New' X-Men for color and interest, but as we saw that first adventure as an 'entrance exam', we always intended to have a couple candidates 'flunk out'. We were going to flunk Thunderbird and Banshee, too, but then we decided we liked them and wanted to keep them. Sunfire was simply too arrogant and abrasive to keep.

Unfoftunately, we wound up deciding to eliminate Thunderbird in #95, because he too was arrogant and abrasive, and we couldn't think of an easy way to deal with him.

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Atilla the Hun, Atilla the Hun.
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but I still love Atilla the Hun.'
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Dave's perspectives on X-Men

Post by SamKarns »

LOL. You are very funny, Paty. I can see why people, including Dave, Love you so much. THere is a mother/ friend next door aura about you.

You actually saved Byrne's life twenty five years ago. Your fire fighter training did come in handy. It must have been a heated situation?
Have you read Byrne's WCA run particularly the one where Scarlet Witch loses everthing--her kids, Vision (later a paled face mannequin similar to DATA from Star Trek) and she later started having BAD Jean Grey tendencies and then in the final issue I read she rejoined Magneto and QuickSilver?

Sunfire. Thanks Dave.

I'm surprised you didn't like his mask, Paty. It has a Japanese feel to it and I love the eyes Dave created for him. Really unique--there, you have to give credit for it's uniqueness? LOL.

Sorry, but you have so much knowledge I want to get as much from it as I can. I hope I haven't sideswiped Dave because he used to talk to me more often. Now he just comes and goes. I hope I haven't made him... shy?

Who made the decision, Paty and Dave, to bring Wolverine in the group? What were the discussions then to apply this new X-Men team? What were Stan Lee's current statis and what was he doing at the time? What were his opinions of the new group? Did he have any suggestions?

How did the X-Men get on that monster Island and how did Cyke get away?

Have Dave ever illustrated you?



[Edited on 7/8/06 by SamKarns]
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Dave's perspectives on X-Men

Post by Paty »

:magneto
Ha... Dave posts when he feels like it and he is never shy.
for the questions on the makeup of the X books, I shall defer toDave cuz it was he who was doing them with Len and Chris.

Saving Byrne's life... yes, a heated situation...no, not involving my firefighting skills...LOL...at that point, I wasn't a firefighter... I was still trying to get INTO the boys club of firefighting...almost as hard as getting into Marvel if you are a girl...who isn't 'EASY"...

I have told this story often but I shall repeat it for your edification...
Byrne, in the beginning, used tolive in Canada...and he would come into the offices about twice a year... or so. As soon as he would walk in the door, his snottiness and arrogance would start setting people off and within fifteen minutes of walking in the front door, he would have almost everyone at Marvel wanting to strangle him...literally. One day, I don't know what he did back in the bullpen, but I saw him from my office, which was located right outside the production room...which IS the "bullpen"...and he was walking down the hall towards editorial. A minute or so later I saw one of the guys from the stat room... if I remember correcly, it may have been Robbie...but don't quote me on that... coming out of the door with fire in his eye and froth on his lips muttering"I'm gonna kill the sonofabitch! which way did he go?". Now, my office was at the juncture where you went into the bullpen, down to editorial or out the back door. I knew who he meant. Byrne had been in the bilding for about half an hour...long enough to raise a killing frenzy. Just to be sure I asked. "Byrne...that sunofabitch! I am gonna KILL him, paaty...!"
Robbie's eyes were beginning to glaze ove and rage was still boiling out of them. I knew that if he caught up to Byrne, he would, indeed, pummel him... cuz Robbie was a nice guy but you didn't want to piss him off... cuz he was also a fighter. and I knew he would easily take that arrogant bastard apart. Believe me... it was a tough decision... but I also knew if he killed Byrne...wheich he could easilyhave done... that he would end up in jail. I also knew that if he DIDN'T kill the bastard, that Byrne would probably cite him for assult and battery...and Robbie would end up in jail, too. Even getting shut of Byrne or teaching him a sharp lesson wasn't worth Robbie getting hauled off to jail for any reason. Byrne wasn't worth it.
so I grabbed him and steered him into my office, closed the door and made him sit down and cool off. at this point, he was so dazed with rage and frazzled, he didn't give me a hard time...just did what I said... a wise move on his part. When I go into dom/teacher/mom mode, youbetter not mess with me.
someone...I don't remember who, came by, saw something was happening in my room ... through the glass panes that formed one wall... poked their head in and asked if they could help... and I told them to go to the front windows and look out. When Byrne, who was supposedly on his way outta the offices ...having created enough mayhem for this visit... exitted the building, he was to come and tell me. MEANWWHILE, I proceeded to talk Robbie back into a semblence of sanity and calmness. He never did tell me what Byrne had said or done that set him off... but I kept Robbie in my room and talked tohim until I knew Byrne was not olnly out of the offices, but out of the building as well. When the staffer reported back that Byrne was seen leaving 575 Mad, I told Robbie that he was gone for another half year... and Robbie finally let out a big breath, thanked me for keeping him from"killing that bastard" and possibly going to jail... and then he went back to work. I am sure his blood pressure at the time was still sky high, but at least a tragedy had been averted. I don't mean the death or dismemberment of Byrne, either...I mean Robbie possibly ending up in jail. Robbie was well liked and everyone would have hated seeing himin jail as much as they would have gleefuly liked seeing him beat the tar outta Byrne. I also suggested that if Robbie heard that Byrne was about in the future, that he lock the door to the stat room and stay there, diligently shooting stats until Byrne left, cuz I might not always be around to intercept. I suppose he took my advice, cuz after I left staff, I am sure Byyrne was in the offices a lot...especially afer he moved to the US and was close enough to be there often.
I dunno, if Byrne visited the office more often, maybe the staffers got used to it...you know...like if you work at the city dummp, you get inured tothe stench and don't even notice it...
the only person at the time that I knew of who didn't hate Byrne's occasional forays into the offices, was Roger Stern. He followed Byrne around like he was a messiah. Y'see, Shooter THOUGHT he, himself, was a god... but Byrne KNEW He, Byrne, was the god... Much as I disliked Shooter for his male chauvenistic and rather soulless "black hole"edness, he was superior to Byrne as a human being. .. sorta...

