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Jason Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2473
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| Posted: 15 July 2014 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | 1
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Beta Ray Bill was and is still Beta Ray Bill, not "Thor."
Anyway, here's the explanation (so to speak) for the change:
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Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14812
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| Posted: 16 July 2014 at 12:01am | IP Logged | 2
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Is that cover a justification that character brand extension is a GOOD IDEA?!?
Isn't one of them dead? And the other one (Beta Ray Bill) barely used now?
This cover just proves that the House Of "Ideas" keeps making the same mistakes over and over again.
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Which mistakes are you referring to? The de-uniquing of Thor? That Pandora's box was opened 30 years ago, in what is still considered the definitive run of Thor. I liked both Beta Ray Bill and Eric Masterson, so I don't consider them mistakes. As you point out, Eric Masterson is dead, Beta Ray Bill is barely used, and everyone forgets Tarene, the Thor Girl, despite the fact that she's been around for more than a decade. So it's possible to put the genie back into the bottle.
Are we complaining that they are rehashing a trope used 25-30 years ago? Because if the argument is that comic readership should be cycling through to younger readers, this shouldn't be an issue. It seems to me that the people making a fuss about this are the 40 year old fanboys who should have moved on, while this appeals more to the younger 20-something readership who want to go on their social justice blogs and talk about female representation in comics. Still not the kids who should be the ideal target, but whatever.
Is replacing Thor yet again a bit lazy? Possibly. But on a list that includes Cyclops becoming a Magneto-styled mutant revolutionary who killed Xavier and Nick Fury being mostly a series of LMDs while he is running around being an elderly space assassin, I'll take a rehash over a "new and edgy" idea any day.
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Andrew W. Farago
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4067
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| Posted: 16 July 2014 at 1:22am | IP Logged | 3
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When uncle Walt Simonson did it, it was a horse-faced alien. What was HE thinking?
That's my reaction. Are we all so impossibly jaded that we can't let the storytellers do their thing before dismissing it? The 1983 Internet probably would have ripped Walt Simonson a new one three months before Thor #337 hit the stands. And what would the 1975 Internet have made of "new" X-Men from upstarts like Len Wein and Dave Cockrum, re-using that goofy Hulk villain with the claw gloves? And don't get me started on the 1950s Internet's opinion on that weird Flash who doesn't even have a cool hat.
I haven't bought a new Thor comic in ages, and this probably isn't the one that will lure me in, but it's hardly the first time a publisher has put their classic model on the shelf for a little while in order to try out something different until they feel it's time to bring the original model back.
Superior Spider-Man was a lot of fun, and as skeptical as I was at the outset, Dan Slott and co. told a great story, and I had 50 years' worth of back issues to comb through when I felt nostalgic for Peter Parker stories. If you don't like Lady Thor, take a break for a while. Classic Coke will be back on the shelves before you know it.
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Emery Calame
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5773
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| Posted: 16 July 2014 at 4:05am | IP Logged | 4
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I wonder if Disney has decided that it's time to burn down the old downtown store for the insurance money and pass the IP along to safer hands.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132303
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| Posted: 16 July 2014 at 5:19am | IP Logged | 5
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When uncle Walt Simonson did it, it was a horse-faced alien. What was HE thinking?+++ That's my reaction. Are we all so impossibly jaded that we can't let the storytellers do their thing before dismissing it? The 1983 Internet probably would have ripped Walt Simonson a new one three months before Thor #337 hit the stands. And what would the 1975 Internet have made of "new" X-Men from upstarts like Len Wein and Dave Cockrum, re-using that goofy Hulk villain with the claw gloves? And don't get me started on the 1950s Internet's opinion on that weird Flash who doesn't even have a cool hat. •• You seem once again all too eager to drink the Kool-Aid. Let's look at those "past time internet" scenarios, shall we? Of course, in any previous decade, just as today, there would be a portion of the population that would be ready to trash anything remotely new and different. But what WAS different about Walt's story, or the All New, All Different X-Men, or the Silver Age Flash? The answer is in the question: they were (as the X-Men boldly declared above their logo) DIFFERENT. Walt didn't do Beta Ray Betty. They weren't the Ex-Men. That wasn't Hot Flash. They were not something that had become, in a very short time, a tired and worn out cliché.
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Craig Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 November 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 1756
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| Posted: 16 July 2014 at 5:30am | IP Logged | 6
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As long as it's not Angela*, I have no real qualms. None at all, actually. I'm already collecting Aaron's God of Thunder run and I love it. It appears as though they aren't just turning Thor into a woman (as they did with Loki during Dark Avengers). The Asgardian Formerly Known As Thor will still be around. Aaron tweeted a rather haggard and forlorn UnThor yesterday carrying Young Thor's axe Jarnbjorn GodBomb. I'm intrigued.
And more than intrigued, I'm rather excited that the new broke on THE VIEW of all places. Love it or hate it, but I never thought I'd see the day when comic book news would be revealed on THE VIEW.
I also think the knowledge that Walt is returning to Norse storytelling in the RAGNAROK book softens the blow.
