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Rick Whiting
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2004
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| Posted: 05 August 2018 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | 1
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I think that one of the reasons why that whole stupid 616 BS is still around in the comics and why so many fans and fans turned pro are unwilling to let that bad idea die and ignore it is because it was an idea that Alan Moore introduced. sadly, there is a large number of vocal fans and pros who worship at the altar of Alan Moore and think that every stupid or bad story he wrote or story idea that he introduced is the greatest thing since sliced bread and should remain "cannon" forever. These same fans and pros would either have a fit or continue shoe in 616 references any chance they get if Marvel tried to ignore or flat out state that the 616 crap is no longer accurate or cannon. In fact, IIRC, Quesada actually tried to do this shortly after he became EIC (one of the RARE good decisions that he made as EIC), but that decision didn't stick since some creators and fans kept referring to the Marvel Earth as "616". Someone at Marvel needs to grow a pair and put their foot down and flat out say that "616" and those stupid other numbers for Earths will no long be used and are no longer cannon.
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Adam Schulman
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Joined: 22 July 2017
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| Posted: 05 August 2018 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | 2
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Tom Breevort has said repeatedly that fans (and, I presume, writers) should stop referring to "Earth 616" but fans, at least, are still doing it.
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Rick Whiting
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 05 August 2018 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | 3
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Tom Breevort has said repeatedly that fans (and, I presume, writers) should stop referring to "Earth 616" but fans, at least, are still doing it.
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And then Marvel puts out a comic called "Exiles" that deal with all of those alternate numbered Earths.
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Michael Roberts
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| Posted: 05 August 2018 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | 4
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QUOTE:
| sadly, there is a large number of vocal fans and pros who worship at the altar of Alan Moore and think that every stupid or bad story he wrote or story idea that he introduced is the greatest thing since sliced bread and should remain "cannon" forever |
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I don’t think Alan Moore’s star is as bright these days as you suggest here. I think he’s more “the grumpy guy who wrote WATCHMEN” nowadays.
QUOTE:
| In fact, IIRC, Quesada actually tried to do this shortly after he became EIC (one of the RARE good decisions that he made as EIC), but that decision didn't stick since some creators and fans kept referring to the Marvel Earth as "616". |
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It was under Quesada’s EIC run that Marvel published a new version of the OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE, which relied on a lot of fan-supplied material from websites like marvunapp.com. It was the outsourced fan material that provided much of the alternate Earth numbering. It was this “blessing” of the fan sites and wikis through the OHOTMU that did more to cement the idea of Earth-616 than any fandom of Moore did.
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Olav Bakken
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| Posted: 05 August 2018 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | 5
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Not all of Moore's projects were completed for one reason or another. Bi Numbers, for instance. And sadly 1963 was never completed since the series started shortly before the collapse of the comic book industry. Would really like to see it completed. They even used a lot of old school printing and coloring techniques when making it. And in the mid-90s we got digital coloring. The colorists and artists are no doubt very grateful for it, since it made the coloring process so much easier. But I miss the old look of comics when everything was done by hand.
I had no idea that The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe used material created by fans. If we are talking about basic facts like first appearance, writer and artist, it's not a problem. But if it also includes some pseudo-scientific explanations powers and alternate earts among other things, that's not good.
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Rick Whiting
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2004
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| Posted: 05 August 2018 at 8:41pm | IP Logged | 6
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I don’t think Alan Moore’s star is as bright these days as you suggest here. I think he’s more “the grumpy guy who wrote WATCHMEN” nowadays.
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To the elitist aging fan base (which sadly makes up a large majority of the current fandom), Moore's past work is sacred.
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It was under Quesada’s EIC run that Marvel published a new version of the OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE, which relied on a lot of fan-supplied material from websites like marvunapp.com. It was the outsourced fan material that provided much of the alternate Earth numbering. It was this “blessing” of the fan sites and wikis through the OHOTMU that did more to cement the idea of Earth-616 than any fandom of Moore did.
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Oh man, I forgot about those fan written Handbooks. Yeah, those fan written Handbooks did cement the idea of 616. However, I'm pretty sure that those fans who wrote those Handbooks were huge fans of Moore's past work.
