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[Mael]

Following this thread, I realise that I don't know that much about comics in the 1rst place (mainly stuffs from that Xmen animated series, XmenVsCapcom games and the Xmen movies lol and probably even less about the DCU...).
and the upstanding members such as Village explained it so well that I feel like I need to know more about it.
So GAF, here is the topic I give you : depict an arc from Marvel/DC that resonated well with you or the one that you can point and say "this is why I read them".
Alternatively you can also depict the ones that you found incredibly dumb or even hated.

To give a better example I'll give you the posts that made me want to post this topic :

Oh you don't know about that , let me tell you a story.

So what I believe was the 200th issue of the avengers, the avengers tried to do something special. They couldn't come up with anything special so they had Miss Marvel get pregnant, so later when she has the baby ( super fast by the way) dude comes out a full grown man. Apparently at one point he had taken her to some weird alternate dimension so he could impregnate her , against her will, so he could birth himself out of that dimension. To all this the avengers go " oh ok" Then her son rapist proceeds to take her off, because they have fallen in love or something, when in actuality he hypnotized her into thinking that. She gets away from him, and murders him I believe, and for a long ass time she is pissed off at the avengers for just going along with that bullshit while it went down.

Avengers are a pretty shitty friend group

Oh the hulk is too strong , send into space that will never back fire right?

We have personal disputes over the law, well I am going make sure it becomes a law and war. Instead of just internal discussion because my view point on the world shouldn't exactly be trusted because I build robot armor for a living.

And then there is scarlet witch who is several times worse than you think cyclops is.

- pats the seat -

a'iiegt, Story time. Let me tell you a few comic book stories some short some long.

Ahem , a long time ago there was a mercenary assassin man named Slade Wilson, this middle aged man had beef with a bunch of teen agers. To get these teenagers, he seduced one of them, a middle aged man. Seduced a teenager to get back at the group of teens, resulting in her switching sides.

You remember Terra from the teen titans cartoon, and she went evil. Its because he fucked her. absorb that.

Which he shouldn't care about, because he is a mercenary, and his job is where the money. So not only is he shitty at his job, he is a very petty human being who have sex with under aged women just to get back at you.

_____________

Next the story of scarlet witch, scarlet witches powers, are very powerful. She can change the world at a whim. And she did, eliminated a bunch of mutant powers at one time. But hey village isn't that what they wanted now they can be normal right? No. Let me throw some hypotheticals at you , how about those people who identified with their gifts, what about those people who were in bad scrapes at the time and now are dead because for some reason in the middle of whatever they were doing their power conked out. What about those who were known for their powers and had people already wanting to kill them, and their powers where their only defense mechanism. Scarlet witch is an effectively as mass murderer and a woman who took away the identities of millions of people.
Eventually during AvX they got it back , but look at all the crap that had to happen for that to happen.

" oh yeah you can have your powers back and new people can get powers, but the world hates you at the moment. so yeah"

______

I have another story the story of parallax if you want to hear, its pretty long though. But it funny and ends on a good note.

Don't question already dumb x-men logic.

Ok story time. This story is one the most well known screw ups in comic book (s)history. There are plenty of people who have done videos and news columns about this so if you want more in depth info there is some out there. I believe movie bob as a good few videos about it on the escapist. There are plenty of comic book nerds who have gone over on this on youtube and stuff.

I should just make this a weekly thread, Village's weird comic book story time.


Ok kids the story, of parallax.


Alright, a long time ago in a far off forgotten era called the 90's, comic books were edgy. You know that buzz word people use when people bring up cloud , or shadow the hedgehog or anything that may not be happy. Ya know that buzz word people use to try and piss people off because they like something like that. Yeah that isnt edgy 90's comic books were edgy. 90's comic books are what video games are right now, everything had a gun( even the hulk at one point), everything had muscles. Everything needed a super gritty reboot, and everything was some weird shade of orange brown, well a lot of it. And they let rob leifeld draw everything,

( Call on MEEE~)
it wasn't the best time for comics



Anyways in the 90's DC though they needed some fresh green lantern blood, ok alright cool idea. The more the merrier, GL was always pretty popular why not make more. Except the issue is the way they went about it, they Itachi Uchiha'd the green lanterns. Since Naruto wasnt out at the time a more apt comparison is that they "Nova'd" the green lanterns. Let me explain, so something happened that caused Hal Jordans home town to be destroyed , or something happened and he needed the green lantern core's help. They were like " dude no were are like space god cops we cant just fucking abuse power like that" Hal gets mad and murders the entire green lantern core and calls himself Parallax( this is important) leaving one ring left to be found by Kyle Rayner.

parallax ( hal)( Kyle)

At the moment his replacement. It eventually gets resolved him and the universes hero's fight its a large event, he realizes what he has done and tried to reverse it and blah blah blah. Usual comic book stuff.

