Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities The All Avengers Thread

I hate LA and I'm not even in the US.

And thats the thing Jorge. I think the world appreciates Americans like basketball fans appreciate Kobe (as the best player in the world.) But like Kobe gets on people's nerves the US does that too. Or to use Cobie's analogy. The US is to the world what LA is to Americans.

Sterotypical writing yes, and I think it's intentional. But I don't think Millar's writing Civil War from anti-Americanism. Certainly I thought he really got the character of Superman, and you can't write Superman without appreciating the basic founding mythology of the US.

If the American media weren't so inward looking they'd show Americans that Millar's writing of the MU US population as a bunch of idiots is a reflection of a widespread view in the rest of the world (both amongst the intelligensia and the guys and gals on the street). It wouldn't suprise me if he's writing the equivalent of a politcal caricature of Americans.

Of course any subtelty was lost when it got to JoeQ's office. He's not one to know subtlety and irony when it smacks him in the head.

When Tamper talks he makes me hate the rest of the world, my own country and the comic book industry at the same time But Joe Q above all others.

(Light-hearted Friday comment)

PS - I don't think Millar is anti-American either, but Tamper is right in that he plays to the American caricatures. He's actually made me like him more and more despite myself these last few years, and I do really enjoy 90% of his work.

(me american, me smart, me make typos)

See that is where I have a problem though. (this has nothing to do with the avengers). The US gets stereotyped in those people living in the midwest with no education. Hey there are people like that in the rest of the world. Infact I think the US has a pretty good rate of education when it comes to that. We think of France? We think of Paris. We don't think about the sheep herders who can't spell their names.

I think part of it is our two party system. It's a strength and weakness. It's a strength because it unites the country into just two factions versus 10. But we have less options that's the weakness.

I saw a special the other day of Indian phone reps making fun of how stupid Americans are that their helpdesk. It made Americans sound real stupid with 65 year old women who never have used a computer. Half of India can't read!

I think there are many reasons the rest of the world thinks Americans are ignorant but some of that is because of their own ignorance. Infact taking that position is pretty ignorant. I just don't like seeing the worst of each country...i like to see the best and I think the rest of the world looks at the worst at the USA. ohwell. I will continue my education by sending a PM to the canadian brainiac TL.

Cobie, I haven't read the Civil War mini or any of the non-FF tie-ins you mentioned, so I wouldn't be able to give an informed reply. It does sound to me, though, as if maybe Millar is trying to cover his ass because reader response turned out differently than he expected; I take anything he says with a grain of salt.

I love your spot-on comment on Ellis:

Jorge, I wouldn't say I put the Harras era on a pedastal, because I don't hold it up as unattainable perfection. I think it is attainable for a future Avengers writer to come up with a fresh new approach to Avengers that would please me as much as, if not even more than, the Harras era. But that won't happen until Quesada, Brevoort, and their cronies are kicked out through the door. And Casey did indeed make those statements in an interview. I'll PM you his exact words, because I don't want to give publicity to the site where the interview is.

"I wouldn't say I put the Harras era on a pedastal, because I don't hold it up as unattainable perfection. I think it is attainable for a future Avengers writer to come up with a fresh new approach to Avengers that would please me as much as, if not even more than, the Harras era."

It seems a shame I never read most of the Harras era, but he had, in my eyes, everything against him. First was several eras in a row where the book continued to disappoint. Then there was his own track record, which were some of the worst, character-destructive, over-written drek of the 80's. Between those 2 things, and the fact that I did NOT enjoy his first storyline at all, I'd just about had it, and gave up on the book (as I was giving up on most of Marvel in general around the same time). Some people do get better... but some people may never see it, if their earlier stuff turns them off that much.

Which brings up a question: has anyone here read Harras' run on NICK FURY, AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D.? It wasn't pretty... to say the least.

Stealth, I agree that Harras' run was fresh. He managed to use two of my faves (Herc/Black Knight) and elevate Sersi and Crystal as well. I even like Deathstrike.

As for Casey? Well how many times can you use Ultron? I hope if he ever gets the book he realizes that the things he likes have been done to death. And I think I know the site the interview is from. I sent them a few nasty emails cause they were very rude to Stern in an interview.

Prof, I have read his six issues of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., as well has his mini-series, Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. It's all very trendy and deconstructive and mean-spirited, from the time where Watchmen and Dark Knight (both absurdly overrated, IMO) became widely influential. Just about every writer has a skeleton in their closet, and those S.H.I.E.L.D. stories are his.

