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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 133325
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Posted: 27 June 2016 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | 1
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Just watching, on YouTube, a WatchMojo list of the top ten most shocking moments in comics. Conspicuous by its absence: the death of Phoenix.Interesting to muse upon this. Tells us how much comics, and the comic audience, have changed since 1980. In those more innocent times, the death of Jean Grey (as she still was, then) was like nothing anybody had ever seen. Now, it's old news, and has been done over so many times, hardly even rates as an eyebrow raiser.
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Marc Baptiste Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2004 Location: United States Posts: 3655
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Posted: 27 June 2016 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | 2
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I'm still in awe of it, JB.
Marc
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Andy Mokler Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 January 2006 Location: United States Posts: 2799
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Posted: 27 June 2016 at 7:20pm | IP Logged | 3
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I think if they DON'T kill off a character, it's more surprising nowadays.
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Brian Hague Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 November 2006 Posts: 8515
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Posted: 27 June 2016 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | 4
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It might be interesting to try to come up with a list of characters they haven't killed in a "Death of..." storyline. Spider-Man's come close a couple of times, I think, with the Kraven impersonation tale and the interminable Ben Reilly era, but I don't recall Marvel ever saying, "This is it! This time we've really done it!" the way they have with say, Captain America, Mr. Fantasic, or the Human Torch.
It is true that as we move away from the Phoenix Saga, it's influence remains, but the story itself has been undone, redone, half-done, flipped, unflipped, mimicked, copied, mocked, and stepped on so often that it's just become part of the background noise now. Part of what was so remarkable about it was that it involved a "good guy" becoming a "bad guy."
Marvel doesn't have good guys or bad guys anymore. They have adult-oriented, morality-challenging, frontline fighters who fight because there's a war on, and not because they necessarily believe in right or wrong. It's all about "my side" versus "their side," and both behave in morally reprehensible ways to achieve their goals. The difference now is we forgive the cash cows (who are presumably the good guys, but not always) and reward them with more books. Right, wrong, up, down, it's all relative, right? How edgy...
Edited by Brian Hague on 27 June 2016 at 7:51pm
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Eric Jansen Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013 Location: United States Posts: 2366
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Posted: 27 June 2016 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | 5
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Maybe whoever did that list is just dumb. "The Death of Phoenix" is still THE X-Men story, as shown by all the times comics play off of it (repeat it, re-do it, do something similar with another book, etc.) and when animation and movies adapt it--they couldn't wait to do in the movies and jumped right to it AND Bryan Singer has talked about redoing it again himself!
Every time some comics writer killed somebody important off, they probably pitched it as "It'll be like the Phoenix Saga!" And it never is.
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Joe Smith Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 August 2004 Location: United States Posts: 6667
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Posted: 27 June 2016 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | 6
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I'm in the minority on this forum, as as avid a reader of the big 2 as I've always been since the early '80's. I can really get behind the 'non-continuity' publishing strategy.
I have the CC/JB XMen, Where they took on the pantheon of Xmen rogues and did EVERYthing they could think of with the characters.
I've subsequently seen other Writer/Artist teams take on the book and tell THEIR version of the XMen's exploits. Your mileage may vary.
I may not like the overall execution, but, as long as they give the characters the best they've got, and I get to see my favorite heroes and villains drawn incredibly well, I don't feel burned.
I guess, in my mind, it's the same as how Bing Crosby, Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra, and Michael Bublé all did a version of "Beyond The Sea". I love Bobby Darin's the most, but these things get covered.
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Greg Kirkman Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006 Location: United States Posts: 15775
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Posted: 27 June 2016 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | 7
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Maybe whoever did that list is just dumb. "The Death of Phoenix" is still THE X-Men story, as shown by all the times comics play off of it (repeat it, re-do it, do something similar with another book, etc.) and when animation and movies adapt it--they couldn't wait to do in the movies and jumped right to it AND Bryan Singer has talked about redoing it again himself! ++++++++++
Speaking of which, I just watched this. Don't agree with all of it, but he makes some interesting points.
