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COMICS! |OT| November 2016. Wilde for comics, 2 Hickman books this month.

L

LordOfLore

Banned
The William James quotes in Omega Men:
cwcc8uwwcaegoa-dnome.jpg
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R

Roman

Member
echoshifting said:
Death of X #3: You know, this issue actually does a few things right. The
Magik
page? That's a killer page. And I'm enjoying
Magneto's role
in this story.

But holy fuck it does not even TRY to make sense. I cannot get past the ridiculous nonsense the
Inhumans just pulled in Madrid at the end of last issue and the beginning of this one
. I wonder how many people
died there, a city with a population of over 3 million normal humans, because Crystal orders a brand new Inhuman - whose powers she knows practically nothing about - to knock every last person in the city out. Probably more than zero!
And then....and then!!! At the top of this issue, rather than
flying around the city trying to minimize the damage they themselves just caused, they sit on the roof and have a fucking LET'S THINK OF A COOL INHUMAN NICKNAME PARTY
. WTF. And. And!
Pat themselves on the back for being big damn heroes and worry about what mean ol' Storm is going to do when she wakes up without attempting to render aid to her or the other X-Men in any way. Despite the fact that a few of them were actually airborne when Daisuke knocked them out and might have serious injuries. Like they don't even check
.

So really. Marvel. Are
they making a statement about white privilege with the Inhumans? Is that what this about...they are aliens who get their powers from a cocoon and that simple, random roll of the dice makes them inherently more comfortable to deal with for most people? This is flimsy but it's all I got. This thing that happened in Madrid happened eight months ago, it was a MAJOR assault on the city that doubtless resulted in dozens if not hundreds of casualties, and it was only deemed necessary at all because another Inhuman - their sovereign leader, at the time, - unleashed a weapon of mass destruction which has had major consequences for everyone on Earth
. And still. Nobody cares. It's pathetic and awful.

Either way. Lazy fucking writing, here.
Click to expand...

It seems they are deliberately playing up the Inhumans as carefree morons and the X-Men as eternally suffering, like in the promo image. A better writer would have done it more subtly. This definitely feels like the kind of story where they have a determined point B they want to get to from A and make up any dumb story reason to get there, like the
really forced standoff, with the new member of course immediately attacking for no reason to escalate the conflict.
It's lazy, tired writing that has been done so many times before that I couldn't help rolling my eyes.

Zombine said:
When Doctor Strange first went through the multiverse that was eternity's face and not Dormamu's I believe.
Click to expand...

No, I watched Dr. Strange twice and paid extra attention to it,
the face is Dormammu's
.
 
E

echoshifting

Banned
Roman said:
It seems they are deliberately playing up the Inhumans as carefree morons and the X-Men as eternally suffering, like in the promo image. A better writer would have done it more subtly. This definitely feels like the kind of story where they have a determined point B they want to get to from A and make up any dumb story reason to get there, like the
really forced standoff, with the new member of course immediately attacking for no reason to escalate the conflict.
It's lazy, tired writing that has been done so many times before that I couldn't help rolling my eyes.
Click to expand...

I agree, but I don't think the predetermined end point is an excuse for nonsensical sequences in cape comics. It's unfortunate that that is the way things are, in at least one way: locking in a destination a book HAS to end up at before the first word is written robs the writer (and the reader) of organic, naturally-occurring opportunities for invention and clever twists that might otherwise be exploitable. And it is probably easier to write characters consistently and logically when you can simply be true to them, rather than a mandated end point.

But there are good, valid reasons why it has to be this way. A universe shared by dozens of books and hundreds of characters with decades of history is a massive and complicated machine which must serve its greater purpose first and the purposes of its individual gears second. If a single piece breaks, or is faulty, it can be replaced, but the machine has to keep humming. I will not recount the many benefits readers of shared universes experience; I believe they are generally well known and understood by the majority of comic book fans.

So when you write a big 2 book, especially a substantial pillar of the shared universe, like the Avengers, or an event book like Death of X, you should already be aware of the considerable challenge "we must get from A to B in this story" presents for the writing. If they're giving you an event book to write, chances are damn near 100% you have direct experience with it, and you probably even made it work. You have to be clever. You have to know your shit. But most importantly you have to care enough to say, this major lynch-pin of my story does not hold up to the mildest scrutiny and I need to go back and figure out something different.

