Transformers - ongoing series

[Shockwave]

I think part of my problem is that I have a very organized mind and it's to the point where I can't handle taking on things that randomly.

But it is not random. I am buying "Costa" or "Bendis", not "Spiderman".

A collection based on this is hardly disorganized.

I guess I just have to wonder at how haphazzard your collection is if you're just following writers? I mean do you have boxes for each writer? Like "here's the Costa box, next to the Bendis box" etc...?

I actually have stacks. I periodically purge through them. But, no, my collection is not haphazard. Most writers have runs on a given book. And, since I pick up compilations, short runs are treated as regular books.

Be that as it may, it's still not a stack with the same story in it. A writer is not telling the same story with the same characters from one franchise to another. I imagine that the "stack" you wind up with has half a dozen Marvel titles, half a dozen DC titles, intermixed with various indy books. To try and read all of that together would still be a disjointed mess because you're dealing with so many unrelated properties.

And just to clarify, I'm not knocking your system. You have one and it obviously works for you, I'm just trying to illustrate why such an approach would never work for me. It probably has something to do with the ADD.

Beyond that, the one thing I also don't understand is the following the writer bit. I could maybe see this from a professional standpoint if you're wanting to eventually be a writer yourself and are wanting to follow certain writing styles, but to blindly follow writers from one property to the next sounds like it could get expensive after a while. I mean, if Bendis does a good Spiderman book, do you then feel a desire to go get a Spiderman action figure? Or with Cptn America? or Batman? you get the idea. If you're completely delving into the fandoms of the various properties that a writer writes for, that would get enormously costly really quickly. I would, which is why I tend to limit myself to certain fandoms rather than following the writers.

I think one of the other reasons I have the approach that I do is that I grew up playing with certain toy lines and following certain shows or what have you and have have become a fan of those franchises and the characters I grew up with and as such, my interest lies with the characters and the properties so I'm interested in what gets done with them, be it good or bad. So if a good writer writes a good story for a property with characters that I don't care about why am I going to spend money on it? At the end of the day, regardless of how good the story is I'm still not gonna care about the characters and therefore the story isn't going to hold my interest.

Or maybe I'm just weird.

Ok, so I'm gonna hijack the thread for a moment and put this question to the rest of the forum: Do you follow writers like Dom does or the franchise like I do or some mishmash thereof?

[Dominic]

Not even that awesome Mega Man Archie comic that I am the only person in the world buying?

Meant to pick it up. Missed the first issue, so there is no point unless it gets compiled.

(Seriously, how many times in the comics thread do I quote something one of you said about a book, and just the line, "Comic books are fucking retarded?")

Onslaught6 is fucking redundant.

Actually, I tend to agree with you 90% of the time you say it though.....

Wow. I don't know how to respond to this. (I'm not offended, or anything, I just...don't know what to say.)

You could ask me why I think that it is wrong for a man to have skill with interior design. Not being homophobic does not make me immune to charges of stereotyping.

Be that as it may, it's still not a stack with the same story in it. A writer is not telling the same story with the same characters from one franchise to another..

Most writers can put together arcs that are reasonably self-contained. If I was a fan of Johns, I could read his "Flash" of "Green Lantern" without Waid's or Jones' runs on those titles.

A comic series is only a single story in the vaguest sense. Is anybody really going to tell me that pre-CoIE Superman comics are part of the same story that modern Superman comics are?

If a writer goes to a different book, the original story is over and they have moved on to write something else.

But to claim 80% of the run is out of context I think is greatly exaggerating things. Granted, a lot of it may no longer apply to the modern day Superman, but that doesn't mean those stories are completely out of context either.

I am going to say anything before 1985 is right out. About 50% of non-MoS 1986 and 1987. Then, after several reboots in the last 20 years, I would say 80% or so is close enough. If it does not apply to modern Superman, it is out of context.

To try and read all of that together would still be a disjointed mess because you're dealing with so many unrelated properties.

