Yes you are entitled to an opinion and I'm entitled to criticize that opinion. You are presumable entitled to criticise my critique if you are so inclined.

There are whole herd of people out there that sound just like you so your "thinking for yourself" line is not eveidence of much of anything.

I think your "MarvelMan is fair game because nobody outside of UK cares" thesis is very flawed. I think that the character being dead has no impact on whether it was brutally subverted or not. I think the "problems" with MarvelMan history argument is trivial and not really germane to the subject.

I think your "calm down/lie down" stuff is without value and irrelevant.

My "How much is Moore paying you" line was a direct response for your "Ask Byrne what you think" line. It was to show you just how dissapointing and ridiculous that arrogant and presposterous line of thinking was. That's okay though because it seems that you totally missed the point and just went down the same road again. See the point is that you claim to want open discussion and are entitled to an opinion but you have to deal with my disagreement with your opinion by implying that I'm just a a brain dead Byrne cultist reading verbatim brainwahsed mantars at you. You assume that since I disagree with you that I must not be thinking for myself. That is ridiculous.

What's more it is hypocritical because you've  come here with an axe to grind in defense of Mr. Moore. This seems to place you a position that seems vulnerable to similar accusations of YOU being thoughtless programmed myrmidon or a paid plant or a fanboy who can't see past the lens of his own prejudices.

My point was this:

1. You were very foolish to insinuiate that I am a mindless Byrne drone, for daring to disagree with you, instead of just responding to my counter arguments asserting that your comparisons were as weak as bannana strawberry jello on a hot day,

2. If we accept, for the sake of argument, that you may have been right to call me a drone then it should occur to you that by using those very rules, based on the fact that you disagree, you are EQUALLY open to having your own opinions summarily discredited by the insinuation that YOU are somehow not impartial enough to make judgements on the subject of subversively altering superheroes ina  revamp or perhaps not even speaking your own idependently arrived at words.

Emery Calame wrote: To get at MarvelMan Moore had to jump through hoops and when he got it he immediately turned it upside %$#&ing down for shock value and when he was done it was nigh unrecognizable. He turned a Captain Marvel clone into somethign dark, fascistic, sick and evil. He was forced to change the name.

You make it sound as if Moore was forced to change the name because of the things he did to Marvelman.  The name was changed to Miracleman because Marvel threatened to launch some kind of trademark infringement suit.  I would guess that Marvel would have objected to the Marvelman title being used to package reprints of Mick Anglo's work.

QUOTE: Then you are demanding more "everything is a lie" examples from Moore when some have already been provided for you.(Swampthing, Twilight proposal)

I am genuinely curious as to how you see the Twilight proposal as conforming to the "everything you know is a lie" nature of Moore's stories.  I took the original "everything you know is a lie" comment to refer to a habit of re-writing or undermining the origins or the past history of the characters.  Nothing in Twilight does that, though.  I think it'd be fairer to say that the Twilight proposal is an example of some horrendous plot ideas that would be well out of character.

Compare that to Swamp Thing where Swamp Thing is not the freak result of sabotage, but instead the latest in a line of Earth elementals, all of whom were born in substantially the same way as Alec Holland.

Yeah. Here's the argument as I understand it: Nobody much cares(according to you) about Marvel Man so Marvel Man is fair game. Therefore there is no annoyance factor. Therefore Moore gets a pass.

Superman fans are more numerous and some of them were very annoyed(according again to you) by man of Steel so it's not fair game. Therefore Byrne shouldn't point fingers, pot, kettle black, glass house stone etc. He did the same thing.

That is precisely the argument that I WAS responding to and debunking so I don't really see anything for you call shennanigans on.. I smell a feeble quibble aimed at exaustion and distraction rather than a real point worthy of discussion.

I called that assertion both weak and not really important. Why? Because Moore largely destroyed the concept of MarvelMan in his reinvention. He did not end up with anything remebling MarvelMan except in the most shallow superficial way. Moore was by FAR more off model. Moore was by far more subversive and harmful to the chraacter. This is quantifiable. It is not a shades of grey thing. It is obvious and self evident.