But he also wrote two Iron Man annuals from the 1980s, one of which turned the original Power Man into Goliath, so that's pretty significant (and a good story in my opinion.) There's also his witty fill-in issue of Thor (# 356), where Hercules tells tall tales where inevitably he comes out looking better than Thor.

Most importantly, his first Avengers script was an outstanding fill-in issue (# 280, towards the end of the Stern/Buscema era), the one where Jarvis looks back on his years of serving the Avengers as he ponders retirement.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: everybody's gotta start somewhere, and sometimes they get good in the long run.

How many times can you use Ultron? I think Bendis' first Mighty Avengers arc has answered that question.

"It's all very trendy and deconstructive and mean-spirited, from the time where Watchmen and Dark Knight (both absurdly overrated, IMO) became widely influential."

I forget which came first, exactly... see, back in the 1970's, every hack out there was making SHIELD (my heroes) look bad. They're not the CIA-- they're SHIELD! They should be better than that. There was a number of loose stories and a few with recurring sub-plots (The Huntress series in MARVEL SUPER ACTION, starring Bobbi Morse) which built up a picture that all was not right with the organization. For years it built, and at some point they announced a mini-series would deal with the problem-- head on.

Then YEARS went by, and when the long-awaited story finally came out, instead of a mini-series, or even a MAXI-series (12-issues), those greedy bastards milked it for all they could by putting it out instead as 6 "prestige format" issues. The equivalent of 12 normal issues for twice the price.

For those who missed it, the plot of "NICK FURY VS. SHIELD" involved a traitor in the organization who framed Fury as a traitor. It went on and on and ON. By the time it was over, we learned that-- supposedly-- the entire governing body (only ever seen as faces hidden in shadows in the Kirby issues) were corrupt and evil, and in fact, ALWAYS had been! Also, by the end, most of the supporting cast were brutally murdered, and Fury's longtime relationship with Val was a thing of the past. Due to overwhelming corruption, SHIELD was closed down, and Fury, one of the few left alive, retired. I waited that many years for THIS crap?????

One of the most infuriating things about it is, anyone who's read SHIELD #13 by Steve Parkhouse & Barry Smith would recognize the opening segment of the story. "BEEN THERE, DONE THAT." And Parkhouse & Smith, in a SINGLE regular size issues, had DONE IT BETTER!!!!! (It bugged me that both guys only ever did that ONE issue... Gary "Burnout" Friedrich & Herb "Hulk Smash!" Trimpe finished the story over the following 2 issues. Sort of. Parts 2 & 3 never quite "connected" well with the opening installment, "Hell Hath No Fury", my personal favorite of the post-Steranko issues.)

Then... as if to add injury to insult, some months later, they announced a new ongoing series. The same people were responsible. That's like asking Richard Nixon to "fix" the Watergate situation. The first 6 issues of the new NICK FURY pretty much amounted to Bob Harras virtually APOLOGIZING to Fury's fans, by revealing that SHIELD had NOT "always" been corrupt, that the governing body had one by one been murdered and replaced by agents of Hydra, until there was almost nobody left to watch the store. Had this come out in the "VS." story, it might have made "VS." more tolerable. The way it worked out, it just struck me as a painful load of garbage. Oh, they also revealed that several of the dead characters were still alive-- and had been prisoners since the previous storyline. Geez.

Somehow I made it thru Harras' 2nd 6 issues-- just barely. I decided, since he was leaving, to give his replacements a chance. Somehow, it never quite came together. It felt like it should have, but it never did. Then they did another LONG story involving outer space which Herb Trimpe pencilled (HIM again?). Herb was not what he had been by this point. Whoever wrote it seemed like they had no idea what they were doing. I got so fed up I decided, as soon as THIS story was over, I was outta there.

The next month I noticed they'd reinstated the 60's SHIELD logo. It caught my attention. I picked up the book. I CURSED. Butch Guice had taken over the art. Those BASTARDS. Just at the point where I swore I was dropping the book, they brought in one of my top fave artists.

D.G.Chichester & Butch Guice did the single BEST book Marvel was putting out at that point, for about the next 6 months. It was ASTONISHINGLY good. It was what the mini and what followed should have been. It made every issue that came before it look EVEN WORSE than they were by comparison. But Marvel's marketing was going into hellish overdrive... That was about the time they started doing "connected" annuals. They dragged SHIELD into it, trying to "force" you to read part of the story by spacing it out over 3 different annuals. Each annual only contained about 10-12 pages of the "big story", the rest was crap filler by unknowns getting tryouts. Even with the regular book as good as it was, they were still pissing me off.