Anyway, that's the story behind me saving Byrne's life. I am not sure he even knows about it unless someone has told him after I have posted the story...mostly here onNightscrawlers... but that is a true story. there have been times when I wished Ihad let Robbie tear into him and teach him to mind his mouth... but, as I said, Robbie was worth far more than Byrne in my regard. I liked Robbie.... he was, and probably still is, a good guy.


I read some of byrne's WCA... Hated it. the first thing he did was take apart the vision and make himinto his own recreation of him...Byrne, as I said before, had a problem with characters unless he could make them into a shallow enough version of themselves for him to understand and write. Roy thomas had given the Vision such depth and pathos that he was beyond byrne's concepts...so he dust devolved him back to where he could understand him... sohe could write him. I hated what he did with Wanda dn Cthon. wand was my alter ego and he never understood her. I don't think many writers ever did understand her... they just USED her. roy thomas understood her best, I think. but Byrne didn't understand women beyond the blow up dolls ...with all the proper orifices... he made of them. You can tell when he got married because all of a sudden his women in his drawings actually had bones instead of rubber arms and legs. Really. Hadda have a "hands on" xperience, I guess...
I did like his and Sterno's Captain America... but that was as much Sterno's writing as Byrne's art... which I find too cartoony by far tolike much. Byrne was the only artist I ever wrote to Stan to complain about. At that time he was assigned to the FF and he was drawing Reed Richards so horribly that he looked like he was dying of cancer. I couldn't get any art gor the merchandising cuz it was so awful! He got better later I think... but his art was so stylized that I rarely accessed it for the merchandise files.

Byrne did do one spectacular piece of art that impressed me, though. At one time,I was doing some coloring for WARP graphics...the Elfquest people. and they were doing a summer special with other artists doing some of Wendy Pini's characers. Richard called me into the offices and asked if I could color this six or eight page story...and I said sure. when I got there , I asked who had done the art and he said John Byrne. I must have made an awful face, cuz richard got very concillatory..."It's pretty good, Paty...really..." whenI looked at the pages, I had to admit it was good. It was beautiful...far more illustrative and less cartoony... although there were those cartoony faces... than usual inbyrne's art. He still drew femeal faces all aliike...changing ony the hair style...sigh...but over all, it wasn't bad at all...in fact it was far more illustrative than I would have given Byrne credit gor being able todo. I enjoyed coloring it, in any event... and I am usually rather picky about art I have to put color on. But that was a beautiful piece of work, I must say. Mostlly, however, I never liked Byrne's art very much. It didn't give me headaches like Kirby's work did... but then it wasn't cubistic either...whichKirby's work really is. I just never liked it because it was too much like saturday morning cartoon drawing in my estimation. I preferred representational art...like John Buscema, Dave or Johnny Romita...Sr. Highly stylized art only works with me on occasion. Frank Miller's Daredevil, for exammple , worked for me. Joe Kubert's suff over at DC worked for me...gilKane's stuff worked for me on spider Man and some of his fantasy stuff with horses was pretty good. He didnn't draw real horses, like Buscema did, but his horses were fantasy creatures that had viable anatomy, so were OK...I am TOTALLY picky about how horses are drawn cuz most artists don't know horses from a hole in the wall...and often put joints where no joint ever was...and sometimes have them working backwards...which is right OUT!!!

