#90s superhero comics are mostly really good

[knockoffrogue]

i didn’t really think the way ben was written in across the spider-verse would annoy me until i saw it like,,, not because i have a major attachment to him but mostly because i’m a comic fan who knows “nineties comics are edgy and melodramatic” haven’t been funny in like a good decade and it’s such an uncreative choice for such a creative film. what i don’t think the writing team gets is that a lot of nineties heroes have been looked at in a new light and that entire era lays host to a lot of really beloved characters and even cult characters that have very passionate fanbases. characters like kyle rayner and jack knight have cult followings, characters like ben reilly and jean-paul valley have been reevaluated and been able to viewed as their own characters rather than an extension of the popular hero they’re connected to.

i really get the annoyance; like if dc did into their batmanverse and all jp did was be a representative of the negative opinions of the era he came from despite never personifying any real big cliche nineties hero bullshit in the comics themselves, i’d be pissed. it’s like,,, annoying to see a character you love get turned into a joke that hasn’t been funny in years

(will say andy samberg could voice a comic accurate ben, he can do very personable emotive character work, i’ve seen palm springs he can be more than a funny guy, really wish he got more options to show that)

[positivelybeastly]

I'm new to comics and love beast. Is there any comics with beast that you'd recommend? There's so many xmen comics and idk where to start.

Hello there, friend! Getting into comic books is damned hard, but, thankfully, resources like Reddit, Tumblr, and Marvel Unlimited (or your pirating site of choice) all make it a lot easier to get into them these days without having to worry about being confused.

Well. You'll still be a little confused. Comic books are convoluted. But at least you'll be able to engage with them on your own terms. :) And, it's worth it. Mostly.

I'll tell you straight out that if you want some good entry points, like, this is my first X-Men comic, what do I read, I'd recommend the following:

X-Men: First Class (2006)

X-Men vol. 2 (1991)

New X-Men vol. 1 (2001)

Astonishing X-Men vol. 3 (2004)

X-Men vol. 6 (2024)

As for Beast specific recommendations? I have a ton!

For Beast as a character, being examined in his own right, I would recommend the following:

X-Men Origins: Beast - a retelling of his origin, updated with modern art and writing. Written by Mike Carey, whose work you should generally look into if you like X-Men - he focuses a lot on characters like Rogue and Xavier, but also on Beast, which is handy for our purposes!

X-Men: Unlimited vol. 1 #10 and vol. 2 #10 - so, this may be somewhat confusing to a new comic reader, but comics have volumes. This is when a comic of a certain title ends, and it's then relaunched with a new creative team, usually with a very different story.

So, X-Men: Unlimited is an anthology series that tells unconnected stories that fit in other places, between other comics, and there were two different volumes of it, one in the 90s, and one in the 00s. Both volumes have an issue #10 that focuses on Beast, and I'd recommend them both! Vol. 1 #10 especially would be, in my opinion, required reading if you really want to get into Beast.

Amazing Adventures vol. 2 #11 through #17 - the first stab at giving Hank his own solo series, from back in the 70s! Don't let the age get you down, I find this series to be actually fairly modern and easy to get into, and it's a nice sort of superhero/horror blend of tones that I find really effective.

X-Men: Endangered Species - this is a Beast solo story dealing with the aftermath of the Decimation, the event where Scarlet Witch removed the powers of 99% of the world's mutants. It's quite dark, but I think it's probably one of the best examinations of the character in the medium, and it works as an excellent sequel to Unlimited vol. 1 #10. Most of the context you need is given to you in the comic, which is handy. :)

X-Men: S.W.O.R.D vol. 1 - this is kind of a team-up comic, kind of not? The context for this is reliant on reading another run that I'll be recommending, but trust me, it's worth it. This is an outrageously funny book with a good emotional core, and it really captures Beast's essence, as a dual sided goofball jokester with a heart of gold and the intellectual moralistic do-gooder who can't leave well enough alone. One of my favourite comics of all time.

For Beast as part of a team, I would recommend the following:

X-Men: First Class - a prequel book set during the days of the Original X-Men, this series bounces between Cyclops, Angel, Iceman, Marvel Girl and Beast a fair bit, but even in issues that don't focus on Beast, he's still a part of the story and quite well written. Very slice-of-lifey, with a lot of charm to it.

X-Men: Season One - a retelling of certain stories from the original 60s run of X-Men, this is a pretty good one-and-done graphic novel that does change a few things, but keeps the spirit intact and tells you a lot about these characters and how they relate to one another. Just watch out for Iceman's Bieber hair.

Avengers vol. 1 #137-211 - this is a pretty long run of comics that features Hank's initial tenure on the Avengers, and will occasionally require a bit of reading around to make sure that you're reading the Annuals in the right place - usually, the comic will tell you to go read Annual #6 or whatever, but if you find a lot of stuff has happened and the story jumped ahead without you, chances are, it's in an Annual. Very variable in quality, but if you want to see classic Beast in all his glory, there's some really good stuff here, especially the foundation of his lifelong friendship with Wonder Man.

The Defenders/New Defenders vol. 1 #96-152 - probably one of my actual favourite run of comics ever. Beast joins the team a little later than #96, but if you jump in when Hank does, you'll be just a little confused, so it's best to start at #96 and go from there. Especially once Hank reforms the team to the New Defenders in #125, he basically becomes one of the very main characters and gets a lot of focus. Absolutely love this comic.

