The Comic Book Thread (spoilers)

[TKz]

Ugh, Cyclops, X-23?

She can do so much better.

Also Srar, have you played Lego Marvel!? It's the best Marvel game possibly ever. You can play as Mr. Fantastic and his special ability is to turn into a teacup.

All of you go and buy Lego Marvel now. It's like the DC one but better, because Marvel!

[Your Mom]

I plan on trying to get it at Walmart for $25 on Thanksgiving. Loved the demo

[TKz]

I think I like it more than the Batman games, to be honest. That's not to say it's a better game or story or whatever, it's just way more fun. And I kind of hate the Lego games, for the most part.

[Your Mom]

I love the Lego games. If we hadn't spent so much on games already I would just buy it now but I can wait another week for the savings.

[Maxx]

It's a really fun game, flying around as Iron Man is fantastic.

[TKz]

Alright, nearly caught up on all my comics! Just need to find a fucking copy of New Avengers #10 and I'll have all I need for a while. Got issue 11 now, whilst it's still in stock.

[HailtotheYo]

I have to wait on Lego Marvel .... because it's a Christmas present for my 6yr old.

Managed to pick up some good books lately: Astonishing Tales 25 (first Deathlok) ... Avengers Annual #10 (first Rogue) ... and ASM #194 (first Black Cat). They're all 8.5 with the Avengers Annual pushing over a 9/9.2 IMO

[Your Mom]

I have that Avengers Annual!

[=BK=]

Started reading Dark Reign. Namor looks like he went on the bender of a fucking lifetime.

Here he is right before Civil War

This and this is him in what I'm reading now.

[HailtotheYo]

New Moon Knight series is coming in the new year !!!!!!! Yay !

[TKz]

Alan Moore has been talking about the state of superhero comics and films in the 21st century, stating that he no longer likes the genre, and saying that he finds audiences going to see The Avengers in their droves “alarming.”

"I haven't read any superhero comics since I finished with Watchmen,” the writer told The Guardian while promoting his latest work, Fashion Beast. “I hate superheroes. I think they're abominations. They don't mean what they used to mean. They were originally in the hands of writers who would actively expand the imagination of their nine-to-13-year-old audience. That was completely what they were meant to do and they were doing it excellently.

LISTEN TO OUR ALAN MOORE PODCAST HERE

“These days, superhero comics think the audience is certainly not nine to 13, it's nothing to do with them. It's an audience largely of 30-, 40-, 50-, 60-year old men, usually men. Someone came up with the term graphic novel. These readers latched on to it; they were simply interested in a way that could validate their continued love of Green Lantern or Spider-Man without appearing in some way emotionally subnormal.

“This is a significant rump of the superhero-addicted, mainstream-addicted audience. I don't think the superhero stands for anything good. I think it's a rather alarming sign if we've got audiences of adults going to see the Avengers movie and delighting in concepts and characters meant to entertain the 12-year-old boys of the 1950s."

An interview with Alan Moore. Fuck that guy. "Superhero comics should be for nine to 12 year olds". What a load of bullshit.

[Toe]

Alan Moore is kind of a dick though.

[Maxx]

Sooo Daredevil is ending with issue 36 http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/10/23/daredevil-to-end-with-36-according-to-chris-samnee/

And starting up again at #1 as part of the All New Marvel Now, with Daredevil relocating to San Francisco.

[TKz]

Looking forward to the new batch of Marvel NOW. I picked up nearly all the first issues last time, this time will probably have a few less. Definitely Daredevil, Silver Surfer, Captain Marvel, Fantastic Four and maybe Ms. Marvel, depending on how it looks. I wasn't at all keen on the concept art, but hopefully the actual series will have a different art style.

I might check out Ghost Rider, Black Widow and Punisher, depending on how the reviews are. I'm not a big lover of Punisher/Ghost Rider, but depending on the stories they tell, I'm interested in a Widow solo series. New Warriors, Loki: Agent of Asgard and Inhumans are all interesting to me, but I'm not sold on them yet. Inhumans has my interest based entirely of Fraction being a writer, whilst New Warriors is because I get the feeling we might find out some more about Richard Rider from the series. Loki... I dunno. I like the character, if it's anything like Journey Into Mystery was during Siege, it could be good.

[Skummy]

I don't think that Alan Moore is saying that the audience should be exclusively nine-to-thirteen year olds, rather that the industry has lost sight of what that genre was initially about, and is now more concerned with appealing to a different demographic, which he feels strongly against.

He's said in the past that he regrets Watchmen, and The Killing Joke, because the message the industry took from them wasn't "you can tell more compelling stories within this medium if you just let yourself", it was "we can do comic books that have sex and violence and drugs and swearing". He's constantly said that he regrets playing a part in making the idea of Batman as "dark and gritty" the standardised version because to him, and to thousands of other people, Batman was the guy who called Superman "old chum" and had a dog in a mask and cape. That version shouldn't be any less valid than the popular perception of Batman now.

And the "concepts meant to entertain 12 year old boys in the 1950s" is the biggest point here; it's something Moore has complained about constantly. It's a complete lack of new ideas. He sees it as worrying that adult audiences are still fixated on the same characters and stories not because he feels they should only be for children, but because it's regressive. They were characters created for children sixty years ago, yet people still cling to them, rather than coming up with anything new or moving on. I think that could be seen as alarming, certainly from someone in Alan Moore's rather unique position.

One of my favourite comic books I've read in years was Moore's "Tom Strong"; which basically tries to reclaim the superhero genre for the Golden & Silver Age style pure and strong superhero in the name of all that's right and just, and it's bloody great. It shows that you can write intelligent and interesting stories that fit the superhero genre without recycling the same characters, and without needlessly making them more "adult" because you think that's a fast-track to legitimacy.