But I digress... LOL...Dave can tell you how picky I am about horse art...LOL...

Anyway...hope that answers your questions...
Paty
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Post by Dark Bamf »

Paty is as picky about horses as I am about aircraft or dinosaurs. Or the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Gil Kane's horses weren't so much horses as the *spirit* of horses. You looked at his horses and you KNEW that's what horses SHOULD look like.
Sorry, but you have so much knowledge I want to get as much from it as I can. I hope I haven't sideswiped Dave because he used to talk to me more often. Now he just comes and goes. I hope I haven't made him... shy?
I'm not shy. I just don't post as often as Paty.
Who made the decision, Paty and Dave, to bring Wolverine in the group? What were the discussions then to apply this new X-Men team? What were Stan Lee's current statis and what was he doing at the time? What were his opinions of the new group? Did he have any suggestions?
It was an editorial decision to include Wolverine. It was a ploy to increase sales of the book in Canada. Discussions about other characters mostly consisted of Roy Thomas telling me to go home and design some characters, then Roy, Len Wein and me picking out the ones we liked best. Stan Lee was president of Marvel at the time. I'm not sure how much Stan knew about the new group until much later, but he had no suggestions at the time.
How did the X-Men get on that monster Island and how did Cyke get away?
I don't know.
Have Dave ever illustrated you?
This is still Dave answering, and no.

:bamf

[Edited on 8-8-2006 by Dark Bamf]
'I'm in love, I'm in love with Atilla the Hun--
Atilla the Hun, Atilla the Hun.
He may pillage your village and kill everyone
but I still love Atilla the Hun.'
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Dave's perspectives on X-Men

Post by Paty »

:magneto

Heh... well...dave has done me in a number of illustrations, if that's what youmean. He included both of us in a number of panels in a number of different issues of Uncanny, as well as, I believe, the black and white story with Nighty in bizarre Adventures. I know we nearly had Firelord dumped on us in Washington Square Park, and I think we might have been somewhere around rockefeller rink one time...I know Doomsie was there, skating around...as was jack and Stan, bemoaning the manners of young folk at the time...LOL
He has also done characterizations of me and I have done some of him, too...LOL...We used to send illustrated notes back and forth when we were dating... and we have done Birthday cards featuring each other and nighty, among other characters...LOL

Has Dave ever illustrated a story by me? No...LOL and I haven't illustrated one by him...welllllllll.... one page I gotta work on... He has illustrated his own stories and I have illustrated my own stories. Dave's art is very superhero and sci fi... while mine leans more towards fantasy ilustration, with a lot more embellishment. If you check out the gallery or go over to our websites, you will see what I mean...LOL...

Paty
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Post by SamKarns »

I thought it would be appropriate to give you guys a break. Are you ready for another round?;)

[Edited on 29/8/06 by SamKarns]
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Post by Paty »

:magneto

Heh...
Is the Pope Catholic? Do bears shit in the woods?
BWAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

Paty
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Post by SamKarns »

What was it like working in the house of ideas? Was it like The newsroom of the Daily Planet, filled with eccentricity and life from the Donner Superman film?

how good was Roy Thomas storytelling?

Which characters in the X-Men universe need more development and why?
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Post by Paty »