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Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 05 August 2018 at 10:22pm | IP Logged | 7
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To the elitist aging fan base (which sadly makes up a large majority of the current fandom), Moore's past work is sacred.
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To your first point, the elitist aging fan base doesn't represent a large majority of the current fandom. They represent a large majority of LCS customers, but they don't represent the current fandom either.
The demographics here are in line with my own personal experiences:
As far as Moore's work goes, I think if it were so sacrosanct, we wouldn't have had the Watchmen prequels or Doctor Manhattan and Ozymandias running around in the current DC crossover miniseries. But the current writers seem eager to piss all over WATCHMEN and THE KILLING JOKE to make it their own.
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Rick Whiting
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| Posted: 05 August 2018 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | 8
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To your first point, the elitist aging fan base doesn't represent a large majority of the current fandom. They represent a large majority of LCS customers, but they don't represent the current fandom either.
The demographics here are in line with my own personal experiences:
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/38709/nycc-insider-sessi ons-powered-icv2-a-demographic-snapshot-comics-buyers
As far as Moore's work goes, I think if it were so sacrosanct, we wouldn't have had the Watchmen prequels or Doctor Manhattan and Ozymandias running around in the current DC crossover miniseries. But the current writers seem eager to piss all over WATCHMEN and THE KILLING JOKE to make it their own.
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It is those elitist aging LCS customers who the Big 2 are mainly trying to appeal to.
A lot of creators and editors think that revisiting and/or expanding on older stories by creators who they hold in high regard and whose past stories they consider to be sacred is being very respectful to said older creators work as away to justify trying to piggyback on the success and critical acclaim of those older stories and leave their mark on said stories. They want Moore's sacred stories and characters to matter and be part of the DCU even though they were obviously meant to be out of continuity.
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Mason Meomartini
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Joined: 06 June 2006
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| Posted: 08 August 2018 at 10:40am | IP Logged | 9
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I think DC basing new series on Watchmen isn't the same thing. It's disregarding Moore but in a different way, since they're ignoring that he never wanted any more stories to be done with the series because of the money DC can make from it. Not because the creators and editors involved have lost their high regard for his ideas. I think it shows the opposite.
In a Stephen King interview on collider.com, he said "that [of] all the books that I've written, The Dark Tower fans are the most zealous, the most fervent of all." I think whenever there's a long, continuing series, it attracts fans who don't just want a story, but a fantasy world they can get fully immersed in. They want to live in a virtual world. Fans who are more interested in fictional worlds than real life. So they want those worlds to be as consistent as possible. Then you get the cataloging and numbering, the RPG treatment of Marvel as JB described it. I guess what that type of fan wants is a story of a different kind, large scale stories or fictional histories. All the cataloging and historical attention to detail is a type of story for them. It seems Asperger's is linked with a fixation on numbering and listing things so this trait is probably associated with many of those type of fans. Once it latches on to an interest, that's it. This might explain why it's hard to get this thinking out of Marvel and DC.
Edited by Mason Meomartini on 08 August 2018 at 11:26am
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Rebecca Jansen
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Joined: 12 February 2018
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| Posted: 08 August 2018 at 11:34am | IP Logged | 10
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Those fanatical traits applied to something real, such as a science or designing a building, are positive, but applied to something fictional (where they aren't the creator)... from a bit regressive to something extreme. You get comic books not only that very few can write but that sadly very few can then follow.
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Robbie Parry
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| Posted: 08 August 2018 at 12:12pm | IP Logged | 11
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Rebecca Jansen wrote:
| Those fanatical traits applied to something real, |
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Absolutely! A tax inspector investigating tax fraud needs to have such traits.
But comic fans? Never!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 08 August 2018 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | 12
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I think DC basing new series on Watchmen isn't the same thing. It's disregarding Moore but in a different way, since they're ignoring that he never wanted any more stories to be done with the series because of the money DC can make from it. Not because the creators and editors involved have lost their high regard for his ideas. I think it shows the opposite. •• WATCHMAN was based on the Charlton heroes. So now we get version 3.
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