X-Factor vol. 1 #1-70 - the first six or seven issues of this are pretty bad, but it really comes into its own once it starts being written by Louise Simonson, who makes it much more soap opera, more character driven, gives all the characters a lot to do. There's a lot of crossover with other books, but usually it'll just tell you what to read if you want to know more about a part of a story in little editor's notes!

X-Men vol. 2 #1-95 - the classic 90s run; not my personal favourite, because it's pretty confusingly plotted, but if you want something that hews extremely close to the 90s cartoon, this is that to a tee, to the point where a lot of stories and characters were adapted to and from the comics directly!

New X-Men vol. 1 #114-156 - a landmark run on X-Men by Grant Morrison, this evolves Beast into a new form and changes up his character in a new, tragic manner that, personally, is my favourite iteration of the character. Very high concept sci-fi, occasionally quite confusing and problematic, but extremely good stuff, imo, and essential for getting into modern X-Men.

Astonishing X-Men vol. 3 #1-35 - a sort of sequel to New X-Men, this is again an extremely good entry point into modern X-Men, and it's very, very classic while still progressing the story. Just a note - when you read issue #24, do NOT go to issue #25, you need to go and read Giant Size Astonishing X-Men instead, THEN go to #25. I know, it's confusing, I'm so, so, so sorry, comics are just like this. This is the comic that leads straight into S.W.O.R.D pretty much.

Wolverine and the X-Men vol. 1 #1-42 - a more zany, school focused book, Hank is part of the wider cast here, but he does get some spotlight issues, and I do enjoy him here, especially his relationship with Broo. There are crossovers with Avengers vs. X-Men and other events in here, but those events are kinda sort skippable because they're bad. If you feel confused, you can read them, but I don't necessarily recommend them.

X-Men vol. 6 #1-ongoing - the current run of X-Men, written by Jed MacKay! To put it very bluntly, Beast went through about a decade of being quite badly written and slowly turned into a scummy villain through the recent Krakoa era, which I was not a fan of. There are individual issues between 2013 and 2024 that I can recommend, but if you like Beast, I would not recommend reading them, because I think that they are pretty bad and not fun to read. This is me being kind. But the new series picks up after that's all fixed, and Beast is getting a lot to do in this series, so I'd recommend it!

X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comics #15-18 - a supplementary comic that focuses on Beast, best read alongside the above X-Men run I recommended; it can give you all the context you need for where Beast is at, and why he's feeling the way that he is. A very, very good read, way exceeded my expectations, and I'm really pleased I can actually recommend modern comics for Beast again!

These are the main runs I would recommend! There's a lot more, if we want to get esoteric, and I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot of material - Beast has been around for 60 years, he's been in a LOT of stories - but if you want to get stuck into X-Men comics and really immerse yourself into the world and the stories, there's a lot of really good material here!

Welcome to the X-Men comics, friend! Hope you survive the experience!

[crepes-suzette-373]

Every other day I find more Kamen Rider nods/callbacks in Germa, and it's getting really obnoxious, I just keep wondering what sensei is trying to do with this. If he's just having fun because he really likes Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, this is kind of going overboard.

Maybe he's just trolling Toei with this nonsense??? Toei as a studio runs Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, Sailor Moon, Pretty Cure (another magic girl show), and of course One Piece. Maybe he thought it'd be funny to make this bizarre combination of all the above and he just happens to really like Kamen Rider the most??

Sometimes the nods are too serious to be a joke, but on the other hand it's also super absurd at other times.

The Super Sentai team look is almost a camouflage, lore-wise they're definitely closer to Kamen Rider. Plus, Kamen Rider itself did have its "evil team" with rainbow scarves (all identical suits, though). Funky belts and scarves? That's the classic Kamen Rider's iconic look.

And then the Germa leader in the comic book resembling the military-looking guy (a KR villain commander). Based on the rough drafts that military look almost was designated to be how Judge actually looks before sensei scrapped it (too obvious, maybe?).

Kind of hard to see but in the screenshots you can also see the evil organisation's logo (on the floor in the middle of the table) looks like the Germa eagle symbol. And the setup of the "table under throne" in the left screenshot looks more specifically similar.

He's been mixing up various tropes from multiple seasons so it's just really

The term "modified humans" 改造人間 that was used to refer the the siblings is something that was characteristic of the Shouwa Riders (the really old ones from 90s and older). This is not "cyborg", by the way, just genetic modification. Like, in American superhero terms, Captain America or Winter Soldier would also categorise as 改造人間.

Sanji's backstory and the exoskeleton mods and even "evil twins" is more specifically Kamen Rider Black. The raid suit can transformation pose are the newer riders (Heisei Riders) from later in the 2000s onwards.

The original Kamen Rider villains, the Shocker group, were legitimately just flat out Nazis (or affiliated to them), and I honestly think the weird look in Germa is because of the Kamen Rider Easter Egg. Not because sensei was thinking "Germa = Germany".

Certainly we don't know when this stuff turned into this, as the old drafts proved that there was a time he designed "Sanji's family" to just look mostly normal. The father who was named Saint Germain looks just kind of like Pedro but human. Yonji looks like pre-timeskip Sanji but has a sword.

To me it felt more like he was going for the French/Saint Germain angle at first, then suddenly it became Kamen Rider and the Third Reich stuff crawled in. Sensei does a lot of research I'm sure, but I mean, most Japanese text usually calls Germany "Doitsu". Even the WW2 stuff would refer to them with something-Doitsu.

