Sperg about comic books here -

[Done]

I've been checking out DC since Rebirth, and they've really been knocking it out of the park. Green Lanterns, Justice League of America, The Flash, Titans, Teen Titans...it's all been fucking amazing. The best part is that DC has diverse casts too (the main characters in Green Lanterns are a Hispanic woman and a dark skinned Muslim man), but they don't shove it down your throat like Marvel does.

I started reading DC just before the Infinite Crisis event & kept with it more or less until New 52. That's when the constant reboots lost me. I did enjoy a lot of the ride though, especially the "Red Robin" book by Fabian Nicienza. I tend to like lesser known heroes, but that was very underrated IMO.

 

[Morose_Obesity]

I re-read “Knightfall” and I realize now that whole 90’s Azrael-Batman thing was a shit, kneejerk response to the Rob Liefeld revolution. All style, no substance.
At the time I was into that shit but I was the right kind of immature fan in college.

 

[GabeRegan]

I always felt that Knightfall and Death of Superman were more of a "Take That!" at 90s anti-hero stuff that was popular at the time. After Bane breaks the bat, Jean Paul Valley has to step up and at first he tries to fight like Bruce does. He only builds the armor after he fails to take down Bane the first time. Even before that he's shown to be much more violent than Bruce is, several characters point this out and it's explicitly stated to not be a good thing.

Even after he beats Bane, he's still much more violent than he needs to be with common criminals and eventually Robin stops working with him. The final straw for most people is when he lets a super villain die, unknowingly condemning the man's hostage to death. By the end of the event, Jean Paul is completely crazy and almost kills Nightwing and Robin before Batman stops him.

Death of Superman follows a similar arc, it literally starts off with several characters asking if somebody like Superman is still relevant in the world. Hell, at least one character literally said he should be more like Guy Gardner (90s Guy, who was a cunt, not post-Green Lantern Rebirth Guy who is awesome). When Doomsday shows up and wrecks everyone's shit, Superman is the only one who holds the line and keeps fighting knowing he will die. For me, one of the most powerful moments during the aftermath is Guy being angry with himself for not being able to do more to help Superman (that and the teenager who though Superman was stupid finding out that he got seriously injured by Doomsday while saving his mother and sister).

The follow up Reign of the Supermen does the same kind of deconstruction of the new 90s anti-hero thing that Knightfall did. Superboy is a braggart who's only in it for fame and fortune, Eradicator is a cold, calculating creature that doesn't shy away from lethal force, and Cyborg Superman is an inhuman thing that makes literally everyone around him uncomfortable (and this is before he murders Coast City).

The only "replacement" who actually deserves to wear the "S" is Steel, a man who embodies the humanity of Superman and is on a quest for redemption after a powerful weapon he designed for the military starts being sold to street gangs. He is consistently shown to be the weakest of the four, but like Superman stands his ground and doesn't run away if it means civilians will get hurt. It's telling that after the event, that it's Steel not Superboy who ends up forming a close relationship with Superman.

 

[[Insert Meme Here]]

Rebirth Aquaman is a fucking beast, if y'all ain't reading it I'm ashamed of you. Even if you never cared about Aquaman before.

When it comes to Marvel stuff, the current Black Bolt series is actually pretty good. I kind of want it to stick around. I was tempted by the cool cover of Spider-Gwen 24, but, at one point evil!Matt Murdock says something along the lines of "Gwennie, girl, you don't know what you're getting into." Lolno. Which is a shame, because from what I can tell the current story has potential-a venomized Gwen seeking revenge for her comatose father? Great idea. Shit execution.

Spirits of Vengeance, which I've been waiting for, I'm conficted about. Johnny's hair looks fucking dumb. I miss Robbie and hope he shows up. But the art is nice and it has a decent setup, I guess. I'm not ultra-sold just yet, but as far as current Marvel books gold it's still one of the better ones, with no political shilling to be found, just a mystery. Then again, most #1s for any series will be pretty rough...

Speaking of new things, let's talk more about Catalyst Prime! Wherein I compare this shit, rather than recap every detail for you.

