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I collected in the 70's, 80's and into the early 90s' until I started to realize something. I blame all the CQ's (Charge of Quarters) I pulled and being stuck with one channel on the TV, which had me watching a couple soaps that were on the Armed Forces channel. I suddenly realized that comics tended to be a lot like soaps, or soaps were a lot like comics.

Regardless, it kind of soured me on collecting comics. Nothing is permanent and the death of this hero or villain isn't for good. Kinda took a lot of serious enjoyment out of reading them, specially since I tended to darker grittier material. That was when I stopped collecting and reading them with any regularity.
 
I collected in the 70's, 80's and into the early 90s' until I started to realize something. I blame all the CQ's (Charge of Quarters) I pulled and being stuck with one channel on the TV, which had me watching a couple soaps that were on the Armed Forces channel. I suddenly realized that comics tended to be a lot like soaps, or soaps were a lot like comics.

Regardless, it kind of soured me on collecting comics. Nothing is permanent and the death of this hero or villain isn't for good. Kinda took a lot of serious enjoyment out of reading them, specially since I tended to darker grittier material. That was when I stopped collecting and reading them with any regularity.
...you noticed it earlier than me, if it's any consolation:grin:? I think I only noticed it in the first decade of this century.

(And yeah, of course it's true:thumbsup:!)
 
Does it, though? Can’t you just accept the original story on its own terms and merits? I mean, it’s all make believe… she didn’t actually die anymore than she actually came back.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see the “killem off bringem back” trope used far less often (there are examples where I think it works, but most are pure shock factor gimmicks), but I don’t think it makes sense to judge past stories on later developments. Especially given the change in creative teams over time.

I also don’t think it’s always fair to judge current stories based on the past. One of the problems with continuity is that if they tell a shitty story, then subsequent stories are all beholden to shit. Which is a bad idea.

Also, there’s the subjective nature of it all. I personally like Magik these days. I was never a big fan of them killing her off, especially since it just seemed like a case of fridging her in order to give Colossus a motivation to sacrifice himself in a later story.

If the mainstream comic universes ever broke out of the perpetual act two in which they all find themselves, then I’d be all for the ends of characters’ stories, and moving thongs forward. But that doesn’t really happen at Marvel and DC.

Yeah, to me this criticism is also really only true of mainstream superhero comics where for commercial reasons they feel the need to continue the serial storytelling of figures that can stretch back to the 30s.

It's as if they had never stopped making The Thin Man movies. How difficult would it be to keep that fresh and not slip into narrative incoherence?

Besides superhero comics have rarely been strong in terms of storytelling virtues like unity of character, theme and structure because the serial format as Acmegamer Acmegamer notes has more in common with the soap opera than the novel, short story of feature film.

Although since soaps actually do replace characters over time due to changes in the cast and are not the outright 'anything goes' fantasy of superhero comics, they actually can work a bit better than superhero comics in that regard.

To me this is just part and parcel of superhero comics being a popular form, like soaps.

If one wants something more coherent and unified better to seek out non-superhero comics or at least creator-controlled superhero comics.
 
...you noticed it earlier than me, if it's any consolation:grin:? I think I only noticed it in the first decade of this century.

(And yeah, of course it's true:thumbsup:!)
When I did pick them up occasionally, it was more for the art mostly. Well at least until Rob Liefeld become more common. Lol
 
To continue the tangent on comics, I've gotten to the point where even when I get interested in a Marvel or DC story or creator/writer/artist run on a book, it turns out that every story - every one it seems - is some kind of damn crossover that requires me to buy books not related to the one I'm interested in.

Yet, I still occasionally dip my toe back in (doesn't say anything good about me)

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I stop reading comics almost entirely because of crossovers. You'd get an interesting storyline then, nope, gotta jam in a crossover! Now you need to buy four comics you don't give a shit about to get the story! Woop!

I ditched my comic collection on Freecycle a few years back. The guy who picked them up was flicking through them and goes "Woah! Look at all these vintage Silver Surfers!". Arsehole. Stuff from my youth is not "Vintage"!
 