Unless he picked up a text with English words in them, he might not have really noticed Germany is spelled "Germany" in English. We don't know either way, that's why I don't like to assume for certain.

Anyway, I'm not sure how much of this can serve as a predictor. If it really is a straight reference, Sanji might then just adopt the mods completely. As mentioned above, the old Riders were "modified humans". The evil organisation were the people who forcibly gave them the powers they never wanted. They just reject the evil intent, but embrace the power because they're using it for good.

But if this is all just trolling, then scrap all that and now I know nothing.

[onyxbird]

I Am the Greatest Date-Planner in This Apartment

Summary: Eliot wins date night after he gets a recommendation of a sci-fi movie his “geeky friend” might enjoy and gets carried away with a movie evening complete with a themed meal. Fortunately, despite all Eliot's fears to the contrary, both of his partners are just the type of people to appreciate those elaborate efforts.

AO3 link here.

...

The first time Eliot Spencer really knocked “date night” out of the park, it wasn't even his idea.

The old army buddy he'd helped out a few weekends before had managed to draw out some (carefully vague) information about Eliot's current colleagues, including his geeky “friend” who was always into a new video game or superhero that Eliot knew nothing about, and he'd left Eliot with a suggestion. It took a few weeks to implement, not because the film was hard to obtain, but mostly because Eliot kept second-guessing his choice.

What if Eliot hated it as much as Hardison's comic-book movies? What if Hardison hated it? What if Parker was bored? What if they thought the themed dinner was stupid?

Eliot restlessly double-checked the array of toppings laid out on the counter against his mental list. Baked potatoes were almost done—they'd be ready by the time Parker and Hardison were scheduled to arrive.

Dessert would feature little pouches of freeze-dried ice cream, because Parker would expect it, alongside the main feature: a tiramisu dusted with red cocoa powder and garnished with carefully spaced upright sprigs of mint. A variety of homemade chocolate truffles, formed in silicone molds that were the one thing Eliot had to order for this project, completed the dessert assortment.

He'd been wrestling with himself about the truffles all week. They were important, because he wasn't sure how much his sugar-loving partners would love the tiramisu, but also terrifying, because they were, by far, the most overt theming of the entire meal.

The loaded baked potatoes could be justified as just a good, hearty, simple meal; the tiramisu was classic; the ice cream was a low-effort token to Parker's quirks. But there was no hand-waving the truffles.

He glanced at the clock again. No more than 90 seconds had passed.

At this rate, he might not survive the wait to die of embarrassment.

…

Parker and Hardison arrived at the appointed time, on the dot.

Eliot didn't mention that he'd seen them park Lucille 17 minutes ago, or that he'd watched them emerge 5 minutes ago for the less than 90-second walk up to his apartment.

In the absence of any information except for “dinner and movie night,” Hardison had hedged his bets on formality: Nice jeans, a dark gray sports coat, and a blue button down featuring a subtle pattern of tiny TARDISes. Parker, on the other hand, had simply topped a typical head-to-toe black ensemble with an unbuttoned royal-blue shirt. A very familiar one.

“…Is that my shirt?”

“Yup!” said Parker, cheerfully.

“Parker, I was looking for that!” (Technically, turning his closet inside-out wondering how the evening was already going wrong.)

“Oh.” She considered, tugging absently at the bottom hem. “Do you want to trade?”

“No, I don't want to—! Why do you have my clothes?!”

“We're having a date. I wanted to look nice.”

“Which you both do,” interjected Hardison firmly, pausing to rake his eyes conspicuously over Eliot's own dark-red button down and jeans and lingering on the larger-than-usual collection of bracelets on his left wrist. “So, uh, can we come in, or are we banned on grounds of clothes-stealing? Which, for the record, I have not participated in. I am wearing all my own clothes, which you can probably tell by the fact that they fit my long-ass body and have TARDISes on them.”

Eliot belatedly stepped back to allow them into the apartment.

“These are for you,” said Parker, shoving a bouquet of a half-dozen red roses and as many stalks of orange and yellow snapdragons into his hands.

Eliot's brain stopped functioning for the second time since he'd opened the door.

“Uh…”

Parker frowned at his lack of response and elbowed Hardison sharply in the ribs, eliciting an “ow!”: “You said adding the snapdragons would be fine. Maybe we should have stuck with traditional.”

“I don't think it's the snapdragons, babe. Give him a minute.”

Eliot figured out how to form words again, blinking rapidly. “Thanks, Parker. These are nice.” He stared at the flowers, aware that there had to be a next step he was blanking on.

“You got a vase or something we can put those in for you?” said Hardison, with the very deliberate sincerity characteristic of him either grifting or trying not to laugh. “Don't want to interrupt…” He gestured vaguely at the apartment. “…whatever it is you're preparing for the evening.”

“Right! I, uh…” Eliot moved towards the kitchen on autopilot, trailed by the others. He didn't think he had an actual vase—that wasn't something that generally came up for him—but a quick rummage in the cupboard produced a weizen glass as a passable substitute.

Parker and Hardison eyed the baked potato fixings as Eliot's brain scraped together the remnants of his thoroughly derailed explanation, acutely aware of the heat crawling up his face. This wasn't how the evening was supposed to go.

“So, we've got, uh, baked potatoes for dinner that you can fix however you like.”

Why had he thought this was a good idea?

