RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Why I Hate Most Modern Comics.

Millar, and he sucks....

But it is pronounced Miller.....even though it is spelled Millar.

I don't care for Millar other than the few odd books here and there. he's too over the top for me....or widecreen whatever you want to call it. It's pretentious.

There. I've listed the only people there who aern't fucktards.

And here's the fucktards.

1)Mr.JLA
2)Dave TWB
3)Pariah
4)The G-Man

Everyone else there falls in between the 2 poles.

Rob tries to keep it cool so I respect that. Still, I don't think he's all that removed from the latter list though.

You're welcome.

This might explain a lot, to those baffled by the last few posts:


http://208.56.183.233/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001764&p=

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Danny :
Contributor
Member # 11 , posted February 18, 2004 05:37 AM
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Or you could post that shit at Kamphausen's boards. Home of dumbshit comic geeks. I tried for ages to argue the gay marriage thing with some Christian fuckknob and the guy still refuses to grasp the basic concepts of reason and compassion.

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Cuckoo:
Contributor
Member # 3 , posted February 27, 2004 10:41 PM
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Where is this place?

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Pale :
Contributor
Member # 19, posted February 28, 2004 01:51 AM
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http://www.robkamphausen.com/
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It's highly populated with fucktards, though.

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and:

http://208.56.183.233/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001768&p=2

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whomod said:
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Contributor
Member # 95, posted March 01, 2004 11:49 PM

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Originally shat out by Danny:
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I didn't mean to imply that everyone at Rob's is a dumbshit. Yes, the place has its share of dumbshits, but the same could be said of any board that size you're likely to find on the net. I wouldn't post there if there weren't some cool people I happily get along with. There just happens to be some dumbshits too. This is no slight against Rob, or the people at his boards that I do like.

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1. Matter Eater Man.
2. (Typhoid) Dave
3. KrazyXXXDJ
4. Animalman
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and
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5. Jim Jackson.
.
There. I've listed the only people there who aern't fucktards.
.
And here's the fucktards.
.
1)Mr.JLA
2)Dave TWB
3)Pariah
4)The G-Man
.
Everyone else there falls in between the 2 poles.
.
Rob tries to keep it cool so I respect that. Still, I don't think he's all that removed from the latter list though.
.
You're welcome.

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The origin of the "fucktards" thing.
And the Danny thing.
And the Whomod thing.

Although frankly, I come to this section to get away from the flame wars.

I agree with your picks, Beardguy.

I'm very partial to the 60's and 70's stuff too, and like yourself, I also largely stopped buying new books around 1989-1990.




Although I earlier listed some that I still buy and enjoy:

SOJOURN,
HELLBOY,
LEAVE IT TO CHANCE,
CONAN (Busiek and Nord),
GROO (when published),
HIP FLASK by Ladronn,
and the occasional single issue, special,
and Elseworlds.
( What the heck happened to the DC Elseworlds line, anyway? )




Like yourself, I enjoy a lot of the hardcovers, DC archives, Marvel Masterworks, plus Millenium Editions, and other reprint editions, that with the better printing, arguably make some of the 60's and 70's material more enjoyable than when it was first published.

I got the Marvel Masterworks collection, reprinting AVENGERS 1-10, from Bud Plant a year ago for $20.00 !!
And the printing is so much better, I really appreciated those stories for the first time. Despite many reprintings in a less than stellar form over the last few decades.
So I got to enjoy these stories in the most enjoyable form possible, for like 2 dollars an issue.




I got the Batman Archive reprinting DETECTIVE 27-50 for 25.00. It was such a wild experience to read a complete run from 1939-1940, and to think about what was occurring in the world at the time these were written and illustrated (Hitler invading Czechoslavokia, Hitler invading Poland, Hitler beginning the air-war on Britain, the U.S. strugging to emerge from the Great Depression, the era of Al Capone, Italian Mafia and gangsters...)

Again, it was great to read these earliest DETECTIVE COMICS issues at a great price, and in a nicer form than the originals.
It was the fulfillment of a childhood dream, to be able to read the entire first two years of Batman stories.