Then, in something that would be a lot more timley now than then, "Graduation Day" had Hydra STRIKE-- levelling SHIELD HQ to the ground and killing everyone in the building. The kid gloves were off. 2 issues later-- Guice was gone. NO explanation. Marvel rarely had letters columns by then. This book still did-- but not once did they mention what happened to Guice. (Turned out he'd gone over to draw SUPERMAN). The new art was an ugly abortion trying to imitate Steranko's "OUTLAND" style. I hated it. Then they started dragging in guest-stars like Wolverine. The art changed again, Chichester left in the middle of the epic he started... and suddenly, the book looked "nice"-- very typical 70's-style Marvel art-- but the writing seemed on a 7-year-old level. That was it. I'd had enough "bait and switch". I quit.

About 2 YEARS later, I picked up the LAST issue of the book. Who'd guess it, they dragged out the revived Baron Strucker story for 3 WHOLE freakin' years. I feel lucky I missed most of it by then-- at least I caught the ending. Geez.

There was a long stretch there where I bought no Marvels at all. Stuff like this may help explain why!

Harras' issue of Thor where Hercules tells the stories about him and Thor to the kids has got to be one of the finest, if not *the* finest Hercules tale of all time! He captures Herc so well, specifically when Herc realizes that his over the top version of Thor losing is hurting the little kids supporting Thor, so he changes the story abrubtly, so that its Thor who acts heroic and wins out in the end. Its such a simple, nice tale, but it really conveys Hercules so well. Probably my #1 favorite Hercules scene in Marvel history!

I'm so glad you reminded me about it Stealth!

ARRRGH!!! I accidentally bought "Mighty Avengers" # 2 thinking it was "Initiative Avengers" (Dan Slott's book) # 2. BARF!

Well, guess what... Ultron's a transsexual now!

Y'know, I was really hoping that was going to turn out to be Jocasta... THAT might have been cool.


Bleeeeah.

I DID TOO!!! (accidently bought it)

I bet they planned that.........

After all the talk about Shooter & DeFalco & Harras and etc...... I just HAD to pass this on.

My God! It's like sitting in on a MAFIA conference!!!


http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2007/04/vinnie-collettas-exit-interview.html

Re: Colletta erasing pencils so he wouldn't have to ink them.

There's always two sides to every story, and it's good to hear why Colletta probably had to do this (in order to finish on time another artist's late work) and why many feel his inking was so rushed. I'm not taking sides in this debate -- I don't have an opinion on Colletta's work one way or the other -- but it's good to read another view of someone whose work is so often denigrated by fans.

Re: the transcribed phone conversation/interview.

This provides a very interesting look at the events that led up to Shooter's firing from Marvel, as well as Colletta's views on Shooter and Hobson. I can't help wondering, though, who recorded this conversation and whether or not Colletta knew it was being recorded.

You're welcome, Cobie. I find that story especially delightful since I first read it after I had read Harras' entire Avengers run. It shows that he already understood Hercules years before he began writing Hercules on a monthly basis.

Lash, Disaster Boy, sorry you both got burned. It gives new meaning to the old saying "Let the buyer beware," huh?

Prof, thanks for that link. I love that kind of behind-the-scenes dirt. There is so much potential for a great book to be written about comics in the 1970s and 1980s.

Colletta isn't the only inker whose work suffered to beat deadlines other people screwed over before he got involved. Back in the 80's, I met Brett Breeding-- an inker in the Bob Layton style whose work I really admired (he made Don Heck look FANTASTIC on 2 issues of J.L.A.!!). He looked too young to possibly have been in the biz as long as he was by then. Anyway, he told me a story of how the editor on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN got in the bad habit of dragging his ass on everything. You know how the production line goes. Plot in, pencils out. Pencils in, letters out. Letters in, inks out. Well, instead of looking over the art the moment it came in, this guy would let it sit on his desk for a week-- or MORE. Every time. By the time it got to the inking stage, it was running right up against a blown deadline!!! Breeding would take the pages, and-- just like "George Bell"-- knock out the work like a madman. Compared to his usual great stuff, it began to look like CRAP. But he made those deadlines. However, HIS rep as a decent inker began to suffer-- for something he had NOTHING to do with!

When I think of all the inkers I've seen who started out great and soon went to hell, I begin to think there must be a lot of this going around.