“I thought we could eat while we watch the movie. It's all set up in the living room. There's dessert, too, that I was going to put out in the living room when we're ready so you can help yourselves without having to stop the movie…”

Maybe he could cut his losses and just not pull out the ice cream and the truffles? But then he had nothing as backup if Parker or Hardison didn't like the tiramisu, and just baked potatoes and tiramisu was kind of a skimpy as a date-night dinner—

“Sounds great!” said Hardison, as Parker made concurring noises. “What's the movie?”

“Well… we have options. We can watch whatever you guys want! I got one that sounded like you might like it from what I'd heard, but if you don't like it or have already seen it, that's—”

The others exchanged glances.

“OK,” Parker broke in, “but what is the movie you picked?”

“…It's called The Martian.”

Parker's head tilted quizzically without recognition, but Hardison's eyes widened.

“You got us The Martian to watch?! That's—Wait, is that why we're having potatoes? Did you theme dinner? Oh my god.” Hardison's voice caught. “Oh my god, I can't wait to see dessert. I don't even know what that would be for The Martian.”

“Oh, I, uh…” None of Eliot's planning had accounted for an actual enthusiastic reaction. “I'll get it out, then. Why don't y'all fix your potatoes?”

He'd just finished placing the plate of truffles and the packets of “astronaut ice cream” on either side of the tiramisu when Hardison and Parker emerged with their plates. Parker leaned over to study the spread avidly, nimble fingers scooping up an ice cream packet. “Hmm, not a little-green-man Martian, then?”

“That's—” Hardison eyes were fixed on the red-cocoa-covered tiramisu. “That's the Martian potato field.”

Eliot gave a hesitant nod.

“And—” He took a closer look at the truffles. “Are those Mars rover chocolates?”

Eliot shrugged sheepishly.

“And freeze-dried ice cream. Freeze-dried space ice cream! I would not have dared to bring such an item into your kitchen.”

“If we're gonna watch an astronaut movie, then Parker was gonna want—”

Eliot's explanation was cut off by a tight hug.

“This is amazing, man. I can't believe you did all this.”

Eliot slowly sagged into the embrace, still reeling from the fact that this had actually worked.

After a moment, they were interrupted by a gentle poke to each of their ribcages.

“Hey,” said Parker, “Eliot, go get your food. I want to actually watch the movie so I know what all of this food is about.”

[pluckyredhead]

"Barry is a character who was consciously designed to fit the zeitgeist of America and specifically the comics industry of the mid-1950s in the immediate aftermath of the Comics Code Authority (ask me about my theory on this!)" - here I am, asking (for real, I know next to nothing about Barry so I would be interested to hear more if you want to elaborate)

Yessss I would love to elaborate!

So apologies if this is stuff you already know, but the first Flash was Jay Garrick, who debuted in 1940, during what's called the Golden Age of Comics. There's no universal agreement on what the exact date range is for the Golden Age (or Silver, Bronze, etc.), but a range you'll often see is 1938 (the debut of Superman) to 1955.

However, with superhero comics, when we say Golden Age, we're really mostly talking about World War II, because after the war, superheroes became much less popular. At the time, monthly comics included lots of genres, like crime, horror, romance, humor, war, Westerns, sci-fi, etc., and crime and horror in particular became increasingly popular in the postwar years. Some of them also became increasingly violent, sexy, and edgy, in part to retain the audience of returning GIs from overseas, who had read comics to remind them of home during the war.

However, the primary audience for comics was children. Children who could easily buy a comic for a dime and read it without parental supervision. Children who could be turned into juvenile delinquents by reading comic books!

There was a massive backlash against comics in the late 40s and early 50s, led by parents and other "moral authorities" (teachers, librarians, churches) who thought comics were bad for kids. Most of you reading this will have seen similar parental backlash against whatever the target of the moment is: gangster movies, crooners, rock 'n' roll, rap, heavy metal, video games, Dungeons and Dragons, Harry Potter. (I'm not talking about JKR's wretched transphobia here but the fear in the late 90s that Harry Potter would turn kids into Satanists or whatever.)

There were boycotts. There were bonfires where all the kids in town would have to bring all their comics to be burned. There was Seduction of the Innocent, a book by psychologist Frederic Wertham where he claimed to have proven that comics turned kids into juvenile delinquents (he hadn't). Many people left the industry for good, and a lot of them later talked about those days with genuine trauma. I highly recommend the book The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America for more on this, but it's fascinating, and necessary reading for those of y'all on this webbed site who think we need to bring back the Hays Code and its ilk.

This all culminated in Senate hearings in 1954 to determine whether comics were harmful to children. (Fun fact: these hearings began on the same day as the McCarthy hearings. Political repression and artistic repression always go hand in hand.) In the aftermath of these hearings, the comic book industry created the Comics Code Authority, because that way they could self-regulate instead of being regulated by the government.

The Comics Code was a list of what could and could not be in comics. It was mostly what you'd expect - no sex or violence - but also a lot of conservative 1950s censorship. Like: "Policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority." That's...pretty totalitarian.

Comic book publishers would submit comics for approval to the CCA. If they passed, the comic would be published with a seal on the cover saying "Approved by the CCA." They didn't need the seal to publish, but if they didn't have the seal, most vendors wouldn't sell the comic. So most of them pretty much had to comply.

So what does this all have to do with Barry Allen?

As I said earlier, superheroes fell in popularity after WWII, and many books were canceled. Jay Garrick's last Golden Age appearance was in 1951, and he hung on longer than most. But after the CCA, the landscape of comics had changed, and DC decided to see if they couldn't make the superhero work in this brave new world.