I do not real them all at once though. And, I do not need all of my comics to fit together any more than I need to reflexively support one series because it has some characters in it.

mean, if Bendis does a good Spiderman book, do you then feel a desire to go get a Spiderman action figure? Or with Cptn America? or Batman? you get the idea.

Not really. I only buy figures of characters that I really like, from runs that I really like. I did not run out and buy a Scorpion figure when I was reading "Dark Avengers". I held out for a DA Spiderman. (And, I was sorry about buying that Dark Avengers Spiderman figure.) You will notice that I tend to not half-ass my toy buying.

As much as I like Prowl, I would not just settle for a BW Prowl (arguably the same character as G1) or the Alternator figure if the reason I liked Prowl had more to do with Roche and Roberts. Along similar lines, if I had syphilis and liked the BT pack-in comics, I would not settle for TFU Smokescreen. I would hold out for a proper BT or Alt Smokescreen.

If there is a character that I just happen to like conceptually, (such as Mirage), I am a bit more forgiving. but, you get the idea.

And, liking a writer's work in the past does not obligate me to get everything they write. For example, even if Abnett did not make a piss poor showing recently, I would feel no obligation to go back and buy more than a few of the "Mr. Men" books.



Dom
-just wishes comics would not constantly reset between writers.

[Shockwave]

Not even that awesome Mega Man Archie comic that I am the only person in the world buying?

Meant to pick it up. Missed the first issue, so there is no point unless it gets compiled.

If it's only issue 3, I could jump on and get the three that are out, but with Mega Man, I'd rather get either more games or the figures. Still might check it out. Is it any good?

(Seriously, how many times in the comics thread do I quote something one of you said about a book, and just the line, "Comic books are fucking retarded?")

Onslaught6 is fucking redundant.

Actually, I tend to agree with you 90% of the time you say it though.....

Wow. I don't know how to respond to this. (I'm not offended, or anything, I just...don't know what to say.)

You could ask me why I think that it is wrong for a man to have skill with interior design. Not being homophobic does not make me immune to charges of stereotyping.

And I was just going for the obvious gay joke. Did not mean to offend anyone, so sorry if I did.

Be that as it may, it's still not a stack with the same story in it. A writer is not telling the same story with the same characters from one franchise to another..

Most writers can put together arcs that are reasonably self-contained. If I was a fan of Johns, I could read his "Flash" of "Green Lantern" without Waid's or Jones' runs on those titles.

But, you would still wind up with a stack of Johns' work on several unrelated titles. Which in any comic shop would look like a disjointed mess.

A comic series is only a single story in the vaguest sense. Is anybody really going to tell me that pre-CoIE Superman comics are part of the same story that modern Superman comics are?

I might. I mean those events have to have had some impact on the characters or settings or else what's the point and subsequently, what's the point of writing anything new?

If a writer goes to a different book, the original story is over and they have moved on to write something else.

Yeah, but what if it's something else you don't care about? You mean to tell me that you suddenly develop an interest in characters that you couldn't care less about before just because a particular writer has a good story? That just sounds wierd to me.

But to claim 80% of the run is out of context I think is greatly exaggerating things. Granted, a lot of it may no longer apply to the modern day Superman, but that doesn't mean those stories are completely out of context either.

I am going to say anything before 1985 is right out. About 50% of non-MoS 1986 and 1987. Then, after several reboots in the last 20 years, I would say 80% or so is close enough. If it does not apply to modern Superman, it is out of context.

To try and read all of that together would still be a disjointed mess because you're dealing with so many unrelated properties.

I do not real them all at once though. And, I do not need all of my comics to fit together any more than I need to reflexively support one series because it has some characters in it.

Well ok. I guess that addresses the issues above. I wouldn't have the attention span for that. And such an unrelated collection would bug the living shit out of me. My TF collection is somewhat like that currently which is why I'm selling off so much of it. I want more cohesion. I want that in my fiction as well.

mean, if Bendis does a good Spiderman book, do you then feel a desire to go get a Spiderman action figure? Or with Cptn America? or Batman? you get the idea.