But this story isn't one that just lies in the pages of these comic books, but the reactions people had to them. Now trying to replace or introduce new super heroes is something comic do at the time sometimes they work, like how hal replaced Alan Scott, sometimes it doesn't work like well this . The issue here is that they turned one of the most golden heated, down to earth old school guy - ass super heroes into an evil cosmic entity. And then had him MURDER all his friends ( in some cases family because they were so close) just to replace the guy. Ya wanna know how they replaced alan ( who has the coolest green lantern outfit)



They just replaced him, that was it. Anyways people were no pleased, and this started a decade long campaign called H.E.A.T ( Halls Emerald Attack Team) of fans pissed off about what happened to the green lanturn. These people took out adds in the newspaper, bill boards I have heard, because they were pissed the fuck off. For over a decade these people were angry. That is impressive anger, what is even more impressive is that they did this IN THE 90's before the internet got popularized they didn't have reddit, they didn't have you tube. They didn't have #XboxonenoDRM, these people found each other got organized and showed that to DC.

So later a guy who's name I forget but this guy is awesome, congrats to that guy. Turns the whole green lantern situation around. He brings back, Hal and the lanterns to where they once where and explained like this. Each color is represented by a cosmic spirit animal.

The Green Lanturn:Ion

And the yellow lanterns the green lanterns weakness: Parallax ( see i told ya)

They also used this to introduce a bunch of other color lanterns, Blue for Hope, Red for Rage, Orange for Avarice ( greed), Indigo for compassion, and Violet for love housing the star sapphires who not only have redonklous outfits,

houses Hal jordans vengeful x girlfriend.

And later introducing the black lanterns, who was a whole event by themselves. But that is another story for another time if you wish to hear it

And that kids is the heavily summarized and paraphrased story of parallax.

Damn it now I will go offtopic but as a two decades long GL fan and reader I want to comment on this.

The thing is: GL was not popular at that point. They had tried everything to make GL popular and the writting was a mess at the point the started to think about ET. The writers had nearly ruined all of Hal's supporting cast (Alien Rape/Saphire Pregnancy of Carol), did not know what to do with Guy Gardner, Hal had very boring stories playing out and the only GL having some kind of good book was John Stewart.

As Gerad Jones - the writer that had to script the original ET - proposed a GL civil war that would destroy the corps and make Hal even stronger produced a very complicated and convulted storyline DC hit the full stop (the outline is online - search for it). They hired Ron Marz to do the announced storyline with the imperative to have a fully functional GL by the end that was more in tune with current societal trends of the 90ties.

Parallax itself was it great idea. A hero fallen from grace trying to regain his sanity and place among the heroes. In the three years after his fall from grace we would see Hal regain more and more of his sanity and then GL writer Marz even proposed a series for him, but DC needed a hero to sacrifce himself in the 1996 crossover Final Night. Which has one of the best GL moments ever as Jordan recites the oath of the GL to beat the light absorbing monster.

And the rest is a Geoff-con... ah retcon? And now Parallax is a not a troubled anti-hero or fallen hero but a yellow spacebug.

 

[MilesWebber]

Phoenix/sentinels saga in the x-men animated series. It seemed so epic for its time.

 

[Supermanisdead]

Age of Apocalypse

The single greatest product of the 90s.

Edit: lol mobile, I'm not typing shit

 

[Mael]

Age of Apocalypse

The single greatest product of the 90s.

I always confuse this part with the Apocalypse arc in the comics (so even if I wanted I wouldn't be able to track them lol).
It's the one WhatIF story about Apocalypse having won, no?

I remember the glorious finale of the Xmen animated series with the ramp up from just Sinister to the 4 horsemen to the clusterfuck at the end.
Glorious if a bit messy

Edit: lol mobile, I'm not typing shit

damn

 

[Supermanisdead]

Ok. I got excited and got to a computer.