Maybe they wouldn't let him do that, though. The difficulty we face as readers when reading a story where things appear as lazy as this is in acknowledging the restrictions the writer is dealing with even if we may not know all of them. I imagine the list for Death of X is a long one. The relationship between both groups has to end in a certain way. Character A can't get along with Character B. Characters C, D, E, F, G all have to die. It has to be four issues. And so on. Who knows. Ultimately, though, all we have to examine is the end product; we can appreciate the challenges a writer faces with an especially difficult project while also recognizing their failure to meet those challenges. And here at the end of my thought, I've talked myself out of thinking "lazy" - which I used myself, I might add, so this isn't a criticism of you at all - is a good word to use for a failed comic bound by heavy editorial mandate. Perhaps it is enough to call the attempt a failure and leave it at that?

I don't know, I'm not totally convinced by that. I could go both ways. But I think the recent Marvel work of Jeff Lemire reveals a lot about this issue. You could actually arrange his books in order of quality from best to worst, and I'd wager you'd note an increase in the importance of the book to the greater Marvel machine as quality goes down.
 
F

Freezasaurus

Member
Coriolanus said:
60 gigs gon 60 gigs.

i just hoping that the campaign is a bit better than bo3, cuz dear gods those robohordes were droll.
Click to expand...

I haven't played a CoD game since Black Ops 3, but I really like the campaign so far. It's harder than I expected, even on regular difficulty. But I may be out of practice after having not played the series for a few years.
 
R

Roman

Member
echoshifting said:
Maybe they wouldn't let him do that, though. The difficulty we face as readers when reading a story where things appear as lazy as this is in acknowledging the restrictions the writer is dealing with even if we may not know all of them. I imagine the list for Death of X is a long one. The relationship between both groups has to end in a certain way. Character A can't get along with Character B. Characters C, D, E, F, G all have to die. It has to be four issues. And so on. Who knows. Ultimately, though, all we have to examine is the end product; we can appreciate the challenges a writer faces with an especially difficult project while also recognizing their failure to meet those challenges. And here at the end of my thought, I've talked myself out of thinking "lazy" - which I used myself, I might add, so this isn't a criticism of you at all - is a good word to use for a failed comic bound by heavy editorial mandate. Perhaps it is enough to call the attempt a failure and leave it at that?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the engaging reply. I am aware of all of these challenges. My point is that the best writers, if they feel like it, can find ways to make editorial mandates work. They can write dialogue that feels organic. They can present predetermined endings as if they hadn't been.

But the dialogue in this issue is so blatantly forced and ham-fisted, I can't see how Lemire even attempted to weave a compelling narrative, with characters that feel like real people instead of chess pieces. I truly think he could do better than this, but events bring big paychecks and it feels like not many people are excited about writing mutants right now so there you are.
 
S

Sandfox

Member
Vyer said:
I haven't even been keeping up, what's Renew Your Vows' relation to the books that came out during Secret Wars? I liked that well enough.
Click to expand...
This is a world where the Regent battle happened, but the heroes weren't killed off long ago. I think it's essentially going to be the main universe if OMD never happened.
Hagi said:
Renew Your Vows is soft solution to what you are asking for. Slott ain't going anywhere any time soon so time to make your peace with that.

Speaking of Spider-man how is Clone Conspiracy shaping up? thinking about diving in if it's good, I'm a fair few issues behind on the main book I think.
Click to expand...
I'm expecting Slott to leave ASM in 2017 tbqh.

Clone Conspiracy reminds me of Slott's older Spidey stuff and I'm enjoying it so far.
 
T

TheFlow

Banned
Freezasaurus said:
I haven't played a CoD game since Black Ops 3, but I really like the campaign so far. It's harder than I expected, even on regular difficulty. But I may be out of practice after having not played the series for a few years.
Click to expand...
Worst fps campaign I have ever played. So bad. Had to stop 3 missions in.
 
H

Hagi

Member
Freezasaurus said:
Jesus Christ Dishonored 2 is 71GB to buy digitally.
Click to expand...

I got better internet so I could download games three times as fast, the game companies made their game sizes three times bigger.

Sandfox said:
I'm expecting Slott to leave ASM in 2017 tbqh.

Clone Conspiracy reminds me of Slott's older Spidey stuff and I'm enjoying it so far.
Click to expand...

Really? that would be interesting even though I have zero idea who they would get to replace him that wasn't just Waid or Bendis.

I think I'll work my way up to it, I could use some good Spidey comics right now.
 
F

Freezasaurus

Member
TheFlow said:
Worst fps campaign I have ever played. So bad. Had to stop 3 missions in.
Click to expand...