NOBLE 1-4

Spoiler

Flagship series. I was hesitant to pick it up because quick flips through didn't seem interesting, but it actually has genuine promise-4 is definitely the best issue. The short of it is that Noble was one of the astronauts sent to blow up the asteroid, but when he landed on earth he had superpowers and amnesia. Turns out his wife used to be a spy who worked for Lorena and has made it her mission to get her husband back. While it's not blow-you-away amazing, it has potential to go somewhere. There's already been some betrayal between characters to keep things fresh. I'm liking the doctor.

Recommendable. It has some quality parts and an interesting enough story. Because Noble himself is playing the amnesia story up, he's a bit bland on his own, but the people around him are great. Maybe with time? It's not a must read by any stretch, but it's enjoyable. I'm not actually convinced that Noble himself is going anywhere, though, which I fear may kill the series dead.

ACCELL 1-3
This has a very kitschy appeal to me, but its actual quality isn't great. For every genuinely good moment there is, you have to suffer through the main character's incredible blandness and the shift to shit art. The villains are shaping up to be the saving grace of this series, but it's very 90s in tone and flair, so if you can't get into the goofy feel of 90s comics, don't bother with this one. It's very flawed, however.

SUPERB 1-3
Better in quality than Accell, and a far more easy to get into story than Noble. There hasn't really been any solid character development just yet for the characters, but I'm willing to overlook it for now because they ARE trying to set up a whole new universe here-everything has to be established. But as there's two main characters, you get some interaction between them that gives you a better feel for them than the other series mentioned here in CatPrime thus far. I could hand this book to someone who liked comics and they could like it... depends on what you're looking for in a comic. Recommendable.

INCIDENTALS 1
A dead fish on arrival. Issue one was garbage. Issue 2 is out, but I didn't even pick it up. I may rethink that later out of curiosity, but for now, naw.

Spoiler

I think it's shaping up to be a team-type thing, but there's no focus. We jump from people to people and back again with very little tying things together. At one point we follow a guy who has tracked down his father to murder him for beating him with a belt as a child, which is so cliche it hurts. It's intercut with cringey flashbacks, but in the end you don't know how to feel about him. Because we don't really know what the guy is like, is this atypical of him? Is he a Punisher-type guy who will have to reigned in? Or is this a throwaway bit to show why he's dark and brooding?

The art is ugly as shit-the humans are misshapen and the color is brown. Nothing of the story flows together and none of the characters leave an impression on the reader. Bad. Avoid at all costs.

ASTONISHER #1
Is one I hadn't seen any advertising for, but picked up. And honestly, I think it's the best book of the lot.

Spoiler

So this guy, Magnus Attarian, is the prototypical rich guy, but he also got powers from the meteor. His powers let him jump into peoples' minds. This is great, as one possible side effect of the space dust is that people can apparently turn into monsters. He goes into their minds and beats up their mental demons (literally) and gets booted out, returning people to normal.

Thing is, he's a self-centered asshole. Though with a mom like his, who up-front calls his girlfriend a floozy, it's easy to see where he got it from. So there's some pretty blatant space for character development and some potentially interesting side characters.

His driver (and I guess bodyguard?) is this Muslim lady, which I found kind of funny, but beyond that and one out-of-place-feeling mention of a firefighter having PTSD I didn't find any SJW stuff in this one. It actually had a bit of an action/horror vibe once he went into someone's head, like where he holds the decapitated head of a man with tentacles coming out of his mouth.

Book ended on a bit of a turn--you didn't really get the sense that he was supposed to be an asshole until the last part of the book, after he's had some champaign, but I can chalk that up to the issues of first issues.

Best book of all the CatPrime ones so far. Genuinely liked it. Art was the best of all these books so far, best main character and side characters (with the exception of Noble's wife), and it DIDN'T just throw a giant story on the reader and force you to play catch up like Noble, Superb, and Incidentals do.

EDIT: Also, the new Youngblood series is actually pretty good! So if you still need a superhero fix to replace Marvel, there's plenty of options out there.

 

[RockVolnutt]

Is there anywhere lower they can go now after retailers screaming at them during NYCC and having to use Stan Lee as a human shield? I thought doxing and threatening violence on critics was rock bottom but apparently not.

 

[Yaoi Huntress Earth]

Vox Day has his own line of superhero comics he's bring out called AltHEro where it has a more right wing bend and promises to put story over politics. This could go either way: genuinely good (or at least passable) stories which show another point of view or it becomes the right wing version of SJW Marvel.