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I stopped collecting comics because they got shit. I tried to get back into them a few years ago and while some of them were very good, 5 bucks an issue was ridiculous. Could have started a moderate heroin addiction for less.

And until they bring Vic Sage back as The Question, I will not darken another comic book store!
 
suddenly realized that comics tended to be a lot like soaps, or soaps were a lot like comics.


Stan Lee flat out said exactly that, so I was never under any illusion otherwise.

Regardless, it kind of soured me on collecting comics. Nothing is permanent and the death of this hero or villain isn't for good. Kinda took a lot of serious enjoyment out of reading them, specially since I tended to darker grittier material. That was when I stopped collecting and reading them with any regularity.

TBF, that only applies to western superhero franchises by the Big 2. There are lots of very good exceptions:

besides the aforementioned Hellboy, off the top of my head (w/o getting int manga)...Books of Magic, Bratt Pack, Cerebus, The Cowboy Wally Show, The Filth, From Hell, The Goon, Invincible, The Invisibles, Maxximortal, Preacher, The Sandman, Sandman Mystery Theatre, Shade The Changing Man, Starman, Watchmen, Why I Hate Saturn, V For Vendetta...all structured more like traditional stories with character arcs, definitive conclusions, and narrative consequences. There was a good reason in the early 90s I jumped ship from Marvel and started primarily reading Vertigo and indy comics. I still love comics as an artform, and there's a lot of great stuff out there, but mainstream superhero comics are like the adage about a horse designed by committee.
 
Stan Lee flat out said exactly that, so I was never under any illusion otherwise.

TBF, that only applies to western superhero franchises by the Big 2. There are lots of very good exceptions:

besides the aforementioned Hellboy, off the top of my head (w/o getting int manga)...Books of Magic, Bratt Pack, Cerebus, The Cowboy Wally Show, The Filth, From Hell, The Goon, Invincible, The Invisibles, Maxximortal, Preacher, The Sandman, Sandman Mystery Theatre, Shade The Changing Man, Starman, Watchmen, Why I Hate Saturn, V For Vendetta...all structured more like traditional stories with character arcs, definitive conclusions, and narrative consequences. There was a good reason in the early 90s I jumped ship from Marvel and started primarily reading Vertigo and indy comics. I still love comics as an artform, and there's a lot of great stuff out there, but mainstream superhero comics are like the adage about a horse designed by committee.

Yeah, it's mostly just the primary Marvel and DC superhero universes. And to an extent, I get it... why shouldn't every kid get Batman and Spider-Man to enjoy? Of course they could still enjoy the old stories (which are easier to get than ever), but there's something about the characters being contemporary that's important.

I think the biggest step (my username aside) for comic readers is the shift from following characters or series to following creators. I still pick up the occasional mainstream book here and there, but it's almost always about the creators than anything else. The books that I enjoy the most are almost always independent books.
 
There are still contemporary superhero comics from the Big 2 that I enjoy. But I get the most joy out of stuff that's kind of superhero-adjacent, like Vampirella, Red Sonja, Lazarus, etc.

Regarding pockets, before our trip to Scotland and Ireland, my dad gave me a travel vest that has 21 pockets. Pretty nifty. It could hold enough stuff that I didn't need to carry a backpack. But I would sometimes temporarily lose stuff because I couldn't keep track of which of the 21 pockets it was in, haha.
 
That doesn't sound a lot like the cult depicted in The Mandalorian, tbh. I know the idea didn't begin there, but it is by far the highest profile showing of it.



Only 26 years after Star Wars then... ;)

I wonder how different the Star Wars experience would be now? Our childhood experience was almost entirely the films and the toys. There was no Star Wars Wiki at our fingertips with extended details, so these characters were mostly fleshed out in our imagination.

I guess that's part of why I'm not terribly fond of this backfill approach. Not all of it has been as bad as Solo or Book of Boba, but there's so much more to explore out there. Leave these characters alone.

I still haven't forgiven Mandalorian for the Storm Troopers can't hit a can scene. Pure meta for a fan joke. In universe "Only Imperial Storm Troopers are this accurate".
Heh, anyone in a Star Wars game I ran who expected Stormtroopers to suck due to “Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy” genre rules is in for a shock.

