Coriolanus
Banned
Reading vol.3 or Mircale man.scares meWinter
Well, yeah, thats the point. Its like a neanderthal staring at a homo sapiens.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
COMICS! |OT| May 2015. Those things your favorite movie/show/game/etc. was based on.
- Thread starter Spike Spiegel
- Start date
- Status
Well, yeah, thats the point. Its like a neanderthal staring at a homo sapiens.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Agree to disagree. IMO, his FF run had that problem in spades. You could tell that a lot of the issues were just treading water, setting up something later down the line.
I'm not saying it's flawless, but the problem you're describing isn't much of a problem as many people want to make it out to be.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Again, agree to disagree. Everything I'm saying is just my own sense, and I'm aware that my tastes influence my interpretations. For some people, the problem as I see it simply won't exist.
slightconfuse
Banned
New Avengers was a wild ride. Avenger had its peaks and valleys
TheDarkKnight774
Member
Yup. Start with Hellboy for the first five volumes. Then roll into BRPD
I'm currently reading through both, and sitting at about 15% done with the runs, I already agree.
Does it tell you when to switch over?
TheDarkKnight774
Member
There's nothing to hard or fast. In fact they really don't intersect. Just go through the first 5 volumes of hellboy. This gives you all the BPRD characters and the world setup. After that the two can be read in whatever order
TheDarkKnight774
Member
There's a lot there that isn't essential. Like Abe's minis, lobster Johnson, the flashback BPRD, etc. if you stick to the two main books it covers really most things
Baron von Loathsome
Member
You don't have to read all of it. I haven't started anything that isn't Hellboy yet myself, although I only just recently got to volume 5.
TheDarkKnight774
Member
The essential books to buy IMO are the hellboy library editions and the 4 BPRD omnibuses. All great sized and excellent quality
whatsinaname
Member
It isn't really a "problem". It was fun to read. But if I take the first 50% of the run as a standalone, I would give it a 7/10 rating. The final payoff elevates it of course. If I take the first 50% of similar runs that build up to a great final conclusion (Planetary, Starman), I would still rank them amongst some of the best comics I've read.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Its not just the purposefully ponderous pacing of Hickman's comics, slowly building up meaning and momentum and delaying gratification to some unforeseen time in the future, the patient readers sticking with it month after month, knowing it must be going SOMEWHERE. I also never get the sense he sees his characters as actual characters. He has spectacle and heavily planned out plot points and BIG THEMES he wants to express, and all the little people inside the comic are just the chess pieces he moves across the board. I never get a sense of real human warmth or humanity from his work, its all feels very cold and calculated. There's a skeleton, but no muscle or flesh to the damn things.
This is different from someone like Remender, who also plots dozens of issues into the future, but as heavy-handed as he can be, he also attempts to root these stories out of the character. So even though his stories involve alternate dimensions and time traveling and Tachyon dams and Celestial Gods and mutant messiahs who wish(or sometimes do) destroy billions of lives, he always use narration to get inside the character's heads, or interject moments of levity and romance. The big events that happen, like Kid Apocalypse's death by Fantomex or the Uncanny Avengers inability to cooperate or Marcus' burning down Sunset Boy's Home, have big consequences down the road and are more often then not actions that are fostered from established character motivations.
He also seems to work on making every issue compelling, thinking about his artists. He has a flair for creative action sequences, and often marries his exposition to visually interesting scenarios. His long plots and big payoffs are nonetheless made up of smaller stories and moments that are satisfying in and of themselves. His best comics have craft and character and work as individual units.
With Hickman I feel like I'm reading Wikipedia entries. I get the broad strokes, but I'm not getting a story.
This is different from someone like Remender, who also plots dozens of issues into the future, but as heavy-handed as he can be, he also attempts to root these stories out of the character. So even though his stories involve alternate dimensions and time traveling and Tachyon dams and Celestial Gods and mutant messiahs who wish(or sometimes do) destroy billions of lives, he always use narration to get inside the character's heads, or interject moments of levity and romance. The big events that happen, like Kid Apocalypse's death by Fantomex or the Uncanny Avengers inability to cooperate or Marcus' burning down Sunset Boy's Home, have big consequences down the road and are more often then not actions that are fostered from established character motivations.
He also seems to work on making every issue compelling, thinking about his artists. He has a flair for creative action sequences, and often marries his exposition to visually interesting scenarios. His long plots and big payoffs are nonetheless made up of smaller stories and moments that are satisfying in and of themselves. His best comics have craft and character and work as individual units.