So in 1956 they took the idea of the Flash - guy who runs fast - and changed everything else about him. The new Flash was named Barry Allen, and he was a police scientist with a snazzy new costume. He was an immediate hit, DC went on to revamp a number of other characters in similar fashion, and a new era was born. Literally: many scholars date the start of the Silver Age of Comics to Barry's debut.

It's worth noting, I think, that DC was staunchly behind the creation of the CCA. Their stock in trade was superheroes, who were mostly considered harmless. But the backlash against comics and the creation of the CCA seriously harmed a lot of their competitors, and eventually put the ultra-popular EC Comics, who specialized in horror and crime, out of business.

I'm not saying DC had Barry in mind already when they supported the formation of the CCA. But they saw that the field had been cleared and there was an opportunity to bring their main genre back to the forefront. And then they created a squeaky clean, incredibly white guy from the Midwest. Who is a scientist, because 1950s kids need to be inspired to go into science so that we can beat those Ruskies to the moon! But who is also a cop, because kids need to respect law and order, or else. (This was also an era in which former vigilantes Superman and Batman were officially deputized by their respective local police forces.)

None of this means that Barry is a bad character, or that his Silver Age comics aren't good, because they are actually extremely innovative and very fun. But it does mean that he was created as essentially copaganda for children during an era of intense political conservatism in the US and deep fear in the comic book industry. He worked well in the 50s and 60s (DC in the 60s was basically still living in the 50s, which is why everyone older than 10 switched to Marvel) but increasingly less well as the world around him changed, and DC's attempts to modernize him in the 70s and early 80s (killing off Iris so that he could be a swingin' bachelor living in...wait for it...an apartment building!!!) were just kind of embarrassing. Barry's death in Crisis on Infinite Earths is the most noble death I've ever read in comics, but it was also a mercy killing.

I think Barry could be updated for the 21st century in a way that is true to his roots but doesn't make him feel like a relic or a jerk. But so far, DC hasn't really bothered? Instead we get moments like Barry declaring that Hal is the only JLAer who really gets him because "we're both cops" or arresting a Black 12-year-old for graffiti-ing an already destroyed building. Oof, friends. Oof.

In conclusion, Barry was designed for major cultural and industry-wide changes of the mid-1950s but that was 70 years ago and the man desperately needs a makeover that is not putting on his nephew's personality like an ill-fitting suit and saying "How do you do, fellow kids?" The end.

[therulerofallpotatos]

I love your comments! 🌺 Why do you think people hate ship Fivela so much?

You mean besides hayes code loving puritanical thought police reasons that pretend they aren’t the exact same as the Moms of Liberty gay book burning group with a leftist hat on?

That is 90% of it.

But for the more reasonable ones who simply dislike the ship personally, it’s not unreasonable to assume a lot of people just don’t like thinking of Aiden’s face and romance in the same sentence. Especially if you also look at the way people treat the ace! Five headcanon as if it’s canon when in fact there has never been any evidence supporting that headcanon either in the show or the original comics. Even less so in the comics, where Five is in fact a lecherous old man who is seen multiple times with strippers. People latched onto it either because they were projecting, wanted to infantilize Five (and ace people for that matter), or think the idea of a “13yo” having lustful thoughts is icky (side note: teenagers being horny is a well documented fact. pretending it doesn’t happen literally never led to anything good historically speaking. Side side note: Five is in his 50s and pushing 70 by the last episode.). Also I say “icky” because i keep seeing words like that as if we’re all a bunch of five year olds on the playground and someone’s parents’ kissed in front of us. I digress.

Most of this is whatever. Ship and let ship also means you’re welcome to have your notp. Just don’t be a judgemental dick about it. I only take issue when it is being judgemental or it’s crossing over into other behavior. Specifically the infantilization of asexuals, which as an ace myself I find frustrating to say the least. (treating asexual people like innocent little babies is acephobic. If you treat me like I don’t know what sex is or can’t possibly have an “unpure” thought, I will bite you and it will not be fun)

Aside from all that. There’s also just plain old ship wars. Nenufair has referred to Liliego as a cost sunk fallacy and that is at least partly true. I don’t dislike the ship, personally, but some people just cannot handle when their ship doesn’t go canon, isn’t validated in some perceived way, or isn’t as popular as a different ship. It’s a tale as old as toxic fandom practices and dressing it up in therapy speak and activist terms doesn’t make it any less a ship war. You’re just being extra insulting to people who are affected by and fight for those real issues on top of being obnoxious. If you just want more attention on your otp, then being nasty about it just makes other people want to block your favorite tag altogether. It’s no way to encourage creativity and discussion.

The execution of Fivela going canon is it’s own discussion which some people liked and some people didn’t whether they shipped it or not. I have mixed feelings personally, and yeah. I would have written certain things differently, but I’m also not the author and never was. I didn’t put Five on a pedestal the way some other people seem to have, and I’m partial to happier endings but that’s my writing preferences. This wasn’t actually my story, and I am mostly content to be along for the ride. A lot of people seem pissed because this wasn’t something they wanted and the writers didn’t listen and it’s really just revealing how entitled they felt to the team just taking their order down like this is a restaurant and not a story. People are rabid right now about the whole season and their notp going canon is an easy thing to latch onto especially if they need to address the cop in their head. This is the same fandom that seethes when Allison and Luther have a cute little childhood sweathearts romance in the show adapted from the incest superhero comics. Just like people go pissy when there’s incest in their incest dragons show or gore in their violence on display anime.

