Episode 1520 Talkback: A Cornucopia of Comic Conversation 2014

i_am_scifi

It's a family gathering of Geeks, as we sit down to our annual Thanksgiving-week smorgasbord of comic talk! In addition to describing what we did to celebrate the holiday (and what we read or watched to avoid talking to our relatives), we tackle the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer; NBC's 'Constantine'; the Spider-Verse crossover; the fondly remembered CrossGen and Ultraverse comic lines; and other tasty giblets. You're welcome to join us--come, sit, put in your ear buds and pass the potato stuffing!

Listen to the show!

And then listen to the leftovers on the Comic Geek Speak App, available on both iOS and Android!

TheOriginalGMan

*sniff* Probably the proudest moment of my *sniff* CGS career. They said it couldn't be done, Ma, but I did it ... I muddled the Murd! I made it, Ma! *sniff* I made it!



Murd ... you gave me a scare. When you randomly threw out the first name of (the unfortunately named) Dr. Dorcas, I thought for sure that I was dead in the water (no pun intended). And, thankfully, I got a quick whistle from Peter on the Empire question too. Was afraid you'd pull that one out of the Murd data banks at the 11th hour.

In any event, a win is a win, and I suppose it's appropriate that I got an assist from Peter as, yes, I do indeed bequeath the much-coveted "Wonder Woman / Superman Treasury Edition" to him. A Christmas miracle indeed! Enjoy, Mr. Rios.

As for the rest of the show ... Pants, I'm surprised you were unfamiliar with The Champions. Thought that would have been right around your Silver Age wheelhouse. I know they're somewhat held to ridicule, but I loved that book when I was a kid. The very first story arc where they go up against Pluto was a classic.

As for the "Silk" character in "Amazing Spider-Man," she was in Peter's class in HS and was present at the same radiation exhibit the day he got bit. After the spider bit Peter, he knocked it away and it landed on her foot and bit her. She's been an interesting character thus far. As a whole, I'm also enjoying the Spider-Verse storyline as well. I'm only reading "Amazing Spider-Man" and none of the other involved titles, but it's been a good read IMO.

Downloaded episode #854 this morning to hear Mr. Deemer's rant about the "LOST" finale. Hope to give it a listen sometime this week. I suspect I voiced (okay, screamed) many of the same criticisms about it in the aftermath.

RecycledCharacterLad

Wow! Thanks for mentioning our scrabble ornaments "on air!" Loved making them and glad you enjoyed them. Merry christmas a bit early!

ShaneKelly

Thanks so much for them! I love it and it is proudly on my tree as of last night! :)

Evening639

Excellent episode, gentleman. I always love a good CrossGen discussion. Also, a belated "Happy Thanksgiving" to all of you.

And thank you @Adam_Murdough for the delightful conversation at the Christmas Barn and the recommendation of Ozgood's. The food was delicious.

We just put up our Christmas tree yesterday and the ornament we bought now proudly hangs near the top while the penguin/snowman/moose figurine sits on my record player in the living room.

nweathington

Just to clarify a historical note brought up in the episode about why Marvel bought out Malibu/Ultraverse: Marvel did not, in fact, buy Malibu for their coloring department. That was the reason given at the time, and has been widely accepted as fact, but according to Tom Mason, one of the founders of Malibu and the Ultraverse, Marvel only bought Malibu to keep DC from buying Malibu. Here’s an interview with him where he explains.

bralinator

nweathington said:

Just to clarify a historical note brought up in the episode about why Marvel bought out Malibu/Ultraverse: Marvel did not, in fact, buy Malibu for their coloring department. That was the reason given at the time, and has been widely accepted as fact, but according to Tom Mason, one of the founders of Malibu and the Ultraverse, Marvel only bought Malibu to keep DC from buying Malibu. Here’s an interview with him where he explains.

Wow! Great interview, thanks for sharing @nweathington‌ . That cleared up some misconceptions for me. Sometimes you just cannot believe the hype. I always enjoy getting the inside story.

Elsiebub

nweathington said:

Just to clarify a historical note brought up in the episode about why Marvel bought out Malibu/Ultraverse: Marvel did not, in fact, buy Malibu for their coloring department. That was the reason given at the time, and has been widely accepted as fact, but according to Tom Mason, one of the founders of Malibu and the Ultraverse, Marvel only bought Malibu to keep DC from buying Malibu. Here’s an interview with him where he explains.

Great info. I always suspected that the "Marvel bought Malibu for their coloring dept" idea was an exaggeration.

Elsiebub

Great episode, btw.

It's amazing that Deemer's daughter is plowing through all that Silver Age Legion stuff. Just amazing and even inspiring. We look back on older comics as being wordy s.o.b.s, but I remember reading quite a few old treasury editions when I was young (especially "Batman from the '30s to the '70s", and the Superman equivalent), and I have suspected that really old Golden and Silver Age comics might still translate well to younger readers, i.e. readers who are not yet addicted to decompressed storytelling.

I'm pretty sure Constantine will be back. The ratings haven't been that low, have they? They pulled something similar with Hannibal a couple years ago; midway through the first season they said "We've stopped production, but we're not canceled". Many people flipped out over this, but right before the season finished airing they announced that, yes, it would be returning next season. And isn't Hannibal's usual timeslot in fact the same slot that Constantine's in now? Constantine was probably never supposed to be a year-long show anyway, because Hannibal was/is expected to take over the timeslot come February. So, like Hannibal, Constantine's just one of those shows that airs for half the year or so. (Hannibal is an excellent show, btw.)