With Hickman I feel like I'm reading Wikipedia entries. I get the broad strokes, but I'm not getting a story.
Tyrant Rave
Banned
Still would love to see ASM by Fraction and SamneeHe writes an great Spider-Man. He acknowledges how smart Peter is, makes him funny without beeing annyoing.
Should wrinting a Spidey book
Damn it, JC. I'm watching Rush Hour, and I can't make some counterpoints right now and on my phone.
TheDarkKnight774
Member
All I'll say is I'm not convinced Image Remender and Marvel Remender are the same person
I can agree with that. The only thing I really really liked from him in Marvel was his Venom.
100% agree. Marvel Remender doesn't make me quit after two or three issues where I'm trying to care about
I am ready the first big conclusion arc of FF and jts the same... But I like exactly this what JC dislikes...In a perfect world... :/
Really curious what will happen with ASM after Secret Wars.
It will be something shitty :/
BKatastrophe
Member
Read Rage of Ultron. I enjoyed it. Missed that Hank Pym self-loathing and scumbaggery. Though, that ending...still torn on it.
It was interesting, to say the least. I really liked it, especially the art.
Doop is love Doop is life
It was interesting, to say the least. I really liked it, especially the art.
Doop is love Doop is life
TetraxShards
Member
I like the Hickman stuff, but I'll take the good issues of Uncanny Avengers over it anyday. The first and last few issues were bad, but that run in the middle is the best pure Avengers since the days of Busiek and Perez. It's a shame Axis was so bad because most of the build was so good.
Hickman's story could be told outside of Marvel, in fact it might even work better if he used expys like it were Irredeemable or something. Remender's stuff feels more rooted in Marvel to me, like, they could be 60s comics but the writing is more modern. His stuff also has more energy to me overall.
Like JC said, 70 issues is a lot of stuff to get to the point and it feels very slow at times. It reads far, far better in trades and collections IMO. I was following along at first and lost interest around Infinity. Going back to it through MU has made it much easier to follow.
Hickman's story could be told outside of Marvel, in fact it might even work better if he used expys like it were Irredeemable or something. Remender's stuff feels more rooted in Marvel to me, like, they could be 60s comics but the writing is more modern. His stuff also has more energy to me overall.
Like JC said, 70 issues is a lot of stuff to get to the point and it feels very slow at times. It reads far, far better in trades and collections IMO. I was following along at first and lost interest around Infinity. Going back to it through MU has made it much easier to follow.
Tyrant Rave
Banned
I find his use of internal monologues and general writing style very consistent across Marvel and Image honestly. You could pick a page of Uncanny Avengers with one of Havok's thoughts and then compare it to one of Marcus in Deadly Class and know it's by the same writer. Same with Venom, X-Force, Black Science, or even Low.
King Gilga
Member
So I've been reading civil war.
What I think of it aside there's these two guys in it that I've never heard of that I've really liked so far, Black Panther, and some guy called nohvwar I think, he has white anime hair
So what's the best place to start to read more about each of those guys? Thanks.
What I think of it aside there's these two guys in it that I've never heard of that I've really liked so far, Black Panther, and some guy called nohvwar I think, he has white anime hair
kicks the shit out of a bunch of kids, and starts is krill empire in the base of some guy who turned him into a pain slave or something until vision undid it because his arm was stuck in him or something.
So what's the best place to start to read more about each of those guys? Thanks.
TheDarkKnight774
Member
You'll want Christopher priests Black Panther run. It's the best. It's on MU and the trades are being reprinted soon
for Marvel Boy seek out well the Marvel Boy mini by Grant Morrison and J.G. jones
http://www.instocktrades.com/TP/Marvel/MARVEL-BOY-TP-NEW-PTG/MAR140777
King Gilga
Member
I guess? They never called him marvel.
Edit: Yeah it is that's 100% him in gketter's link.
Alright, thanks a lot.
While I'm enjoying a lot of the SW buildup and SW itself, Infinity felt a lot like this to me.
TheDarkKnight774
Member
I've also heard BP the man without fear run by David Liss but haven't read it yet
I kinda feel that way about Hickman. I love all of his creator owned stuff, but aside from half of Infinity, his Marvel stuff doesn't resonate with me as well. It's probably for the reasons JC set up above, you have these huge runs that just keep building but have to wait 70 issues for the final payoff. I don't mind huge epic runs at all, but I dunno, his Marvel stuff really does feel like someone moving chess pieces around on a board. That said, I did enjoy the first issue of Secret Wars, it was just sheer mayhem.