A lot of people also didn’t see it coming and felt blindsided. Some are going back and realizing the tension was always there, but many refuse to see it. There’s nothing like willful blindness to fuel a good outrage.

And for some it’s just not their cup of tea, but I doubt they’re the ones screaming right now. Not everyone likes an enemies to lovers arc or messy dynamics or love triangles. Some have been burned by poorly executed tropes in the past. Some just prefer softer less dynamic relationship development. I can’t relate, but that’s fine.

Of course there’s also anyone convinced that Aiden must have been coerced or something into doing a simple kiss scene as a grown actor pushing twenty years old. People love infantilizing Aiden and it’s actually really getting on my nerves. The whole age gap discourse in general has been poisoned by pedo hysteria and judgement assholes treating grown adults like babies who can’t possibly know what’s best for them instead of looking at each individual relationship and looking for mistreatment. It’s much easier to assign a number to things as a shortcut for “bad” and “good” than to recognize abusive behavior both in others and yourself. I’ve seen nothing to suggest Aiden was mistreated on set in regards to his romance arc with Lila, and unless I do, I’m not going to assume the worst here anymore than I did when Hermione and Ron got together or...I don’t know, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts.

Anyways I have a job interview to get to so I’m sorry if this is barely coherent ramblings. I just woke up and I had some venting in me ig. if someone more eloquent than me wants to expand on anything I said, I just ask we try to remain civil.

[jasmancer]

diving back into reading comics so here are some tips from a former comic store employee:

There is so much more than superhero comics out there. Seriously. The comic book format has been host to groundbreaking autobiographies, subversive fantasy and sci fi, experimental horror, mysteries, romance, barbarian babe booby comics, you name it

If u do really want to get into Marvel or DC superhero comics I'd recommend that you pick a character with a smaller catalogue to get started, and/or find some writers you like and look through their catalogue. A lot of comic writers for the big 2 have great original stuff that gets overlooked. There's also a good chance an author you like has written a comic series!

If you want to read a certain character and don't know where to start just look up (character) reading guide !! a lot of comics Tumblr make them and you'd be surprised just how obscure our blorbos can get.

If you can think of a property, there's a 90% chance a comic of it exists. I have stocked Three Stooges comics before. The industry knows no bounds

If ur USAmerican your library probably has access to the service Hoopla which has tons of comics on it. Seriously you can read them for free in a legitimate way on your phone or computer and all you need is a library card. The app is even set up so you can read panel-by-panel instead of having to zoom way in on text boxes and speech bubbles

KEEP TRACK OF WHAT YOURE READING. I seriously cannot tell you how many times I've started a comic and really enjoyed it only to leave it unfinished because I found another series and got so excited I forgot about the other one. I personally use a spreadsheet I found by looking up a book tracker on Google sheets and modifying it to suit comic books.

If you want to buy comics, I'd recommend you get them in TPB (Trade Paperback) volumes AKA ~Graphic Novels~ instead of individual issues. Typically these will collect a series and each book will be 5-6 issues of a comic apiece, and you can even find some that collect important appearances of certain characters or events that arent necessarily held together by one series. Saves money, time, and space

Good places to get secondhand comics in any format include thriftbooks(dot)com, secondhand book stores with comic bins and graphic novel sections like Half Price Books or Vintage Stock, and mycomicshop(dot)com. Looking through comic bins can be kinda daunting, especially if they're not well organized so I mostly recommend going to the graphic novel shelves instead. If you do want to go digging it's definitely fun though and I'd recommend bringing a buddy so you can show each other weird obscure comics you find and giggle

9/10 times comic books are NOT the investment you think they are. The industry takes advantage of this misconception a lot to try and boost sales that have been falling for decades at this point. I personally wouldn't recommend buying individual issues of series unless they're like a short miniseries or oneshots. I could get into what actually makes a comic book go up in value but this post is already long as hell so I'll just leave it here

Now go forth and read!!!

[radroller]

HANK PYM COSTUME RATINGS

At long last, here are my thoughts on the many looks and identities of Marvel’s own Hank Pym!!! Being a fan of this guy is a real rollercoaster, but his costumes are always so great and interesting, ive wanted to talk about them for ages!!! As some of his looks kinda blend together Ive tried to stick with the bare essentials (barring ones i especially like) but you can generally assume that i rate most of the suits of a given identity the same unless i specifically state otherwise. So here we go!!!!!

Ant-Man 10/10

What can i say? You can’t make an ant themed character much cooler than this. The irresistible 60s scifi charm of his big chrome helmet, the red, black, and blue color scheme with patterns that say “i am a super scientist” but gloves that say “im attemptint to look visually interesting.” Naturally Hank forgets he’s wearing some of the coolest headgear in comics. Ant-Man has had some good looks and updates but the charm of this one is pretty undeniable.

Giant Man 8/10

I think we can all agree that Giant Man kinda sucks, but damn if he didnt look cool! I guess he kept the antennae to keep some Ant-Man functionality, but you rarely see him using it. That’s fine though, it gives him a cool and distinct silhouette. It’s strange, if this were a new look for him as Ant Man, id call it a more considerable downgrade, yet Hank becoming Giant Man is a downgrade in just about every sense of the word. And even so, i LOVE Giant Man! It’s a conundrum!