Beardguy, if you haven't already read them, there's a nice new trade out of Kirby's JIMMY OLSEN run (the first half, anyway) in issues 133-139, and 141, in a 20.00 collected trade, just out about two months ago.

I think it's wild to see what Kirby did with Superman in 1970-1972, right after he left Marvel. A lot of humor mixed in with the adventure. One of my favorite series.




I share your love for the Lee/Kirby collaborations ( I especially like their pre-Marvel monster stories, Western, and romance stories, from 1959-1963).
And share your enthusiasm for seeing these later Marvel series in collected Marvel Masterworks form, so you can see the progression of these series, as they evolved into the Marvel Universe.

Kirby's THOR and FANTASTIC FOUR, Ditko's SPIDERMAN, and Ditko's Dr. Strange in STRANGE TALES are also great. Among my favorites.




Ditko's BEWARE THE CREEPER series (and first appearance in SHOWCASE # 73) also rank high on my list of favorites.

I also love the Fox/Sekowsky JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA.

And the Fox/Broome/Infantino MYSTERY IN SPACE, FLASH, and DETECTIVE COMICS.




There's a new Zatanna trade that's like 13 dollars, JLA: ZATANNA'S SEARCH, that collects all the early 1960's Zatanna stories from DETECTIVE, THE ATOM, JLA, HAWKMAN and other titles, collecting them in one book. With a nostalgic introduction by Steven Utley, who posts here and on the DC Archive boards.





I also agree with you on the Legion stories in ADVENTURE COMICS and SUPERBOY.

I'm a little younger than you (but not much, I'm 40) and began reading Legion in 1973, during the Cockrum issues. My first was SUPERBOY 197.

And then Grell came along, in issue 202 !!
Man, I love these issues! From like 197-224 when Grell left the series.

I also love the later Levitz/Giffen run ( LSH 285-306) from 1982-1984.





All these are prime examples of the difference in storytelling style back then, as compared to now.

To me the stories were more character driven, much more likeable characters, who had strong ideals. And their personalities were the focus, that everything else in the stories reflected on.




The current books are much more dark and cynical, the characters much more belligerent and tough-posturing, in many cases, outright sadistic.
Unheroic.
Unlikeable.
( THE GOLDEN AGE, ULTIMATES, THE AUTHORITY, PREACHER, JLA:EARTH 2, THE FILTH, INVISIBLES, THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, FLASH:IRON HEIGHTS, PUNISHER, WOLVERINE, X-MEN, and even many of the SUPERMAN and BATMAN titles I've sampled. Who is this sadistic jerk who calls himself Batman now? He's sure not the same methodical, controlled, relentless detective that I used to love reading about.)





I'll take Batman by O'Neil/Adams/Novick/Giordano or Robbins/Adams/Novick/Giordano ( BATMAN 216-266, and DETECTIVE 395-450) or Haney/Adams/Cardy/Aparo (BRAVE & THE BOLD 79-200), or Englehart/Rogers (DETECTIVE 471-476) any day of the week over the last 15 years of Batman stories.

I like the Moench/Kelley Jones BATMAN (issues 515-552) from the mid-1990's though, although the art made me more interested than the stories.
But still, like every other character, I much prefer the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's runs on the vaious bat-books. Pretty much coming to a stop around 1990.



Give me back my heroes !



But fortunately, the era I love will live on in trades, hardcovers, and the occasional 100-page-facsimile or Millenium Edition-type reprint series.

And I'll cling to the hope that the Dark Age will eventually come to a close, and I can then once again read 25 or 40 titles a month, instead of 3 or 4.

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"This Man, This Wonder Boy..."

Dave :

I like the Batman : The Animated Series that aired
from 1992 - 1995. That was fantastic! If Batman in the
comic books could be like THAT - a compromise between the 60's Friendly Batman and the 21 st century
Schiziod Man Batman, I'd love it.

He doesn't need to be a Pyscho, just pretty damned determined would suffice..as he is in the current Justice League cartoon on Cartoon Network.

