Vigil

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics We could torture Johns and force him to reveal why. That would work. I think Johns is kinda like Busiek in some ways in that he does seems to have respect for whats gone before and for the work of others. Maybe he did feel that he couldn't do anything with the original Bro Blood or maybe he's just waiting to ring him back in one of his story twists. Wasn't it Johns who revamped the JSA and put together the sleek twist on Hawkman's origin? Beyond the characters which we've already mentioned I'd nominate Rogue as yet another completey mishandled character. In her early appearances as a villains she was duking it out with the entire Avengers line up. Almost immediately upon joining the X-Men she seemed to forget how powerful she is and how to fight and after a while didn't even use her power absorption abilities. A clasic Martian Manhunter syndrome if I've ever seen it. Vigil

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics One of the things that I do find a bit troublesome in the industry is the constant, almost incessant ret coning of established characters. It happens with magneto all of the time, most recently with the lunatic Magneto who infiltrated the X-Men, destroyed them from within then tried to destroy and depopulate New York. Only, I guess that wasn't the real Magneto cause the real Magneto was having tea with Profeesor X in Genosha while their mutual students were being slaughtered in New York. Maybe the Magneto in New Yok was mutant who just happened to have exactly the same mutant powers and appearance as magneto only he was evil and insane and not drinking tea in Genosha with Prof. X. Or maybe he was a skrull (remember the brilliant cow-skrulls story from FF?). Or maybe he was robot? Or maybe...? Which, naturally enough, brings me to Brother Blood. I think Blood (from the 80's Titans) was one of those characters who had the problem of not being broke so they felt they had to fix him. I do find the current Titans run to be their best in over a decade but I don't think the change in Blood has helped anything at all or forwarded the story in a way that returning the classic Brother Blood wouldn't. Now, if they made some connection between Blood and Ras Al Ghul, that may be interesting. vigil

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics Oooh, yeah. Captain Comet's a great choice. I first encountered him in SSOSV and thought he was a cooler, more tragic version of Super man. I think there's a lot of parallels between him and the Martian Manhunter and it would be way cool to have both of them in the League. I thought he was well handled in SSOSV except for constantly getting one punched by Grodd and Blockbuster. It seems Comet put all of his points into TK and such and none into PD or CON. Bad thinking there.

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics I thought Byrne treated the FF quite reverentially,actuallly. It may have been his best work. But Alpha Flight he honestly seemed to hate. Maybe he felt they were Clarememont's charcters and so wanted to punish them in his stead or something equally neurotic. All I really know is that he took great characters (who haven't been great since) and savaged them. Another one I'd put on this list (number 3 anfetr Wonder Man and Mon-El) is the Martian Manhunter. Here's a guy that represents the most baroque excess of the silver age and who should, by rights, be able to walk all over the rest of the League put together and he comes across as half punching bag, half klutz. He sems to be constantly crippled or underpowered or maybe he's just restrained so the Superman gets to do everything. Plus he seems to forget half of his abilities on a regular, ongoing, bais. Just look at all of the different write ups for him in DC Heroes. His abilities seems to change every month. Instead of using all of his baroque glory, writers seems to try to limit or contain him and it seems to be mostly in service to DC's editorial policy that no one can eclipse Superman.

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics But, if there were a charcter named Iyo, what kind of charcter would he or she be and would cause him or her to be underrated? It's fascinating. Persoanlly, I would think Iyo would be a manga/anime style character with spikey hair and a motorcylce. maybe he could transform into other mecha-types too. The catch would be that they'd be practically useless. Maybe he could do convection ovens and turnhis hands into egg beaters and such.

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics LOL. I apologize for the header. I thought it was all caps until I saw it afterwards. So much for internet jargon. lol

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics Alpha Flight is another group that been completely abused and maligned, for sure. I'm talking the original team in the late 70' s here. I remeber being completely outraged after reading issue 12 where John Byrne, Canadian ex-patriot killed off the symbol of Canada, Guardian, for really no reason at all. I was enraged. Would that do that Captain America, or even Captain Britain (wait, maybe they did to Captain Britain). I hated what Byrne did with the team and what's been done since. In their first group appearance they wer shown to be every bit the equal of the Avengers and then they just turned into crippled, neurotic, psychotic messes with Byrne. Infuriates me to this day.

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics The Surfer's great, too. I liked his first and second series. The last 2 i'm not crazy about. he was always at his best with the other original Defenders. Talk about a tough team. Yikes! Speaking of power balance, just how powerful Champs wise do you think old Surfy is? I've seen write ups and they're all over the map. I'm thinking 90 STR base and probably 200 -300 active points in his powers...which are hard enough to figure out.