Giant Man Redux: 6/10

I think they were trying to recapture the scifi tech charm of Ant-Man with this one, and it does kinda work! I think my main issue with this one is that it doesnt stick around long enough to really win me over. There are far more minor and insignificant variations of Hank’s suits that stick around way longer than this one. And id say this suit’s pretty damn significant, he left the Avengers for the the first time wearing this shit! I wish they’d played around with it some more.

Goliath: 8/10

Goliath is extremely solid. I have to wonder if Marvel was conscious of Giant Man being a loser that they felt the need to rebrand him like this, there’s little significant changeover from his previous identity other than color scheme and name besides him being stuck at 10 ft tall for a bit. I LOVE the addition of the goggles btw, one of my earliest exposures to that design trope i love so much.

The weird thing with Goliath is that they make him look more and more like Giant Man while refusing to change his name. Like again i know the guy got his ass best plenty of times but when you add antennae and red to his costume….that’s just Giant Man! But whatever the case, i give Goliath and all of his iterations a solid thumbs up.

Yellowjacket: 10/10

The PINNACLE as far as im concerned. What if you took Ant-Man and refined his charming but clunky scifi elements into something sleek, aerodynamic, and downright badass, while still having bright colors? You get Yellowjacket! I can’t stress how much i loved this suit as a kid. Do you know how rare it is to have a primarily yellow superhero who looks cool? It’s mostly just Wolverine, and he didn’t even exist at this point! I also like how it sorta resembles Wasp’s original outfit, though you probably wouldn’t get a chance to compare given Jan’s ever shifting wardrobe. It’s really a shame how maligned the Yellowjacket identity is because id love to see this design again, but its lasting association with the worst shit ever done with Hank pretty much made sure that’ll never happen.

West Coast Avengers: -/10

It’s funny that what is arguably the height of Hank’s superhero career comes from when he’s vehemently not a superhero anymore. Thus, in terms of costumes…well this isnt a costume! But for what it is, it’s great. A nice practical super science getup. But i have trouble rating it on the same scale as the rest. Just know that I love it!

90s Hank: 5/10

I was ready to rip this thing a new one, but tbh it isnt bad. The only thing that keeps it from being truly good is the stupid pouches, but i cant outright call it bad when it’s basically a worse version of Atlas from Thunderbolts’ costume without them. It’s passable.

Giant Man???: 10/10

Yeah, I know. Confusing, isnt it? Well listen, regardless of names and costumes and what have you, this is by far my favorite variation on the original Goliath look. The red goggles just do it for me! I love primary color schemes and i prefer a touch of red to a touch of yellow, yknow?

Goliath??????: 8/10

So NOW he can be Goliath. That makes perfect sense. Yeesh. This suit is cool though i like it. It’s based on a Goliath suit Jan designed for Hank, but by then he’d had become Yellowjacket, so Hawkeye became Goliath for a while instead. It’s a nice callback, and while I don’t actually care for that Goliath look, there’s no way a redesign by George Perez at the height of his career and abilities is gonna be anything less than great.

Wasp: 7/10

Was Mighty Avengers good? I read a couple of issues and remembered enjoying it, but that was when i hated every other Avengers book do idk if that means it was actually good, yknow? Anyway while losing Jan as the Wasp and gaining Hank is about as big a net loss as i can think of, this is NOT a bad look. There are only a few gripes i feel: I get what they were going for with the design on his chest but it makes him look like he’s The Stickbug and not The Wasp. Secondly, i think the goggles are kinda lame compared to some of his other eye/headwear he’s sported throughout the years. That’s about it! Not bad for the worst Wasp in the main continuity!

[creetchure]

Comic reading 101 or: I don't know what I want to read, can you help?

my inbox is open if you have some story you'd like to read specifically, those are just recs of storylines that I really like.

This lists purpose is to give you general recommendations. Scroll down a bit through the bolded parts, see if something sounds good.

You want to read about a group of teenagers doing teenage shenanigans? I recommend New Teen Titans (1983), or Young Justice (1998)

New teen titans is the team you're used to if you used to watch the teen titans show. Much like the other comics at that time, the issues can seem disconnected, and the story arcs are short. If you want to read about Dick Grayson, that would be a good place to read about him.

If you'd rather read about Tim Drake, or you would like something where the absurdity is closer to the 90s and early 2000s, Young Justice is excellent. If you enjoyed watching DC legends of tomorrow, this might be the run for you. Much like in legends, they play a game to save the Earth, once, and also kill Santa Claus.

You got here from Batfamily, and you'd like to read about the members? Let me do a rapid fire list of good stories for each.

For Bruce: there are a thousand reading guides out there, but the storylines you'll most likely be most interested in will be the Jason dies, and the Tim joins the batfamily ones. Those are respectively, Death of the Family, and A Lonely Place for Dying

For Dick: I don't have a solid recommendation for a run, but I'll tell you that I did enjoy Nightwing Rebirth and Nightwing Infinite. Those are both under the Nightwing (2016) label, and are issues 1-50, then 73-present. The twenty five issues in the middle are not worth reading.

For Jason: Under the Red Hood is a must, but if you're tired of reading by that point, the animated movie is a good substitute. After that, I'd recommend Red Hood Lost Days. I'd also recommend, for your hurt/comfort, the story Cheer, which you can find in issues 1-6 of Batman Urban Legends.

For Tim: after a lonely place for dying, if Tim really is your little guy, he has a long run in 1993. It's extremely dense, and it should last you a while. After that, you can look up Battle for the Cowl (no need to read it), and jump into Red Robin.

For Cass: Batgirl (2000) is a must, as well as the No Man's land storyline, though that one is harder to read.