No, the Stormtroopers aren’t letting you get away like they did to the group on the Death Star. These ones are trying to kill you.
 
I stop reading comics almost entirely because of crossovers. You'd get an interesting storyline then, nope, gotta jam in a crossover! Now you need to buy four comics you don't give a shit about to get the story! Woop!

The endless big "events," universe reboots, and rising prices are what finally made me walk away from Marvel and DC. I kept buying the Vertigo titles until DC hosed all that up. These days I stick to collected editions / "graphic novels" / etc. of independent comics, if I buy anything.
 
The thread topics here are mainly conversation-starters and prompts until the discourse widens out into general banter
We may ramble a bit, but it's actually a really good sign of hanging out in a socially comfortable place
Yeah this place is a great little spot to call home on the interwebs :thumbsup:
 
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I stopped collecting comics because they got shit. I tried to get back into them a few years ago and while some of them were very good, 5 bucks an issue was ridiculous. Could have started a moderate heroin addiction for less.

And until they bring Vic Sage back as The Question, I will not darken another comic book store!

Always reminds me of this Atomic Robo short story.

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After reading Alan Moore's Watchmen in my early twenties I lost all interest in super-heroes, I'm a snob that way (but, did I devour all 2000AD comics I could put my hands on!) :grin:
 
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I have a Marvel Unlimited sub that I use about one weekend a month when I get a hankering for some superhero shenanigans. I don’t hate all the new stuff, but some of it is hard to follow.

I’ve been reading the storyline about all the universes converging and it was interesting, but then in the middle of it there was an invasion from space by theses builders and ALSO an invasion of Earth by Thanos. Of course it was spread over multiple books, too.

Just seemed to me to be a case of “we need a bigger threat now, and just threatening all of existence isn’t enough, so we’ll throw a bunch of other shit in there at the same time to make it more epic.”

But the most interesting part of the story was the moral slide by the heroes as they tried to defend their universe against all the other incursion events, and the rest of it actually detracted from that story.

A great example of bigger not always being better.
 
Yeah, it's mostly just the primary Marvel and DC superhero universes. And to an extent, I get it... why shouldn't every kid get Batman and Spider-Man to enjoy? Of course they could still enjoy the old stories (which are easier to get than ever), but there's something about the characters being contemporary that's important.
Kids should definitely get to enjoy Batman and Spider-Man but doesn’t have to be the Batman and Spider-Man that our we grew up with. In fifty to a hundred years, is Steve Rogers still going to a WWII vet or are they going to have to update the origin? If he’s changed, he’s not Steve Rogers any longer, at least not the character we enjoyed. I think it would be blasphemous to change the character’s origin. Time to give Steve his proper send-off and give us a permanent new Captain America. Would Marvel have the guts to do that? I doubt it.
 
Kids should definitely get to enjoy Batman and Spider-Man but doesn’t have to be the Batman and Spider-Man that our we grew up with. In fifty to a hundred years, is Steve Rogers still going to a WWII vet or are they going to have to update the origin? If he’s changed, he’s not Steve Rogers any longer, at least not the character we enjoyed. I think it would be blasphemous to change the character’s origin. Time to give Steve his proper send-off and give us a permanent new Captain America. Would Marvel have the guts to do that? I doubt it.

I don’t really disagree with you! My comments have mostly been made with that fact in mind… that Marvel doesn’t seem willing to do it.

That being said, I don’t know of Cap is a great example because of the suspended animation element. He’s one of the few characters connected to a real world event that has a built in explanation for his lack of aging.

However, we’ll see if the movies and the need to move on because of actors’ contracts and aging out of the role impacts the comics at all. Right now, they’ve got multiple versions of many characters… we’ll have to see if they actually phase out the older ones. I doubt it… they seem to want to have their cake and eat it, too.

The main obstacle seems to be the acceptance of the passing of the torch by fans. There’s resistance there from a variety of people for a variety of reasons. Some are valid, some less so… but either way that’s seemed to be a challenge.