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Anthony Pfau Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 February 2013 Location: United States Posts: 30
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Posted: 28 June 2016 at 5:02am | IP Logged | 8
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Both X-men 137 & DD 181 are two of my fav all time books with great story lines leading up to the death issues.- now the death of books ( super-man , human torch etc) just seem like cheap knockoffs designed to "shock and awe" to sell books. We all know the characters get resurrected anyway. How many speculators bought the black bag death of superman?? LOL
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 133325
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Posted: 28 June 2016 at 6:04am | IP Logged | 9
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wqVmd266VA8•• Two things struck me about this. • The minimal use of my art in an "essay" about what was, some would insist, the pinnacle of my career. • The depressing reminder that all the crap Chris shoveled into the "saga" after I left the book is, in the minds of fans, totally part of the story. This is, of course, a kind of microcosm of why I left the book in the first place: I felt Chris was getting the characters wrong, but Chris' version is what readers were seeing. And, undeniably, loving. The guy does make one major mistake, tho, and it's a common one. He spots the obvious fact that Chris and I were sexualizing Jean in a way that she'd not been before, but he imagines this would have been surprising and shocking to the "twelve year olds" who he imagines were, at that time, the primary audience. He's forgotten how 12 year olds think -- or did back then, anyway.* I'm reminded of when GOLDFINGER came out, and presented us with one of the most iconic moments in James Bond's history, Shirley Eaton's nude body painted gold. I was about thirteen, then, and completely understood what was going on. But my parents had friends who had an eleven year old son, and his reaction to that scene was, and I quote, "The lady was wearing a gold dress." Despite the description of what had happened to the character provided by the other characters, he didn't get it. His brain didn't work that way yet. So, in a comicbook full of people in strange costumes, I'm reasonably sure the younger portions of the audience saw Jean's STORY OF O transformation† as nothing more than another weird costume. He's right that the movies are going to screw it up again, tho. ____________________ * This can be seen in his declaration that Jean was Marvels most boring female character. Dood! She was a REDHEAD! To us tweens, with our raging hormones kicking in, she could have sat in the back of every scene doing crochet, and she would still have been super hot. † He gets that our story was at least partially influenced by the AVENGERS episode "A Touch of Brimstone," but he then refers to EYES WIDE SHUT, which came out decades after our story. Rather like some reviewers of the DAYS OF FUTURE PAST movie saying it was too much like THE TERMINATOR.
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Michael Penn Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006 Location: United States Posts: 12715
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Posted: 28 June 2016 at 6:25am | IP Logged | 10
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I can't think of a time that Jean Grey's attractiveness was not featured. And her sexiness was highlighted through the pre-JB years.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 133325
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Posted: 28 June 2016 at 7:18am | IP Logged | 11
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At the time, I don't recall anyone ever complaining that Jean was not "sexy," even if that was not exactly the word used. Most Boring Female usually went to Sue Storm, to the point that Stan and Jack actually addressed it in their "Day in the Life" story.I suspect this reviewer has spent his formative years awash in Bad Girls and cannot place older comics and characters in their proper context.
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Michael Penn Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006 Location: United States Posts: 12715
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Posted: 28 June 2016 at 7:30am | IP Logged | 12
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At the time, I don't recall anyone ever complaining that Jean was not "sexy," even if that was not exactly the word used.
*** Yes, indeed. None of my fellow kid-readers ever used the word "sexy" about Jean Grey, or Natasha Romanov or Janet Van Dyne or Red Sonja, etc. We were pubescent boys. We got it. Even more important, it didn't need to be explicit. The GOLDFINGER nude was breathtaking in large part because it was handled in a classy way. Same with all those images of Jean Grey above, same with Diana Rigg, same with your Jean Grey too, JB. None of these were "bad" girls.
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