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Post by Sage6Paths on May 9, 2014 16:19:54 GMT -6
Still waiting for your review Sage Sorry I have been busy with my finals I totally forgot. I will have it by the end of the day though.
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Post by wyokid on May 10, 2014 11:15:32 GMT -6
Still waiting for your review Sage Sorry I have been busy with my finals I totally forgot. I will have it by the end of the day though. Lies and slander
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Post by Sage6Paths on May 10, 2014 16:17:54 GMT -6
Sorry I have been busy with my finals I totally forgot. I will have it by the end of the day though. Lies and slander I got you here Wyokid. And you call yourself a writer. Ultimates by Mark Millar was the comic that got me into comicbooks. So I might be a little biased. This was an amazingly innovative and realistic reboot of the Avengers. The characters feel both real and well integrated with a real world. However, realistic doesn’t always mean good. Such as the series of Breaking Bad, the hero can take on qualities of villains but also we can still root for him as a hero. Such are the characters that Mark Millar portrays here. I do like most of the characters but some of them are undeniable a-holes. However, that doesn’t mean the story is bad. Mark Millar works best writing movie style works. I do have to give props to Millar and Hitch for reinvisioning this at a time when Marvel was going Bankrupt. Despite all the hate towards the Ultimate, The Ultimate Universe is what saved Marvel (the comic company) from going completely bankrupt. The art doesn’t hold that well in today’s standards but it’s by far the most movie like art around. Does it stand against the test of time? Yes, I do believe so. Sure Millar was trying to make it edgy and he may have taken it a bit too far but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy this comic. Like every story around there are going to be some things you don’t like about it but you have to ask yourself could you write a better story?
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Post by Mr_Monster_Munch on May 10, 2014 17:05:46 GMT -6
Yeah black widow is a villain and she straight up murders jarvis in Ultimates 2. Very different. Marvel definitely has been one-upping DC as far as complex characters go, so comparatively its true. But its only the last 25-30 years anyone has consistently believed in deep characterization of any kind. Gwen Stacey's death was the beginning of that in '73, but it took awhile for everyone else to catch up. But hey, agree to disagree. Everyone likes what they look for different reasons. In comparison of the most popular DC superheroes to the most popular Marvel superheroes (I'm choosing the most popular because I'm generalising), it's clear to see that DC attempted to create iconic archetypes that were extraordinary in every way. Whereas Marvel took a much more novel approach to character development, creating compelling characters with human flaws and everyday problems, making them far more interesting, as well as relatable. It just feels so much more.. honest. DC focused on coming up with the most extraordinary characters imaginable for their superheroes. Marvel focused more on substantial character development for their superheroes. DC's Big 3 are unquestionably Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. When those characters were created, it was at the birth of traditional superheroes, so they were conceived as being amazing and "super" in almost every way imaginable. Superman, the first proper traditional superhero ever created, was initially only created to advertise to the Americans to sign up to fight in World War II. First only in promotional posters, and then in comic strips shortly afterwards. He's usually depicted as the perfect being whom all should inspire to. He's arguably the most extraordinary superhero of them all, and therefore possesses all the best super powers. And his power level is practically god-like. Then there's Batman, who's the world's greatest detective AND the world's greatest ninja. How does he manage that, when he's also a multi-billionaire philanthropist and still has the time to work out at the gym, test out his gadgets, fight crime and date supermodels? And Wonder Woman, another practically perfect individual. Back when superheroes were first being established, they were designed to be amazing in practically every way. Marvel however, decades after DC's debut, decided to make their characters more interesting and compelling by making them flawed and more vulnerable to dangerous outcomes. Taking a look at Marvel's Big 3, Spider-Man, Hulk and Wolverine are all flawed characters and are all the more compelling because of their flawed traits. You have Peter Parker who is a geek cursed with profound altruism and who's power level is much more moderate than DC's iconic heroes. Marvel's characters aren't an uneducated attempt to depict the most extraordinary abilities and characteristics, but an attempt to be more relatable to the readers. As every reader knows, it's a character's vulnerability that makes their struggles in their stories so much more profound, and therefore much more effective in being part of stories in which the fans weren't sure of how successful they were going to be in vanquishing their evil threats, as the Marvel characters are usually far less powerful than the traditional DC characters. DC likes to use a large range of more epic superpowers for their most iconic characters. For example, Superman doesn’t just have eye-beams or incredible strength or incredible speed or the ability to fly, but all of those and more. In contrast, a lot of Marvel characters get just one (think Cyclops, the Hulk, Quicksilver, Angel, etc). Hulk is flawed for being a practically uncontrollable monster. And Wolverine has questionable methods, often willing to kill those he fights against. The biggest difference is that Wolverine and Hulk aren't designed to be role models. Whereas the concept of establishing a role model started off as been DC's primary focus when creating their characters. Keeping true to the grounded, more realistic approach to it's characters, Marvel characters usually come from relatively ordinary backgrounds. For example, Spider-Man, Captain America and most of the X-Men had largely unremarkable lives before developing superpowers. In contrast, the three most prominent DC characters are a billionaire playboy/ninja, an extraterrestrial, and an Amazon princess. (I understand that Marvel's Big 3 is debatable. But Spider-Man is undoubtably the face of Marvel Comics. Hulk has also always been a very popular household name, more so than the X-Men or FF in the past, and it's only been in recent years that his popularity has decreased. Wolverine's rise as a household name was a much more gradual process than with the characters above, but it wasn't long before everybody was taking about him. And now he's without a doubt one of the most famous characters in comic books.) So basically, Marvel trumps DC in character development. But the 1960's is a much more modern and progressive era than the traditional, suit and tie 1930's and 40's, so Marvel's characters were inherently better designed. Instead of simply making their heroes amazing in every way, Marvel strived for a more novel process of character development. Whereas Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are iconic symbols more than anything else. That's not necessarily to say DC are worse at character development though. I honestly think they're better than Marvel at creating villains. DC's villains, to me at least, seem far better designed than Marvel's. They're personalities and motivations are just much more interesting and imaginative IMO. But a lot of that came decades later. Whereas their most memorable heroes (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) are so stagnated in near-perfection, that it can be difficult to write them as flawed, relatable individuals.