#Flowpinions

Hagi said:
I got better internet so I could download games three times as fast, the game companies made their game sizes three times bigger.
Click to expand...

See? Shouldn't have bothered. Now I need to decide whether I want to download it or buy retail. At least after downloading the 71GB, you don't need to download a patch or wait 20 minutes for install.
 
S

Sandfox

Member
Hagi said:
I got better internet so I could download games three times as fast, the game companies made their game sizes three times bigger.



Really? that would be interesting even though I have zero idea who they would get to replace him that wasn't just Waid or Bendis.

I think I'll work my way up to it, I could use some good Spidey comics right now.
Click to expand...

Depending on what they do and how RYV is received it could possibly be Conway returning to ASM.
 
E

echoshifting

Banned
Roman said:
Thanks for the engaging reply. I am aware of all of these challenges. My point is that the best writers, if they feel like it, can find ways to make editorial mandates work. They can write dialogue that feels organic. They can present predetermined endings as if they hadn't been.

But the dialogue in this issue is so blatantly forced and ham-fisted, I can't see how Lemire even attempted to weave a compelling narrative, with characters that feel like real people instead of chess pieces. I truly think he could do better than this, but events bring big paychecks and it feels like not many people are excited about writing mutants right now so there you are.
Click to expand...

I appreciate the discussion as well!

Here's the thing, though. Why wouldn't Jeff Lemire want to be known for giving however many X-Men he is about to kill the greatest send-off of all time. He's not a hack. He's writing Moon Knight, I know he's not a hack. And it's not like he's the only one. It happens again and again, with some of the greatest writers in the industry. The ones that turn out good tend to require volumes of source material to truly appreciate, and are usually the end result or sometimes a branching out of a larger story. It seems cynical to suggest that a writer of Lemire's stature would have so little self respect that he would sign onto a book he knows is going to be important to a lot of people just for the paycheck and fully intending to lolwhatever the whole thing. I'm fairly certain I have heard this said of other writers as well on past events, and it just seems unlikely to me that would be true more often than not.

I guess it sounds like I'm excusing it or trying to justify that this is what many comic readers have simply come to expect from events. It's a huge problem. But perhaps too much blame is placed on the writer when events fall apart.
 
C

choaffable

Member
echoshifting said:
I guess it sounds like I'm excusing it or trying to justify that this is what many comic readers have simply come to expect from events. It's a huge problem. But perhaps too much blame is placed on the writer when events fall apart.
Click to expand...

Kieron Gillen's interview with Jonathan Hickman was especially enlightening in this regard. They talk about having only two weeks to turn around issues while still figuring out the road map of your event/series. On top of that, issues need to be written out of order. So for Death of X, Lemire probably isn't even writing the issues chronologically. Death of X #3 could have been the first one he wrote and submitted.
 
T

TheFlow

Banned
Freezasaurus said:
Zombie mode has always been buttpoop. I only bought it for the campaign, and that I like. Salter is my new waifu.
Click to expand...
I couldn't even tell you who salter was. You are a rare individual for buying it just for the campaign.

Now titanfall 2? Hory shit does that game deliver l. I thought GAF was overhyping it but the level design is ace. Mech combat makes it feel like I am in sometime of gundam.
 
R

Roman

Member
echoshifting said:
It seems cynical to suggest that a writer of Lemire's stature would have so little self respect that he would sign onto a book he knows is going to be important to a lot of people just for the paycheck and fully intending to lolwhatever the whole thing. I'm fairly certain I have heard this said of other writers as well on past events, and it just seems unlikely to me that would be true more often than not.

I guess it sounds like I'm excusing it or trying to justify that this is what many comic readers have simply come to expect from events. It's a huge problem. But perhaps too much blame is placed on the writer when events fall apart.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that Lemire is a bad writer. Far from it. But I would put forward that this sort of event writing in itself is cynical. This is X-Men, the writers are definitely aware that the Terrigen Mist plotline and the eradication of mutants on a fundamental level has been done before almost every other decade. It is upon the writer to take up the challenge to present this in an engaging and fresh way, to write dialogue and scenarios that are compelling and believable. Not making everyone look stupid or artificially enforcing a tremendously stark contrast in the behavior between two groups (here mutants and Inhumans) would go a long way.

Even good writers have off days. In this case it could be a myriad of reasons. He could be just as disgruntled with all this as us. Maybe he had unbelievable time constraints, maybe the editors rejected his initial scripts. But in the end, his name is on the cover so it is his responsibility to shoulder the burden of criticism.
 