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics I never read the New Warriors but that sounds cool. Beyond poor ol' Wondy, my other favorite charity case is none other than Mon-El. I men how can a guy so powerful get no notice. I could never understand how it was that every one fawned over Superboy and ignored Mon, who was easily as powerful. I mean here's a guy who has no true weaknesses (once cured of the lead and red sun thing) and yet he gets one punched by Darkseid and his servitors. About the only time Mon-El lived up to his potential was his last true appearance, Giffen's LOSH #4 wwhere he kills off the Time Trapper. But talk about a waste of potential. Yeesh!

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics I loved Bill foster, also. I thought his original Black Goliath costume was one of the best ever in comics. For me, though, there's one character who I think has been more mailgned and mistreated and mauled than any other in comics ever....Wonder Man. For 30 years, I've watched every writer but Steve Englehart maul him, and for no readily explained reason. Here's a character who is , literally, the total package and he gets short shrift every time. I just don't get it. In his origin, he's almsot as smart as Tony Stark and when powered up, is as strong as Giant Man, hits as hard as Thor's hammer and is as good a figher and as dextrous as Cap! Say what! He rules! So why isn't he treated that way?

Hi All, In the past I've posted all kinds of polls on all kinds of things, all comics related. we've covered the best, the strongest, etc. in all of their myriad forms. This, on the other hand, isn't reallly a poll in any organized sense. What it is, is just a question. Of all the charcters you've read and enjoyed, which one is it that you thought was underutilized or underrated? Which character did you feel never got their due? And why? Just curious. Vigil

Re: The New Avengers - Good Or Bad, Threat Or Menace? To Chimpira: Yes, I do write. In my hometown here, I worked as the resident script analyst for A Channel and have a degree in screen writing. I also had a few scripts optioned in Toronto but never produced. Comic wise, I was (am? lol) in negotiations with an image brand for a couple of new series. Can't say more...but I may be able to privately send you a smaple of the amazing artwotk of my co-creator. Again, no hard feelings in the previous. I just think the industry could do better and has in the past. Cheers. Vigil

Re: The New Avengers - Good Or Bad, Threat Or Menace? I think you make a good point and raise an issue that I hadn't given any real creedence to; that being, Image Comics. To be entirely honest I think Image may be as responsible for the sorry state of a lot of comics today as Vertigo (although I hate them less, lol). I think in their own way Image through their almost pornographic portrayal of women and cardboard approach to ultra-violence contributed to the slide of the industry as much as Vertigo did. I guess, lol, that I just hate them less. In the final analysis I just miss that great point of paralax in the Bronze Age when all of these factors were in balance. Maybe I'm gettin' old.

Re: The New Avengers - Good Or Bad, Threat Or Menace? That's not true either. Those titles that I mentioned would have had substance, with or without the line. remember the greatest Vertigo title ever wasn't even in the line...it was the inspiration for the line, that being Alan Moore's brilliant Swamp Thing. What I'm saying is the Vertigo was created in order to tell "darker" or more "mature" stories that wouldn't fit in with DC's regular line and that somewhere along the line the simple minded editorial staff reached a de facto decision that darker and more mature meant cynical, nihilistic, and juvenille. In an attempt to capture "real" life Vertigo has created a cynical parody of it. Do you know anyone like Constantine? No? Well he's an example of a "realistic" character from Vertigo (and again the character was at his best before his book became a Vertigo imprint). I think what Vertigo managed to do was take characters who were otherwise nuanced and reduce them to dark parodies of their former selves in order to make them "relevant" and realistic. Maybe they were trying to be European or even kinda Japanese but Vertigo, by and large, is a line without irony. By that I mean they have absolutely no appreciation for or understanding of the fact that these characters are as much parodies as Ambush Bug is. And I'm sure the vast majority of Vertigo writers would deny that to their dying breaths (save for Alan Moore who is god-like and beyond reproach). I guess what it ultimately boils down to is that I absolutely despise the pretentiousness of most of the Vertigo line and other books of that ilk. I think maybe the worst consequence of Vertigo is that its contagion seems to have spread to the mainstrem. Now everyone has to be "edgy" and relevant. Take for example the much revamped Hulk and the Jones (I believe it was) revamping. Did all the angst and internal tomrent really do anything to advance or nuance the Hulk My answer is Hell, no beacuse the Hulk is about externalizing inward tension. He's about releasing rage, not brooding existentiallly. As Stan Lee says (and he should know) he's about "Hulk smash!" And I think that points to yet another fundamental flaw of many of the Vertigo style writers. They just don't understand the charcters that they are writing, at all. In fact, I don't think they want to cause they're so egocentric that they want to write what they want to write regardless of the characters. It's this kind of disrespect for character (as brilliant displayed in the Disassembled books) that make me, as a writer and as a fan, livid. It takes no skill whatsoever to maim or mutilate a character. What does take skill is to work within the established parameters of a character, warts and all, and try to find new nuances and new ideas in that. Alan Moore is the undisputed master of this and Busiek is pretty good too due, in part, to the fatc that they oth respect and revel in the characters and their histories. So, finally, what I'm saying is that Vertigo may have a place but let's not forget where it came from and who made who. I think Vertigo has done a great disservice to the industry by glorifying the cyncial and the nihilistic. And I don't think that's progressed anything at all. Vigil

