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Topic: Stories that should NEVER be told.. (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 03 February 2007 at 9:29am | IP Logged | 1  

Your mention of births, JB, is that why you decided to end FF #267 the way you did?

***

No.

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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 03 February 2007 at 9:32am | IP Logged | 2  

To my mind, this is what all subsequent sequals were based upon; the fact that the future hadn't been altered at all, just the journey to get there.

***

The purpose of that scene was to create an "Uh oh…" moment in the minds of the readers. It was not to say "Look! It's all going to happen anyway!"

Difficult to read it in the proper context, I suppose, given everything that has been troweled into the story since, but that does not alter the original intent.

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Emery Calame
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Posted: 03 February 2007 at 9:37am | IP Logged | 3  

I think that "modernization/throw the baby out with the bathwater stories" that move the main character into a new "millieu" by casually destroying the old one, should be banned. The positive sales  generated by readers reacting with shock over such a thing is usually short lived. The damage isn't. Violaters should be tracked in a database and prevented from ever getting a pizza or chinese food or deli delivered EVER AGAIN.

Example: If your new Thor comic starts with all (or most) of the gods being killed and Asgard on fire just so a scientifically resurrected Thor can dress like a road warrior character, fight sadistic demon possessed cyborgs in some post apocalyptic cyberpunk dystopia , and deal with his addiction to exotic drugs that he needed to tend the pain of his nigh-fatal "Jourmangand venom wounds" ........then you have to walk or drive to get that double chicken burrito from now on.

Or you could make it clear that this is a story that is not related to the current Thor continuity



Edited by Emery Calame on 03 February 2007 at 9:51am
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Glenn Greenberg
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Posted: 03 February 2007 at 9:47am | IP Logged | 4  

JB wrote:
<<Marriages... Divorces>>


In the last issue of your first run on THE INCREDIBLE HULK, you had Bruce and Betty get married. Would you consider this to be an exception to the rule, and if so, what makes it one?

(And if the marriage was always intended to be undone, how would you do it, other than by divorce?)
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Stanton L. Kushner
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Posted: 03 February 2007 at 9:49am | IP Logged | 5  


 QUOTE:

When the lunatic fringe was just that, and ignorable, sue. But when the fringe has become a large part of the main fabric, when it seems sometimes that the rational, sane fans who read strictly for pleasure have become the fringe --- then we're in trouble.

The fans-turned-pro have been running the industry for 20-25 years now, though, and the characters are still around.  And even though their comics aren't selling what they once did, the characters themselves are as popular as ever, in large part because of the various movies.

It's like this for me - I thought the Spider-Clone thing in the 90's was about the dumbest idea I'd ever heard, to the point that i could not believe that anyone, anywhere thought it was a good idea.  The resulting sprawl of a story is more or less the poster child for Comics Gone Awry - but 10 years later Spider-Man is still swinging around.  If that didn't do him in, it's hard for me to believe that anything short of turning him into a serial killer will.

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Paulo Pereira
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Posted: 03 February 2007 at 9:52am | IP Logged | 6  


 QUOTE:
Example: If your new Thor comic starts with all (or most) of the gods being killed and Asgard on fire just so a scientifically resurrected Thor can dress like a road warrior character, fight sadistic demon possessed cyborgs in some post apocalyptic cyberpunk dystopia , and deal with his addiction to exotic drugs that he needed to tend the pain of his nigh-fatal "Jourmangand venom wounds" ........then you have to walk or drive to get that double chicken burrito from now on.

Or you could make it clear that this is a story that is not related to the current Thor continuity

Put it outside of mainstream continuity and I actually find this idea intriguing.

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Robert Last
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Posted: 03 February 2007 at 9:57am | IP Logged | 7  


How strange... I was going to use the "Throw the baby out with the bathwater" metaphor in the completely opposite way. If nothing ever happens in a comic because you are afraid of losing readers, then all you can really DO is lose readers.

For example: before I'd read Brubakers' Captain America run, I would have agreed 100% Bucky shouldn't be brought back, but he's done it perfectly.  If people turn against the idea, then yes, he can be "Cosmic cube'd" outta there.  As it stands Captain America has to face up to a whole different range of emotions, and deal with them.  AND Bucky still died.  Cap is STILL going to feel like he let Bucky down.

Beneath the modern gloss, Ed Brubaker is writing a very traditional Marvel comic.

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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 03 February 2007 at 9:57am | IP Logged | 8  

Marriages... Divorces

+++

In the last issue of your first run on THE INCREDIBLE HULK, you had Bruce and Betty get married. Would you consider this to be an exception to the rule, and if so, what makes it one?

(And if the marriage was always intended to be undone, how would you do it, other than by divorce?)

***

None of the above.

It's been 20-odd years since I did those HULK issues. I have reconsidered what I think should or should not happen in the kind of serial fiction we do in comics.

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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 03 February 2007 at 10:00am | IP Logged | 9  

The fans-turned-pro have been running the industry for 20-25 years now, though, and the characters are still around.

***

Not at all.

What we have seen is a kind of attrition. Twenty or thirty years ago, when I became a fan-turned-pro, many of the older, wiser heads were still in command. Us young punks learned the ropes from people who had been in the business for sometimes decades longer than us.

But in the past decade or so, the balance has tipped. The Old Guard are almost entirely gone, either retired or dead, and the current crew at both major companies are mostly people who have not been around for a nearly as long as that Old Guard had been twenty years ago.

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Victor Rodgers
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Posted: 03 February 2007 at 10:09am | IP Logged | 10  

What I understand is that you created the first native american in comics with any true potential and let it fall into the "Revelations of previously unknown siblings (99.99%)" category by virute of a daughter that was inherently more powerful and full of enough teenage angst to overshadow her father's potential.

*****

It gave Shaman much more depth than if he had just been Cheif Bigheart and used as a token indian character. In addition to being a super hero he was also a father and a husbend, who was unable to save his wife. Then leaving his daughter to be raised by someone else. I fail to see how thats not living up to his potential as a full three dimesional character.

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Glenn Greenberg
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Posted: 03 February 2007 at 10:09am | IP Logged | 11  

<<It's been 20-odd years since I did those HULK issues. I have reconsidered what I think should or should not happen in the kind of serial fiction we do in comics.>>


Fair enough--and completely understandable.

There's plenty of stuff I would never want to do now, that I absolutely wanted to do when I first got into the biz.

Thanks for the response!
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Brian Crispkey
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Posted: 03 February 2007 at 10:12am | IP Logged | 12  

"The purpose of that scene was to create an "Uh oh…" moment in the
minds of the readers. It was not to say "Look! It's all going to happen
anyway!"

Difficult to read it in the proper context, I suppose, given everything that
has been troweled into the story since, but that does not alter the original
intent."


Fair enough. I obviously misread the original intent as I read it as a "look
it's going to happen anyway" ending (which I personally think is very easy
to do- even without the benefit of hindsight). Thanks for clarifying
though.

Could I ask when you think that particular storyline jumped the shark (if
indeed, you think it did)? In fact, that's a question that's open to
everybody. For me, it was the introduction of Ahab. Before that, I really
enjoyed the whole Rachel Summers 'back from the future' arc. In
particular, the scene where she telephones Scott and Maddie (although
she thought it was Jean), but isn't able to bring herself to speak to them.

The less said about the return of Franklin Richards the better.
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