Not really. I only buy figures of characters that I really like, from runs that I really like. I did not run out and buy a Scorpion figure when I was reading "Dark Avengers". I held out for a DA Spiderman. (And, I was sorry about buying that Dark Avengers Spiderman figure.) You will notice that I tend to not half-ass my toy buying.

As much as I like Prowl, I would not just settle for a BW Prowl (arguably the same character as G1) or the Alternator figure if the reason I liked Prowl had more to do with Roche and Roberts. Along similar lines, if I had syphilis and liked the BT pack-in comics, I would not settle for TFU Smokescreen. I would hold out for a proper BT or Alt Smokescreen.

If there is a character that I just happen to like conceptually, (such as Mirage), I am a bit more forgiving. but, you get the idea.

I'm trying, but I'm still not really seeing how that isn't what I was talking about. I mean, if you like Mirage and are willing to just get "a" Mirage rather than a particular version... I dunno where I'm really going with this. Yeah, I guess I see what you mean. I mean, I'm focused right now on trying to have as complete a Classics TF set as possible and trying to sell off other versions of characters that I don't need (Hot Rod is a good example of this since I have about 5 of him and none of them is the one I REALLY want).

And, liking a writer's work in the past does not obligate me to get everything they write. For example, even if Abnett did not make a piss poor showing recently, I would feel no obligation to go back and buy more than a few of the "Mr. Men" books.



Dom
-just wishes comics would not constantly reset between writers.

And that brings up another problem with this method: what's the point of reading a well written story by any writer if the next guy is just gonna come along and retcon it out of existence? And it seems to happen a lot *cough*DC*cough*.

[Dominic]

If it's only issue 3,

Yeah, but I have yet to find the first 2 issues.

And I was just going for the obvious gay joke. Did not mean to offend anyone, so sorry if I did.

Nah, it is cool.

But, you would still wind up with a stack of Johns' work on several unrelated titles. Which in any comic shop would look like a disjointed mess.

There is a difference between random piles of comics and runs of a book by a writer, artist and/or editor.

I mean those events have to have had some impact on the characters or settings or else what's the point and subsequently, what's the point of writing anything new?

If the events are important to the current arc, they will be referenced in the current arc.

Yeah, but what if it's something else you don't care about?

Costa got me to read "GI Joe" again, after I had dropped it. (I was wholly against IDW's run with that franchise.) Bendis got me to read "Ultimate Spiderman" and "Avengers". Do you think that I would have bothered with "All Star Superman" if it was not written by Morrison? The only reason I am flipping through "Action Comics" is because of Paul Cornell.

How is that weird?

I'm trying, but I'm still not really seeing how that isn't what I was talking about. I mean, if you like Mirage and are willing to just get "a" Mirage rather than a particular version...

If I like a character because of a particular story, I get the toy of that character most related to the story in question, rather than just any iteration of the character.

And that brings up another problem with this method: what's the point of reading a well written story by any writer if the next guy is just gonna come along and retcon it out of existence?

All the more reason for the story to be well written unto itself, and to avoid even driven stories.

[BWprowl]

But, you would still wind up with a stack of Johns' work on several unrelated titles. Which in any comic shop would look like a disjointed mess.

I don't see how. I mean, don't most bookstores organize their books by author? Well, genre and author, but most authors tend to write the same genre...look, you get what I'm saying. If all the books say 'Geoff Johns' on them, that's at least as organized as a bunch of books that say 'Green Lantern' on them but have a different author's name on every one, right?

Ok, so I'm gonna hijack the thread for a moment and put this question to the rest of the forum: Do you follow writers like Dom does or the franchise like I do or some mishmash thereof?