[TKz]

You'd pretty much be killing your own company if you started writing for the 9-10 year old demographic that Moore is talking about now, because 9-10 year olds now are more interested in dark and gritty than most people older than them. The demographic that comics were originally written for literally doesn't exist any more, kids that age are more interested in Call of Duty than goofy comics where people say gee-wilikers and call people chum.

And I'm sorry, but the man clearly hasn't remotely kept up with the comics (which he openly admits to, already making his points completely redundant), because there's been tons of new characters and heroes introduced over the last few years. There's literally nothing wrong with the classic characters continuing to be popular. There's a reason that Iron Man is still around more than 40 years later, because the character works and people like it. Considering the fact that there's still fresh stories being told about the same characters, I see absolutely no reason why we should abandon them in favor of new characters. That's change for the sake of change.

The whole thing reaks of pretentious bullshit. I've never cared much for Alan Moore as a comic book writer, the stories he tells don't really appeal to me and I think a lot of what he did has been done better since then. I'll take Long Halloween over Killing Joke any day of the week. And honestly, considering the popularity of his recent work compared to anything Marvel or DC are putting out, it's pretty clear that the popular opinion doesn't agree with Moore. He laid some great groundwork for more mature themes and stories back in the 80's. He hasn't been relevant since then.

[HailtotheYo]

Looking forward to the new batch of Marvel NOW. I picked up nearly all the first issues last time, this time will probably have a few less. Definitely Daredevil, Silver Surfer, Captain Marvel, Fantastic Four and maybe Ms. Marvel, depending on how it looks. I wasn't at all keen on the concept art, but hopefully the actual series will have a different art style.

I might check out Ghost Rider, Black Widow and Punisher, depending on how the reviews are. I'm not a big lover of Punisher/Ghost Rider, but depending on the stories they tell, I'm interested in a Widow solo series. New Warriors, Loki: Agent of Asgard and Inhumans are all interesting to me, but I'm not sold on them yet. Inhumans has my interest based entirely of Fraction being a writer, whilst New Warriors is because I get the feeling we might find out some more about Richard Rider from the series. Loki... I dunno. I like the character, if it's anything like Journey Into Mystery was during Siege, it could be good.

Absolutely yes on these.

Also already have Inhuman, Moon Knight, and MIRACLEMAN !!!!!!!! on the pull list. I'll get the first issue or two of Black Widow and Punisher just to see ....

[TKz]

I'm psyched for Fantastic Four, which seems to be a retelling of their story in the 616 verse, which is something I've never gotten around to reading. I adored Ultimate Fantastic Four for exactly that reason, so I'm psyched to see the more traditional Reed and Co. go through their greatest battles. I'm going to see if there's a decent place in the UK to get a subscription sorted, because I'm so fucking tired of buying on ebay and never being able to find anything when I fall an issue or two behind.

[Skummy]

He laid some great groundwork for more mature themes and stories back in the 80's. He hasn't been relevant since then

Depends who you ask, surely? Personally, I'd take anything he's come out with over the past twenty years over most of anything by DC or Marvel - especially the likes of Promethea, which is an infinitely more interesting take on the superhero genre than anything either of the "big two" have come out with, same goes for League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Top Ten and Tom Strong. If "Big Numbers" had taken off, I'd go with that over almost any comic book ever written.

The point is that superhero comics aren't doing anything new. He's not saying they should be exactly the same as they were in the 1950s - quite the opposite, in fact - but they've not really moved on since the '80s and '90s. What people should have taken away from Watchmen, from Killing Joke, from Swamp Thing, and so on, is that comic books didn't have to stick rigidly to the conventions laid out for them - and that's something that Alan Moore has continued to push ever since. The message that the majority of the mainstream comic book industry seem to have taken from him, though, is to stick rigidly to a different set of conventions instead.

[TKz]

You're absolutely kidding me if you think we're still stuck in the 90's when it comes to what we've got for comics lately. And yeah, you're right, it's totally dependent on who you ask, but have you actually read anything that's come out over the last few years, Skummy? Or are you just working off the assumption and beliefs of a guy that's literally said he hasn't read a comic from the mainstream in decades. It's especially hilarious because on the whole, we've moved straight past "gritty and dark and mature and look breasts!". That's not to say elements of it aren't still there, there's definitely the odd dud like the latest Thunderbolts run, but considering the sheer amount of content put out, there's always going to be some crap.

Because I'll take Hawkeye and Daredevil: End of Days over nearly anything Moore has ever done. Or the Marvel Cosmic run from 2008 onwards, which I'd personally say is the absolute greatest set of stories told in a comic book yet. Or Captain Marvel, which has constantly shown just how fucking awesome a well written female lead can be. Or Superior Spider-Man which took a mainstream character, did something really fucking ballsy and entirely different with it and made it work wonderfully. Or the current Thor run that pretty consistently awesome. Yeah, you're right, it's entirely dependent on an opinion, but I don't see how you can form a fair opinion of it when as far as I know, you haven't actually been reading the mainstream comics.

It's kind of pointless to argue between the two of us though. I think it's pretty clear that we're on totally different ends of the spectrum and two entirely different markets. I keep getting riled up over this which is stupid, because it's literally just your opinion, but man it bugs the crap out of me that you just assume that what the big two have been putting out has just been garbage. It totally undermines all of the work guys like Fraction put in when writing some amazing comics. It's like saying that television is garbage when you don't actually watch it and just hear people at your work talking about The Only Way is Essex.