I loved reading the old JLA - JSA crossovers when I was a kid....

The characterizations back then - in Marvel and DC -
were great. The stories had a simple formula :
Heroes has problems that are both ongoing - part and parcel of who he/she is - And then the hero had problems
caused by a supervillian. ( s )

The hero had to defeat the villian, which often was quite
difficult - and often quite interesting.

And the hero had to cope with his or her own unique
set of personal problems. This struggle was not as cut and dry as simply defeating the villian - but if done well, it made for an interesting, NON - one dimensional personality.

Nowadays it seems we have to deal with stories/ Heroes/Villians that are WAY over the top.

Gone are the friendly baseball games, barbecues, and get togethers at Xaviers' School For gifted children...
Scenes I loved to see in the early 80's X Men comics -
Which have been replaced with Story of eternal anger,
angst, and Darkness.

For Those who enjoy this new era in comics, I won't tell you not to...... But for me, it just isn't my proverbial cup of tea. If you are not a Tea drinker, then INSERT BEVERAGE HERE.

My enterianment Center Display areas - those top three shelves with glass doors and lights in them - are where my Super Hero, historical, science fiction, and other various figures are on display. There are over a dozen DC Direct Silver age Legion figures, the Fantastic Four, Avengers, X Men, Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Lost In Space, Doctor Who and Justice League figures. And much more. They proclaim both my
fondness for things I grew up with and things in life before I turned 30, with a very few newer things mixed in.

I still listen to the music of the 60's, too, though I also like
groups like STP, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden,
Megadeth, Monster Magnet, Sister Double Happieness,
Rob Zombie, etc....

All in all, it's a matter of taste. And personal preference.
Nothing to argue about, but something to cherish.

There still is good in the world..you just have to look
for it.

Good point about X-men and the old baseball games. One of the things Claremont did well was characterisation. Wolverine was popular not because he was a psycho with claws, but becaue he was a psycho with claws who embraced Bushido ethics.

One of those X-Men baseball games that stands out for me was in X-MEN ANNUAL 7 (1983), "Scavenger Hunt", by Claremont, with art by Michael Golden and a holy host of inkers.
A tremendously fun story, with the Impossible Man.







Another Claremont/Golden story that's a favorite of mine is AVENGERS ANNUAL 10 (1981), which is actually something of a sequel to AVENGERS 200, and resolves a lot of plot holes about the sudden departure of Ms. Marvel from the AVENGERS series.
It's also the story that introduced Rogue.







I also love the Christmas scenes in X-MEN 143 (cover date March 1981, out just before Christmas 1980), that featured some wonderfully charming Christmas scenes with the X-Men, including Kitty Pryde holding a leaf of mistletoe over Peter's head and slipping him a kiss, much to his red-faced embarrassment. Great stuff.





I think Wolverine's appeal is partly his martial arts and warrior bushido influences (which actually was introduced much later than Wolverine's initial popularity).
Wolverine's bushido influence largely began with the Claremont/Miller/Rubinstein four-issue WOLVERINE series in 1982...

... but Wolverine was a fan-favorite from his introduction in 1975, and especially from the point where Byrne took over the X-MEN series in 1977.


The martial arts aspect was part of Wolverine's appeal, but he was also a former secret agent for the Canadian government (the whole Alpha Flight thing, and a suggested but never fully explained period of espionage before that. Primarily defined in X-MEN 109, and 120-121.)
The air of mystery of a bad guy turned good, with a largely unexplained past, is what makes Wolverine so appealing, certainly for me.

Wolverine also has a Tarzan/Conan-like quality, of being something of an animal living in the world of civilized men, and at times unleashing a "jungle" brand of justice. And the killing of the guard with a now-famous "SNIKT", in the Savage Land story in X-MEN 114-116.

Wolverine is appealing as a killer, but as you say, there is a sense of honor and necessity to it when he kills, which I think the Bushido code is a part of.
And the fact that the rest of the X-Men find his ease with killing to be savage adds a nice contrast.