I'm kind of a mishmash, as I imagine many are. A lot of times, particularly when I was heavily getting into DC several years ago, I'll go for characters. Basically, I'd always had a general amount of fondness and familiarity for Batman, and ended up flipping through 'War Games' in a store and thought it was really cool. So I bought that. Now, as it turns out, 'War Games' is one of those soft reboot/jumping-on points for Batman, so even though it wasn't the 'beginning' of the story (plus I'm like Dom in that to me, franchise comic characters are just a medium, the story begins and ends with the author), it was still a really good place to get in. So I started keeping up on Batman, mainly through trades, and that pulled me into the then-current Teen Titans series, which I thought was just friggin' aces. Trades helped here too, since I could start at the 'beginning' of the team's story with a trade clearly marked as volume 1, and just go from there. Anyway, I ended up following DC pretty em masse for a while, mainly related to the fact that my latest Batman acquisition, 'R.I.P.' dovetailed directly into 'Final Crisis' (which, incidentally, I like a lot more now than I did then). This was followed up by the 'Blackest Night' (a Final Crisis book dovetailed directly into BN, actually), which then led directly into 'Brightest Day', at which point I really started to wonder when the events were going to give way and the story was just going to be 'over'. Then I naturally realized that IT NEVER ENDS and just dropped all of DC. Cold. Haven't picked up so much as a trade since.

It's worth noting that while I was reading DC, while I tended to stick to characters/teams I liked, I was still aware of authors/artists, and that did affect my buying habits. For instance, I'm a big, big fan of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, and admittedly enjoyed the first reboot series DC did for them in the mid 2000's. But when another volume started up with a new writer/artist team, I ended up dropping it like three issues in just because it was *so bad*. On the other hand, I *only* started reading Power Pack because Gurihiru's art caught my eye and loved it so much, but I really liked author Mark Sumerak's work on the book too, to the point that I read the non-Gurihiru minis just because he was writing them (It's also worth noting that this was a new-continuity restart series that had zilch to do with the regular-universe Marvel stuff). Then Fred van Lente wrote a few Power Pack minis and I was so blown away by how awesome he was that I ended up reading his next series, 'MODOK's 11', despite not caring about MODOK or any of the characters, just because it was written by him (incidentally, this made me a big fan of MODOK. I was quite happy when he was revealed as a character in MvC3).

Back in Gurihiru's corner, their artwork can get me to read *any* book. I picked up one random issue of Wolverine: First Class, just because they did they art in that. And Gurihiru doing the art alongside Brian Clevenger's (of Atomic Robo and 8-Bit Theater) writing, even if it's in a Captain America one-shot and I don't give a flying crap about Captain America? You know I'm there. Conversely, I loved the original Spider-Man Loves Mary-Jane. Picked it up, again, because the art caught my eye (if you know me, you know I'm a huge art whore. Is an art whore a thing? Like Graphics Whores for video games?), but ended up really liking Sean McKeever's writing, so much that I was happy to follow him over to Teen Titans when he went. But when they relaunched SMLMJ a while back with a new artist/writer team, I lost all interest after one issue since the new art and writing wasn't anything like why I had liked the original series in the first place.

So I guess I like following a character if a particular story makes me like them (how else would you end up liking a character, anyway?), but you can bet your ass I'm going to drop a book or series hard if a new author doesn't live up to my expectations for said character. And I happily follow authors and artists that I really like, especially if, like Brian Clevenger, they've got a really terrific distinctive style that makes me just want more of them. I guess it comes from my past-days manga addiction, where a series, even a long-runner, is ALL one author. So called series in Manga actually end, unlike American comics where they just go forever and ever, so if you want 'more of that' in Manga, you generally have no choice but to follow the author to their next series. Love Hina was one of the first series I ever bought, and after it ended, I was only too happy to start buying Akamatsu's next series: Negima, which you should all know by now I love just a little too much. But get this, there is actually a separate, spin-off Negima manga *not* by Ken Akamatsu, which I only have a few volumes of, because the guy writing/drawing it sucks and doesn't do Negima the way I like. Ditto for that *horrible* new Negima Kindergarten or whatever series. It may say 'Negima' on the cover, but it's not Ken Akamatsu doing kickass Negima stories, so I have little to no interest. Similarly, I'll buy just about anything Suzuhito Yasuda puts out, I've been in love with that guy's work since I saw those short stories in 'Robot'. Hell, I saw Brian Lee O'Malley's 'Lost at Sea' as an essential part of my Scott Pilgrim collection.