 

[Hodor]

Vox Day has his own line of superhero comics he's bring out called AltHEro where it has a more right wing bend and promises to put story over politics. This could go either way: genuinely good (or at least passable) stories which show another point of view or it becomes the right wing version of SJW Marvel.

it's probably gonna be the latter. vox day is the right-wing equivalent of an SJW.

 

[Yaoi Huntress Earth]

it's probably gonna be the latter. vox day is the right-wing equivalent of an SJW.

I have a feeling it will be like that. Chuck Dixon is going to write a story or two so maybe those will be tolerable.

 

[GabeRegan]

Vox Day has his own line of superhero comics he's bring out called AltHEro where it has a more right wing bend and promises to put story over politics. This could go either way: genuinely good (or at least passable) stories which show another point of view or it becomes the right wing version of SJW Marvel.

I appreciate what he's trying to do, but it's kinda hard to believe he's going to put story over politics when he calls the line AltHero.

 

[Yaoi Huntress Earth]

I appreciate what he's trying to do, but it's kinda hard to believe he's going to put story over politics when he calls the line AltHero.

Now if the one that goes after illegal immigrants was a white Hispanic , that would be gutsy.

 

[RockVolnutt]

The feud between Marvel and D&C is getting more bizarre as the days go by.

 

[Done]

The feud between Marvel and D&C is getting more bizarre as the days go by.

Can you fill me in on what happened?

Seems he is going to the cops over something..

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

The feud between Marvel and D&C is getting more bizarre as the days go by.

Here's his rambling and borderline incoherent response...

...almost sounds to me like they're getting to him. Somewhere in there he claimed he's going to go to the FBI.

 

[RockVolnutt]

Can you fill me in on what happened?

Seems he is going to the cops over something..

It's a long story from what I gather.

Someone claiming to be a journalist by the name "Melissa Morgue" showed up on twitter talking about "comicsgate" and talking to random people in the industry. Eventually she accused D&C of being the leader of a giant harassment campaign against "women, PoC, and LGBT creators" and he offered to talk with her about his side through email. She instead kept tossing accusations in the email conversation before going back to Twitter doing the same thing. She got mocked off Twitter when she started making claims of things like D&C's secret discord servers with the intent of attacking "marginalized creators".

The next day she showed up in the chat for a livestream by Ethan Van Sciver (DC artist, does YouTube art tutorials) and that had to be cut short with all the arguing. No one ever heard of "Melissa" after that. There's been hints dropped that she probably isn't a real person, most guessing some journo who wants a Marvel job or someone like Marvel assistant editor Heather Antos's friend who doxed D&C earlier this year and has been following him since.

Here's his rambling and borderline incoherent response...

...almost sounds to me like they're getting to him. Somewhere in there he claimed he's going to go to the FBI.

Sounds like they are. I'm still surprised at all the commotion that he's seemed to cause internally at Marvel.

 

[Done]

The feud between Marvel and D&C is getting more bizarre as the days go by.

Here's his rambling and borderline incoherent response...

...almost sounds to me like they're getting to him. Somewhere in there he claimed he's going to go to the FBI.

It's a long story from what I gather.

Someone claiming to be a journalist by the name "Melissa Morgue" showed up on twitter talking about "comicsgate" and talking to random people in the industry. Eventually she accused D&C of being the leader of a giant harassment campaign against "women, PoC, and LGBT creators" and he offered to talk with her about his side through email. She instead kept tossing accusations in the email conversation before going back to Twitter doing the same thing. She got mocked off Twitter when she started making claims of things like D&C's secret discord servers with the intent of attacking "marginalized creators".

The next day she showed up in the chat for a livestream by Ethan Van Sciver (DC artist, does YouTube art tutorials) and that had to be cut short with all the arguing. No one ever heard of "Melissa" after that. There's been hints dropped that she probably isn't a real person, most guessing some journo who wants a Marvel job or someone like Marvel assistant editor Heather Antos's friend who doxed D&C earlier this year and has been following him since.

Sounds like they are. I'm still surprised at all the commotion that he's seemed to cause internally at Marvel.

I am surprised as well by the fact that a single guy with a very (and I mean very) half-assed YT channel seems to cause them so many issues, especially when you got Brevoort saying that this has been their 3rd most profitable year*, if this is true then they should be sitting pretty and not be fazed by his criticism.

