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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 30 June 2015 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | 1  

A huge mistake -- which Stan had happen in the newspaper strip, aimed at a different audience. I've even heard he was surprised to learn it had been carried over into the comics.
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Shaun Barry
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Posted: 30 June 2015 at 8:32pm | IP Logged | 2  


With all due respect to Mr. Slott (and as someone who enjoyed the CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER film), it still irks me and many others that Ed Brubaker's Bucky-as-Winter-Soldier storyline has now supplanted the original Cap & Bucky stories of not only Stan & Jack, but Joe Simon & Jack as well.

Say what you will of the '80s & '90 Marvel, but they tried & succeeded for years in holding true to those original stories, as intended.

Can "change" sometimes be good? Of course. But change doesn't (and shouldn't) mean pissing all over someone else's work in the process. Now, to the general public, and due to the success of the film, Bucky always has, is, and ever shall be the Winter Soldier. The average joe doesn't no squat about this "Ultimates" vs. "616" nonsense.

Way to go.




Edited by Shaun Barry on 30 June 2015 at 8:35pm
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

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Posted: 30 June 2015 at 8:40pm | IP Logged | 3  

Every team that worked on Captain America following his return in AVENGERS 4 came up with a way to bring Bucky back. Roger Stern and I certainly did (and, believe me, Rog's tale would have broken your hearts!). But, like Rog and me, all those folk realized it would be a BAD idea. All but one, anyway.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 30 June 2015 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | 4  

It's actually very faithful to every era of Spidey and FF that came before it.

My SHE-HULK run was very reverent of yours and, over the course of 33 issues, touched on ALL Marvel history, from Timely to present day...

•••

I remember the effort you put into restoring the character to who she'd been before I changed her.

Oh, wait. You didn't. Because I hadn't.

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Jesus Garcia
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Posted: 30 June 2015 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | 5  

Perhaps all comics should be allowed to evolve in real time: this is not a sales pitch but over at Image, Savage Dragon's Son Malcolm has taken over the book so brilliantly that I don't miss the "old" Dragon at all.

And considering Damian Wayne, I could see how Bruce should have retired long ago and put Dick in charge. The old stories are still there for reading and titles dedicated to the in-between years.

I offer this up to those who think that comics should assume a new readership rotation every few years (seven?). In the first place this is strictly a Marvel Age continuity-obsessed premise: before Marvel continuity of any sort was rarely discussed.

Also, in the early years of the Marvel age time seemed to move at a more or less natural pace. Reed and Sue got married and had a child within the Lee & Kirby run: Peter Parker graduated HS within the Lee & Ditko run IIRC.

It's only when it was recognized that the Kirby & Ditko cornucopia of creativity wouldn't be around forever that time suddenly steeped into a swamp of molasses.

Again, I'm not selling Erik Larsen here, but he can get away with realtime mostly because he's one of those comic book creators that creates characters and concepts the way Kirby used to do. Granted he's got Kirby as inspiration but he's gone places even the King wouldn't have gone.

The Marvel characters being frozen in time is largely a consequence of comic book creators refusing to create characters without getting a big piece of the action.

Wolverine is probably the nearest to last last memorable character created at Marvel (probably the Eternals and Celestials were the last) and I wonder how many characters we will never get to see fleshed out because they'll go to the grave along with their "creators".
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Dan Slott
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Posted: 30 June 2015 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | 6  

"I remember the effort you put into restoring the character to who she'd been before I changed her. Oh, wait. You didn't. Because I hadn't."

I am really not following this train-of-thought or argument you're making here.

My She-Hulk run was very reverent of all the character's history up to that point-- from the Kraft/Vosburg run, to Stern's use of her in Avengers, your use of her in both FF and Sensational, all the way up to the status quo changes Geoff Johns did with her in the Avengers issues preceding my run.

And do you honestly think you didn't change the character? That the fun-loving, joking character you did in Sensational was the same as the melodramatic character in Savage? Or the tough, bickering-with-Hawkeye character in Stern's Avengers? C'mon.

You made changes to She-Hulk. And they were for the better. They added more facets to who she was and what kinds of stories you could tell with her.

There was no part of my run where I tried to "restore" her to a previous setting. Juan and I tried to build on what came before and have fun taking the character and the book in new directions. I'm sorry if you felt otherwise.


Edited by Dan Slott on 30 June 2015 at 8:54pm
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Eric Jansen
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Posted: 30 June 2015 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | 7  

I think the discussion all boils down to a basic question concerning how to deal with serial fiction: Change or no change?