My solution would be to introduce an actual timeline into things. Like, Peter Parker is Spider-Man from 1963 to 1998 (or whatever makes sense). Then Ben Reilly takes over (or whoever) and then in 2013 Miles shows up. That kind of thing. It means anyone who has a Peter story can tell it, it’s just set in that specific timeframe.

Again, nothing I’d expect to see. But it’d be cool to see them try it. I mean, I have no clue what to make of DC continuity at this point, so if I was in charge over there, that’s likely what I’d do.
 
Kids should definitely get to enjoy Batman and Spider-Man but doesn’t have to be the Batman and Spider-Man that our we grew up with. In fifty to a hundred years, is Steve Rogers still going to a WWII vet or are they going to have to update the origin? If he’s changed, he’s not Steve Rogers any longer, at least not the character we enjoyed. I think it would be blasphemous to change the character’s origin. Time to give Steve his proper send-off and give us a permanent new Captain America. Would Marvel have the guts to do that? I doubt it.
Punisher I think has switched from a Vietnam vet to a Afghanistan vet these days. I'm not sure that even causes a record to skip.
 
Punisher I think has switched from a Vietnam vet to a Afghanistan vet these days. I'm not sure that even causes a record to skip.

And more recently that was switched to him having fought in the Sin-Cong conflict, one of Marvel's fictional Asian countries, that the U.S. fought in (as part of the sliding timeline) about 10-20 years ago. Not only does this include characters who were originally Vietnam vets (Punisher, James Rhodes, Flash Thompson), but it also includes characters who had originally fought in WWII and/or Korea as part of their backstory (such as Ben Grimm).

Now imagine Captain America switching from a WWII vet to a Vietnam vet and how that would change his origin.

That's pretty much Deathstroke.
 
I don't mind the big two--though I like some of their smaller characters (I'm avoiding Spider-man who I love as a character because they won't let him get back with MJ.) Mostly I read issues here and there.

I read Moon Knight (because he's fun and one of my favorites), and I recently picked up the new Captain Marvel (Shazam) stuff. Other than that I read and re-read older things through Epic collections or Omnibus style editions.

I'm fine with it being soap opera, but I'll be honest I want some weight to the comics as they had in the 80s (where you knew Moon Knight wasn't going to win in a fight with the Hulk and so on.) I also want death to mean something and not to be as cheap as they do now.

I mean when Phoenix died, it was a big thing--and now it's been cheapened by all of the resurrections and retcons (was Phoenix a spirit? Was she Jean? We waved that all away or something. Plus her death is now a big joke as she keeps dying and coming back, which makes sense if that were her power doing that but nope, its just cheap yoyo effects of bad writers. )
 
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Now imagine Captain America switching from a WWII vet to a Vietnam vet and how that would change his origin.
He could be likey first boss. Fought in Vietnam as a green beret part of a 'B' team. They practically forgot he was there. He used army funds to build a school and a cavalry unit. Crazy guy.
 
Now imagine Captain America switching from a WWII vet to a Vietnam vet and how that would change his origin.
I don't know that you will ever need to update Captain America's origin. It's already been mentioned that being frozen in ice gives you the ability to reboot him at any time you wish, but there is also the fact that WWII is such a huge historical event. As a kid in the '70s and '80s, Vietnam loomed large in pop culture, but it's faded a lot in a way that WWII hasn't. Nazis are still the most iconic bad guys you can pick.

If another war comes along to supplant WWII's place in the world's consciousness, I hope I'm dead by then.
 
I don't know that you will ever need to update Captain America's origin. It's already been mentioned that being frozen in ice gives you the ability to reboot him at any time you wish, but there is also the fact that WWII is such a huge historical event. As a kid in the '70s and '80s, Vietnam loomed large in pop culture, but it's faded a lot in a way that WWII hasn't. Nazis are still the most iconic bad guys you can pick.