H

Hagi

Member
Freezasaurus said:
See? Shouldn't have bothered. Now I need to decide whether I want to download it or buy retail. At least after downloading the 71GB, you don't need to download a patch or wait 20 minutes for install.
Click to expand...

Download pricing in the UK puts me firmly in the retail market for the foreseeable future. I've traded in an obscene amount of games this gen as well so that helps too.

Sandfox said:
Depending on what they do and how RYV is received it could possibly be Conway returning to ASM.
Click to expand...

That would be cool I don't think I've read a single issue of anything Conway has penned which is pretty crazy looking at his bibliography. Really looking forward to Renew Your Vows.

TheFlow said:
Now titanfall 2? Hory shit does that game deliver l. I thought GAF was overhyping it but the level design is ace. Mech combat makes it feel like I am in sometime of gundam.
Click to expand...

The game is amazing but it makes me feel like I'm in a GM instead of a Gundam lol
 
F

Freezasaurus

Member
TheFlow said:
I couldn't even tell you who salter was. You are a rare individual for buying it just for the campaign.

Now titanfall 2? Hory shit does that game deliver l. I thought GAF was overhyping it but the level design is ace. Mech combat makes it feel like I am in sometime of gundam.
Click to expand...

I was always an SP gamer in the past. I never really played multi before Overwatch. Unless you count UT2k3/4 back in the day.

I think Titanfall 2 is unquestionably the better game, but I do love sci-fi games in general, so I'll take what I can get.
 
T

TheFlow

Banned
Hagi said:
Download pricing in the UK puts me firmly in the retail market for the foreseeable future. I've traded in an obscene amount of games this gen as well so that helps too.



That would be cool I don't think I've read a single issue of anything Conway has penned which is pretty crazy looking at his bibliography. Really looking forward to Renew Your Vows.



The game is amazing but it makes me feel like I'm in a GM instead of a Gundam lol
Click to expand...

or one of the armor core suits. maybe a ground suit from robotech. this just makes me wish we could get a proper mech game.

Freezasaurus said:
I was always an SP gamer in the past. I never really played multi before Overwatch. Unless you count UT2k3/4 back in the day.

I think Titanfall 2 is unquestionably the better game, but I do love sci-fi games in general, so I'll take what I can get.
Click to expand...
ah fair enough. I always loved the COD campaigns, but I felt it was lifeless. this new one looks amazing. going to wait till Tuesday to redbox it.
 
S

Sandfox

Member
Hagi said:
Download pricing in the UK puts me firmly in the retail market for the foreseeable future. I've traded in an obscene amount of games this gen as well so that helps too.



That would be cool I don't think I've read a single issue of anything Conway has penned which is pretty crazy looking at his bibliography. Really looking forward to Renew Your Vows.



The game is amazing but it makes me feel like I'm in a GM instead of a Gundam lol
Click to expand...

Yeah, based on the previews and interviews this book looks like it's going to be fun and Stegman is taking his art to the next level.
 
H

Hagi

Member
TheFlow said:
or one of the armor core suits. maybe a ground suit from robotech. this just makes me wish we could get a proper mech game.
Click to expand...

Just got to wait till next year for Gundam Vs fam. Wrecking people with Chars Z'Gok will sure be fun, when I'm not getting wrecked myself that is :p

Sandfox said:
Yeah, based on the previews and interviews this book looks like it's going to be fun and Stegman is taking his art to the next level.
Click to expand...

Yeah visually everything about the book is top tier amazing.
 
C

Coriolanus

Banned
Freezasaurus said:
Unless you count UT2k3/4 back in the day.
Click to expand...

heh. you just made me recall all the drama when Epic announced 2k4 and peeps going "wtf is this shit, gonna have to buy the game every year? where's the support?"

ahh... how things change ;___;

(tbf ut99 was freaking amazing)
 
T

TetraxShards

Member
Infinite Warfare took me about 25 minutes through Steam. Haven't downloaded MWR because I don't have the space right now. Well I do, but my Dishonored 2 key could show up any time now and I need space for that.
 
T

TheDarkKnight774

Member
Man Dragon Quest builder is a super long game. Middle of chapter 3 and I have no idea how much hours I've played (no timer is dumb) but I'd guess 40-50 hours. I would have felt satisfied if it ended in chapter 2 and that was mid way!

My goal is to finish it before pokemon sun

Think tonight I'll continue playing Silent Hill 2
 
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