:magneto

LOL... Working at Marvel back in "the day" was the most fun you could have and still get paid for it!!!!!!!
I would travel six and a half hours EVERY day to work there and I was a peon!!! It was THAT wonderful!!! It was ribald, electric, wild and wolly...you could just as easily get hit with a wadded up piece of paper walking into the bullpen as not...loving and hateful, full of laughter and occasionally tears. It was truely magickal. There was a life and vigrancy to it. this is not to say there weren't snakes in eden...there were. there was also backstabbing, undercutting, favoritism, nepotism, sexual harassment and discrimination... which continues even more pervasively today... but there was also love and caring and joy and laughter.
I was, apparently, someone Stan would brag about to people... cuz more than once I would be walking down the hall with an arm ful of stuff for my boss, Sol Brodsky, and Stan would be showing bigwigs around and when he saw me coming he would say "she's the one ..."
I would stop, grinning, and wait for the inevitable "You REALLY travel six and a half hours EVERY day to work here?????!!!" I was obviously not one of the high paid exexts or anything... just a lowly grunt... and I would laugh and nod YES... and they would drop their jaws and ask "WHY???'
I would say"If you have to ask that, you'll never understand!" Then I would point back behind me to a doorway...and say ..."Y'see that? THAT'S the BULLPEN... it's.............. MAGNICK!!!!!!" Then I would wink at Stan, he would laugh, I would laugh, and then I would say, "'excuse me, I have work to do.." and trot off down the hall to Sol's while they just stood there looking between me and the door to the bullpen. then they would go towards it with wonder in their executive eyes...and, I am sure, the proper belief in their hearts.
and ya know something? It WAS magickal. It was al lot of hard work, too... and sleepless ights, and yelling and screaming and FUN! Occasionally we would get bothered by some executive trying to be a big shot... but mostly we had fun and did our jobs and laughed and loved andstirred the creative pot, roiling and bubbling with hope, and possibilities andSTORIES! We loved the characters! they and their personalities and their stories were what it was all about!!! It wasn't the I AM THE BIG STAR... shit that is going on today. It was about the characters. The editors knew what editors were supposed to do...help the writers refine their stories and keep conflicting storylines from colliding with a little judicious juggling. today, apparently, editorial dictates storylines. and this is SOOOOOOOOOO WRONG!
It is gonna kill whatever creativity might stilllurk there... and that ain't much, if you ask me!
We had a rverence for what had been done before and a care in how we monkeyed with it. Characters werent killed for shock value...mostly... well.. there WAS Thunderbird... but he was an anomaly! And that shouldn't have happened, either... but he "died" off panel and I know how to bring him back after all these decades...logically and properly... but I ain't tellin'
ha! LET THE BRILLIANT ASSWIIPES FIGURE IT OUT!!! NO ONE HAS YET...

Roy thomas was an excellent storyteller. He built characters with intracacy and a subtle charm that you don not see today. His development of the Vision ws a case in point. He took a character who came out of nowhere, was a construct of a major villain, sent to destroy the Avengers, and made him into a hero of intriguing possibilities. He was an android, with the emotions of a human. Roy made him fall in love with Wanda, and the delicacy whit which he brought that relationship along just wrung your heart out ... yet it didn'timpede the stories and the action...it was enhanced by them ... and it enhanced and gave depth to them right back.
Each issue was a story in and of itself...yet some stories strung out in continued storylines which we ...today... call an "arc". Back then, it was just a continued storyline...no big push or hype "House of M" arc..."Fatal Attractions" arc... PTUI !! Y'know, this big "arc" bullshit didn't come about until they started collecting stuff in reprint volumes. Then they wanted a self contained story...so they invented the "arc". But back then, you just told the ongoing storyline. It used to be that a continued storyline could run for a couple of issues with the same adversaries... but the preferred format was single stories that were self contained AS A SINGLE STORY in each issue. The longer stories, which were too long for a single issue could take two or three issues... but EVERY issue had a self contained story within it... with exposition, dialogue, character development and the obligatory fight scene for action. If you didn't have a fight, you had the Danger Room!!!! LOL...which was a "mock fight" You had vivid color...not pastel comics and washed out or monochrome crap you see today. I'll tell you something.. when I open a book today and see pastels, I wanna puke! they're awful!!!
Roy Thomas was great! He was sometimes brilliant...he was sometimes infuriating! Once I wrote a fan tter to him on a roll of toilet paper cuz I told him the story he had written was only fit for the toilet... and then I rolled it back up and mailed it off in a box and he told me he unrolled the toilet paper and read every word of it. Later we did a merchandising project in which we did a comic story or two on a roll of toilet paper for kids to read while they were on the john!!! We did two, actually... a spider man story and a hulk story... and I designed them and the boxes they were shipped in... stillhave some samples around here somewhere...LOL... found the folded up boxes just the other day...but ihave some insitu samples of the original tiolet rolls, too... somewhere... LOL... talk about perishable collectables!!!!

i LOVED rOY'S WRITING! iT WAS WHAT GOT ME INTERESTED IN COMICS AGAIN AFTER A TEN YEAR HIATUS IN READING COMICS. I was an avid comics readers as a kid... I liked the action adventure and superhero comics rather than the yucchy "love" comics thay put out for female readers. Gawd! I hated them!!! If love happened, and it should, then it should happen logically in the course of the character's lives...complicating or enriching the lives it came into...not just be a graphic byte for hormone gratification. They talked down to female readers back then, too... but not half so smarmally...