(Side note Shockwave: If you like the idea of comics but can't stand the idea of starting at the beginning of a series that started seventy years ago, you might try a manga series or two. It's a lot easier to find/buy/read a Volume 1 of, say, Dragonball than it is for Action Comics #1)

So that was a long answer to a straightforward question. Sorry.

Grant Morrison even riffs on this in All-Star Superman (and McCarthy ganks it wholesale for the opening of All Hail Megatron) by basically going, "You know exactly how the fuck Superman got to where he is now, I'm not going to piss around telling you that. I got shit to do, man."

This is part of why mainstream superhero movies being origin stories continues to piss me off. We're getting a Spiderman reboot--is it entirely necessary for Spider-Man to suddenly be a teenager, in high school, learning to cope with his suddenly-new powers again? Can't we just do what The Incredible Hulk did and have a movie where the beginning is all "Yeah, you know who Spider-Man is. You don't have to deal with all the BS."

Man, tell that to this lady I had in an English class once, who admitted that she was not aware that Superman was an alien, or where his power came from. She thought he was just an earth human who could magically fly around and shoot eye-lasers I guess. My point is, there's always going to be a few of these people, and the chance to use them to sell one more movie ticket is why Hollywood's going to make these things as accessible as possible.

On the other hand, I just saw the Captain America movie last night (I liked it). Now, I had that 'general nerd knowledge' of Captain America going in, but there was a lot I *didn't* know about him, so getting some of those gaps filled in instead of just assuming I knew everything about the character was kind of nice. And before you say anything, yes, I'm sure they changed a bunch of stuff for the movie version and it probably has nothing to do with the comic stories so I wasn't technically actually filling in any gaps, but it's the *idea* behind it that I appreciated, especially since I'd say that they *do* have to go over some of that basic stuff with these less well-known characters like Captain America, Thor, and Green Lantern. Yes, lots of people know the names and could probably list a power or two, but whereas any dumb lady in an English Class can at least tell you that Superman is Clark Kent or Spider-Man is Peter Parker, they're just going to look at you funny if you let slip that you know that Cap's real name is Steve Rogers (and hell, I still can't remember off the top of my head what Thor's civilian name is).

I mean, when you start watching a television show--on TV--there's a pretty good chance you're not starting from the first episode. How many sitcoms have you seen where your first exposure wasn't the first episode--let alone episodes from the first season? You don't always need the entire linear experience to know a character.

For the record, I watch almost all the shows I watch by downloading or buying complete sets/seasons, so yeah, I almost always start from the first episode and work my way through.

Be that as it may, the stereotype is still there and is one that I've really had to fight to overcome. People have often made assumptions to my character based on that stereotype. It's gotten to the point where I don't even tell people I'm a Star Trek fan anymore. Course, that's largely due to the lack of interest in the hobby over the last several years.

We have three Michael Bay movies in our franchise. Transformers may well be looked down on more than Star Trek at this point.

To be fair, not all Trek fans collect toys. Almost all TF fans do. That's a pretty wide society-point margin already there.

[138 Scourge]

Ok, so I'm gonna hijack the thread for a moment and put this question to the rest of the forum: Do you follow writers like Dom does or the franchise like I do or some mishmash thereof?

Little of both, I guess. There's some characters that I'm a big fan of that I'll check out wherever they show up. Fantastic Four and Power Pack are good examples. This doesn't mean that I feel obligated to buy everything with an FF on it...honestly, most of the time I'm not buying the FF's book regularly, but I'll check in to see what's going on in their comics every now and again. Or like, right now, when FF's got a really strong creative team and interesting things going on, I'll buy the book regularly.

I've read enough comics in my day that I've got vague affection for most superhero type characters, though. Iron Man may not always be a favorite, but I know some dudes are just gonna do an awesome job on him. The Punisher may be a borderline joke one-note character, but there's been just amazing runs on his various books. Hell, I've even found Venom comics I like lately, and I never thought I'd like that dude.

