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Kurtis J. Evans
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Posted: 29 August 2014 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | 1  

I recently subscribed to Marvel Unlimited and have been reading through old issues of X-Men. It's fascinating - I'd never had the opportunity to read all of the Byrne issues before, and I was tremendously impressed by some of the things I saw. Not specifically the art, which was still very good (but not as good as later Byrne, of course) but primarily the way that the stories were told.

Unlike today, when an "epic" story runs 6 issues and crosses over into a dozen titles, some of the biggest, most legendary stories in the history of the X-Men -- Dark Phoenix, Days of Future Past -- were all told in two issues. It just proves that comic stories don't need to be so drawn out to be amazing and memorable. In fact, drawing them out might make that a more challenging task!
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Jason Schulman
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Posted: 29 August 2014 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | 2  

The so-called Galactus Saga was a whopping three issues of FANTASTIC FOUR.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 29 August 2014 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | 3  

Two and a half! It started halfway thru an issue!
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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 29 August 2014 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | 4  

The so-called Galactus Saga was a whopping three issues of FANTASTIC FOUR.

***

Nowadays that'd be six parts with lots of tie-in issues. Oh, and you'd need to have had bought a 2010 graphic novel for all the backstory, too.
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Larry Gil
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Posted: 29 August 2014 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | 5  

Exactly why I don't read the new stuff..everything from the Big 2 is a major crossover...tying in with every issue ..and when it ends another starts. 
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John Byrne
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Posted: 29 August 2014 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | 6  

A problem I had at both Marvel and DC was coming up with a "big" story for a title I was working on, only to have upper echelons of editorial get wind of it and decide it would make a good crossover "event." That was how GENESIS came into being, for instance. I conceived the story for JK4W, but DC decided, against my wishes, to "expand" it.

This is born out of more unnecessary fan-think. Stan and Jack didn't worry about where the Avengers were when Galactus attacked. If they had, they'd've done a guest appearance (not a crossover!). But not so many years later, everything in the "universe" had to be happening at the same time, and interconnected. Recall Shooter's contrivances when he was writing THE AVENGERS, explaining how Thor could be there when, in his own title, he was off on a big "space saga." The readers were no longer allowed to assume for themselves that those AVENGERS issues and THOR issues did not take place at the same time.

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Brian Hague
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Posted: 29 August 2014 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | 7  

I've often railed against the evils of continuity and the pernicious enforcement of the shared universe concept. One of the least enjoyable aspects of the whole thing is that as the stories have gotten bigger, keeping track of everything happening in them has gotten worse. Some characters are pro-registration here and anti there. People's motivations get clouded and flipped around. The thread of certain characters gets lost and logic goes out the window as we barrel home for the grand finale. 

Keeping things on a smaller scale doesn't eliminate errors, but it does made them easier to deal with and reduces the chances of having the entire souffle collapse it on itself due to excess heating and reheating of the mix over time.

Brevity is the soul of wit and haiku is a wonderful art form. The idea that less is more is getting lost in the rush for bigger and bigger events, leading, the execs hope, to bigger and bigger sales. "Days of Future Past" is continuity done right, and Marvel has made a mint off of it since, doing it wrong, over and over again. What's been built on the wannabe and "Me too!" works done in DOFP's image since? Blink? Bishop? I don't find there to be a lot of "there" there. 

The original, however, can be reread again and again to good effect. I can't think of too many mega-events about which the same can be said.

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Greg Kirkman
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Posted: 29 August 2014 at 9:54pm | IP Logged | 8  

Two and a half! It started halfway thru an issue!
+++++++++

It also ENDED halfway through an issue!

So, really, it's a mere two issues' worth of story spread over three, with
the Inhumans, Johnny's college life, and the "This Man, This Monster"
scientist serving as bookends.
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Robert Bradley
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Posted: 29 August 2014 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | 9  

The whole original Galactus story took place in 46 1/2 pages.

And it was probably the defining story for Marvel.  You'd think the current editors, writers and artists could learn something from it.

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Greg Kirkman
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Posted: 29 August 2014 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | 10  

Y'know those old stories may get knocked for excessive--even purple--
prose, and for being "constrained" by nine-panel grids and such, but
there's a heck of a lot of STUFF jammed into those pages.

As noted elsewhere, I'm almost done reading Lee and Kirby's FF. As
with most comics from that era, each issue is very dense, and it takes
me a solid 20-30 minutes to read each one. Each issue is a feast, to be
slowly enjoyed. Each issue is full of many, many nuances of
characterization, amazing concepts, and dynamic action.

People may knock Stan for "stealing" credit and being nothing more
than a scripter who put words over the plots and artwork of geniuses, but, gosh
darn it, so much of the fun and characterization comes from those
scripts! As wacky, purple, and unrealistic as that dialogue is, it
forces readers to slow down and really digest the stories, to understand
the characters, to feel like they got their money's worth.

Compare to so many of today's works--lots of poster-splash pages,
sparse, "realistic" dialogue which is often deprived of both depth and
nuances of characterization, and which allows one to blow through an
issue in ten minutes or less, etc.

Edited by Greg Kirkman on 29 August 2014 at 11:17pm
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Doug Centers
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Posted: 30 August 2014 at 5:43am | IP Logged | 11  

Your right about Stan's scripts, if you haven't read him in a while he seems "over the top" at first. But when you start to take in that style it just becomes fun , his captions are probably the only ones I care to read.
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Eric Ladd
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Posted: 30 August 2014 at 6:00am | IP Logged | 12  

"Each issue is very dense"

When the Masterworks editions of Spider-Man started coming out in the 90's my friends and I all remarked how long it took to read an old comic book. We had become conditioned to skimming across full pages of modern comics, but the books that defined the genre took time to digest.
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