I would love to see Quesada give Xavier and Magneto back to Claremont and let him develop that dialectic... as he was starting to do with it in Excalibur before they got afraid and yanked it out from under him. All the Magneto fans out here wer waiting for him to really get into it when they yanked the rug out from under Claremont in a really shitty ploy... with the HOouse of M bullshit dud or a storyline that bigshot Millar came up with. PTUI!
That whole Avengers Disassemble/House of M crap was the biggest dud piece of shit since the horror of Grant Morrison's Planet X... and it was stupid and awful and is gonna cause problems they will take years to fix if they manage to fix it at all... which I am sure they DON'T want to do anyway.
No intriguing dvelopments... just shallow, lackluster drivvel.
I would love to see Claremont go into the relationship between Xavier and Magneto with the complexity and delicacy with which Claremont is capable of... It would be magnificent... which is why the jealous little bastards won't let him do it!!! Plus Claremont would so firmly establish Magneto's Jewish background and history that they could never overturn it... which they are constantly trying to do... and have since Harras" very anti semitic rgime. WhichBTW, all you Magneto fans out there...you need to keep writing Perlmutter and company to keep pressure on to keep Mags safe, cuz recent developments point to another push to oust Claremont's development of Magneto as a false identidy again! The Morrison mindslaves are being pushy and jubilant on the newsboards and this always indiated they know something is going down in their favor... or THINK they know something is going down in their favor... and they cannot contain their joy...so they get pushy and smarmy and smug... a sure sign for us to be vigilent and write !!! The wasr with them goes on unabated. If the silent majority out here doesn't speak out, everything will go into the shitter, kiddies. No lie!
Personally, I am getting tired of this bullshit. I wanna read and enjoy my comics and I am finding that they are causing more dissatisfaction and annoyance t the unprofessionality than they are worth any more.
I would love to see the original thunderbird brought back.. but it would have to be done with sublty and finesse.. and I don't think anyone there has the ability... short of Claremont... and I am sure they won't let him do it... you can make book on that.
Marvel needs an infusion of female and ethnic writers and artists. The little white, christian boy's cllub is too insular... and it is gonna ruin Marvel.
I am watching with interest the development of Cain Marko... the Juggernaut... which Chuck Austen started... ala Claremont with Magneto... and so far, so good... He's over in New Excalibur... but I don't know if they will ever give that back th Chris after he recovers and gets back in the saddle again. We shall see.

I am afraid to say Nightcrawler... cuz between the demonic father fiasco and the I wanna be a priest fieasco, they would probably butcher him... so I won't say Nightcrawler.
Unfortunately, there aren't too many characters extant they havennnn't alredy butchered or gutted.... made nasty or warped into unrecognizability.
You could do whole storyline snd adventures with the Shi'ar and the Starjammers if anyone had a storytelling brain in their skulls... and I am sure they will gut these characters , too in upcoming storylines being touted right now. I do not look forward to what is on the horizon... cuz my bet is it will just be mre violence and stupidity and crass, shallow devolvement of intricate and complex characters.

I think the thing about it is that the innocence and fun has gone out of comics... it is all gritty and smarmy and violent and maybe more realistic in that element... but the innocence and fun and high hopes and vision and optimism SHOULDN' T be forgotten and go out of the genre. But it has.

And that's sad.

Paty
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You're forgetting the Death Of Gwen Stacy. I have read essentials and it still doesn't make any sense. This shit comes out of the blue no warning or any kind of instrumental flow to fathom such an event to happen JUST TO HAPPEN. It's pretty predictable and crass since the covers is so lame and reads SHOCK. It's one of the worst stories I've ever read, and in my opinion it has hobbled the function of The Amazing Spider-Man. Writers can never move on to write compelling stories for Peter because this that tale is so fucked up.

The marriage was also a WTF! I do understand Stan wrote something for the strips, but I never thought MJ was the kind of woman Peter would fall in love with. Betty? Yes. Liz? Yes. and Gwen, the reason is because they are so much like Aunt May. I appreciated what the writers did for Peter before Conway and Kane and his bunch made Peter from a brilliant student and photographer who had problems teenagers have to a loser who can't seem to grow up. I can understand why some writers tried to make the clone sagas and make him a part of the avengers.

Paty, it's like a plane crash. A plane doesn't just crash just to crash; it's a series of events occurring within it's system. An anomally is found and we later know the cause of the crash. For Spider-Man I realize it's ASM#121-122 the cause of Spider-Man's spiralling abyss. The incident is sprung up more than the Death of Uncle Ben--The nucleus in Peter becoming a crime fighter.

