2 hours ago, Spence said:

I remember reading about 5 issues of the original Power Pack way back.  But we deployed and by the time we returned and I read comics again, things had nosedived so badly I never really bought any comics again.  I don't really remember the year.  But it has been a while. 

It looked like the writer had a good handle on the characters in the first issue, but characterization took a nosedive after that.  As did the competence of the characters as well given that they were outsmarted by The Wizard, who was incapable of outwitting Jonny Storm. 

The latest issue of the Power Pack series just released, here's hoping that it's an improvement and that Wizard, Boogeyman and C.R.A.D.L.E. receive humiliating defeats.  

10 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

I just wish he'd go back to Conan. 

That'd be good too admittedly.  I'm just hoping that somebody comes along to save my favorite characters from the utter trash fire the current series is.

In my opinion, if they wanted Bobby Lashley to win the WWE World Title, they should've just had him defeat Drew at Wrestlemania.

11 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I think Chris Claremont would do well with Power Pack as well

I can agree with that.  Bringing back the original writer, Louise Simonson, to write the new book would've been a great idea as well.

3 hours ago, Dr. MID-Nite said:

 

The Busiek run was pretty damn good. He understood the characters.

Agreed.  I wish the current writer of Power Pack understood the characters half as well as Busiek understood the Avengers.  Actually, thinking on it, I wish Busiek was writing Power Pack.

29 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Well, and then you get stuff like Squirrel Girl where she spends 75% of the comic hanging out with her grrls and talking, then a few pages of her casually trashing some villain that is ridiculously powerful to show how great she is as the Mary Sue.  Marvel has tried to keep things fresh and interesting by hiring webcomic writers, but they don't quite grasp the format, the story types, or the concepts of superheroes and it shows.  And the editorial staff seems to have zero interest in helping them learn.

At least Squirrel Girl isn't meant to be taken seriously, that's just a running gag that rarely has any actually effect on the world though admittedly if C.R.A.D.L.E. and everybody who supported it was whupped off screen by Squirrel Girl I'd likely jump for joy.  The grimdark stories like Civil War and Outlawed are FAR worse they suck all fun and joy out of this hobby, turning formally heroic characters into hypocritical villains (Civil War and Tony Stark come immediately to mind) or even worse, just plain hypocrites (the X-Men are hanging out on Krakoa being all buddy buddy with genocidal monsters like Apocalypse and Mr. Sinister and we're supposed to still consider them heroes? Are you kidding me with this?).  There's nothing upbeat or fun, just a never ending string of dismal depressing BS as the feces piles higher and higher.  Don't even get me started on how the characters of every member of the Champions were assassinated (aside from Victor Alvarez apparently, I'm told he was always a twat) just to cause this Abomination of a storyline to happen and now, apparently, Power Pack has been brought back and get even take down a c-list paramecium like The Wizard? 

19 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah I feel like the state of comics now is by far the most open to wild, creative and innovative ideas in comic book history.  Why do I say this?  Because it does not need to make money.  Marvel Comics can totally lose money every month and still stay open because the movies make such ridiculous cash (or, at least, used to).  So why not go nuts, do new wild crazy things, why not try stuff that nobody thinks will work, why not give the creators total freedom?

 

Sadly, a certain rigid political viewpoint seems to be dominating the entire industry, which greatly limits the possibilities, and likely annoys a great deal of their customer base as well.  Stan Lee and Steve Ditko both had very strong political viewpoints (diametrically opposed) but they were able to restrain that in most of their work and make sure it was more broadly acceptable to the overall audience.

Straight up bad writing and poor characterization of characters isn't terribly helpful.  Writing intelligent characters as stupid so they'll fit into the story you want to tell rather then altering the story to fit the characters.  Deus ex machina to give the villain the upper hand doesn't really help matters either.  

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Kevin Feige, as a fan himself, also understands and respects why these characters have endured for so long, what it is about them that speaks to us. You can feel the love for them in every Marvel movie.

Pity he can't arrange for people with that sort of love for the characters to write in the comics.  Or at the very least work in Editorial.  A bit more love for the characters might prevent stuff like Outlawed.

1 hour ago, tkdguy said:

 

I didn't watch every episode, but I thought it was pretty good. I also enjoyed the adaptation, but it romanticized things a bit too much.

I enjoyed it too and I think it was fairly close to the book, all things considered.  Didn't seem terribly romanticized to me.

Recently watched the Les Miserables mini series broadcast by PBS in 2019 on DVD.  It's not the musical adaption but a straight adaptation of the book and in my opinion was done pretty well.

