Retro Comics are Awesome

A general discussion forum, plus hauls and silly games.
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Dominic
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

Post by Dominic »

I am still occassionaly lost when I see something that I remember as being "new" being (correctly) presented as old.

DC really did not remove Bruce Wayne. The "big change" stuck for less than a year if I recall, and only a few months of time in context.


Dom
-needs to review more retro comics....
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andersonh1
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

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Dominic wrote:I am still occassionaly lost when I see something that I remember as being "new" being (correctly) presented as old.

DC really did not remove Bruce Wayne. The "big change" stuck for less than a year if I recall, and only a few months of time in context.
From what I've read, Bruce Wayne's removal was never meant to be a permanent change, and Azrael/Batman was a "take that" against the 90s anti-hero trends. It's hard to say, but the fact that Shondra Kinsolving (who ultimately healed Bruce's spine) was seeded into the story so early does tend to support the idea that the writers had the solution to the broken spine planned well in advance.
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Me too.
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Dominic
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

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Knight and Squire:
"Dark X-Men" put Cornell on my radar. That series was a good sylistic riff on the old X-Men comics that was neatly presented as part of Marvel's themed banner-event a few years back. Having read that, and Cornell's pre-"Flash Point" run on "Action Comics", I was more than a little optimistic about "Knight and Squire". Unfortunately, that optimism was unfounded. "Knight and Squire" is a stylistic riff/parody of the (*really* bad) UK superhero comics of yesteryear. I am not sure how much of the obnoxious whimsy and "ohohohohoho so clever" bits are parody and how much or "just British", but the joke wears pretty thin after a chapter or 2. And, Cornell goes out of his way to present the idea that "American comics are no fun and ruin everything" using the Joker as a straw man. In other words, "Knight and Squire" is a bad parody of bad comics...with a name that sounds like a homoerotic pornography magazine.
Grade: C/D

From what I've read, Bruce Wayne's removal was never meant to be a permanent change, and Azrael/Batman was a "take that" against the 90s anti-hero trends. It's hard to say, but the fact that Shondra Kinsolving (who ultimately healed Bruce's spine) was seeded into the story so early does tend to support the idea that the writers had the solution to the broken spine planned well in advance.
That is kind of what I was saying. The fact that Wayne's return was so clearly telegraphed so early means that they never really removed him.

On a related note, has anyone else noticed that DC is reprinting no small amount of pre-"Flash Point" content? And, does anybody remember if they did something like this after CoIE (25+ years ago)? Even if DC is not picky about what they reprint, (and if "Knightfall" and other 90s time-wasters are anything go go by, they ain't being pick), they are going to run out of content to reprint.

And, in the interest of fairness, Marvel is reprinting a good chunk of their 90s product, which by necessity means they are reprinting volumes of crap. (Seriously, did anybody want to see "X-tinction Agenda" of the "Clone Saga" reprinted?)


Dom
-or really, Cap-wolf? Why the hell.....
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

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Dominic wrote:That is kind of what I was saying. The fact that Wayne's return was so clearly telegraphed so early means that they never really removed him.
That was never the point of the story, unlike Hal Jordan's removal over in Green Lantern. The point was not to replace Bruce Wayne, it was to show who he was and why the character works by contrasting him with Jean-Paul Valley.

It's not always about a permanent change to the status quo, nor should it be. I think you get hung up on that sometimes, and you miss out.

And to be fair, given comic trends at the time, it wasn't all that inconceivable that DC might retire Bruce Wayne. It's possible to put all the pieces together in hindsight, but it wasn't so unthinkable at the time.
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Dominic
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

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I admit to having been suckered. On the other hand, given that it was a 20+ part cross-over event, it would not unreasonable to expect a serious payoff.
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

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I found a number of payoffs in that storyline. As I said, if the only payoff you were expecting was for Bruce Wayne to be permanently replaced, then you were going to be disappointed.
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

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For the amount of hype that DC gave "Knightfall" and AzBat, I expected far more than a neat reset at the end. That is one of the reasons that I liked "Emerald Twilight" so much. Hal went nuts, went bad and eventually dead. And, for a while, it stuck. DC *had* to develop other characters.

