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Robert Bradley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4830
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| Posted: 27 August 2016 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | 1
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Doom reigns supreme.
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Matthew Wilkie
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 March 2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1139
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| Posted: 28 August 2016 at 3:53am | IP Logged | 2
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Doom reigns supreme.
***
What is that from?
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Matthew Wilkie
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 28 August 2016 at 3:56am | IP Logged | 3
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I still maintain that if JB had stayed on AF the Master could have been a contender; however various versions of him have strayed from his origins.
Anyone know if he has appeared in any book other than AF?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 28 August 2016 at 5:33am | IP Logged | 4
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Goodly Godly!! I had not seen that cover with that coloring. What a f***ing MESS!!
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Robert Bradley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: 28 August 2016 at 7:16am | IP Logged | 5
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Mattew - it's the re-colored cover of Super-Villain Team-Up #14.
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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 28 August 2016 at 7:22am | IP Logged | 6
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Gordon Bennett, what a difference! Shows the importance of colour, I guess.
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Stephen Robinson
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| Posted: 28 August 2016 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | 7
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ROBBIE: Stretching the definition a bit, I feel (not criticizing, merely
observing). I've found it hard to call the likes of Gen. Ross a villain, not in
the truest sense of the word (just like Lt. Gerard isn't really a villain in THE
FUGITIVE).
SER: Gerard is an antagonistic force (as opposed to the one armed man's
clear villainy). Gerard is doing his job and ultimately doing what's right
(finding the convicted murderer who escaped his custody). Unlike THE
INCREDIBLE HULK TV show, where McGee's motives are for personal gain
(the redemption of his journalistic reputation), Gerard's are far more noble.
Ross, I thought, came across like the villain in countless sci-fi films who
pursues that which he doesn't understand and thus must destroy.
JASON: Jameson has drifted further away from being a straight up villain as
time goes on.
In the original Ditko issues he pretty much created Scorpion and then when
Scorpion's first act is to kill a dude JJ is like "Uh better cover this up so that
nobody finds out I'm involved".
And then there's the Spider-Slayers.
SER: Jameson really changed a lot once Ditko left, it seems. The Jameson
of the Ditko era is like the worst of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. There is
little to redeem him as a journalist or even as a person. Once Robbie
Robertson was introduced, it seemed like Jameson was humanized by
extension. I've mentioned in another thread the scene in the first Prowler
story where we see that Jameson is not a racist. It's actually a great scene
that defines Jameson -- he's giving Hobie a bad time because he's a
difficult ass but it's not racially motivated and when Hobie's boss make a
racial comment, Jameson lets him have it.
There were plenty of legitimate reasons for Jameson to not trust Spider-
Man -- he originally cashed in one his powers for money (and Jameson is
not privy to the "great power and great responsibility" lesson Spider-Man
learns) and one would have to think that a cop told others, including even
the press, that a snotty celebrity blew off the chance to help an officer stop
someone who later killed an innocent man.
I personally prefer the complexity of Jameson and especially Aunt May
detesting Spider-Man while themselves not being bad people. It's a shame
that the series has struggled with this balance.
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Harri Jokinen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 11 May 2014
Location: Finland
Posts: 49
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| Posted: 22 September 2016 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | 8
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KANG is a villain I feel is right up there as one of the greatest, most nuanced, most powerful and most dangerous villains in the MU. At least when a writer really hits it right, like Busiek in Kang War, or whatever it's called. Unfortunately, the time travel aspect has led to a lot of messy Kang-stories, or the character is just written as some guy in armor who comes from the future to get his ass kicked.
What is it that makes Kang so great? Firstly, like the other big guns, he can never really be defeated. You can't just put him behind bars. Even if he were to be killed, there'll always be another version somewhere.
Secondly, with the time travel and technology he has at his disposal, he's by far more powerful than earth's mightiest. He could just zap the earth from deep space without anyone noticing beforehand or kill the heroes when they were babies, and quite possibly has done so in alternate realities. However, he has his own medieval/future sense of honor, and prefers to meet the Avengers on even ground, fighting them in a way he deems is "fair". This leads to:
Thirdly, his personality. Like I said, he has his own sense of honor and a worldview from a completely different era, while still being a complete scumbag from a 21st century pov. Not only that, but he actually began his career as a conqueror after watching footage of the MU-heroes. So, deep down he's actually a futuristic space-fanboy! He already soundly defeated the Avengers during Kang War, killing who knows how many people in the process, so by this point I imagine he's just facing them because that's what he likes to do. Kinda like a soccer team who has already won the World Cup or Champions League. Meanwhile, I would imagine earth's heroes hate him for what he's done, and are determined to bring him down. This makes for an interesting inversion of the usual hero/villain dynamic.
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A villain who doesn't deserve his big dog status is THANOS, the dictionary definition of a writer's pet character. In a perfect superhero-battle, all the combatants end up looking good (something completely lost to modern writers), but whenever Jim Starlin wrote Thanos, he went out of his way to make everyone else look as bad as possible by jobbing them out to Thanos in the most embarrassing ways. Infinity Gauntlet is a good example. All of the world's most powerful heroes are made to look like complete chumps, a major villain like Mephisto is a servile doormat, in the sequel Doom and Kang are made to look like The Two Stooges (because apparently Kang can't travel back in time to when the gauntlet wasn't in anyone's possession), and to cap it off a collection of the world's omnipotent cosmic beings get their asses handed to them by a magic glove (why did they allow the gems to exist, again?).
Even without the Gauntlet Thanos is bitch-slapping guys like Thor and Hulk away like they're Aunt May and Nate Lubensky. And why? Where does his power come from? His brother is just a creepy nancy-boy, and his dad a random space-geezer. If you read Thanos' profile from, say, an unnamed Internet site, you'll find a model example of "because reasons". He's that powerful because of every reason you can come up with, but in truth because of plot armor and a writer's undying love for his own creation.
And when he's not busy making everyone else look like crap, Thanos spends his time being mysterious, sitting on a chair and grinning like a stock anime bad guy.
Much of this criticism can also be directed at vaguely-defined "cool mastermind" -villains like Apocalypse, Sinister, and... most later-era X-Villains, really.
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Ariel Justel
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 August 2016
Location: Argentina
Posts: 70
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| Posted: 22 September 2016 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | 9
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Harry, the fact that you don't like Thanos does not mean the character doesn't deserve his big dog status.
Personally, I think he is a fantastic character specially when Starlin is writting him.
Ironically, many of the reasons you exposed are the reason why many people love Thanos.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 22 September 2016 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | 10
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Personally, I think he is a fantastic character specially when Starlin is writting him.••• Even better when Jack Kirby created him.
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Ariel Justel
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| Posted: 22 September 2016 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | 11
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Personally, I think he is a fantastic character specially when Starlin is writting him.••• Even better when Jack Kirby created him.
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Hahaha! Good one!
It's a known fact that Thanos was based on Darkseid and Metron but I believe the character evolved in something quite different and unique.
In any case, I love them both: Darkseid and Thanos are great characters and they deserve their "top dog" status.
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Richard Stevens
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Joined: 04 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1929
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| Posted: 23 September 2016 at 7:13am | IP Logged | 12
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Give me Stilt-Man or The Shocker over Thanos any day of the week. What a snore.
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Topic Closed)