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Post by wyokid on May 10, 2014 17:21:26 GMT -6
PRINT it's libel. This is internet so it's slander.
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Post by Sage6Paths on May 10, 2014 17:24:58 GMT -6
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Post by wyokid on May 10, 2014 17:50:31 GMT -6
Eh. For the internet I've seen both used.
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Post by Mr_Monster_Munch on May 11, 2014 10:58:48 GMT -6
Which of the heroes were assholes or morally grey besides Hank Pym and Tony Stark??
Cap was a kind and honest gentleman and Thor was an endearing, warm-hearted, beer drinking, saviour of Earth. You could feel the warmth of their good nature coming through the pages of the book.
Sure, Hank Pym's reveal as a long-time woman beater came as a massive shock. But as for Tony Stark, his characterisation was not much different to the mainstream MU Tony or the Marvel Cinematic Universe Tony.
Cap's France quip was a joke. And it was funny. He was clearly pretty pissed off, which is what makes it so funny. It's like whenever you see the British making fun of the French in an afternoon British sitcom from the eighties. It's just a bit if fun. Like whenever you Americans tease the Russians. It's not even Parental Guidance territory.
Betty was a bit of a bitch. But she was just a supporting character who was only in like two pages, a small plot device used to add to Bruce Banner's sympathetic desperation to keep his job. And she's not one of the heroes.
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Post by wyokid on May 11, 2014 12:02:37 GMT -6
Which of the heroes were assholes or morally grey besides Hank Pym and Tony Stark?? Cap was a kind and honest gentleman and Thor was an endearing, warm-hearted, beer drinking, saviour of Earth. You could feel the warmth of their good nature coming through the pages of the book. Sure, Hank Pym's reveal as a long-time woman beater came as a massive shock. But as for Tony Stark, his characterisation was not much different to the mainstream MU Tony or the Marvel Cinematic Universe Tony. Cap's France quip was a joke. And it was funny. He was clearly pretty pissed off, which is what makes it so funny. It's like whenever you see the British making fun of the French in an afternoon British sitcom from the eighties. It's just a bit if fun. Like whenever you Americans tease the Russians. It's not even Parental Guidance territory. Betty was a bit of a bitch. But she was just a supporting character who was only in like two pages, a small plot device used to add to Bruce Banner's sympathetic desperation to keep his job. And she's not one of the heroes. Looks like you need to read the story again
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Post by Mr_Monster_Munch on May 11, 2014 12:19:13 GMT -6
Why? What am I missing?
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Post by Sage6Paths on May 11, 2014 12:42:16 GMT -6
J Jonah Jameson is an undeniable a-hole but I still like him. There are characters that are a-holes that people like. It's that simple.
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Post by Mr_Monster_Munch on May 11, 2014 13:17:34 GMT -6
J Jonah Jameson is an undeniable a-hole but I still like him. There are characters that are a-holes that people like. It's that simple. Yeah, that's the thing about USM when we eventually get to reviewing that series. There are some assholes in the book. But that doesn't ruin the experience for me. Even heroes aren't always nice to each other. And I don't see why they should. Millar's Ultimates heroes were mostly very moral, dignified people who wanted to do good. But I think it's important for most of the characters to have at least one flaw. In contrast, I think the recent mainstream Marvel events are a good example of unlikeable characters. And even outside of the events, they can often seem very pretentious and proud, especially when they get together to have a chat. Whereas, if you observe the way The Ultimates get along, Fury having a joke with his staff, Tony inviting Cap and Thor for dinner and the general optimistic dialogue was all very, very cool. It's not competitive and egotistical all the time. It's laid back and enjoyable. That's not to say the team didn't have it's dysfunctional moments. But more than anything, those moments are a testament to Millar's excellent character work. He really knows how to write a team.