(This is the same reason that I liked the UT so much, especially when it was side by side with a G1 revival. We got *new* stuff both in terms of events and ideas.)

As much as I like idea driven stories, comics (and most narrative) are event driven. The less sticking power and meaning that the events have, the less the comics themselves matter. The less they matter, the harder it is for me to justify reading them.


Dom
-at least Jim Rhodes got upgraded to War Machine.
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

Post by Onslaught Six »

DC in the 90s was 'all about' killing (or otherwise incapacitating) their flagship characters. Superman died, and miraculously, within a year and a half or so, Batman and Hal Jordan were out of the picture in some way.
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

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Dominic wrote:For the amount of hype that DC gave "Knightfall" and AzBat, I expected far more than a neat reset at the end.
And that's the problem. If all you're looking for is for a story to avoid the reset button, you're going to miss out on some good drama, which Knightfall had in abundance, IMO.

I found the ending interesting, actually. I expected Bruce to come back fighting and beat Azrael in a fight. The book subverted my expectations by having Bruce simply outthink the guy and use the environment of the Batcave to strip Jean Paul of his Batman identity a bit at a time. There wasn't another brutal beatdown, like the ones we'd seen twice already when Bane broke Bruce's spine, and then when Azbats beat Bane. The story ended on a different note, and I enjoyed that.
Onslaught Six wrote:DC in the 90s was 'all about' killing (or otherwise incapacitating) their flagship characters. Superman died, and miraculously, within a year and a half or so, Batman and Hal Jordan were out of the picture in some way.
Wonder Woman was replaced as well, as I recall.
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Dominic
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

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There are so many comics being published that I figure that i can afford to be picky. "Knightfall" was what, 20 chapters across 3 or 4 books? It set the precedent that "Legends of the Dark Knight" was no longer only vaguely in context (if at all) with the rest of the DC books. For the amount of hype "Knightfall" got, they really should have delivered more than a return to exactly the way things were after a drawn out indictment of image.

And, here is an actual review of an old series....


Crystar #1-11 (full series):
Anderson and JT may be the only other people on this forum besides myself who remember "Crystar Crystal Warrior". (Scourge has been absent for so slong and Shockwave may not have seen Crystar in the UK.) The long and short is that the main characters live in an other-dimensional realm that has long been ruled by one family. Twin bothers sit on the throne...yadda yadda, one brother falls to chaos....yadda yadda smickety yackety....civil war.....yadda yadda....

I am not willing to sit here and write out a point by point summary of this book. But, in fairness, it really is not a *bad* series. I get the impression that Jo Duffy was starting her career on this this book. And, she did a competent, if not great, job on it. "Crystar" reads like early 80s Marvel. There are some good concepts alongside some rough execution. (No explanation is given for why the characters can all seem to speak and understand late 20th century English, despite that fact that it is strongly implied that they cannot *read* it.) Duffy did a good job of presenting the main conflict as a 3 way civil war between Crystar, Moltar and their uncle Feldspar. While not set directly in Marvel's 616 world, "Crystar" crossed over with it several times, meeting Doctor Strange, Nightcrawler and several members of Alpha Flight. There are a few places, particularly towards the end, where Duffy seems to leave out important scenes. My impression is that these scenes were cut for reasons of space. (Dialogue establishes that xyz events happened, which means that the omissions were unlikely the result of basic sloppiness.) Duffy's handling of McGuffins is clumsier than one might hope, most glaringly in her handling of Ogeode (the good guys' wizard). He is really powerful, but conveniently stupid and inept when the plot calls for it. He is not quite the level of obnoxiousness of most kid appeal characters, but he could stand to be pushed off of a cliff.


While the basic plot of "Crystar" is not particularly memorable, (I read the 11 issues over about 2 months, and much of it blurs together), it is worth reading as a curiosity. 1982 was when licensed franchises really became a thing. "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" set the precedent for a toy company to farm out a license for a cartoon based on their product. This of course followed on the heel's of "Star Wars" (which was initially held by Marvel). And, before Marvel was publishing "Micronauts" along with "Rom and the Space Knights" for several years before. What set Crystar apart from these books is the business model.