That internal conflict within the group is part of it, too. For all the fighting of villains and each other, the X-Men are (or were in the Claremont years) a family, and there was love there, and the barbecues and the baseball games, and the Christmas decorations are a part of that. And Wolverine is, I guess, the James Dean of the family.

And you're right, Beardguy, there has been a clear shift away from that loving family that we all saw in X-MEN and NEW MUTANTS in the 70's and early/mid/late 80's.
I think it actually began to disappear about the time Jim Lee began drawing the series. That's when the testosterone overdrive began to kick in.
--------------------


"This Man, This Wonder Boy..."

I agree with that: although I'd say it was more when Wolverine got his own series, and writers other than Claremont started handling the character.

Certainly when Lee started writing the series following Claremont's departure the school became decidedly more paramilitary than educational.

i think the x-titles "we are mutants, humanity hates and persicutes us" thing has gotten kind of old. with as many mutants that are supposed to be running around the marvel u, you'd think they'd be the majority, not the minority.

I had a feeling I wasn't the ONLY reader who misses
those old picnics, baseball games, etc, at Xavier's.

I was thinking..the X Men during the early 80's,
the Fantastic Four during their first 100 issues
back in the Kirby - Lee days, and even the Legion
during the Shooter - Swan era ( 1965 to 1969 )
had this in common..... a sense of being a family.

Must include the Avengers from the Stan Lee -
Roy Thomas - John Buscema era during the 60's,
too. There was more of a sense of family in the X Men
and old Fantastic Four stories....But in a group comic
book, there OUGHT to be a sense of family, because
often times, the group becomes a sort of surrogate family. One or more members may have no real
family, and the group becomes their family... Or the group is a bunch of outcasts and become a family.

I miss this concept.

Comics, to me, are supposed to be an escape from reality. Where people drive to be better humans and are determined to pacify the people who don't. I don't know it just seems comics are too "real" now. I don't know I don't look at the past through rose-colored glasses, but I do long for pure, high adventure.

I think vertigo and the indy press is where "real" books should be. but as long as the Ultimates and modern X-Men rule the roost I don't see the flavor staying out of mmodern super-heroics.

I think part of the issue is that comics are increasingly "realistic" or deconstructionalist. Its not as if someone with superpowers is going to be doing anything other than hiding, or super-rich and living in Monte Carlo, or wired up in a lab in Langley Virginia.

something I don't always care for is the fans need to have realistic physics in the books. Really, I don't care how the X-mens powers could or couldn't work in reality, nor do I care if the writers fully comprehend quantum physics. A wormhole could be created by lighting a fart for all I care, just make the story good.

Hmmmm... Fart Powered worm holes!!!

The only thing that goes near my fart powered wormhole is toilet paper. No superheroes are allowed, and if I see the JLA or the Avengers pop out of there, I'm going to flush the fuckers.

Yeah, I'm not a Geoff Johns fan either.

To me, Johns makes a weak attempt at the old-school writing style, but doesn't quite have the talent to pull it off.
I've sampled his JSA, FLASH, HAWKMAN, FLASH:IRON HEIGHTS, and a JLA/JSA graphic novel he did with Carlos Pacheco, and despite some nice art, I found all these stories rather flat, if not outright annoying.



The heroes are just so damn serious now. And a lot of the time, they don't even seem to enjoy being superheroes anymore. I miss the fun, playfulness, and infectious enthusiasm the old heroes had, up until around 1990 or so.

This cover from JLI 46, by Adam Hughes, captures well what's been missing in the current market:



A cover that really captures the Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, and early 80's sense of fun and enthusiam you felt while reading a comic.
I love how in the JLI story, that even a cynic like Guy Gardner is absolutely ga-ga with admiration for General Glory. And the story harkens back to when our heroes weren't rude bad-attitude jerks.

I miss when heroes smiled at you on the covers, when Superman got struck by lightning and said "Hey, that tickles !", and stuff like that.
Heroes that inspired you with how much fun they were having. The sheer sense of wonder you felt while reading their adventures.

