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Topic: Is It The Story Or How Long It Takes To Tell It? (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 23 February 2017 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | 1  

Next month, Marvel is going to unveil what it was the made
Thor Odinson unworthy to hold the hammer, thus allowing
for the female Thor.

Now, when I heard There was going to be a new Thor and
that the character would be a female, I admit, I did an
eye roll.

But the more I thought about it, if I could accept Thor
being a frog, I could accept Thor being a woman as a story
plot. But, that frog story took like 3 or 4 issues.

Thor being unworthy and moving to a female character has
been a story going on since the summer of 2014!

Then I got to thinking, how many of the stories that make
me shake my head in sadness are because it's no longer
just a good story bit changes the status quo for longer
than some fans collect comics?

So, I thought I'd ask the forum, do you,think fans would
be less critical of the stories modern day Marvel tells,
if they only lasted 3 to 4 issues?

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Joseph Greathouse
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Posted: 23 February 2017 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | 2  

Eric Masterson as Thor in the late 80s was just as long as Jane Foster being Thor now. Though, if we throw in the Don Blake aspect, how long has that been gone and we have been stuck with Thor as Thor? The time we have had Eric Masterson and Jane Foster is a drop in the bucket by comparison.

I think previous fans are critical of what they hear and changes in status quo because they have moved on. I think nostalgia drives the critics. But it is easy to forget the length of time that someone else carried Mjiolnir, or Cap's shield, or wore Iron Man's armor and that these things we complain about today are not any different than things were done when we were kids. 


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John Byrne
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Posted: 23 February 2017 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | 3  

Let us remember that due to Stan and Jack retconning the origin, "...if he be worthy..." was part of a ruse to keep Don Blake from guessing what Odin was up to. As first told, Blake did, indeed, come to possess the power of Thor because he was "worthy," but very quickly that Thor avatar became the REAL Thor. At that point, the whole matter of "worthiness" should have been forgotten.
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Anthony J Lombardi
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Posted: 23 February 2017 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | 4  

So, I thought I'd ask the forum, do you,think fans would 
be less critical of the stories modern day Marvel tells, 
if they only lasted 3 to 4 issues?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 There is no doubt in my mind.

Back when I was a monthly regular I could deal with a story arc disappointing me. Because I knew that in a few months it would be over and something new would be going on and I might enjoy it. Now a days who's got the patients to wait around for years before the storyline you don't like gets done. 

Also keeping in mind how expensive comics have become. Compared to what they use to be. I was willing to invest the money on a title I followed 
for a few months on a bad story arc. Now a days that's just crazy.
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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 23 February 2017 at 2:07pm | IP Logged | 5  

Joseph you Re correct and having been a
regular reader of the title at that time,
readers in my LCS, complained then as
well. Not quite as loud, mainly because
the character of Thor was still intact,
thanks in large part to the run from Walt
Simonson. Thor was the star of the book,
not Donald Blake or Eric Masterson.

This story has changed Thor, not just the
Midgard tether.

And understand, I'm using Thor as the
current example because of the comicbook
news cycle. The problem is rampant through
most of comic book publishing. Marvel just
seems, IMO, to be the biggest perpetrator.

Steve Rogers has had his history tampered
with by Red Skull using a Cosmic Cube.
He's now a sleeper agent of HYDRA.
Interesting story, but when that first
issue came out, people were outraged. Was
it because it was a bad story idea? Maybe,
maybe not. I think fans of the character
knew this story was going to go on for at
least a year. Sure enough, Captain America
is about to be outed to the rest of the
Marvel Universe, in a story that will take
it past the one year mark. That's a long
time for a character to not be, the
character.
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Greg Woronchak
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Posted: 23 February 2017 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | 6  

I can't really comment on the quality of stories that are drawn out for years (or requiring 30-40 issues to showcase the latest 'event'), since I no longer read 'em.

All I can say is that I have a helluva lot of respect for the guys who used to knock it out of the park in 3 issue 'epics', which truly were, epic!
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Andrew W. Farago
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Posted: 23 February 2017 at 4:06pm | IP Logged | 7  

Rhodey as Iron Man, John Walker as Captain America, Eric Masterson as Thor, the replacement post-Death Supermen, Azrael as Batman, Ben Reilly as Spider-Man...years-long disruptions of the status quo aren't anything new.

Jane Foster as Thor is part of a now long-running tradition of shaking up a lower-selling book for as long as possible so that people will remember why they enjoyed the classic version so much before they started taking it for granted. And Marvel knows that if they do this right, they've got another viable lead character when and if they go back to the original status quo.

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John Cole
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Posted: 23 February 2017 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | 8  

Jane Foster as Thor is nothing more than rehashing an old issue of What If? and running it into the ground.
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Josh Goldberg
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Posted: 23 February 2017 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | 9  

When I was a kid, reading the below upon their original release on a month-to-month basis, it felt like major long-term changes.
But when I re-read them now, I'm surprised to see how few issues these stories took up.



Edited by Josh Goldberg on 23 February 2017 at 4:51pm
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Joe Zhang
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Posted: 23 February 2017 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | 10  

"So, I thought I'd ask the forum, do you,think fans would 
be less critical of the stories modern day Marvel tells, 
if they only lasted 3 to 4 issues?"

They would at least be able to cycle through all their crap ideas and maybe come up with some good stories every so often. I might actually read a Marvel comic or two if they did that. 
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Eric Jansen
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Posted: 23 February 2017 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | 11  

There are two really annoying things about this trend:

1. Due to the success of their movies, this last decade or so has been Marvel's one big chance to bring in new fans and expand the industry's readership--but none of their books mirror the movies (which are at least trying to give us the main heroes in their best light).

2. I'm okay with long arcs, but not every concept thrives with long arcs.  Look at TV shows for example.  Some shows do great with single episode stories, while others are better as continued storylines.  Often, the single episode shows have long-running subplots--the best of both worlds--like THE X-FILES.  X-FILES had a lot of great, memorable, and classic single episode stories, but it had the underlying subplots of what happened with Mulder's sister and the possible government conspiracy behind it all--and it usually saved advances with the ongoing subplot for the season finale.  Almost every episode was a good jumping on point for a new viewer, while the subplots kept them coming back for more--same thing with the best comics.

Most of my favorite comic book stories were single issue stories--often just 17 pages long when I started buying.  I doubt modern writers could tie their shoes in 17 pages.  I also got into long stories like the whole Dark Phoenix thing or the Wundagore saga in AVENGERS, but even with those, the meat of the story usually didn't go beyond four or maybe six issues.

Perhaps the publishers are counting on trade paperback collections in book stores to be the new "single issue" that will bring in modern readers--but (unlike clearly numbered manga editions) the Big Two collections are usually divided by creators or storylines and therefore make it very confusing for the uninitiated to collect a whole series.


Edited by Eric Jansen on 23 February 2017 at 11:17pm
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 24 February 2017 at 5:36am | IP Logged | 12  

Joe Z: "They would at least be able to cycle through all their crap ideas and maybe come up with some good stories every so often."

Joe, these long stories ARE their good ideas, obviously. They get printed. If they had to do double or triple that workload, can you imagine how bad THAT product would be?
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