For the most part I'll follow writers on what they're doing. This makes sense to me, if a writer's done a good job writing one character, then why not check out what they do with another one? To continue Prowl's example, I followed Van Lente from Power Pack (which, actually, I bought that book for the characters, as I'm an old-school fan of 'em), onto M.O.D.O.K. (another character I've always liked), then to Hercules, a character I've never cared that much about. And man, that book made Herc one of my favorites in the Marvel universe.

Also, take f'rinstance, I liked Brubaker's work on Iron Fist and Captain America. So I check out his books "Criminal" and "Incognito", the former of which is a series of pulpy crime stories, and the other of which is pulpy creator-owned supervillain crime stories. Now, the characters in here never showed up anywhere else, so I'd pretty much have to be following Brubaker to have taken the chance on 'em.

Besides, there's a dark side to following particular characters regardless of creative team...I loved Grant Morrison's Justice League comics, for the most part. But if I stuck with Justice League forever after that, I'd be feeling like I needed to buy the upcoming version of the book by Johns and Jim Lee, a pair of guys whose work I do not enjoy a bit. There's no reason for me to put myself through that out of some loyalty to the characters, is there?

Then again, there's some characters who I won't follow for anything. Fred Van Lente wrote an issue of Deadpool Team-Up where Deadpool teamed up with Hercules, and I didn't buy that thing. I ain't buyin' Deadpool comics for nobody.

[Shockwave]

Yeah, but what if it's something else you don't care about?

Costa got me to read "GI Joe" again, after I had dropped it. (I was wholly against IDW's run with that franchise.) Bendis got me to read "Ultimate Spiderman" and "Avengers". Do you think that I would have bothered with "All Star Superman" if it was not written by Morrison? The only reason I am flipping through "Action Comics" is because of Paul Cornell.

How is that weird?

Because you're the only one I've known that does this. As such, I'm fascinated and have questions. And next question is this: So how far does that extend? If Costa were to write a comic based on a soap opera like All My Children, One Life to Live or General Hospital would you read those too?

And that brings up another problem with this method: what's the point of reading a well written story by any writer if the next guy is just gonna come along and retcon it out of existence?

All the more reason for the story to be well written unto itself, and to avoid even driven stories.

Nice try, but that you can't honestly sit there and tell me that if you read an awesome story that was retconned an issue later you wouldn't be pissed? I'm calling bullshit.

But, you would still wind up with a stack of Johns' work on several unrelated titles. Which in any comic shop would look like a disjointed mess.

I don't see how. I mean, don't most bookstores organize their books by author? Well, genre and author, but most authors tend to write the same genre...look, you get what I'm saying. If all the books say 'Geoff Johns' on them, that's at least as organized as a bunch of books that say 'Green Lantern' on them but have a different author's name on every one, right?

Actually book stores and libraries have books listed first by genre, then by title . But I get your point and it's still a perfectly valid one.

Ok, so I'm gonna hijack the thread for a moment and put this question to the rest of the forum: Do you follow writers like Dom does or the franchise like I do or some mishmash thereof?

I'm kind of a mishmash, as I imagine many are. A lot of times, particularly when I was heavily getting into DC several years ago, I'll go for characters. Basically, I'd always had a general amount of fondness and familiarity for Batman, and ended up flipping through 'War Games' in a store and thought it was really cool. So I bought that. Now, as it turns out, 'War Games' is one of those soft reboot/jumping-on points for Batman, so even though it wasn't the 'beginning' of the story (plus I'm like Dom in that to me, franchise comic characters are just a medium, the story begins and ends with the author), it was still a really good place to get in. So I started keeping up on Batman, mainly through trades, and that pulled me into the then-current Teen Titans series, which I thought was just friggin' aces. Trades helped here too, since I could start at the 'beginning' of the team's story with a trade clearly marked as volume 1, and just go from there. Anyway, I ended up following DC pretty em masse for a while, mainly related to the fact that my latest Batman acquisition, 'R.I.P.' dovetailed directly into 'Final Crisis' (which, incidentally, I like a lot more now than I did then). This was followed up by the 'Blackest Night' (a Final Crisis book dovetailed directly into BN, actually), which then led directly into 'Brightest Day', at which point I really started to wonder when the events were going to give way and the story was just going to be 'over'. Then I naturally realized that IT NEVER ENDS and just dropped all of DC. Cold. Haven't picked up so much as a trade since.