If another war comes along to supplant WWII's place in the world's consciousness, I hope I'm dead by then.
That’s funny you say that but I actually think the Vietnam War is even more “popular” than it was, say, in the 90s. I use guys like my father as an example. Drafted into the war, came back home and did what every other guy does: tries to forget about it and move on. About forty years go by and he’s more comfortable being recognized as a Vietnam Vet and gets his vanity license plate and wears things that make him stand out. People come up and say “thank you for your service” which probably wouldn’t have happened thirty years ago. People realized that many other people were rotten to vets back then and may be trying to make amends for past generations but I think people are also more interested in that era.

My parents visited us last week and flew back and the guy sitting next to my dad was a former commercial pilot who was also a Navy pilot, not an easy gig. My dad told him he was in Vietnam and my mom said the guy got very interested in my dad’s experience over there. I was gaming a couple weeks ago and starting chatting with a guy who is currently in the Army and I mentioned that my dad was drafted into the Army back in the late 60s and he started asking me questions. I don’t think people have let it slip at all.

This is one of the reasons why I’m kind of irritated when they’ve tried to change characters from Vietnam vets to Desert Storm vets. It’s not just a “swap” and it’s not fair to either group.
 
That’s funny you say that but I actually think the Vietnam War is even more “popular” than it was, say, in the 90s.
I've noticed more wargamers taking up vietnam over the past few years. WWII is still king, it's got such iconic equipment and uniforms and had such an enormous media presence, but I think Vietnam has a its own strong flavor... what with the jungle, the helicopters, the local architecture, and the music. Maybe some of the 'edge' has worn down to where people are willing to engage with it.
 
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Punisher I think has switched from a Vietnam vet to a Afghanistan vet these days. I'm not sure that even causes a record to skip.
And more recently that was switched to him having fought in the Sin-Cong conflict, one of Marvel's fictional Asian countries, that the U.S. fought in (as part of the sliding timeline) about 10-20 years ago. Not only does this include characters who were originally Vietnam vets (Punisher, James Rhodes, Flash Thompson), but it also includes characters who had originally fought in WWII and/or Korea as part of their backstory (such as Ben Grimm).



That's pretty much Deathstroke.

In addition to what Tulpa Girl Tulpa Girl says, the Garth Ennis run on Punisher Max left Frank as a Vietnam veteran and had him age in real time. The tone of that book was much better for it, and it worked. That exists in its own little continuity though, with very little interaction with the Marvel U characters (with a few exceptions).

Whereas the Punisher who runs into Daredevil and Spider-Man routinely, the retconned Sin-Cong backstory makes sense.
 
In addition to what Tulpa Girl Tulpa Girl says, the Garth Ennis run on Punisher Max left Frank as a Vietnam veteran and had him age in real time. The tone of that book was much better for it, and it worked. That exists in its own little continuity though, with very little interaction with the Marvel U characters (with a few exceptions).

Whereas the Punisher who runs into Daredevil and Spider-Man routinely, the retconned Sin-Cong backstory makes sense.

I love Ennis' run on Punisher for its pulpy exploitation excess but his Vietnam arcs are just first rate across the board. Excellent stuff.

His relatively brief Nick Fury series was also surprisingly effective and even moving by its end.

I've heard that Ennis' other historical war comics are also good, need to check those out.

Like crime and horror comics, I'm happy to see a modernday revival of an underrated genre like the classic war comic, many of which, probably because they were made by vets, are far less jingoistic than one may first expect.
 
That’s funny you say that but I actually think the Vietnam War is even more “popular” than it was, say, in the 90s. I use guys like my father as an example. Drafted into the war, came back home and did what every other guy does: tries to forget about it and move on. About forty years go by and he’s more comfortable being recognized as a Vietnam Vet and gets his vanity license plate and wears things that make him stand out. People come up and say “thank you for your service” which probably wouldn’t have happened thirty years ago. People realized that many other people were rotten to vets back then and may be trying to make amends for past generations but I think people are also more interested in that era.
I'd completely agree that it's more "popular". I have some friends that are Vietnam vets, and they are more comfortable talking about it than they would have been 30 years ago. The misguided hostility to drafted soldiers is thing of the past as far as I can see.