As someone who lost interest in American superhero comics for a while now (Too many events/reboots to keep up with).. I don't think that the problem is in diversity itself, it is in half-assed writing that cowers behind it.. Marvel has been the vanguard of relatable heroes, so it makes sense that they would be pushing for diversity more than DC Comics, whose style is more iconic & stately. But the problem is that they're hiring awful people and supporting some godawful editorial decisions, Nazi Steve Rogers can be an interesting idea with the right execution, but it should be confined to the Elseworlds books.. Not be part of mainstream Marvel for like 3 years!

These writers and editors clearly feel far too secure in the knowledge that Disney pays the bills with all the MCU movies, but they fail to realize that they are the ones who have the responsibility of maintaining the long term appeal of Marvel comics's properties.. Riri Williams will never go mainstream because she is a terrible character by all accounts. The possible fact that Bendis writes it for his daughter is evidence that those people are not making comics for their customers anymore.. And this threatens to kill comics as an industry.

I am very surprised that things have gotten to this point between D&C and Marvel writers.. This is an easily solvable situation made more difficult by people who refuse to discuss things like grown-ups.


* This flies in the face of the sales numbers, and what seems to be the trend of many comic shops either pivoting or closing outright.. The comics industry isn't in the best health right now, and Marvel's game is very dangerous to the industry, and they're playing it in a very amateurish way.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

* This flies in the face of the sales numbers, and what seems to be the trend of many comic shops either pivoting or closing outright.. The comics industry isn't in the best health right now, and Marvel's game is very dangerous to the industry, and they're playing it in a very amateurish way.

I'm skeptical of this as well, but there's no way we'll ever know for sure. The numbers everybody is looking at are from comicchron and they only tell part of the story, and a shrinking one at that. Nobody knows how big a piece of the action Comixology and Marvel Unlimited are at this point, and nobody knows how much/how well TPBs sell through bookstores or school book shows.

I do think the writing is on the wall for local comic stores, though. Granted Marvel is seemingly doing their best to send them over the cliff at 85 MPH instead of 30 MPH for some reason, but I'd suggest all that is doing is speeding up the inevitable. Hopefully they can transition into used video games, Funko dolls or Big Bang Theory T-Shirts or whatever, because I can't see Wednesday warriors flocking to buy this crap much longer.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Here's his rambling and borderline incoherent response...

...almost sounds to me like they're getting to him. Somewhere in there he claimed he's going to go to the FBI.

Apparently this video gives you a "This video is unavailable" message now. But I'm still seeing it here and seeing on YouTube. And I was able to leave a comment.

 

[Hodor]

I am surprised as well by the fact that a single guy with a very (and I mean very) half-assed YT channel seems to cause them so many issues, especially when you got Brevoort saying that this has been their 3rd most profitable year*, if this is true then they should be sitting pretty and not be fazed by his criticism.

As someone who lost interest in American superhero comics for a while now (Too many events/reboots to keep up with).. I don't think that the problem is in diversity itself, it is in half-assed writing that cowers behind it.. Marvel has been the vanguard of relatable heroes, so it makes sense that they would be pushing for diversity more than DC Comics, whose style is more iconic & stately. But the problem is that they're hiring awful people and supporting some godawful editorial decisions, Nazi Steve Rogers can be an interesting idea with the right execution, but it should be confined to the Elseworlds books.. Not be part of mainstream Marvel for like 3 years!

These writers and editors clearly feel far too secure in the knowledge that Disney pays the bills with all the MCU movies, but they fail to realize that they are the ones who have the responsibility of maintaining the long term appeal of Marvel comics's properties.. Riri Williams will never go mainstream because she is a terrible character by all accounts. The possible fact that Bendis writes it for his daughter is evidence that those people are not making comics for their customers anymore.. And this threatens to kill comics as an industry.

I am very surprised that things have gotten to this point between D&C and Marvel writers.. This is an easily solvable situation made more difficult by people who refuse to discuss things like grown-ups.


* This flies in the face of the sales numbers, and what seems to be the trend of many comic shops either pivoting or closing outright.. The comics industry isn't in the best health right now, and Marvel's game is very dangerous to the industry, and they're playing it in a very amateurish way.

yeah, doubling down on this, tbh.

a big problem with superhero comics is the complete and utter lack of a single reason to give a shit. There really isn't a status quo to shake up, when you're shrieking 'THE WORLD WILL NEVER BE THE SAME' every four months. There isn't really any reason to care about the characters when the crew behind them seems more concerned with making their fanfics happen. DC suffered a lot with the latter for awhile, but good god did Marvel make crossover events into an industry-wide cancer. I distinctly remember dropping most of my cape comics because of it.