It's worth noting that while I was reading DC, while I tended to stick to characters/teams I liked, I was still aware of authors/artists, and that did affect my buying habits. For instance, I'm a big, big fan of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, and admittedly enjoyed the first reboot series DC did for them in the mid 2000's. But when another volume started up with a new writer/artist team, I ended up dropping it like three issues in just because it was *so bad*. On the other hand, I *only* started reading Power Pack because Gurihiru's art caught my eye and loved it so much, but I really liked author Mark Sumerak's work on the book too, to the point that I read the non-Gurihiru minis just because he was writing them (It's also worth noting that this was a new-continuity restart series that had zilch to do with the regular-universe Marvel stuff). Then Fred van Lente wrote a few Power Pack minis and I was so blown away by how awesome he was that I ended up reading his next series, 'MODOK's 11', despite not caring about MODOK or any of the characters, just because it was written by him (incidentally, this made me a big fan of MODOK. I was quite happy when he was revealed as a character in MvC3).

Back in Gurihiru's corner, their artwork can get me to read *any* book. I picked up one random issue of Wolverine: First Class, just because they did they art in that. And Gurihiru doing the art alongside Brian Clevenger's (of Atomic Robo and 8-Bit Theater) writing, even if it's in a Captain America one-shot and I don't give a flying crap about Captain America? You know I'm there. Conversely, I loved the original Spider-Man Loves Mary-Jane. Picked it up, again, because the art caught my eye (if you know me, you know I'm a huge art whore. Is an art whore a thing? Like Graphics Whores for video games?), but ended up really liking Sean McKeever's writing, so much that I was happy to follow him over to Teen Titans when he went. But when they relaunched SMLMJ a while back with a new artist/writer team, I lost all interest after one issue since the new art and writing wasn't anything like why I had liked the original series in the first place.

So I guess I like following a character if a particular story makes me like them (how else would you end up liking a character, anyway?), but you can bet your ass I'm going to drop a book or series hard if a new author doesn't live up to my expectations for said character. And I happily follow authors and artists that I really like, especially if, like Brian Clevenger, they've got a really terrific distinctive style that makes me just want more of them. I guess it comes from my past-days manga addiction, where a series, even a long-runner, is ALL one author. So called series in Manga actually end, unlike American comics where they just go forever and ever, so if you want 'more of that' in Manga, you generally have no choice but to follow the author to their next series. Love Hina was one of the first series I ever bought, and after it ended, I was only too happy to start buying Akamatsu's next series: Negima, which you should all know by now I love just a little too much. But get this, there is actually a separate, spin-off Negima manga *not* by Ken Akamatsu, which I only have a few volumes of, because the guy writing/drawing it sucks and doesn't do Negima the way I like. Ditto for that *horrible* new Negima Kindergarten or whatever series. It may say 'Negima' on the cover, but it's not Ken Akamatsu doing kickass Negima stories, so I have little to no interest. Similarly, I'll buy just about anything Suzuhito Yasuda puts out, I've been in love with that guy's work since I saw those short stories in 'Robot'. Hell, I saw Brian Lee O'Malley's 'Lost at Sea' as an essential part of my Scott Pilgrim collection.

(Side note Shockwave: If you like the idea of comics but can't stand the idea of starting at the beginning of a series that started seventy years ago, you might try a manga series or two. It's a lot easier to find/buy/read a Volume 1 of, say, Dragonball than it is for Action Comics #1)

So that was a long answer to a straightforward question. Sorry.

Well it was the answer I'm looking for so it works. So far I guess I'm the weird one for following the franchise. I'll have to try to figure a way to adequately explain why I do that.

Grant Morrison even riffs on this in All-Star Superman (and McCarthy ganks it wholesale for the opening of All Hail Megatron) by basically going, "You know exactly how the fuck Superman got to where he is now, I'm not going to piss around telling you that. I got shit to do, man."