Re: The New Avengers - Good Or Bad, Threat Or Menace? I never, to my knowledge, made any sweeping statements about any company. I was commenting on Vertigo, a LINE of DC Comics, not DC itself. And, even then, I qualified the statement by exempting stuff that had some merit. That being said, I think the problem remains. Vertigo made it's "name " as you will on producing comis for "mature" readers. In fact, all it was was a shallow and cynical excuse to produce comics with lots of over the top and gratuitous content which they'd have a hard time pandering anywhere else. And there was nothing mature about the content. Believe me, I've known my share of drug addicts and they tend not to be so much "mature" as "losers". So, maybe it's a semantic difference but Vertigo, in my opinion, has always pandered to the guttural and the cynical and the self indlugent. Shock value instead of story value. Self indlugence as opposed to story telling. But hey, if that kind of thing works for you, who am I to comment. Vigil

Re: The New Avengers - Good Or Bad, Threat Or Menace? Sandman Mystery Theatre had it's good points, I'll admit and Fables (while I've never read it) is by one of my all times faves, Bill Willingham. What I'm railing against is not so much individual instances of Vertigo as the philosophy behind it. That being that cynicism equals meaningfulness equals maturity. That's garbage and if writers like Milligan, Morrisson (to some extent), BMB, et al had ever graduated from Philosophy 100 they'd know that. That's what I'm saying. In my eyes, "Hulk smash!" is a lot mor honest and meaningful than anything to come out of Shade The Changing Man. Something about putting lipstick on a pig...unless, it's gamma irradiated. Vigil

Re: The New Avengers - Good Or Bad, Threat Or Menace? I'm inclined to agree with Casualplayer, and I think he very succinctly pointed out one of the flaws with all "mature" toned books (and Vertigo is the greatest offender here and always has been). That flaw is that negative doesn't equal mature. Drug addicted doesn't equal mature. Cynical or cranky or psychotic or neurotic or homicidal or suicidal doesn't equal mature. In fact, it tends to be just the oppisite. I think those titles should be labelled, "for Immature" or "adolescent" or "repressed" or "juvenille but pretensious" readers. I think what such title really succeed in doing is removing the joy and wonder and fun from comics. I guess, if you're BMB that's laudable. If you're a serious writer, it's deplorable. Vigil

Re: The New Avengers - Good Or Bad, Threat Or Menace? I have to agree with KA. I am in the process of opening a store and, in my planning, have discovered that comics ahve a minimum margin of 50% on new issues while back issues are all gravy, essentially. Game products have an even higher margin. Now, as a store owner I don't want my establishment to become a library. If I'd wanted that, I'd open an adult bookstore, lol. But I do understand that comics are ridiculously overpriced and it's only for one reason - greed. Corporate greed and creator greed. In an ever shrinking market their greed grows ever larger. So, I tend to graze and sample myself and see no justification not to. Vigil

Re: The New Avengers - Good Or Bad, Threat Or Menace? I have to agree with the "sucked" opinion. I just can't get past the conspicuous writing style. It's like saying" Oh, look at me, I'm a writer. Isn't that weird?!" Maybe the book will show some improvement now that BMB has his cast but the thing I wonder...did he have to destroy the Avengers and decimate 40 years of charcterization, relationships and continuity to do it. Hell, Englehart, Busiek or Shooter would have just had a new line up form or a membership drive. I think the way it's been handled is incredibly egocentric and that's the death of good writing.