I'm referring the how much media is generated about it. It's just my personal observation, but that has died down, perhaps because it's no longer a sensitive topic. In the '80s, Vietnam was all over the movies and TV, Rambo, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Missing In Action. I recently watched the '80s Twilight Zone series again, and I was struck by how many episodes touched on the Vietnam War. Nightcrawlers by Robert R. McCammon and Paladin of the Lost Hour by Harlan Ellison both come to mind, but there were plenty more. Lost of episodes involving the terror of nuclear war too.

Of course, even though you don't see as much made nowadays, I guess that fact that it left such a footprint in media will keep it in memory for a long time. And Vietnam does intersect with the the cultural movements of the '60s. Going to Wikipedia to read up on the Beatles, the most popular band of all time, can send you down a rabbit hole to the Vietnam War.

Fine. I'll concede that Vietnam is a Iconic War.

I just wonder about it's international recognition. Vietnam, the States, and Australia (and the French early on), were the main participants. I'm Australian, so I'm not in a place to say.
This is one of the reasons why I’m kind of irritated when they’ve tried to change characters from Vietnam vets to Desert Storm vets. It’s not just a “swap” and it’s not fair to either group.
Those are very different wars.
I've noticed more wargamers taking up vietnam over the past few years. WWII is still king, it's got such iconic equipment and uniforms and had such an enormous media presence, but I think Vietnam has a it's own strong flavor... what with the jungle, the helicopters, the local architecture, and the music. Maybe some of the 'edge' as worn down to where people are willing to engage with it.
Yes, there is a real aesthetic to the Vietnam War. When a movie does a flashback to Vietnam, they don't have to work hard to let you know where you are.
 
Like crime and horror comics, I'm happy to see a modernday revival of an underrated genre like the classic war comic, many of which, probably because they were made by vets, are far less jingoistic than one may first expect.
One of the reasons I loved Larry’s writing on Joe in the 80s. He could have had it be really “rah rah” but with issues like #43 showed the true reality of the situation of what vets dealt with.
 
I love Ennis' run on Punisher for its pulpy exploitation excess but his Vietnam arcs are just first rate across the board. Excellent stuff.

His relatively brief Nick Fury series was also surprisingly effective and even moving by its end.

I've heard that Ennis' other historical war comics are also good, need to check those out.

Like crime and horror comics, I'm happy to see a modernday revival of an underrated genre like the classic war comic, many of which, probably because they were made by vets, are far less jingoistic than one may first expect.

Ennis has a knack for a good war story. I think you mean the “Nick Fury: My War Gone By” series, right? That’s a really good take on cold war era espionage.

Punisher: Born is a really great alternate take on Frank’s days in Viet Nam. An even darker take. I don’t think it’s considered canon, but it’s worth checking out.
 
Now imagine Captain America switching from a WWII vet to a Vietnam vet and how that would change his origin.
Why Vietnam? Why not a more recent one?
"Frozen on ice like preserved lettuce" aside, that is:grin:!

I'm avoiding Spider-man who I love as a character because they won't let him get back with MJ.
I just want to congratulate you with having clear priorities and not climbing on the shipping train...:thumbsup:
Like crime and horror comics, I'm happy to see a modernday revival of an underrated genre like the classic war comic, many of which, probably because they were made by vets, are far less jingoistic than one may first expect.
...that's the biggest recommendation for war comics that I've heard lately, FWIW.

I just wonder about it's international recognition. Vietnam, the States, and Australia (and the French early on), were the main participants. I'm Australian, so I'm not in a place to say.
Between Rambo and FFC, I'd say a tentative yes.

That said, I recently happened to have two players that weren't quite sure who's that Zelensky guy that they were saving from an Yakuza murderer, so...tentative yes:gunslinger:.
 
I love Ennis' run on Punisher for its pulpy exploitation excess but his Vietnam arcs are just first rate across the board. Excellent stuff.

His relatively brief Nick Fury series was also surprisingly effective and even moving by its end.

I've heard that Ennis' other historical war comics are also good, need to check those out.

Like crime and horror comics, I'm happy to see a modernday revival of an underrated genre like the classic war comic, many of which, probably because they were made by vets, are far less jingoistic than one may first expect.
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