Using other media for example, let's look at TV.  A show like THE SIMPSONS has no change (except when necessitated by the loss of a voice actor) and shows like THE WALKING DEAD (and LOST before it) kill off a beloved character almost every single episode.  Both are extremes and both have their advantages and disadvantages.  THE SIMPSONS has survived for 30 years, but THE WALKING DEAD really gets people excited!  Episodic versus continued/advancing storytelling.

There is the middle ground, where most episodes stand on their own, but there is some ongoing subplot (that usually comes to a head in the season finale).  People enjoy CASTLE for example, where nothing changes for the most part--and then somebody dies (or some other big change happens) in the season finale.  People always cite that MOONLIGHTING jumped the shark when Dave and Maddie finally slept together--"the sexual tension was gone!"  Well, no, the show went from episodic where nothing happened (what the fans were used to) to continued storytelling where everything permanently changed.

I would say that both approaches are valid, but the real argument comes in when you have to decide which approach is appropriate for which property.

It makes perfect sense that John Byrne (raised on Mort Weisinger SUPERMAN comics and even Stan Lee early Marvel) would gravitate to the episodic "nothing ever changes" approach.  On the other hand, looking at Dan Slott for example, he was raised on Byrne and Claremont's X-MEN with epics like the Dark Phoenix Saga.  Again, it makes sense that he would gravitate to more long form storytelling.

I would only disagree with JB in that I see no reason for someone to move on from their favorite comic just because they got older.  (I've watched JAMES BOND and STAR WARS movies since I was a kid--do I have to quit those too?)  But even if you agree with that and say that super-hero comics (like "Dark Phoenix" and Miller's Elektra saga?) are only for kids, there have always been REPRINT editions!  (Stan Lee made sure of that!)  When I was a kid, I read Conway and Andru's SPIDER-MAN at the same time that I read Lee and Romita in MARVEL TALES and Ditko's issues in all sorts of reprint editions--and I loved them all!  I enjoyed the life changes Peter Parker went through and I would hated it if the different versions contradicted each other at all.

On the other hand, Marvel is drowning us right now with "change for change's sake" which is much worse than nothing happening!  I'm sad that kids who fall in love with CAPTAIN AMERICA or SPIDER-MAN in the latest movies can't go to the comics and easily find those same characters.  ("Who's this Miles Morales kid?"  Why is everyone calling the Falcon "Cap"?)

I don't want change in ARCHIE or THE SIMPSONS!  I actually do think Marvel and DC are different--I don't want change in the SUPERMAN or BATMAN books!  I want classic, iconic stories about those characters who really need no change.  But I do appreciate MINOR change in the SPIDER-MAN or X-MEN books, which had some degree of real life growth right from the beginning.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 30 June 2015 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | 8  

I would only disagree with JB in that I see no reason for someone to move on from their favorite comic just because they got older.

•••

If you're going to "disagree" with me, please disagree with something I actually said.

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Jason Larouse
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Posted: 30 June 2015 at 9:34pm | IP Logged | 9  

This is talking about the Marvel Now relaunch from a few years ago but it's still funny and relevant to the more recent Marvel relaunch:

(images are big so im linking)

http://i.imgur.com/L65rraf.jpg
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Josh Goldberg
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Posted: 30 June 2015 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | 10  

"(and, believe me, Rog's tale would have broken your hearts!)"
****

Oh, JB, you tease!
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Paul Kimball
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Posted: 30 June 2015 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | 11  

never would've thought I would like Bucky's return and I don't like a lot of
current Marvel outside of daredevil….but I did enjoy that story a lot. Course
I still believe that Buck was created by the cosmic cube, that when Cap said
"remember who you are" the cube actually read his real wish, which was for
his friend to return to life and imprinted Bucky's memories onto a look
alike. Someone the soviets had altered to look like Bucky.
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Eric White
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Posted: 30 June 2015 at 9:59pm | IP Logged | 12  

I don't see a way back for DC and Marvel. This doing things TO the characters instead of writing stories ABOUT the characters has been going on for at least the last twenty years or so. Endlessly retelling origins with promises of new and exciting revisions, massive crossovers involving every character possible fighting universe shattering villains, legacy heroes and armies of variations from the multiverse, and my favorite...killing major characters over and over again.

How many times is DC going to keep giving us the same characters with major "tweaks", for example? Or how many books can Marvel insert Spider-Man and Wolverine in?

And now they have to change characters midstream to mirror what goes on in their movies and TV shows... it's insane!
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