By the way, apart from THOR, if you wanna see some TERRIFIC Colletta inks, check out the otherwise questionable CAPTAIN MARVEL comic in the late 60's. During its run, TWICE, Vinnie replaced someone else who was MURDERING the art (Paul Reinmen, then John Tartaglione). Both times, Vince's inks were a HUGE improvement!!! (I wouldn't make up a thing like this.)

See, now I'm wondering if some of the artists / inkers / writers I consider 'bad' actually had mitigating stories like this. I definitely know that some of the ones I consider 'good,' only seem to be good under certain conditions (such as paired with inkers who bring out their work), but I wonder if I've judged some too harshly.

Carmine Infantino is one artist that, at the tender age of ten, I denounced and stopped buying Flash comics because I *hated* his art. (Yes, I was an opinionated ten year old.) And now I'm wondering if I just caught him in a bad circumstance...

Set, there are just some good artists not everybody likes. I don't care for Scot Kolins. You go see fan reactions to his art and you either love him or hate him.

I do love his work on the Thor mini last year. When it's fantasy it works but besides that I don't care for it.

Carmine Infantino's a terrific "designer" and "storyteller". But over the years his work got looser and looser, to the point where what he may consider "pencils" would be somebody else's "rough layouts". It takes a special talent to decipher those sketchy lines properly!

Some of Carmine's best work was done by other people. What I mean is, in the late 60's, he started designing almost all of DC's covers, to help them compete with the more "dynamic" stuff Marvel was doing. It worked, to a degree. DC's covers across the line improved DRASTICALLY, many of Carmine's designs being illustrated by the likes of Curt Swan, Jack Sparling, Neal Adams. But al too often, the interiors were the same, dull, boring, stodgy, stuff. I wonder how many fans felt ripped off, as if those great covers were nothing more than "false advertising"? Then again, I felt the same way in the mid-70's every time Dave Cockrum did a fabulous cover for Marvel-- and inside, you had 3rd-rate hack work. (That's sort of the reverse of a year or so earlier, when Gil Kane did hundreds of covers, effectively "hiding" the fact that inside, you might have wonderful stuff. All those Paul Gulacy MASTER OF KUNG FU issues were a prime example. Best stuff Marvel put out at the time, with some of the worst covers ever!)

Brett Breeding inked the 4-part West Coast Avengers mini-series that Roger Stern wrote and Bob Hall penciled. The first issue was magnificently inked, doing the near-impossible of making Bob Hall look good, but then the inks seemed to decline with each successive issue. I don't the issues on hand right now, but I seem to remember at least one, maybe two issues, were credited to "Brett Breeding and Friends" or something like that.

Even with the art, it still had excellent writing by Stern. IMO, the WCA mini-series was far superior to any stories that Englehart, or Byrne, or Thomas wrote in the WCA ongoing.

Which provides a convenient segue...

As both Prof and myself have pointed out, we still haven't had any in-depth discussions about WCA in this thread. So if you're reading this and you're a WCA fan, please share your thoughts.

"Brett Breeding and Friends"

Hey, that's right! A credit like that is a sure sign of desperation to beat a deadline. (Like the often-used "D.Hands"-- alias "Diverse Hands", which I always took as a joking reference to "Deadly Hands"-- of Kung Fu, of course.)

I hate it when a mini-series doesn't manage to be consistent. By its nature, a mini-series should be a "special event". WHY should it be rushed into production like the usual CR... er, comics?



Now, where did I read, just recently, that the WCA mini was never intended to go any further?


Anybody besides me seen that run of JLA I referred to? George Perez, after being fired by Marvel for blowing too many deadlines, felt he needed to rebuild his rep at DC, and not take on too many projects at once. His first book was JLA-- which he picked up because longtime penciller Dick Dillin died of a heart attack! Good grief-- what a way to "inherit" a title. Dillin may still hold the record for most number of JLA issues-- anybody know? I know he broke Mike Sekowsky's record, and I don't believe there were any fill-ins (apart from a reprint here or there).

Perez got a variety of inkers at DC-- Frank McLaughlin (who I felt overpowered everybody, his style was like Dick Giordano on steroids-- heehee), Brett Breeding, John Beatty (WOW!!). By comparison, Romeo Tanghal was always just "okay" by me. He & George sure did a TON of TITANS issues together. I remember George made a store appearance just before this new project of his, TITANS, came out-- and at first, I didn't know what he was talking about. Then I realized-- TEEN Titans! Oh. It'd been cancelled 3 times, they figured Marv & George couldn't screw it up any worse. Sort of like when those 2 complete unknowns Mike Friedrich & Jim Starlin took over CAPTAIN MARVEL. Who knew???? Shortly after, George said he had to decide on ONE book to do, to ensure he stay on deadline. JLA went. TITANS became DC's best seller. WHO KNEW?????