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Post by wyokid on May 11, 2014 13:23:33 GMT -6
So what are we reading this week?
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Post by Mr_Monster_Munch on Jul 6, 2014 8:23:05 GMT -6
The Ultimates by Jonathan Hickman.
Jonathan's Hickman’s Ultimates is bristling with big ideas, and an exciting willingness to tear down and build up without any hesitation, all whilst re-establishing the Ultimate defining, realistic concept of an Earth very closely depicted as one similar to our own. Within Hickman's story and it's approach to the real world, it depicts very beautifully not just the imaginative hyper-real concept of the existence of superheroes, but how they might reshape and warp our world. After all, one of the main appeals of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s Ultimates was the decision to anchor the story in something approximating the real world, with celebrity references and cameos from George W. Bush and geopolitics. Using superheroes as a nuclear metaphor in the post-9/11 age, The Ultimates remains one of the single greatest superhero stories ever written. The goal is that a hypothetical casual reader could pick up a book and see their own world reflected in the pages. This book retains the political familiarity, except that after introducing living weapons of mass destruction into the political status quo, there are developments that radically upset the balance. It changes things up. It screws up the equilibrium and produces some fairly radical results. Even a year or two down the line, one would assume that a world which had looked like the real world before Thor arrived would eventually no longer look anything like the real world. And it relates perfectly with the themes that are common in the majority of Hickman's work - the desire to literally build a better tomorrow, transhumanism, evolution, technological advancement, etc.
But there are also certain similarities that carry across more directly. For example, there’s focus on Tony Stark’s desire to make a better world using the team as his means of doing so. There’s also an incredibly global sense of scale to Hickman’s work. In Ultimate Comics: Ultimates, Reed Richards’ City pretty much consumes most of Eastern Europe, while forced evolution leads to the demolition of the fictional South-East Asian Republic, the attempt to evolve life on Earth and how it causes massive casualties around the globe. Although Hickman makes up a country, the location is explicit. This isn’t Magneto’s fictional island of Genosha. This is a real place turned into something hyper-real. Hickman doesn’t limit his storytelling to the far side of the world, either. His Ultimate Comics: Ultimates radically shakes up the status quo of the United States too via nuking Washington DC. Hickman's enthusiasm for comics can arguably be seen in the way that he chooses to portray his heroes. In The Ultimates, Mark Millar made the team an instrument of aggressive American foreign policy, unwitting tools of a military-industrial complex acting out of misplaced idealism. But Hickman gives his characters more credit, actively manoeuvring the team against American foreign policy. When the President starts playing on the global stage, Nick Fury refuses to support a play that is going to cause more harm than good. Hickman’s Ultimate Comics: Ultimates is just as cynical about US foreign policy as Millar’s Ultimates was - “you should have listened, brother,” Zorn argues at one point, “now we have unwillingly been drawn into yet another American war” – but it’s more romantic about the heroes. Nevertheless, Hickman takes Millar's ideas and runs with them, confronting Nick Fury and the Ultimates with the world that they have helped create. Witnessing a horrific spectacle of destruction and carnage, Nick wonders, “What is this? It is the world in which we live. And what has it become? Exactly what we have made.” This is the bleak climax of the “superheroes as a political weapon” ideology that was a prominent fixture in Millar's Ultimates.
Hickman also introduces a slew of his own clever high concepts, often throwing them out with incredible frequency. Hickman throws out ideas like “sentient zeitgeist” and “worldmind" with a remarkably casual flair. At one point, Reed Richards even meditates on the nature of ideas themselves. When one of his subjects claims that he never had a name, Reed corrects him. “Yes, you have, but it was hidden from you… for in giving voice to an idea, you bring that very thing into existence." Revealing that the subject is named “Death”, Reed explains, “And, after all this, I am ready to speak truth, and bring such a thing into being…” It’s a wonderful philosophical idea, much like the suggestion that any truly advanced society must be peaceful, and it gives Hickman’s writing a lot of depth and nuance. Towards the end of the criminally short-lived title, Tony manages to gain the upper-hand, and Reed dismisses it as an impossibility. “Impossible, Richards?” Stark taunts. “Or merely fantastic?” To Hickman, superhero comics are meant to be the home of the impossible or the fantastic. Reed Richards, the former head of the Fantastic Four, becomes a villain when he allows himself to forget that.
The irony is that it wasn't realistic for the Earth to be realistic anymore. Superheroes should naturally replace humans within the hierarchy of power. It should be superhumans that mould and shape the reality of an Earth that once closely resembled our own. Mark Millar introduced the Ultimates within a stark contrast of fantasy and political reality. Whereas Jonathan Hickman found a way to cleverly push the realms of fantasy and science fiction to the extreme whilst staying grounded within the geopolitical conflicts Millar introduced to us with the original Ultimates.
~ Munchy
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