Regard SW #1
Do we already know the game rules of the new Secret War?
The first issue was just a shocker... I completly forgot, that 616 Manhatten will be part of Battleworld.
The only character who are maybe really dead are Susan, Val and Franklin.
I expect the group of heroes that stranded in the end of the Issue as the ones, who will work behind the lines. Who really interact with Doom, the rest of the cabal and the Beyonder.
The rest of the heroes will be fine when the Beyonder creates the Battleworld. At least for now.
The only character who are maybe really dead are Susan, Val and Franklin.
I expect the group of heroes that stranded in the end of the Issue as the ones, who will work behind the lines. Who really interact with Doom, the rest of the cabal and the Beyonder.
The rest of the heroes will be fine when the Beyonder creates the Battleworld. At least for now.
Do we already know the game rules of the new Secret War?
I'll ride or die with issues 5-22 of Uncanny Avengers. A+++ cape comics for the most part
I wish someone took me up on my Hickman and (Green Lantern era) Geoff Johns comparison because that to me makes so much sense, in that they're both guys obsessed with planning ahead in a way that substitutes characterization and action and theme with meticulous plotting
I wish someone took me up on my Hickman and (Green Lantern era) Geoff Johns comparison because that to me makes so much sense, in that they're both guys obsessed with planning ahead in a way that substitutes characterization and action and theme with meticulous plotting
EEEHHH, Geoff Johns is a more competent version of Bendis (team Bendis). While the dialogue is a teeny tiny bit similar in every character he writes. He knows how to balance character development and plot progression.
Peter and Johnny's night out is probably my favorite wikipedia entry of all time. I've heard the no-warmth criticism before but I've never really understood it. I must have read a different Fantastic Four comic because I found his to be full personal of moments. Scenes like breakfast with the family, Franklin's birthday party, Ben's one normal day, the college adventure with Nathaniel, Sue and Peter talking over PB&Js, Valeria and Bentley lunch dates and everything else up to that amazing epilogue. All of that, at least to me, helped enhance the sense that despite there being this big complicated plot building towards one big moment it was all connected by a sense of family. It's literally the family coming together that sees that resolution come to fruition. It's in choosing the family over the big science adventure that provides the catalyst for it all.
In NA/A I can sympathize much more easily. The forced dread and despair is the brunt of the story and obviously it's all about building towards that moment at the end while the interpersonal moments between the principal casts take a back seat, though what is there I enjoyed. Oceans Avengers? The Thor/Hyperion arc? Yes, more of that please.
That sounds... kinda horrible. Like, I feel like you're not really invested in a story at that point as there's no real story to speak of, just a body of planning and work to admire.
I feel like sacrificing everything else for the sake of a really elaborate plot reduces the whole thing to bring about as interesting (or compelling, I should say) as an excel doc.
slightconfuse
Banned
Johns problem was scope, sinestro corp worked beacaus sit was GL story. Blackest Night ended up being a big universe ending smoz. One the book wided it's scope it went off the deep end a bit.
Funny enough the entire theme of hickmans avengers was that the team is a machine designed to save the wells. I kind of like the chess like nature if hickmans stuff, it has this board game like feel to it. I think the double shipping of avengers hurt it a little.
Schweinehund
Member
Finally getting around to Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. Usually I find it hard to get into earlier comics because of art but Steve Bisette, I think it is, does an excellent job, the writing is also extremely refreshing. Alec's descent into madness on the blue planet is my favorite issue so far, but the issue with the abusive husband was chilling and not something I've seen in most modern cape comics.
The move Johns made repeatedly with GL was "this... leads into THIS!" which worked really well until he reached the end of his initial plan and had to start freestyling. I never gave a shit about Hal Jordan in those Green Lantern comics because he was a means to the end that were these stories that would build and build into a promised climax, in a way that I think is very Hickman-esque.
I do get the appeal, I think. Part of the fun of dominoes is the actual setting them up and anticipation of the fall; I'm just totally over that kind of storytelling in serialized cape comics
slightconfuse
Banned
I think HICKMAN himself would tell you the same thing. I think if he ever does capes again it will be somewhat diffrent approach.
KoruptData
Member
I think Geoff Johns is the best event/large scope writer out there. Of course my opinion from the limited selections that I have read. But he has been my favorite.
- Status