Another big issue, especially with Marvel, is the complete and utter lack of genre diversity. It's almost entirely superhero comics- which is fine and dandy...but the thing is, everything feels pretty samey, these days. I really blame the MCU for this, honestly-when I'm not getting politics shoved in my face, I'm reading embarrassing attempts at 'witty' banter.

I wouldn't even mind the politics that much if the writing itself was solid, or at least entertainingly shit. This is honestly the fatal flaw of nuMarvel. There's not even a fucking ATTEMPT at hiding the political message. I don't want to be lectured while I'm reading about assholes in masks punching other assholes in masks.

You gotta have tact and subtlety to it. Like, the Claremont era of X-Men is a pretty good example of that. It's got political subtext to itself, but it doesn't go overboard with it. It's masked with bombastic flare and drama. It's fun to read.

Something like America Chavez's solo is not fun to read. The characters are shit, the drama is strained, the art is terrible, the pacing is shit... It's not even a funny bad. It's just bad.

Honestly, the second the MCU crashes- and honestly, I think it's probably going to after Avengers 4- the comics branch is fucked. Shame they're basically going to take a large chunk of the industry with them.

 

[TheClorax]

I’m just going to throw in my 2 cents.
nuMarvel ain’t complete shit. There are quite a few comics I do enjoy reading. Doctor Strange is yet to show an incredibly forced political agenda (or SJW one at least, along with very few crossovers) and the only new character is a Hispanic librarian woman that Strange keeps around to sort his books. They show
Ms. Marvel is still pretty fun as a comic there are some forced political messages here and there, but Kamala Khan is still adorable as a character.
Riri is complete shit as both Iron Man, and a character. But thankfully, she isn’t the only new Iron Man. Doctor Doom, after Secret Wars, and gave up the position of God because it was unsatisfying for him, decided that if he wasn’t happy ruling the Universe, then maybe he’ll be better at protecting it instead He then decided to take up the role of Iron Man after Captain Marvel threw Tony into comatose. It’s an interesting series and a cool take at the “villain turned hero” story.

 

[[Insert Meme Here]]

Doctor Strange is yet to show an incredibly forced political agenda (or SJW one at least, along with very few crossovers) and the only new character is a Hispanic librarian woman that Strange keeps around to sort his books.

Recently Dr. Strange has had a LOT of really great covers that have been tempting me, is there a particular reason you like it? I know fuck-all about him or his lore. Would I be completely lost if I picked it up?

I also want to reiterate that Black Bolt is good. Inhumans: Once and Future Kings is acceptable, but I can't get into Royals at all. Why the Inhumans need THREE GODDAMN BOOKS at the moment is beyond me.

I'm wondering when America and Spider-Gwen will get canceled. Silk was better than Spider-Gwen but somehow it got canceled first. The art in Spider-Gwen continues to get worse. I get that they're going for an indie look but it's just incompetent looking.

In DC news, I'm not sure I'm on board with where Blue Beetle is going. There's only going to be about 3 more months of Superwoman, which I'm kind of sad about. The book was flawed, obviously, but it was still better than most of the Marvel female-lead books. I feel like it could have went somewhere, but naw.

A little thing I've been thinking about for a while; a while back Marvel was making a big deal out of the whole "Can these two superheroes share the same name at the same time, especially if they're of different races/genders/whatever?" All I can think of is, like "New Super-Man is friendly with Superman and Supergirl. The Flashes, obviously, but also The Atoms. Literally a universe full of Green Lanterns." It just... I don't know. It feels like DC is handling these things with so much more grace than Marvel that one wonders how on earth they've managed to fuck it up so badly.

I dunno, I'm just thinking about it a lot lately. They managed to create a second Superman character, yet make him distinct and interesting in his own right, who is both friendly with the original and off doing his own thing, rather than trying to make him erase the previous in either story, competence, or peoples' memory. Then you have Steve!Captain America and the former Falcon!Cap and they just had no idea how to make him interesting, and swapped him back with their tail between their legs.