Elsiebub

Last thoughts (Damn, I knew I forgot to mention some things the last time I posted...):

Just read Thor #2 and I think it's quite clear now who the female "Thor" is. There's a thought-balloon indicating that she's seen the Roxxon CEO before, so... that basically narrows it down to one female character who's shown up in Aaron's run so far. I'm not thrilled with this character, but I will say that the female lead in Thor #2 was more interesting and seemed to have more depth than the previous character ever did. So if this leads to good comics (and it has so far), then I'm cool with it.

Deemer mentioned that he was kinda getting sick of Waid's Daredevil and its lighter tone. I agree with others that the run seems to be a synthesis of the dark and the light side of the character. To me, though, that can sometimes make for bland comics.

Bland is going too far. It isn't bland, I just don't find it terribly exciting. I've read every issue and enjoyed just about all of them, but I honestly I don't think there have been more than two issues that I'd rate over 4 stars.

I'm going to say something else that's very sacrilegious: I don't think I've ever read a Mark Waid comic that I'd call "great". I've read a ton of "good" and "very good" Mark Waid comics, but no great ones. Even something like Kingdom Come, for me, is a classic almost solely due to Alex Ross's art and concept.

I don't think Waid is capable of writing a "bad" comic, either. For me he has a very, very high overall average, if you want to put it that way. In baseball he'd be like a .330 hitter, with a good deal of RBIs... but no home runs.

I've read many great Bendis comics, but also plenty of awful Bendis comics. I've read many great Moore and Miller and Morrison comics, but also a decent number of bad comics from all three of those writers. From Waid, though? If his name's on the book, it's going to be either "good" or "very good", guaranteed. But imo it isn't ever great. His Daredevil is no exception for me. It's been consistently one of the best Marvel series for years now, but I don't think it's touched elite status. The earlier issues with Rivera art were close. It's been good but I wouldn't put it in an elite status.

pfinnegan

Elsiebub said:

I'm going to say something else that's very sacrilegious: I don't think I've ever read a Mark Waid comic that I'd call "great". I've read a ton of "good" and "very good" Mark Waid comics, but no great ones. Even something like Kingdom Come, for me, is a classic almost solely due to Alex Ross's art and concept.

I don't think Waid is capable of writing a "bad" comic, either. For me he has a very, very high overall average, if you want to put it that way. In baseball he'd be like a .330 hitter, with a good deal of RBIs... but no home runs.

I've read many great Bendis comics, but also plenty of awful Bendis comics. I've read many great Moore and Miller and Morrison comics, but also a decent number of bad comics from all three of those writers. From Waid, though? If his name's on the book, it's going to be either "good" or "very good", guaranteed. But imo it isn't ever great. His Daredevil is no exception for me. It's been consistently one of the best Marvel series for years now, but I don't think it's touched elite status. The earlier issues with Rivera art were close. It's been good but I wouldn't put it in an elite status.

You may have some points in there about consistency, but I would argue that Waid's "Unthinkable" run on FF was indeed excellent. It might be my favorite FF story of all time.

Royal_Lantern

Everyone of course has their opinion, but Waid's run on The Flash is probably my favorite run on that character of all time. Kingdom Come is my second favorite comic story of all time, and while the art is gorgeous, much like Murd, I am a story guy. So the story would have to be great to me to rank that high.

But again, everyone has their opinions of what works for them and that doesn't always coincide with what others like. Thank god for variety.

I am so pumped about the Star Wars trailer. I can't even count how many times I watched it. I love that the trailer is breaking all kinds of records in just a couple weeks of being out.

SolitaireRose

nweathington said:

Just to clarify a historical note brought up in the episode about why Marvel bought out Malibu/Ultraverse: Marvel did not, in fact, buy Malibu for their coloring department. That was the reason given at the time, and has been widely accepted as fact, but according to Tom Mason, one of the founders of Malibu and the Ultraverse, Marvel only bought Malibu to keep DC from buying Malibu. Here’s an interview with him where he explains.

Very cool. I do have the Marvel stuff from the time that they gave to investors...yeah, I worked at a financial company back then, and they talked about how buying Malibu would increase market share and combat falling overall sales.

That didn't work, now did it?

SolitaireRose

pfinnegan said:

Elsiebub said:

I'm going to say something else that's very sacrilegious: I don't think I've ever read a Mark Waid comic that I'd call "great". I've read a ton of "good" and "very good" Mark Waid comics, but no great ones. Even something like Kingdom Come, for me, is a classic almost solely due to Alex Ross's art and concept.

I don't think Waid is capable of writing a "bad" comic, either. For me he has a very, very high overall average, if you want to put it that way. In baseball he'd be like a .330 hitter, with a good deal of RBIs... but no home runs.

I've read many great Bendis comics, but also plenty of awful Bendis comics. I've read many great Moore and Miller and Morrison comics, but also a decent number of bad comics from all three of those writers. From Waid, though? If his name's on the book, it's going to be either "good" or "very good", guaranteed. But imo it isn't ever great. His Daredevil is no exception for me. It's been consistently one of the best Marvel series for years now, but I don't think it's touched elite status. The earlier issues with Rivera art were close. It's been good but I wouldn't put it in an elite status.

You may have some points in there about consistency, but I would argue that Waid's "Unthinkable" run on FF was indeed excellent. It might be my favorite FF story of all time.

His Flash run and his run on Daredevil I would characterize both of those as great. I also think Empire was a great work.

alienal

I'm late listening to this episode, but I enjoyed it. Well, I get my comics late anyway, so anything talked about wasn't a spoiler for me. It was great hearing about the comics news from Pants, what everybody was reading, the Muddle the Murd, etc. Made my day of grading papers just a little more enjoyable! Thanks!

JaceTheComicSource

I couldn't agree with Chris more about Empire. It is without question the best thing Waid has done. Just an awesome awesome story and the second volume seems to be pretty good too. Just sucks how slowly it rolls out.