Unlike "Star Wars" or "Micronauts", "Crystar" was owned by Marvel and the toy line by Remco was licensed. Given that this was 1982/83, it is safe to assume that Marvel's motives were purely financial, rather than being worried about preserving their own IP. Marvel probably wanted the market recognition that came with a licensed book without the operational hassle. As far as I know, Marvel had yet to run in to difficulties with the licenses and characters for "Rom and the Space Knights". ("As for as I know, "Transformers" was the last license to be inititally set in 616. And, Marvel has classified that as one of several alternate worlds in order to avoid licensing troubles.) At the time, Marvel had Hasbro's "GI Joe", which sold very well initially. It is safe to assume that Marvel wanted to develop their own "in-house" license. If it worked, Marvel would have a book with built in character recognition *and* be abel to claim a share of action figure sales.

However, despite Marvel having experience in handling licensed books and wholly owning "Crystar" as a property, they made some foolish choices, more propertly called mistakes. At a basic level, Marvel mis-handled the art. To put it simply, the heroic characters did not look like the toys. While some of this could be attributed to stylistic decisions made by the artists, the main character in the comic looked nothing like the main character as a toy. Beyond stylistic differences, Crystar as a comic book character was based on wholly different control art than Crystar the action figure. The only place that Marvel drew Crystar to look like the toy was on the covers and in corner-boxes. (A kid who read the comics might not even recognize the action figure, or vice versa.)

The main character being drawn off-model was not even the most extreme example of Marvel seeming to forget that "Crystar" was being handled like a licensed book. The art. Oh, the art. To put it bluntly, a number of prominent female characters were drawn in a sort of pulpy bad-girl style that is wholly out of place in a book that should be kid friendly. Remember, this book was intended to either introduce kids to the toy-line and comics as a whole, or it was meant to bring kids from toys in to comics. So.....bad-girl art....

There were more than a few panels that made me imagine my cousin and I at the ages of 4 and 5. We had never seen the "Crystar" comics at the time. But, I can imagine us looking them over, noting that "Ika is almost naked", with the mixture of shock and amusement that is so often a source of humour. If a parent were to investigate the snickering of their children...they would likely be shocked though probably not amused. One of the cover images eschews showing (toy accurate) Crystar in favour of a depiction of two of the ladies that goes well in to "guess who shaves where?" territory. (No joke.) I have a hard time seeing that being sold at Toys R Us now, never mind in 1983. Imagine a kid asking "Mommy, can I get a comic?", while holding up something with cover art that would be more at home on the cover of "one of daddy's books".

(Aside: Who the hell thought that bad girl comics were a good idea? Seriously. Who is buying them? I understand the marketability of porn. That makes sense. But, why the hell are people buying erotically drawn comics? Is there really a significant market for it? When I go to the comic store, I am always a little embarassed to realize that I am associated with who-ever it is who is buying those comics......)

The writing is less scandalous, but there is a suprising amount of implied sex and violence for a comic at the time, particularly a theoretically kid-friendly book. (I personally like the reference to the fact that Ogeode was not old....he wife just wanted too much luvin'. I swear that I am not making this up.)

These complaints may seem prudish in light of the modern comic market, where "GI Joe" comics have parental advisories on the cover and TF comics go beyond impied, or even described, violence. But, "Crystar" was published in 1982, and pushed the envelope further than many other books at the time. Even more suprising than that fact that "Crystar" was not more kid friendly is the fact that Marvel did not seem to think that it needed to be kid friendly, despite effectively being a toy-license book.

Aside from being mildly embarassing and inexplicable, the bad girl art does not make "Crystar" a bad comic. Over-all, I would say that Duffer could look back on "Crystar" as an acceptable part of her portfolio. At this point, most of the problems with "Crystar" arguably enhance this book's value as a curiosity beyond it being an example of a comic from the early 80s.

"Crystar" is probably not worth going crazy trying to find just for the sake of finding a comic to read. But, it is worth looking over if you happen to stumble across it.



Dom
-still not sure who thinks that bad girl art in comics is a good idea.
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