This is part of why mainstream superhero movies being origin stories continues to piss me off. We're getting a Spiderman reboot--is it entirely necessary for Spider-Man to suddenly be a teenager, in high school, learning to cope with his suddenly-new powers again? Can't we just do what The Incredible Hulk did and have a movie where the beginning is all "Yeah, you know who Spider-Man is. You don't have to deal with all the BS."

Man, tell that to this lady I had in an English class once, who admitted that she was not aware that Superman was an alien, or where his power came from. She thought he was just an earth human who could magically fly around and shoot eye-lasers I guess. My point is, there's always going to be a few of these people, and the chance to use them to sell one more movie ticket is why Hollywood's going to make these things as accessible as possible.

On the other hand, I just saw the Captain America movie last night (I liked it). Now, I had that 'general nerd knowledge' of Captain America going in, but there was a lot I *didn't* know about him, so getting some of those gaps filled in instead of just assuming I knew everything about the character was kind of nice. And before you say anything, yes, I'm sure they changed a bunch of stuff for the movie version and it probably has nothing to do with the comic stories so I wasn't technically actually filling in any gaps, but it's the *idea* behind it that I appreciated, especially since I'd say that they *do* have to go over some of that basic stuff with these less well-known characters like Captain America, Thor, and Green Lantern. Yes, lots of people know the names and could probably list a power or two, but whereas any dumb lady in an English Class can at least tell you that Superman is Clark Kent or Spider-Man is Peter Parker, they're just going to look at you funny if you let slip that you know that Cap's real name is Steve Rogers (and hell, I still can't remember off the top of my head what Thor's civilian name is).

Dr. Blake... something.

[138 Scourge]

Doctor Donald Blake, though Thor's kind of weird in that he's actually Thor, the Doctor Blake thing is just a disguise. As such, he's taken on other identities every now and again. In one case he just pulled his hair back in a ponytail, put on glasses, and went to work as a construction worker.

Well, I mean, he changed into regular clothes, too, but y'know.

Also, he didn't use the Doctor Blake identity in the movie, but Blake was mentioned as an ex of Natalie Portman's character.

[BWprowl]

Doctor Donald Blake, though Thor's kind of weird in that he's actually Thor, the Doctor Blake thing is just a disguise. As such, he's taken on other identities every now and again. In one case he just pulled his hair back in a ponytail, put on glasses, and went to work as a construction worker.

Well, I mean, he changed into regular clothes, too, but y'know.

That last bit was hilarious, since it retroactively produced an image of Thor, in full costume, with a ponytail and glasses, working on a construction crew, and NOBODY noticing. I'm still chuckling.

That said, if Thor's weird for the Dr. Blake thing being the disguise, what does that make Superman? Because he does that too, and Superman is the generic-est, most 'regular' superhero around. It's all the other guys who're weird! Except for Thor.

[138 Scourge]

That said, if Thor's weird for the Dr. Blake thing being the disguise, what does that make Superman? Because he does that too, and Superman is the generic-est, most 'regular' superhero around. It's all the other guys who're weird! Except for Thor.

Yeah, but Clark Kent is still dude's given name, and who he was raised as and everything. Don Blake's a smaller guy than Thor with short hair who walks with a limp. In the early Thor comics, Blake was a real dude who found the hammer (disguised as a stick) and turned into Thor using it. Later, someone decided "Wait, then...where's the Thor who'd have been around back in the Viking days?" So they decided that Don Blake wasn't a real dude at all, but was always a disguise for Thor. Thor'd basically been turned into Dr. Blake when he pissed Odin off at one point.

So then later Thor gets rid of the spell that lets him disguise himself, and kicks that over to Beta Ray Bill, so he can turn himself back into his normal form (picture movie Voldemort with a John Bohner tan), and he just starts Clark Kenting it with the alias Sidgurd Jarlson (nice inconspicuous name, there). There's even a backup story where Blake's practice is shut down and the identity's retired. Nowadays I think Blake's back, but I don't know if he was ever a separate guy or not.

Cue O6's standard response. Anyway, like I said, Thor's human ID is kind of a weird case.