Re: The New Avengers - Good Or Bad, Threat Or Menace? Those are, essentially, my thoughts. I started collecting the Avengers as a kid in the early 70's during the Roy Thomas and then Steve Englehart runs. I think what was demonstrated back then and has been in all of the great Avengers scribes, and Busiek is high in the pantheon, is a respect for the Avengers as characters and for their continuity. Take Bob Harras, for example. He penned one of the Avengers darkest stories, the seige of Avengersd mansion by the Masters of Evil. It was a grim, dark and disturbing storyline but he wrote it in such a way as to elevate, not denegrate, the Avenger's heroism. It would have been real easy to be cynical and dark and self indlugent in writing that story but, as good writers do, he rose above the basest and most gratuitous instincts to tell a great story of heroism under fire. Bendis demonstrates none of that. I find his cynical self indulgent portrayal of Captain America particularly odious. Maybe it's just not hip and cool and cynical enough to have Cap actualy stand for ideals greater than self interest. I don't know this just isn't the Avengers that I know and love. Vigil

Hi all, Well, I just read the first issue of the New Avengers and I really can't see what all the fuss, or the necessity for the relaunch, is all about. To me it reads like The Ultimates lite...with one 1/3 less cynicism but all the pretension! Sure, this is only the first issue but I don't see why this story couldn't have been told in regular continuity save for writer's vanity. Even then, a mini-series would suffice. Hell, look at Supreme Powers. It's been 12 issues and they haven't even formed the team...or done anything, really! Why, in a mini series, Bendis could milk getting the team together for maybe 2 years. It would probably be year 4 or 5 before they even get around to fighting anyone. On the plus side, David Finch's art is up to it's usually glossy but kinda generic standard. Again, Jim Lee lite. I don't know folks, maybe I'm too old school Avengers but I miss the days when the Avengers were entertaining and, maybe, relevant. Now it seems they have to be "realistic" and that's no fun at all. But those are my thoughts. What are yours? What works? What doesn't? This New Avengers has been cookin' for a while. Was it worth the wait? Vigil

Re: Election Day Special - The Best Artist In Comics I pretty much agree with evry artist that has been posted in these last few posts and I think they're all great in their own ways. I'd also add Kaluta, Dave Stevens (maybe the best sci fi/fantasy cover artist ever) and artists that I loved from the time I was young like John and Sal Buscema and, of course, Broderick and Starlin (maybe my fave of the 70's). I do disagree with one person mentioned in the lists...Alex Ross. Personally, I think he takes hackery to an entirely new level and I get real tired real quick of his worked over photos. I think he's the most overrated and undertalented artis t working today. Vigil

Re: Election Day Special - Corrected, Yet Again, D'oh - The Best Artist In Comics It's true Ditko did deserve representation, as did Steranko, being another great sixties artist but I felt that no one represented the 60's better than Kirby. I chose Adams as a great transitional figure who bridged the silver to bronze ages and took a radically unorthodox approach to panel layout and a more "realistic" approach to rendering charcters. That's my reason for excluding Steve.

Re: Election Day Special - The Best Artist In Comics Honest, I'd be the last one to give Byrne credit for anything. I think he's the biggest hack working today and has absolutely no respect for the indistry or characterization or history. But, back in the 70's he was the stuff and was probably only rivalled by Perez (who hadn't quite hit his stride but had great promise), Simonson (who did beautiful stuff on Manhunter), Starlin (Warlock, nuff said) and maybe Golden, who did immaculate work especially on the Micronauts but who just never exerted anywhere near the influence Byrne did. As to the absences on the list, it's funny but I actually had Maguire, Hughes and Adams on an earlier list but didn't think they, again, had the kind of pervasive influence others on the list did. If you're wondering who I replaced them with it was JR, Jr.

Re: DEX Averages Another interesting point that was raised and that I forgot to cover in my last post was the idea of normal char maxima and peak human DEX. The way I've always viewed it is that normal humans, including Olympians, etc have DEXes up to 20 whereas "superhuman" human maximun goes to 30. I think that works nicely to explain the discrepancies between guys like Wolverine and Cap (who I just can't envision having DEXes in the 18 -20 range as they would if they were to be scaled according to the normal characteristic maxima) and your usual Olympian. Of course, I have some difficulty with the expanded table which I believe was including in Champions Universe (?). I think it had like legendary human DEX (which I think cap would rationally qualify for) at something like 40 DEX (I may be mistaken on the number) which seems to be going equally wrong in the opposite direction. To me, Cap would be something like SPD 6, DEX 30 and Wolverine would be SPD 5, DEX 26. I think that makes them both distinctive but within a comfortable and sane range. Vigil