Re: Marvel Comics Discussion Thread

by Nuuni Nuunani Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:56 pm

Oh She-Hulk, Nightcrawler, Spider-girl, and Cyclops, how I miss thee...

by Nuuni Nuunani Wed Sep 02, 2015 3:25 pm

Out of curiosity, does anyone here read older Marvel stuff? Im a huge fan of Marvels silver and bronze age. And the Marvel Adventures line, and especially titles like Power Pack, early Hulk and the early Excalibur run.

by wondercube Wed Sep 02, 2015 3:31 pm

I sadly have only been into comics for about a year and a half. I haven't read anything beyond 2014 for Marvel. I think I'm gonna check out Alias and Elektra: Assassin, but that's all I've got immediate plans for. Oh, also downloaded a bunch of Patsy Walker/Hellcat stuff, since I've only experienced her in Shulkie's latest run. I think I love her.

by Nuuni Nuunani Thu Sep 03, 2015 3:40 am

If Comixology does any huge sales on silver age marvel, ill be sure to pass it on

by mysterycycle Thu Sep 03, 2015 3:30 pm

I've been into comics for a long time, but I didn't really start getting into superhero stuff until around the time I went to art school, where I was reintroduced to a lot of it. Prior to that, all I had really read was Ann Nocenti's run on Daredevil from the 80s, I think? One of my friends had a lot of Daredevil comics, and that was where I got introduced to a lot of the elements that they used in the Netflix series.

I've always had a desire to go back and read X-Men from the 80s, since so many people talk about how great it was. My exposure to it was second-hand, through the Marvel Super Heroes RPG. So I learned a lot of stuff about the characters and the plots, but without actually reading any of the comics themselves.

Excalibur sounds like it must have been fun, too. I always liked Nightcrawler, and Captain Britain sounds like a fun character.

by **Laurelinde** Thu Sep 03, 2015 3:32 pm

Sorry to butt in, but can I ask how many Ms. Marvel trade paperbacks have been released? I got some Amazon vouchers from my parents for my birthday and I want to get some comics with it, I think. Unfortunately I am kind of a comics noob/dabbler as I've only bought a few TPBs, random singles and one subscribed series before.

by mysterycycle Thu Sep 03, 2015 3:40 pm

Laurelinde wrote:Sorry to butt in, but can I ask how many Ms. Marvel trade paperbacks have been released? I got some Amazon vouchers from my parents for my birthday and I want to get some comics with it, I think. Unfortunately I am kind of a comics noob/dabbler as I've only bought a few TPBs, random singles and one subscribed series before.

Let's see...they're on Issue #18 right now. It looks like they're up to TPB #3: Crushed.

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by kryptoknight Thu Sep 03, 2015 3:50 pm

I finally made myself read a few issues of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and I will say that in terms of most of the content, it is amazing. Sadly I still just cannot get into the art style and it really makes it more difficult for me to enjoy the read. I'm going to stick with the book though, maybe I'll get used to it or get to a point where I can ignore it.

by wondercube Thu Sep 03, 2015 4:43 pm

I wasn't wild for the art style at first either, but now I don't even think about it. So there's hope?

by Nuuni Nuunani Thu Sep 03, 2015 7:32 pm

My first experience with Marvel was actually reruns of the old cartoon. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] If I remember rightly, the origin was the first episode I saw of it to boot.

At the time, I didn't know what a comic book was, much less where the Fantastic Four originated. Though years later, I stumbled upon a trade paperback of New Warriors at a garage sale. Which just so happened to contain the very first six issues. Introducing Speedball, Marvel Batman, Nova and the only character I recognized, Firestar. (Thanks to the Spiderman cartoon, which had reruns running in a block alongside Fantastic Four.)

Interested in comics after that, I tried picking up a few issues here and there. But Fantastic Four was grim and gritty, Superman featured some electric guy, green lantern was very depressing, and the x-men issue was featuring several characters being killed off.

I was confused by how different these comics were from the New Warriors I had, and the cartoons, so I asked someone who explained to me the ages, and how things just got darker, so I looked, and was able to get my hands on Excalibur, and some Avengers, and soon I was collecting some Bronze age comics which were quite fun.
Then someone turned me to an early issue of Fantastic Four. I think from the Kirby/Lee period? And I got hooked on the Silver age with its wilder events and how it seemed like anything could happen. I recognized some things from the cartoons to boot.

Then years later, new 52 happened, and this lead to alot of people complaining about how the old comics were better. Before that, I had never picked up more than a few modern issues of DC and discarded them. But hearing people talk, I decided to look into DC's older stuff and since I knew better than to pick up anything that came out after 1990 (as at the time, I understood the dark icky age to be anything in the 90s and after) And found myself eating up Legion of Superheroes, Mister Miracle and Brave & the Bold with great glee.