AoA starts off with a short story called Legion Quest. It was weird, but long story short: Professor X has a son named David Haller, aka Legion. Legion's powers are basically infinite and he has a different personality that controls each power and he is kept in a coma because of the danger. One day he wakes up, with his mind healed and decides he wants to be a hero. So at some point he decides to time travel back to the point where Xavier meets Magneto and kill Magneto. But he accidentally kills Professor X (his father) instead - deleting himself from the timeline. Oops.

This starts a radically different timeline in which Professor X never creates the X-Men and the world goes to shit. An extremely powerful mutant named Apocalypse takes over the world and Magneto creates a band of heroes to oppose him - this world's X-Men.

So in this world a lot of the "good" heroes are actually evil psychos. Cyclops and Havok are two of Apocalypse's closest followers. Magneto is obviously the leader of the X-Men. And my favourite part: Sabretooth is a really cool, nice X-Man!

So anyways, the event is structured in a bunch of 4 issue miniseries that replace the main X-comics and each one has a different story. Generation X became Generation Next and some fucking dark shit where basically that whole youth team is abandoned to die by their teacher, Colossus. X-Factor became Factor-X, Uncanny X-Men became Astonishing X-Men, etc.

The main storyline is about the X-Men meeting Bishop, who has retained the memories of the true timeline and them helping him to restore it. For that, they needed something called the M'kraan Crystal, someone who can see into the future and someone who is able to time travel. The crystal is found by Gambit's team, called the X-Ternals, but a team member betrays them and takes the crystal to Apocalypse. The time traveler is Colossus' sister (who he saves by sacrificing the rest of his team). The woman who can see into the future, Destiny, is found by Nightcrawler although his team and many of her followers die while he is retrieving her.

They find all this shit, but by then, Apocalypse has nearly won all the battles. Magneto and Bishop are captured and Jean Grey and Wolverine (called Weapon X) are trying to convince a group of humans not to nuke the Earth. The two main teams of X-Men are battling more of Apocalypse's followers, but they are losing and dying too.

Jean Grey finally is able to stop the nuke, but she too is captured by one of Apocalypse's followers, Mr. Sinister. In his lab, she meets Cyclops who falls in love with her and frees her. They fight Sinister's forces, which include Cyclops' brother Havok, and the New Mutant, Cannonball. During this time we discover that Mr. Sinister has used the DNA of Cyclops and Jean Grey to create the ultimate mutant called Nate Grey (later known as X-Man). Nate is freed by another rebel group and he is able to kill Sinister.

The X-Men battle their way out of trouble, retrieve Colossus' sister and Destiny and teleport to Apocalypse's base for the final battle. Magneto and Bishop are freed and Bishop is able to enter the M'kraan Crystal to go into the past and stop Legion from killing Professor X.

Jean Grey and Cyclops escape from Sinister's lab, but Havok is still following them. Another bomb is sent to destroy New York, but at the last second Jean uses her powers to shield the city. In that moment, Havok is able to kill her and Cyclops, but thankfully Weapon X shows up and kills Havok. Jean Grey dies in his arms.

Magneto begins fighting with Apocalypse himself, and in the greatest scene of the 90s, tears Apocalypse in half with his magnetic powers. Reality shifts back to normal and everyone forgets what happened in the other world.

Damn, that was a heavy event.

 

[Mael]

Woah, I totally didn't know that part.
Actually it's nice how they got to tell a story about Apocalypse with making it a rehash of what happened before (basically turning him into a saturday morning villain...).
But it's somehow a bit weird how it didn't affect the storyline at all in the end.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

My next-door-neighbor had comics, and the ones tht really hooked me were Earth-2 comics. The idea of the characters getting older, but also the whole idea of parallel worlds, including one on which we lived.

As far as favorite comics arc, the story that I sometimes refer to as the best in-universe mainstream comic book arc is Daredevil: Born Again. In it, the Kingpin discovers Daredevil's secret ID, and proceeds to destroy his life. Broken, and going slightly crazy, Daredevel ends up in the slums. He proceeds to put himself back together and take the Kingpin down a notch in the process. And instead of returning to his upper-class life, he stays in the shitty neighborhood as its protector.

Written by Frank Miller in his not-yet-crazy prime, and drawn by David Mazzuchelli, it's just top-notch all round.