*Or Thor Girl.
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I wonder if Disney has decided that it's time to burn down the old downtown store for the insurance money and pass the IP along to safer hands.
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I think if anything they are finally starting to realize that placing all their eggs in the basket of middle age white men is going to drive them to financial ruin and they appear to be interested in engaging new audiences
I love Kelly Sue's work with Carol and I'm amazed it's lasted this long. I don't collect the new Ms. Marvel book but I've heard nothing but praise for it... a superhero Muslim teenage girl in America. In the era of Rick Perry paranoia about our Secret Muslim President plan to use hurricanes to sneak immigrants from Central America into the US, it's reassuring.
Maybe some day they might get back to making comics that kids can enjoy with characters kids can emulate positively.
Edited by Craig Robinson on 16 July 2014 at 5:35am
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 16 July 2014 at 5:36am | IP Logged | 7
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Maybe some day they might get back to making comics that kids can enjoy with characters kids can emulate positively. •• Tried that twice so far at IDW. Resoundingly ignored.
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Stephen Churay
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 March 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 8369
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| Posted: 16 July 2014 at 5:54am | IP Logged | 8
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Walt also made Thor a frog. It wasn't as if, nor did you think, that it
was the new status quo. You knew he was going to be back as
himself in an issue or two. With the current storytelling structure, it
could be a year or two before he's back as a man. So, it's sold as the
new status quo.
This is the thing that these companies that write for trade don't realize.
Not every story is great. But, with the one to three issue stories, you
could deal with it because you knew it would last long and the next
story is just around the corner. With story lines that are 6-10 issues
long, if the story doesn't connect with the reader, then that reader has
to wait that much longer to enjoy the title again. By the time the
creators get doe telling there dud, you've more than likely moved on.
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James Howell
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 23 September 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 363
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| Posted: 16 July 2014 at 6:18am | IP Logged | 9
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Some fans are going to buy whatever the new event from Marvel puts out, and that's fine, but I think they can do much better than just changing a hero's sex, and that's the only reason to buy a new book. It's shallow and lazy. Do any of you pick your friends that way? "Gee. I don't have a gay friend, let's see if I can pick one on Craigslist!" BTW, Beta Ray Bill, was innately more interesting than Beta Ray THOR.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 16 July 2014 at 6:34am | IP Logged | 10
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Beta Ray Bill, the All New All Different X-Men, and the Silver Age Flash, along with every other character introduced before the coming of the Direct Sales Market, had one major advantage over today's comics: readers mostly found out about them about a month before they hit the stands.Back in those days -- and it seems so long ago! -- there were next issue blurbs and house ads, and that was how we found out what was coming. The Companies did not have to send out promotions months and months in advance. (Chris Ryall emailed me yesterday for promo copy for the fourth issue of STAR TREK: NEW VISIONS. That's coming out when? November?) As a direct consequence, readers didn't have much time to stir up the ol' sturm und drang -- and mostly wouldn't have, anyway! Cuz, you know, we used to TRUST the people producing the comics. Heck, in most cases, there wasn't even a real sense (even after credits became common) that there WERE people producing the comics. As fans, we'd follow artists by their styles, but the comics themselves seemed to just. . . happen. To spring fully grown from Zeus' head. And there was rarely any sense in the fan community (which was not a "community" in any kind of literal sense) that WE could do it BETTER. Sure, Stan would sometimes run critical letters, but he'd just as often dismiss them with a witticism. "Input" from fans was not sought. With a lead time as much as six months, it was rarely even possible. (When I was doing FF I would sometimes get letters telling me how to "fix" the latest issue's storyline -- letters from readers who were evidently unaware that by the time they saw that issue I had four or five more in the drawer!) The DSM, the Internet, the shift from the Old Guard to fans-turned-pro -- all these have combined, as well as other elements, to destroy the American comic book industry.
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Greg Woronchak
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 September 2007
Location: Canada
Posts: 1631
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| Posted: 16 July 2014 at 8:46am | IP Logged | 11
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Publishers seem so terrified by the reactions of the hardcore fanbase, and cater material directly to them.
How many of these whiners are actually buying any comics?
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Andrew W. Farago
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4067
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| Posted: 16 July 2014 at 9:38am | IP Logged | 12
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Just picking up an issue and being surprised by it--quite a concept. Marvel and DC are happy to spoil major events months before they play out, although I guess they're happy with the system they've got in place now. Heavily promoting a Thor comic that won't be out for several months is par for the course right now, and I'm curious to see if they'll get another press bump right before it goes on sale or if they'll already be promoting next spring's big death/event instead.
I will say that the first issue of the big Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus story (Amazing Spider-Man #698) leading up to the recent Superior Spider-Man series did catch me by surprise, although every news outlet in the country rushed to tell me that Spider-Man would die in issue #700 before I'd had a chance to read the issue. It's really weird that it's not enough to avoid comic book message boards on new comic book day if you want to avoid spoilers until you've had enough time to read through the new week's stack, now you have to avoid newspapers and the entire Internet, too.
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Topic Closed)