I think Conway and Kane were the original influence on future writers and artists to sabotage characters' progression just to put their stamp on things.
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Post by Paty »

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Yh, yeah... Gwen! You are right about that. I was shocked and dismayed at her death and I will never know why that was allowed. first her father , Captain Stacey... then Gwen... and yes, that was the big turning point in Spidey's life I believe. and MJ never seemed the right woman for Peter to me. I wouldn't have put her with him at all...
The only saving grace MJ had was that she wan't an innocent. she could take care of herself and roll with the punches. but in ight of the Gwen Stacey thing, the recent decision of Peter to go public with his identity is monumentally stupid! He has had first hand experience of what a secret identity is for...protecting your loved ones from thenutballs out to GET you!!! spidey of all people would be super sensitive of this... so is the writing of this latest bullshit a case of the writer not doing his homework on the character and his traumas??? stupidity in not understanding the traumatic effect on Peter's psyche? Or just plain not caring about canon and character developmant?
In House of M, Bendis showed us that the secret dream of Peter Parker was to marry Gwen, have children with her and live a happy life... which, of course, means he would give up being spider man... which we know he couldn't do.
I think the original death... of Captain Stacey and Gwen was an outgrowth of the writer not knowing what to do with that relationship... and there were so many good stories there!!! I know I was as shocked as if a member of my family had been murdered. I liked Gwen..but I will tell you one thing... they never should have brought her back! Bringing heroes and heroines back is one thing.. they have "powers" they are tough and resiliant and have, very obviously, healing factors to help them cope... and recover from trauma that would kill normal people. Gwen was a normal person... aunt May is a normal person... You can have them taken away, kidnapped, disappear without reason or explanation... but kill them? Not if you EVER want to use them again... and these are trademarked and copyrighted characters, so of course you are gonna use them again!
This is where ecitorial needs to step in and say "NO. You cannot do that. You can do this, this, and this... but you cannot do THAT!!!" wRITERS DO NOT OWN THE CHARACTERS... THE COMPANY DOES. And of the writer doesn't want to use a character or know what to do with them, they can write them out of the continuity of their run in a dozen different ways... but NOT kill them... especially if these characters are well established and have fans and such. OK... you want Peter to go in a different direction... gave Gwen disappear... or have Capt. Stacey take a job in San Diego and Gwen goes with him...
But a DEATH is supposed to be a shock.. and usually it is. And it sells books ao lackluster writers often use it... and these days they use it more and more and more. Back then, it was used sparingly ... the writers were told NO... you cannot do that... find another way...
quite frankly, I don't know how that slipped through...There may have been editorial meetings on it. sneaking things through like that back then could get you fired... cuz Stan was still around.. and you just didn't try to flummix him like the kids do regularly with Quesada.... you just didn't! Or your ass would have been out the door! so it had, I would think, to have had an OK from someone higher up... but, frankly, for the life of me, I cannot see why they did it! I wouldn't have allowed it.
thunderbird was a different matter, I think. He had not had time to build a loyal fandom...and at the time I remember that Dave and Chris, having created him, really didn't know what to do with him cuz they didn't have access to research to do his native american background RIGHT... and they would rather not do it at all if they couldn't do it right. Even Dave admits now that killing him was a mistake...but it, too, was a shocker.
Well... deaths do happen unexpectedly in the real world... and part of the charm of the Marvel universe is it's relation to reality and real time experiences of the characters. It creates something the reader can relate to and understand.. and in that, it is good...spider Man becomes you... or your best friend... or your boyfriend. so not haveing ANY deth or emotional trauma is unrealistic... but offing major charactersd like Gwen... that's another thing entirely. both character wise and financially. these characters are very valuable properties and even the supporting characters like Gwen and Aunt May have their loyal fan followers. You don't want to upset that economic applecart...not if you are smart, you don't. Marvel hasnn't been smart for a long time... but it is just now starting to become an avalanche. and occasional snowball judiciously thrown back then didn't seem to be much harm... but apparently it has precipitated the current murderous avalanche...

sstupidity wasn't unknown back then... it did exist...and reared it's ugly head once in a while. But now, it seems to be the order of the day and the failsafe fallback for writers who need a boost in sales... and that is so wrong !

What can I tell you? this kind of thing just seems so pervasive today. I think an example of a judicious use of the death of a supporting character to change a major character was the death of Sammy the fish boy to effect a humongous change for the good in Juggernaut. It was logical, well done and an important step in the development of that character. sammy had his fans, though and I am sure none of them would see it this way. But he was not a major character and supporting characters are often the cannon fodder for emotional trauma that affects the major characters. but I better not see sammy cloned from a fishcake!!!

We used to have a saying back then that no one stayed dead EXCEPT Bucky Barnes...Captain America's sidekick that got killed waaaaaaaaaayyy back in Cap's history... WWII, to be exact. that event had a real traumatic effect on Cap that lasts to this day. Recently I heard that someone brought Bucky back... I don't know the storyline...I just heard that Bucky was brought back...breaking the only constant for death in the Marvel Universe to pieces...

It's comics... what can I say? They just wanna yank the chain of the readership. It has become a nasty game these days...yanking the readership. I think they are very sadistic and mean spirited and do stuff just to rile the fans when they know the fans are bored with bad storytelling and they can't think of anything else.