 

[Vermillion]

Ok. I got excited and got to a computer.

AoA starts off with a short story called Legion Quest. It was weird, but long story short: Professor X has a son named David Haller, aka Legion. Legion's powers are basically infinite and he has a different personality that controls each power and he is kept in a coma because of the danger. One day he wakes up, with his mind healed and decides he wants to be a hero. So at some point he decides to time travel back to the point where Xavier meets Magneto and kill Magneto. But he accidentally kills Professor X (his father) instead - deleting himself from the timeline. Oops.

This starts a radically different timeline in which Professor X never creates the X-Men and the world goes to shit. An extremely powerful mutant named Apocalypse takes over the world and Magneto creates a band of heroes to oppose him - this world's X-Men.

So in this world a lot of the "good" heroes are actually evil psychos. Cyclops and Havok are two of Apocalypse's closest followers. Magneto is obviously the leader of the X-Men. And my favourite part: Sabretooth is a really cool, nice X-Man!

So anyways, the event is structured in a bunch of 4 issue miniseries that replace the main X-comics and each one has a different story. Generation X became Generation Next and some fucking dark shit where basically that whole youth team is abandoned to die by their teacher, Colossus. X-Factor became Factor-X, Uncanny X-Men became Astonishing X-Men, etc.

The main storyline is about the X-Men meeting Bishop, who has retained the memories of the true timeline and them helping him to restore it. For that, they needed something called the M'kraan Crystal, someone who can see into the future and someone who is able to time travel. The crystal is found by Gambit's team, called the X-Ternals, but a team member betrays them and takes the crystal to Apocalypse. The time traveler is Colossus' sister (who he saves by sacrificing the rest of his team). The woman who can see into the future, Destiny, is found by Nightcrawler although his team and many of her followers die while he is retrieving her.

They find all this shit, but by then, Apocalypse has nearly won all the battles. Magneto and Bishop are captured and Jean Grey and Wolverine (called Weapon X) are trying to convince a group of humans not to nuke the Earth. The two main teams of X-Men are battling more of Apocalypse's followers, but they are losing and dying too.

Jean Grey finally is able to stop the nuke, but she too is captured by one of Apocalypse's followers, Mr. Sinister. In his lab, she meets Cyclops who falls in love with her and frees her. They fight Sinister's forces, which include Cyclops' brother Havok, and the New Mutant, Cannonball. During this time we discover that Mr. Sinister has used the DNA of Cyclops and Jean Grey to create the ultimate mutant called Nate Grey (later known as X-Man). Nate is freed by another rebel group and he is able to kill Sinister.

The X-Men battle their way out of trouble, retrieve Colossus' sister and Destiny and teleport to Apocalypse's base for the final battle. Magneto and Bishop are freed and Bishop is able to enter the M'kraan Crystal to go into the past and stop Legion from killing Professor X.

Jean Grey and Cyclops escape from Sinister's lab, but Havok is still following them. Another bomb is sent to destroy New York, but at the last second Jean uses her powers to shield the city. In that moment, Havok is able to kill her and Cyclops, but thankfully Weapon X shows up and kills Havok. Jean Grey dies in his arms.

Magneto begins fighting with Apocalypse himself, and in the greatest scene of the 90s, tears Apocalypse in half with his magnetic powers. Reality shifts back to normal and everyone forgets what happened in the other world.

Damn, that was a heavy event.

Ah, Magneto.

As for me, I didn't really get into comics until recently, TBH. The main reason that I know as much as I do was because I did have favorite characters, and I spent lots of time reading wikipedia and battle forums.

My first comic was the issue that Spider-Man fought Firelord, lol. My second comic was an Ultimate Spider-Man TPB. And then with the advent of digital comics, I started collecting. I also get trades every now and then and... well, here I am today :/

Ah, wait - I also read some Omnibuses as a kid when I went to the library.

 

[DrSlek]

The first arc of New Avengers, "Breakout!".

....I actually can't remember much about it. Electro breaks someone out of Rikers. The soon to be New Avengers all head over. Lots of fighting. Sentry is introduced, and drags carnage into space before bisecting him. Purple man gets beaten half to death by Luke Cage.
Then I think they head to the savage lands for some reason. Get knocked unconscious. Everybody wakes up naked. That's all I can remember.