As I recall, it wasn't until I heard about the red lantern Supergirl stuff, that I started sparing a look at modern comics again, and found myself getting interested in more recent stuff. Though trying to get into Marvel again, I found myself terribly dissapointed in the directions they took several characters since the olden days, which lead to me giving their recent works a cold shoulder for the most part.

by mysterycycle Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:04 pm

Perhaps this belongs in the DC thread, but since Nuuni mentioned it, one of the things I most disliked about New52 was DiDio and Lee's seeming obsession with dragging the "Iron Age" comics flavor of the 90s back into the modern DC universe. No, thanks. Evil or Very Mad

My introduction to Marvel really came from cartoons, too - the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and later on, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I could never figure out where Firestar was in the comics, though, once I actually started looking at them.

by Katrien Caffeine Sat Sep 05, 2015 10:31 pm

My first experience with Marvel was seeing the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. Spidey was the only superhero I liked as a kid. I didn't really get into the superhero genre until I saw The Avengers in theaters.

by Nuuni Nuunani Sun Sep 06, 2015 4:51 am

mysterycycle wrote:Perhaps this belongs in the DC thread, but since Nuuni mentioned it, one of the things I most disliked about New52 was DiDio and Lee's seeming obsession with dragging the "Iron Age" comics flavor of the 90s back into the modern DC universe. No, thanks.

My introduction to Marvel really came from cartoons, too - the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and later on, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I could never figure out where Firestar was in the comics, though, once I actually started looking at them.

Iron age? Im familiar with gold, silver, bronze and dark, but im not with Iron. Is that another term for the 90s-2000s period?

Ah~ The original spiderman cartoon~ That was quite fun. I only saw a couple appearances of the Electric company admittedly though.
As for Firestar, she popped up in the X-men briefly which didn't take off. After which, she just pops up in other teams like New Warriors, Marvel Divas, Young Allies...I think shes a member of the Avengers, though at this point its hard to say who isn't.

Katrien Caffeine wrote:My first experience with Marvel was seeing the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. Spidey was the only superhero I liked as a kid. I didn't really get into the superhero genre until I saw The Avengers in theaters.

Oh~ Those movies were rather nice. I actually liked the second one out of that trilogy

by Finest Fantasy Sun Sep 06, 2015 8:17 am

The period of comics from the mid-80's to the 2000's and from 2000's to now, and, some consider now to indefinite, are given a couple of names that no one entirely agrees upon.

Iron Age is another way to say "Dark Age", with the "Modern" (2000's) sometimes connected.

As far as "My First Marvel" goes, I watched the 90's X-Men and Spider-Man TV series. Syndication, yo.

by Katrien Caffeine Sun Sep 06, 2015 8:34 am

Yeah, Iron Age is just to keep with the Gold, Silver, Bronze theme.

And attaching the early 2000's actually makes sense when you consider how overly serious comics were for most of that decade. I feel like they only started getting fun again in this most recent decade (not to say that being dark is inherently bad, just that the trend seemed to continue longer than people usually say it did).

by Finest Fantasy Sun Sep 06, 2015 8:36 am

There's an argument for a new age starting up with Miles Morales. Just as Barry Allen began the Silver Age. Basically, roughly 2010-2012 (New 52, Ultimate Spider-Man, Marvel Now!) begin the "Diamond" Age. Following the "Iron Age" of 80's-00's.

by Nuuni Nuunani Sun Sep 06, 2015 9:02 am

I think it is a touch premature to try predicting the name of an age were not even that far into, though I can see a good argument for renaming the dark ages as the iron, and slapping on the 2000's to it.

The interesting thing about comic ages is that its rarly a clean break off point. For example, Wonder Womans depowered arc is probably the first indicator for the bronze age, though there was alot of silver age type stuff still happening during that period.

The night gwen stacey died is a good indicator of the bronze age hitting Marvel, though it wasn't an instant transition for them either...

And yay for the X-men/Spidey cartoons of the 90s~ Those were fun as well. The final storyline was weirdly similar to the recent spiderverse stuff.

by Finest Fantasy Sun Sep 06, 2015 10:00 am

That's really the thing, though. There's no concise "this ends here and this starts here". The arguments I've read for "The Diamond Age" refer to the present era as that crux between the ages where they're still figuring out the niche. Other names suggested are "Aluminum" and "Prismatic". I just like the way Diamond sounds. Most of the debate seems to be focused on the "Modern" (Iron) vs. "Post-Modern" (Diamond/Aluminum). So, there's a lot of discussing history as it happens. It's not as hard/fast as the previous ages, but I just felt it was worth noting.