And that is happening entirely too often.

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Post by Angelique »

Sammy cloned from a fishcake? I'm sure that's not too far-fetched for some writer to try! :eeevil
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Post by SamKarns »

Quasada hasn't seen the sales drop? He hasn't seen kids are not as interested in comics anymore because the prices are too high and kids are not abled to buy a twelve issue series for only $3.99?

Even if the paper is pricey I still think they can reduce the price for them to purchase. You are right about the two issue arc--it was much better than a long overdrawn out plot--NOT A STORY.
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Post by Paty »

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yeah... it seems to me... I may be wrong but I don't THINK so... that today a writer will take a story that could be told in ONE issue...two, max... and stretch it into a whole eight or ten issue arc!!! I am sorry... that's not storytelling! while it may have been going on for a while, I noticed it most in Morrison's writing. He wasn't telling whole stories that could be strung together to form a bigger story... an "arc"... he was telling ONE story and making it last for four issues when it should have lasted only one...it should have been told in one issue...and sometimes the story was soooooo lame they could have had pages left over!!! but he seems to have set the tone for a lot of younger rwriters who liked to read in thirty second graphic bytes...their attentionspan not being much longer than that...

No... it seems that they are in denial. to maintain the boy's club they HAVE to go after the twelve year old boy market... AND IT ISN'T THERE ANYMORE!!!!! Those kids are out playing interactive video games and blowing off the energy that age is famous for! The market is the older readership, women and the ethnic groups. And, yes, if they would stop using this expensive slick paper and go back to Baxter or better grade, as I believe DC has done with some of it's books, they might be able to drop the price and let kids have a book within economic reach. they are painting themselves into a disastrous corner...what with only about two thousand comics shops ...or so... in the COUNTRY!!! and pricing the product out of reach. The only reason that the upstairs money men haven't noticed the falloff in REVENUES...not sales... is because the books are priced higher and the fans who are stillhanging in there are still buying them, having formed a connection that has lasted for decades with certain characters. The revenues are still high because of the inflated price of a book. But as they gut the characters the older readers love, they are gonna lose that loyal fan base...and they don't seem to realize this. They are cutting their own throats and willnot know they are bleeding to death until it is too late cuz they WILL NOT listen to anyone who suggests they destroy the boys club and go after the only market left... women, ethnics and the older loyal readership... instead of the loudmouthed internet children who aren't buying the books, anyway. .. cuz they are too busy with X box, Playstation or gaming.
They also need to get back on the newsstands, grocery stores, Pharmacies and mom and pop stores in every town! I know people who don't think comics exist any more cuz they have not seen a comic rack in any store they go in! It used to be a fixture in every store in every town in America. Of course, you also had to deal with returns and such...but you reached a much larger market!!! Of course, youthen had to cater to all kinds of people instead of just superhero nerds and geeks...who are mainly the ones hanging out in said comics shops... gaming and reading what they wonn't buy on the sly. We are friends with our local manager and we hear horror stories of fans and their proclivities... and this is a big, airy, well lighted store...imagine the small, hole in the wall operations...the mind boggles... and it is no wonder girls don't want to go in there cuz they are either hassled or ogles...and being a girl, I can tell you it is hard to say which is worse... the negative vibes or the lustful smell of testosterone when you have a bigger than A size bust!!! And believe me...both of these are rife in comic shops... catering as they do to guys who couldn't get a real date if they tried!!! ... and mostly don't try...
While there are a lot of male fans who are intelligent and perfectly presentable, there are the other kind that just gross out a female to the point of saying "screw it this ainn't worth running a gauntlet just to get my comic fix!"

If the industry is gonna survive, they got to get rid of this insular mindthink and reach out to the HUGE reading market that is out there and either not aware of the medium or has been so turned off by it that they won't go into a comics store. Movies are holding the companies together right now... by bringing in big bucks. But if the climate and stories were more amenable to diverse readership, they would see a rise in the readership... and the corresponding rise in revenues.
Right now, they seem to be holding ever... but if the readership declines any further, they are gonna have to jack the price even higher to keep the financial guys from screaming. Of course, they jack them any higher and there is gonna be a huge falloff cuz I think the market is about fed up with spirialing prices and stupid stories not worth reading. Total waste of good trees!... most of it any more.

apparently they don't care. Otherwise you explain to me the reasoning behind taking a writer who is coming UP in the ratings from tenth to ninth to SEVENTH place on the charts and yanking the book out from under him to give it to a new, untested and not nearly so good poker buddy.
There is NO LOGICAL REASON for that to have happened. Yet it did. who the hell is minding the store!?

Paty
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The only saving grace MJ had was that she wan't an innocent. she could take care of herself and roll with the punches.