Before George completely left, Don Heck came in to do a 2-part time-travel story which featured a team-up of all of DC's wetsern heroes. What fun! Don was inked by Brett Breeding. BEST-looking Don Heck art in years, it was even better than when Joe Giella inked him on STEEL, THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN. (Boy, do I wish that book had not gotten canned when it did. What a waste of so much potential!) Later, Don became the regular JLA guy... but he never got such good inks again. It seemed it was a slow slide to obscurity after that... When Chuck Patton took over, his "cartoony" style, kinda reminiscent of Perez when he first started, was a welcome change. Whatever happened to him??


It always cracks me up to think that 2 guys who started out like they didn't know how to draw that well, both got popular, then got FIRED, then rebuilt their careers at DC, and the result was DC's 2 best-selling books in the 1980's-- TITANS, and LEGION! Perez & Giffen... separated at birth?

Right here in this very thread, on Page 13, where I posted the Avengers-related material from an interview with Roger Stern.

Re: JLA -- Dillin, whose work I like a lot from the early 1970s on, did an all-time record-setting 115 issues!! Other than the reprints, the only fill-in was # 153, penciled by George Tuska. I've read some of Perez's JLA issues -- off the top of my head, I think the Red Tornado ones (inked by John Beatty) were especially good. I haven't yet read the time-travel-to-the-Old-West story, but I'll search for it. I have read some of Heck's other JLA issues, the two JLA/JSA team-ups he drew and the search for the Atom in the microscopic universe. I agree the inking could have been better, but those issues still have many nice moments by Heck.

"Right here in this very thread, on Page 13"

Wow! And we're up to 20 now.


"Dillin, whose work I like a lot from the early 1970s on, did an all-time record-setting 115 issues!!"

I knew it was a lot! I bought the book regular when Steve Englehart went to DC. Was amazed how he took such a purely "DC" book and successfully grafted his own more "Marvel" style onto it, WITHOUT any drastic changes or losing anything that made the book so "DC" in the first place.


"the only fill-in was # 153, penciled by George Tuska"

Really! All these years, this is the first I've heard of this. I bought ONE issue by Gerry Conway and dropped it... until about 2 years later, when he brought Firestorm in. Funny, huh? I suppose Conway was just such a DROP after Englehart-- and I was still bugged at the way Conway replaced Englehart on that OTHER superhero book... now, which one was it?



Someone once supposedly said "Superman looks like it was drawn in a bank"-- referring to how stodgy and dull DC Comics became in the 50's. But one thing I do admire about the old days was how they'd put a creative team together, and they'd STAY on a book and really make it theirs. JLA is a perfect example. From the start, Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky, Bernard Sachs-- EVERY SINGLE ISSUE, all 3 guys, for years on end!! Then, after the big change of regime (when, for a number of various reasons, a LOT of DC's old guard left in a short space of time), Dick Dillin got on the book, and did even MORE issues! Amazing.

Every time I'd pick up one of Steve's JLA issue, and look at the covers, I kept wishing Jack Abel was inking Dillin, since his inks on the covers looked so much nicer than Frank McLaughlin. It took until the 80's before I started to like McLaughlin's inks-- over Carmine Infantino, of all people!! Carmine's "pencils" became more and more like very sketchy diagrams, which baffled most inkers. McLaughlin gave them a solidity and weight that made the pair of them a perfect team. Anybody see the DANGER TRAIL mini-series they did? Great stuff. (The Paul Gulacy covers were definitely an added attraction.)

Seeing Breeding ink Heck made me realize what a missed opportunity they had-- imagine if Bob Layton had inked Heck on IRON MAN ? Don's pencils dropped in quality in the 70's, but if you ask me, he was STILL a better "storyteller" than Layton (who somebody should really try convincing not to pencil anymore...).

Time for the snark-of-the-month.

In the latest Mighty Avengers, which I browsed through but did not buy, Sentry and She-Ultron fight, the S.H.I.E.L.D. Heli-Carriers gets flipped around and crashes, and...uh...that's about it. Of course there's still lots of that lame pseudo-hip dialogue and intrusive thought balloons. And the usual lack of teamwork.

I've noticed that almost no one on this board other than me has commented on Mighty Avengers. Surely I can't be the only one here who's read it. If you're reading this and you read Mighty Avengers, then why don't you post a reply, whether you agree or disagree with my posts? I've said this before: I really want this thread to have one foot in the present.