Fox Kids and Toon Disney used to play a ton of Spider-Man. It made young me very happy.

by mysterycycle Sun Sep 06, 2015 12:53 pm

I don't know if there's an "official" cut-off line between the Iron/Dark Age and the current one (as FF pointed out), though to my mind what led the way was Kurt Busiek's Astro City and its Reconstructionist approach. At least, that's when I really started noticing a general turning away from the old Deconstructionist tone inspired by Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns. Astro City started in 1995, so of course it took a while to catch on.

I was mostly reading Bone and other indie books at that point, anyway, but Astro City was the one superhero comic I liked in the 90s.

by Charlotte_D Sun Sep 06, 2015 8:31 pm

Nuuni Nuunani wrote:Out of curiosity, does anyone here read older Marvel stuff? Im a huge fan of Marvels silver and bronze age. And the Marvel Adventures line, and especially titles like Power Pack, early Hulk and the early Excalibur run.

I've read all of the Amazing Spider-Man issues, so yeah, I've read some old Marvel stuff. I find the artwork back then more appealing, actually! And even though the comics are dated, they're fun reads. I laughed lots when Harry Osborn was tripping on LSD. flower

by Nuuni Nuunani Mon Sep 07, 2015 12:17 am

Charlotte_D wrote:
Nuuni Nuunani wrote:Out of curiosity, does anyone here read older Marvel stuff? Im a huge fan of Marvels silver and bronze age. And the Marvel Adventures line, and especially titles like Power Pack, early Hulk and the early Excalibur run.

I've read all of the Amazing Spider-Man issues, so yeah, I've read some old Marvel stuff. I find the artwork back then more appealing, actually! And even though the comics are dated, they're fun reads. I laughed lots when Harry Osborn was tripping on LSD.

I know~ No idea why, it just seems to suit Spider-man better somehow.

by littlethingsthatmatter Fri Sep 11, 2015 7:22 am

I'm going to my comics store tomorrow to renew my Marvel subscriptions post Secret War.So far,I'm going with the following titles:
- All New Wolverine
- Angela Queen of Hel
- Mighty Thor 1
- Ms Marvel
Is someone here reading the current run of Uncanny X-Men? It's the only book Rogue is in so I'm interested but I don't want to buy it if it's similar to the previous title.

by Charlotte_D Sun Sep 13, 2015 6:07 pm

Has anyone here read The Young Avengers?

I'm so relieved Wiccan and Hulkling will show up in the New Avengers. Waiting for Miss America to show up somewhere with a significant role. That character cannot be forgotten.

by Nuuni Nuunani Sun Sep 13, 2015 6:37 pm

*raises hand*
Ive read it. Specifically, the more recent run featuring young Loki.

It was rather fun. And the characters were interesting. And the story was a right treat. Though the finale with the young avengers killing off a bunch of alternate versions left a bad taste in my mouth.

The reveal about the villains in the end was quite nice though.

In regards to the new avengers, it has me quite curious. It has a number of characters I quite like in it. And the premise is an Avengers team that is financed by AIM (which is now owned by Sunspot, a former X-men member.) With the goal being to reform AIM, and fight off villains wishing to use it for evil, heroes wanting to destroy AIM due to its past misdeeds, and the Ultimate comics Reed Richards who is uber bad news.

by wondercube Wed Sep 16, 2015 10:04 am

So, a bit comics-adjacent, but I don't know where else to post this. x)

The people I see every week at the comics shop seem pretty cool, and I just want them to be my friends and love me forever. I'M SURE EVERYONE WHO GOES REGULARLY FEELS THAT WAY UGH.

There's really only two that I am interested in. One is a guy that I *kinda* have a crush on so I already know that'd be weird/awkward to pursue. But he always remembers my name and what titles I like SO I CAN'T HELP MYLSELF OKAY. He found out I did theatre and told me to let him know when I was in a show (which a lot of people say but don't mean), so I was like "hmm, okay maybe he at least thinks I'm cool enough to hang out with platonically." (imeaaaannnn he wouldn't be wrongcauseimawesome)

I asked him if he was on facebook or anything, and I watched him kinda shut down before my eyes so I discovered that was a big mistake. D:

Anyway, things went back to the routine pretty quickly after that, but my main problem is wanting to be friends with the girl who works the counter most every week now. Like... I just vibe with female friends better anyway, so seeing her there and over hearing her talking about comics/mass effect I am like OMG PLEASE BE MY FRIEND, SHIIIIIIIT. (I have zero nerdy friends, it's a crime and why I'm so desperate)

BUT I don't want to weird her out, since I assume guys bother her all the time for the fact that she's a girl in a comic shop. I'm not even straight, but yeah. She doesn't know that. I've tried striking up some light comics talk while purchasing, but she's never really responsive. Which obviously means she isn't interested in talking to me, so I don't know why I'm even posting this BUT I JUST WANTED TO VENT I GUESS.

They both (her and the guy) just seem really cool, and it'd be great to have a real life, physical friend to discuss this shit with sometimes. *Sigh*

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