Comics are Awesome III

A general discussion forum, plus hauls and silly games.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

Post by andersonh1 »

Denny O'Neill has died at the age of 81.

https://www.gamesradar.com/legendary-ba ... at-age-81/
Dennis J. "Denny" O'Neil has died at age 81. As confirmed by his family, the legendary comic book writer died at home of natural causes on the night of June 11.

O’Neil was best known for his work on Batman, which included writing Batman, Detective Comics, and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, as well as editing DC’s Batman titles from 1986 to 2000. He, editor Julius Schwartz, and artist Neal Adams are credited for guiding the Dark Knight back to his darker roots after a period of campiness brought on by the success of the 1960s Batman TV series.

During his time on Batman, he created/co-created Ra’s al Ghul, Talia al Ghul, Leslie Thompkins, Azrael, and Richard Dragon; he was also involved in the revitalization of the Joker and Two-Face as modern DC villains, and oversaw the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin.
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Ursus mellifera
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Image
Check it out, a honey bear! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkajou
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Shockwave
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Apparently he is also responsible for naming Optimus Prime.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Apparently so, and he did a lot of the initial work developing the Transformers fiction for Marvel, which was revised by others.

https://rooktopia.wordpress.com/2007/08 ... nsformers/

Bob Budiansky: My recollection is different, but only slightly. Shooter and O’Neil came up with the backstory, that’s true. I had nothing to do with that. Shooter brought me in when most of the initial names and at least some of the character profiles were rejected by Hasbro. For whatever reason, Denny declined to revise them. So, facing an imminent deadline, Shooter scoured the Marvel editorial offices looking for someone who could write at least basic English. The first few Marvel editors Shooter approached, all with more writing experience than me, wanted nothing to do with Transformers. I was probably Shooter’s third or fourth choice. I turned around the revisions over a couple of days — right before Thanksgiving of 1983 — and Hasbro was very pleased with what I wrote. I renamed most of the characters (Optimus Prime was Denny’s, Megatron was mine), and revised some character profiles.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Back to normal on comics with issues of Hawkman, Justice League, Transformers (finally!), Green Lantern, a $1.00 reprint of a John Byrne FF issue, and Death Metal #1. I had been looking for this series, which will hopefully resolve the cliffhanger at the end of Snyder's Justice League run. Among other things I noted in my quick browse: Batman using a black lantern ring to fight the Batman Who Laughs, who is killed by Wonder Woman with a chainsaw made from melted metal of the invisible jet, which is typical of the crazy stuff Snyder comes up with in these stories. And Wally West is in the story, still in the Dr. Manhattan-blue uniform (and Manhattan is mentioned) but no longer all powerful or on the Mobius chair. I suspect Didio's firing and hitting the brakes on 5G changed whatever was planned for him.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Green Lantern 80th Anniversary issue - Very nice, far better than the similar Flash issue that we got not too long ago. The one drawback is that the stories are fairly short, probably to cram more into the book, and while that's a good thing, many of these writers seem to have a hard time telling a story in 8 pages. Still, this book revisits a number of past eras, often bringing old creative teams back. Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis tell a Hal Jordan story. Denny O'Neil and Mike Grell tell a GL/GA team up story. Ron Marz and Darryl Banks get to revisit Kyle Rayner and Warrior's Bar. Gary Frank draws Alan Scott's GL story, which looks outstanding. Robert Venditti and Rafael Sandoval handle a "four corpsmen" story with Hal, Guy, John and Kyle, drawing on the recent Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps series. There are other stories and other creative teams, and overall I'd say this is a very strong anniversary issue and it's nice to see some of these guys going back to their version of the characters and getting another shot at them.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Death Metal 2 and 3 - The (I assume) conclusion of the story from Scott Snyder's Justice League. Snyder does two things here, as always, he takes a pretty detailed knowledge of DC's history and characters and uses that to crank the comic book craziness up to a 12 out of 10. His stories and situations are just absurd, and he knows it and just runs with it. I looked for issue 2 a few weeks back and didn't find it, but I found 2 and 3 today. Without going into all the crazy plot details, Perpetua won the conflict over in Justice League and recreated the universe to her liking (which is of course very bad) and the few remaining heroes are trying to stop her. Wally West has some of Dr. Manhattan's power as detailed in the "Flash Forward" miniseries, and now the Batman Who Laughs has some as well. Whoever gets the last reservoir can in theory remake the universe and stop Perpetua. It's an absurd and impossibly huge premise, and it's so much fun to read that Justice League since he left has been pretty dry and pedestrian by comparison.