There are a few creators left doing that kind of work, like Paul Smith, Sergio Aragones, Adam Hughes, Frank Cho and a few others. But they are definitely a minority on the stands today.



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"This Man, This Wonder Boy..."

IMO, C.C. Beck was right about comic art and storytelling: they have to mesh. That's the other reason I like manga.

Many mangas, especially the ones I listed in my previous post, Yu Yu Hakusho, City Hunter and a few others, read like the best of the Golden and Silver Ages: tight storytelling, jokes and humorous parts that are actually funny, and excellent characterization.

Sure, there are some long "arcs" (the longest I've seen was five parts so far), but you're not left wondering "where's the rest?" when you get to the end, and the shorter stories don't seem like they're "just filler".

Yeah, I'm also a fan of shorter, more self-contained stories.

That's one of my biggest complaints, that the new books rarely come to a satisfying and complete conclusion, like the old stories did.

Regarding Japanese comics, I really enjoyed a series called LOST CONTINENT that was published by Eclipse in 1990, a six-issue series of reprinted manga-type books, but with really clean and detailed b&w art, and color covers, mostly painted.



It's an Edgar Rice Burroughs-type story, discovering an ancient civilization living in the center of the Earth.
A great series, one of the last that Eclipse published, before they went the way of the Brontosaurus.
And an example of the heroism and adventure that's mostly missing from comics in recent years.

I don't remember a lot of what happened in Lost Continent; it was one of the books that I had on my pull list, but never got.

It's a good series, Shazamgrrl, and probably a lot cheaper now than when it came out.



Thank God for back issues. There isn't enough decent new stuff to keep me interested.
But there's an endless selection available in back issues.

Bump.

As has been partly discussed earlier in the topic, I think the biggest difference between new-school and old-school comics is the old-school emphasis on the personalities and moral character of the heroes in comics.
Whereas now, comics stories are more about sadistic power fantasies, intimidation, attitude and big explosions.

There's very little depth to the modern characters, and most of the characters are as depraved and self-indulgent as rock stars. (i.e., the heroes as portrayed now are not "innovative" and exploring new directions, they're just portrayed very inconsistently with who they were for decades until the writers of the last 10 to 15 years felt a need to use cheap tricks and shock elements, because they haven't the talent to write anything truly innovative. )

I was recently re-reading WORLDS FINEST 285 (November 1982):




Which aside from the great Miller/Giordano cover, has beautiful interior art by Rich Buckler and Sam DeLarosa, in a story that explores the friendship of Superman and Batman, and explores the heroism and self-sacrifice that makes them both such classically heroic characters, and a very compatible team.

Again, I miss that kind of heroism.

Dave The Wonder Boy, I agree with you. I miss the great characterization of both Marvel and DC comics from the sixties, and from the eighties, too.

I just re read the first four Fantastic Four Marvel Masterworks books, and before that, the Legion Archives books - Numbers 5, 6, 7 and 8.

There was a LOT better characterization back then.
Characters had issues, and ongoing problems that were not resolved in just one issue. They showed emotions - got angry, sad, worried and happy. They seemed more connected to their families, friends, and other super heroes. They just seemed more real back then.

It seems THESE days, there's an unspoken rule in comics that there must be little or no characterization, and a LOT of explosions, and when ALL else fails, they kill off our favorite characters, or they reboot them almost beyond recognition.

I did NOT like the Legion since ZERO HOUR for the above reasons, but am going to give the NEW Legion, due out soon, a chance. I hope there'll be better characterization. One can always hope.

I'm Beardguy57, and I approve this message.

I stepped into a nearby comic shop last weekend and looked around, trying to find something that might pique my interest. Almost everything I looked through was a bad retread of stuff that was written and drawn better in the seventies and early eighties (most of them written by Johns and Winnick) or was so dark and depressing I couldn't get halfway through them.

Bump again.

Also, there's the whole homoerotic tension level.

and the gay stuff. also.

and theres the part rob loved, too

by loved you mean masturbated at the men in tights?

Is there a purer kinda love?

my love for all things OPRAH!