15 minutes ago, dmjalund said:

as long as it is made as a Family Friendly Movie rather than a Kids Movie

It's likely the only way Marvel is gonna get my money at this rate.  I mean seriously, a villain managing to get a temporary advantage of a hero is one thing but the story having to strip every single iota of intelligence and competence from the characters to make it happen.    To say nothing of the fact that both Alex and Julie are old enough to be mentors for Jack and Katie at this point, to say nothing of the fact that the Fantastic Four have already been acting as mentors to the characters for awhile now, to say nothing of the fact that CRADLE just handed them off to a character who randomly showed up who was blatantly the Wizard in a different coloured costume.   Yeah Marvel's gonna have to work to win me back and I don't think they care too.  More's the pity.

I love them and always have.  Sadly Marvel who is looking for new TV stuff, is unwilling to use the perfect franchise for a kid's show.  At this point if I had the power I'd do them like the Billy Goat's Curse did the Cubs back in the day, a couple dozen years of abject failure ought to teach them the error of their ways.

So, unfortunately, Outlawed is a thing and even more unfortunately Power Pack is attached to that feces show of a storyline and apparently are now so dim that they don't recognize the freaking Wizard when they seem him because he's pretending to be a hero and wearing a different coloured costume that otherwise looks EXACTLY LIKE HIS REGULAR COSTUME.  If this had resulted in the Pack defeated Wizard in a single issue, as they have with far more powerful villains like Nimrod and Kurse, I'd have no problem with it but that doesn't seem to be what's happening.  If any of the Power Pack gets killed in this story I'm not giving Marvel a single cent of my money ever again.  

So WWE spent all that time building Drew McIntyre....only to job him to The Miz.  It's like they hate making money or something.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Retribution has won the 2020 Gooker Award from Wrestlecrap for worst wrestling related thing in that year.  http://wrestlecrap.com/inductions/gookerwin/retribution-gooker-2020/

6 hours ago, death tribble said:

Bianca Belair won the Women's Royal Rumble from position 3 and Edge won the Men's Royal Rumble from the No 1 position.

Asuka and Charlotte Flair lost the tag team belts.

Randy Orton was the last eliminated in the men's match after he was 'helped to the back for medical assistance' and came back with an RKO from outta nowhere.

Rhea Ripley and Shayne Bazler were made out as beasts in the Rumble taking out 7 and 6 opponents apiece.

Drew McIntyre has also apparently made a miraculous recovery from COVID, as he defeated Goldberg on the show to retain his title.

3 minutes ago, death tribble said:

They might have already recorded it.

 

Just saying.

Well according to the recap I read, McIntyre acknowledged that he tested positive for it on the show.  Despite that they kept on acting as if the match was still going to go on, despite obvious reasons why that's a bad idea.

1 hour ago, Cygnia said:

Vinnie Mac doesn't give a rancid fig about his peons' health

And to make things worse, there's no evidence as of yet that Vince plans to cancel the McIntyre/Goldberg match because of this.

4 hours ago, Cygnia said:

Unless one of the Legends gave it to him...

Fair point, it's still a major bonehead moment for WWE in any case.  I mean honoring the Legends is all well and good but given there's a pandemic going on, perhaps they should've been left at home this time?

6 hours ago, Cygnia said:

WWE announces Drew McIntyre has tested positive for COVID-19

Good job WWE, he has it and since he was at legends night he probably passed it on to all of them as well.  

20 hours ago, Dr. MID-Nite said:

Ah...thank you. I'm a bit out of the loop. I could see that pairing being good.

Admittedly, it does have my interest given that I'm fond of all those guys.

On 12/3/2020 at 11:05 AM, Starlord said:

I had thought Sting had suffered a career ending back injury and that's why he ended his WWE run.  I wonder if he's risking his health.

Well we don't know what he's doing there yet, do we? I mean for all we know he could be the new on air commissioner or something.

So a friend linked me to the first issue of Power Pack's Outlawed tie in and I have to say Ryan North actually gets the characters.  He writes them well and before Civil War Jr used the comic as it's commode the story was fun, interesting and generally delightful.  The Power Pack was handling the situation like true professionals, like a super team should (Champions take note) and if the story had ended with the Powers thwarting Boogeyman and going home it would have been perfect.  Instead we have "blatantly fascist organization that Captain America would be beating the crud out of if Marvel hadn't deballed him in Civil War" interfering and sucking any fun from the comic.  Sadly I don't imagine this is gonna lead to Power Pack effortlessly trouncing said goons, en route to exposing the villain behind this plot to take down teenage heroes either.

1 hour ago, slikmar said:

One More Day story arc was awful (and IIRC forced by editors due to wanting to reboot him from being public ID etc that had happened when he worked for Stark), but up to that point I enjoyed Straczinski's run. Also, the stuff that came right after was terrible, but eventually they actually got to a point where Peter was working at a think tank and respected. He became a serious member of a couple Avenger teams. Basically, the opposite of heaping calumny on him. Sadly, didnt last.

Very sadly.  I'm guessing Slott was the one who decided to begin stripping away the interesting new stuff from Peter in order to return him to the status quo since crapping on Peter Parker is the only thing he seems capable of.