If nothing else, I enjoyed seeing Jay, Barry and Wally running together again. After all of this I'll have had quite enough of evil Batmen to last me for a long time though. Ridiculous fun high-stakes comic book storytelling.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Hawkman 26 - Venditti's main storyline comes to an end as Hawkman and Hawkwoman kill "the Lord beyond the Void" and end Hawkman's reincarnation cycle. The two are given the option of one more life, and they take it, ending up with the JSA at the end of the issue. Venditti took the reincarnation idea about as far as it could go, and finally moves the character past it (though we had a similar idea during Brightest Day, which did not stick, so we'll see if this version does), just a few issues before the series will be cancelled. Too bad, it's been the best Hawkman series in a long time, with Venditti doing a better job than most writers at finding the right balance between Carter Hall as both an intelligent and cultured man and a brutal hand to hand combatant.

Green Lantern #6 - Hal's in the hospital after the beating he took last issue, only for the anti-matter versions of several corps members to attack and kill a number of GLs, including apparently Hal himself, who appears with the Guardians at the end of the issue looking very much like the Spectre. This issue is more straightforward than the last few have been, and I enjoyed it more. This book has been a struggle for a few months.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Three Jokers #1 - How long ago was this storyline teased? I think it was the end of the New 52 during Darkseid War. It's a Black Label book, so I don't know if it's meant to be in continuity or not. Regardless, the story follows Batman, Red Hood and Batgirl as they investigate three crimes committed at the same time by the Joker, so they figure one is real and the other two are impostors. But there do actually appear to be three Jokers, based off different ways in which the Joker has been portrayed over the years. This could be a really inspired idea by Geoff Johns, or it could turn out to be terrible. There's no way to know from this issue, which leans heavily into various Joker stories from the past where he hurt Barbara, Jason and Bruce and left scars on all three. We get the Joker fish, we get flashbacks to A Death in the Family and The Killing Joke, and we get (apparently) three Jokers in the same room at the same time. And Jason kills one of them at the end. I have no idea where this is going or how it will all be explained.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

Post by Sparky Prime »

Earth One Green Lantern Vol2.

Three years following the events of volume 1... Earth has begun talks with alien worlds. Their first visit however doesn't go well, as one of the alien ships exploded in Earth orbit, causing them to retaliate against a military space station. Hal begins to investigate, but gets sidetracked when the GL Corps detects the Manhunters returning to Oa. The GLs take the opportunity to attack in order to reclaim the planet, but find the Manhunters already taken out, thanks to a Guardian and his new Yellow Lanterns. He wants the GLs to join his new Corps, but Hal doesn't trust him, given his plan in the previous volume involved sacrificing the slaves the Manhunters had taken. Many Green Lanterns (such as Sinestro and Tomar-Re) end up taking the Guardian up on his offer.

Finding out a Yellow Lantern was responsible for the destruction of the alien ship at Earth, Hal figures out the Guardian actually arranged the whole situation, and was in league with corrupt elements within Earths government. Before Hal is able to do anything about it though, the Guardian has the Yellow Lanterns attack the remaining GLs, and takes out the GL Central Battery which instantly depowers them. Hal, being in space at the time, is saved by the ambassadors of Earth who'd been taken hostage following the incident at Earth (and subsequently freed by a Qwardian that gave them his Yellow power ring because he disagreed with what the Guardian was doing), as well as a human built prototype FTL ship.

Believing the Guardian transported the GL Central Battery to another universe the Guardian had escaped to during the Manhunter invasion, Hal and his fellow humans launch an attack against the Guardian's ship. Hal confronts the Guardian alone, whom offers Hal the chance to join him once again, revealing his evil plot to remake the universe as he sees fit, which Hal obviously turns down. The attack.. doesn't go according to plan, but they get some backup from a few GLs that managed to survive and arrive in either ships or with Yellow Rings, as well at the rest of the Yellow Lanterns that turn against the Guardian. Hal manages to kill the Guardian and destroy his ship, but ends up trapped in a parallel universe, where the Green Central Battery turns out had been transported to, and becomes the new "Guardian" (a name he wishes they wouldn't call him) to the Qwardian people.

--
Honestly, I did not enjoy this volume as much as the first. The plot just seems a little... all over the place, and too convenient at times. Like with the Manhunters... The Guardian does explain the Yellow Lanterns are more powerful than the Green Lanterns (and Green as it turns out is more powerful in the parallel universe), but they are taken out way too easily. There's also really nothing to establish how the Yellow Lanterns are any different from the Green Lanterns here, beyond being somewhat more powerful. The Green Lanterns speculate that the Guardian might hold some sort of control over them, but when Sinestro questions him at one point, there's no indication the Guardian has any influence over him, and simply tells him to follow his orders so long as he wears a Yellow ring. I also would have liked a little more follow up at the end... I suppose it is left open for another potential sequel though. John Stewart is featured in this book as one of the Earth ambassadors (for some reason, it seems odd an architect/former soldier would be chosen as one of three people to be the first ambassadors to an alien race). He ends up with a Yellow ring, but he's not sure if he will keep it or not at the end of the story. And given the Yellow Battery is in one universe, and Green is trapped with Hal in another, does that mean the Yellow Lanterns will replace the Green Lanterns as the police force in the universe? That's the impression I get is that is where they're going, but it isn't really established.
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