Superman was revamped per DC's insructions and according to their commision with their blessing and Byrne worked with them and ended up as you yourself seem to agree with a very recognizable Superman who looks, acts, and talks and fights, like Superman should.

Thus the issue of destructive subversion/reinterpretation and character renovation (which is the topic of discussion -not who got pissed off where and why)  does not really put what Moore did with MarvelMan/Miracle Man and what Byrne did with Man of Steel in any sort of state of equivalency. 

I can't see how you can honestly imply that this is the same thing at all. I can't see how you can seriously imply that all change is violation, that violation has no dimension of magnitude, that all violations are equivalent,  that the scale and depth of violation is not important nor is the intent behind it...

The position all changes or revamps are equivalent and equally dstructive is is a laughable position. Miracle Man and Man of Steel are clearly not equivalent situations.

I am genuinely curious as to how you see the Twilight proposal as conforming to the "everything you know is a lie" nature of Moore's stories.  I took the original "everything you know is a lie" comment to refer to a habit of re-writing or undermining the origins or the past history of the characters.  Nothing in Twilight does that, though.  I think it'd be fairer to say that the Twilight proposal is an example of some horrendous plot ideas that would be well out of character.

Did you know that Billy Batson is destined to become a freak who can never reach sexual maturity who visits dominatrixes to have some semblance of release? Would Martian Manhunter kill him and impersonate him to form a figure head for a nation based on allegiance to a super hero? If not then everything you know is a lie. Thankfully Mr. Moore was going to put us all straight as to the true nature of these characters before the Man put his foot down and hid the turth from the people.

Swampthing needs no further dsicussion.

As for the rest, I was pleased with 'The Man of Steel', but plenty of other
people were outraged at the pruning of fifty years' worth of continuity.

****************************

You do realize that Superman, prior to MOS, was not one, long sustained narrative (a la Cerebus). MOS did basically the same thing that previous creators had done several times before -- Weisenger made serious changes to the character, so did Schwartz.

Emery Calame wrote: Did you know that Billy Batson is destined to become a freak who can never reach sexual maturity who visits dominatrixes to have some semblance of release? Would Martian Manhunter kill him and impersonate him to form a figure head for a nation based on allegiance to a super hero? If not then everything you know is a lie. Thankfully Mr. Moore was going to put us all straight as to the true nature of these characters before the Man put his foot down and hid the turth from the people.

Okay, I understand.  I don't think I would classify the story as an "everything you know is a lie" type story, but at least I see where you are coming from.

Speaking as a person who is not really a huge fan of that proposal, I think it's important to keep in mind that the future we are shown is supposed to be one where things have gone horribly awry.  The point of the story is to avert that future.  I don't at all think it's fair to claim that Moore was saying that these were the "true nature[s]" of the characters.

Matt your assertion that you are a fan of both writers is largely negated by your arguing with Byrne about the very meaning of what he wrote and your primary point being a defense of Moore's works. You are here to bash on Mr. Byrne as a hypocrite for bashing on Alan Moore's holy scripture.

And you threw the "fanboy" bomb around well before I did. Except you said it differently.. "Maybe you need your glorious leader to decide for you? "

This may suprise you Matt but I am not that big a fan of Mr. Byrne's writing. I like it okay. I do not buy books just because they are written by Mr. Byrne. I do not collect Mr. Byrne's stuff except for specific runs and usally it's because of the book title rather than the fact that Mr. Byrne worked on it.

I am usually less enthralled by the writers of comic books than I am by the artists.

I have not even read most of what Mr. Byrne has written throughout his career. I have read mostly Alpha Flight, His old X-men, His old FF runs, Man of Steel, His recent Action run, His Doom Patrol. I have read a some of Spider Man chapter one a long time ago, and a little bit of West Coast Avengers froma  cheap issues box at a half price bookstore, and one issue of X-men Hidden Years. I have a copy of the first TPB of NextMen and have only read about the first third of it.

What I'm objecting to is you trying to establish a tennuous equivalency between constructive revamps that barely change a character and destructive ones that totally screw a character up and make them nearly unrecognizable.