****
And they altered all the good traits about her to roughly fit into the Peter gal department. She's a pompous, spoiled primadonna who I can't be taken seriously anymore. When I read her during the eighties, when this whole mess was getting worse by the issue until the proposal, based on the situation I could understand why Peter would consider marrying MJ and her reasons were just as good.

In the back of my mind "MJ will bolt"; this is her character--always was. When she senses her independence is threatened? She's out--OUT. When things are pretty hard on Peter POWIE! MJ returns. She normally puts Peter back on track when he truly needed someone--a quick fix. She'll hang around but being around the city brings back issues she has with men. It's a psychological reality I liked a lot about Mary Jane Watson--she's a spitfire.

Even when she agreed to marry Peter I suspected it would take a while--maybe even 24 issues until oneday Peter returns from work and discovers MJ's clothes and things are gone.

This didn't happen and ever since McFarlane got his hands on writing--which IS THE WORST IDEA of bad ideas-- he has single handedly altered Mary Jane Watson til this day. Byrne tried to do something and it was worse for her--you can't input your input into a character who's far off her well known personality-- she's now suffering from split personality disorder? Not the medical term but the shift on her personality from each issue. It just seems as if MJ read several Sensational She-Hulk issues and this is how she'll act with a pinch of the editor's restructuring the McFarlane mold. A complete mess. Unreadable.

Now MJ is afraid of the dark or afraid of Venom or shy to live in Avengers' headquarters. She gets knocked up gets a nervous breakdown and still holds a super career--without any of the fallbacks of modelling? Where is the character? Who is this woman living with Peter Parker? Kirsrten Dunst maybe?

++++

Morrison seems to have set the tone for a lot of younger rwriters who liked to read in thirty second graphic bytes...their attentionspan not being much longer than that...

****

This started with Jim Shooter's Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars, and Chris Claremont's series of writer's block on Jim Lee's run on Uncanny X-Men#248-286. It went on and on and it felt he needed a long well deserved break, but this was the genesis of Image where bad writing was ignored for sensational splash pages. The industry saw the sales by McFarlane's first issue of Spider-Man which I still believe it was caused by the hype of James Cameron's Spider-Man Motion Picture announcement through Carolco. After, the rest is history, every comic book company were more focused on the splash art than whether the writing were any good--which were rocky times for literacy in the decade of the 1990's.
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Post by Paty »

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by the time Jim Lee was on the books, Bob Harras was making his editorial whip felt, changing storylines and scripts behind writer's backs, harassing chris to get rid of Magneto's jewish background, all kinds of pressure and underhanded activities to play out his agenda to make Marvel lily white and christian... which includes devolving female characters to the slave or zombie like state they are in today. the little boy's club is firmly entrenched and no matter what window dressing they put on it, the proof of the pudding is in the characters...most totally devolved and ruined...especially the women.
there is no sane guiding hand at marvel any more. Perlmutter apparently only cares about the movies and merchandising revenues... but he doesn't understand that those revenues are based on the characterizations of the characters that was extant in the seventies and eighties... the personnas extant in the movies. The publishing branch is running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to grasp at straws of internet popularity... instead of holding true to the core characters that once sold tow to five hundred thousand copies EVERY month!!!
Nobody is minding the store any more and the children there are doing untold damage to very important and lucrative commercial properties!!!

the recent elevation of Axel Alonzo to the editorship of the X books is the knell of doom for any coherency in those books or a return to decent storylines and sales. He has already proven that he favors CHANGE... blood and guts... killing characters...shock and violence... so we will be bombarded with more of the same in the future, I fear... and if so, I, for one, will go away and pack it in. I want to enjoy my comics... to visit monthy with old friends and read their adventures...and a lot of fans of long standing out here are in the same bucket. If we don't write and voice our disapproval then it is all gonna go into the crapper...mark my words.
the women will get wimpier and/or sluttier... the ethnic diversity will cease to be... and Marvel will fall even lower in the publishing ratings than it already has. and it is just monumental stupidity that is doing it... that and myyopic bigotry, greed and backstabbing.
I don't even think I know this company any more... and I am not sure I want to, either...

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Post by Angelique »

Heh. I'd hardly call stripping female characters of their strength, brains, and personality (among other things) Christian, but that's beside the point.

Diversity (beyond the inclusion of a token gay man and, of course, a good looking lesbian couple, making stereotypes out of characters of color, or making token reference to, if not completely mangling, a character's religion) takes a bit of effort to portray well, more work than merely pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Some people would accept that as part and parcel of the medium, along with continuity errors, saying, "Well, that's comics for you." No, that's bad storytelling, in my not-so-humble opinion, and I see nothing wrong with wanting and expecting better from the people who get my money.
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