For Steph: Batgirl (2009) is the largest solo run she's had. It's very good.

For Duke: We Are Robins is a twelve issues mini that fully introduces his character. After that, he appears in Batman (2016).

For Damian: Robin: son of Batman, then Batman&Robin, both by Tomasi and Morrison ate where a large part of his character développement come from. For something light hearted, try Supersons and Adventures of the Supersons.

What appealed to me in Batfam was the found family, but they're too dysfunctional in canon, what can I read with those same feels? The found family is pretty much there in any superhero comics, but I feel you. Ranked by levels of functionality:

The flashfam is there for your fluff and light conflict. They don't always get along (see: flash war) but they generally like each other, and they generally don't have the sort of conflict the batfam has. Most of them *are* biologically related, but it's all kind of weird. For a kid getting a father figure, read Impulse (1995), or Wally West's early appearances.

The superfam has issues, but they've mostly worked through them. Kind of. Right now, in Action Comics, they get along. You can pretty much pick any character who isn't Clark or Jon, and start reading about them, and they're found familied. If you want some specifically family related conflict, though, I'd read about Kon.

The arrowfam is like the Batfamily, only they actually try to communicate. I've got different shades of found family in that one: if you want a biological son reconnects with his father after said father was dead for a period of time, read about Connor Hawke (green arrow 2001). If you want father daughter bonding between a man and a kid he collected, read about Mia (green arrow 2001). If you want to read about the first kid that got adopted, it'll be a tad trickier, but read about Roy Harper (issues in Action Comics, you'll have to look that one up, but it's usually only a dozen issues at a time)

The batfamily, but I put a guide higher up.

I kind of want to read about a character that not many people talk about, because I'm scared I'll post a bad take and get dogpiled. First off, that shouldn't happen, and if it does, assume it's from a comic bro not worth your time. Second off, I can only offer EXTRMELY biased recs here, but it's a wild world, if you want a specific flavor of character, it exists. Most of the ones I like turn out to be similar enough.

Thad Thawne: you can read his major storyline in Impulse 1995, issues 62-66. He's of the traumatized child variety.

Jean-Paul Valley: he has quite a large role in 90s comics, during the Knightfall saga, but reading Dark Knight Of The Soul and Sword of Azrael (both from around 2020) are a decent intro. Of the cult made variety.

Lonnie Machin: you can read him in his two solos, Anarky 97 and Anarky 99, and there is a comprehensive reading guide on @/azbats page. It doesn't take long to go through.

Mother Panic: also of the cult made variety, she has a 12 issues mini called Mother Panic, as well as a 6 issues one called Mother Panic Gotham AD.

Xanthe: this one can be found currently, in Spirit World. It's only 4 issues so far, not much to catch up on.

In general, fans of the characters that usually don't get much mainstream content (the magic people of DC, like Constantine or Zatanna, or the Aquaman family, or the Amazon family for exemple) are very open to new comers wanting to learn more about these characters. They'll be extatic to give you short reading guides if you ask for them (and you can ask simply for the barebones recommendations, to get the very gist of the character)

There are a lot more out there. A *lot*. You'll find a character you like.

I want to read classic comics, so that I know the very basic ones. Kind of a tough question, and one I don't fully have a response to. I can give you well known Batman storylines but what is considered a classic varies from person to person. In no particular order:

Batman: A long Halloween

Batman: Hush

Batman: Death of the Family

Batman: Under the Red Hood

I want an au, I don't like the way things are in batman comics. I can't offer you that many, it's not something I read a lot about, but:

Batman: White Knight (start with white knight, there are many spin offs, but they're generally given at the end of the last issue)

Dark Knights of Steel (12 issues!)

I want something that feels like fanfiction! There's some of that too, trust me

Cheer (Jason hurt/comfort) (batman: urban legends 1-6)

Knight Terrors Robin (Tim and Jason bonding) (2 issues)

Nightwing written by Tom Taylor (Dick fixing issues) (issues 73 on)

Red Robin (Tim having an absolute shit time and being a badass) (less than 30 issues)

All of these are generic recommendations. They're not the end all be all of reading lists for any given character, far from it. But hopefully, you manage to narrow down the vibe you want, and find something that interests you. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in my inbox, I'll be glad to infodump.

To read any of this, typing "[comic title] read online" is extremely effective, so long as you have an adblocker.

[aliteralchicken]

if let revive the idea of the danny temple solo, where would you take the run?

ideally I would like to do it out of continuity as to get the true late 90’s/early 00’s comic vibes from the story and keep Danny a teenager with way too much responsibly of a whole cult, plus I could add birdsnake, but if I was bringing him back main continuity

I’d wanna use some iconic kobra members, mainly Lady Eve, because at this point in canon she does have a lot of power in the kobra, I’d try to give her and Danny a bit of a robin and lady shiva dynamic, one that’s clearly got mentorship but not really any affection, on one panel she’d be trying to manipulate him into giving up his power in the cult to her, but in another she’s saving his life

i would lean heavily into the opposite twin thing, but rather than the whole ‘Danny is good Ryan is evil’ route I’d just make Ryan an advisory for Danny because that was…a bit yikes ngl

they’d still hate each other because that was quite significant to their characters in robin 1993 but it’s more often the ‘die in pain jerk bag’ type hate that we saw in the flashback panel rather than the flat out loathing we saw in others

I’d keep the ‘worlds most reluctant supervillain’ thing because that seemed really entertaining, Danny would be subtly trying to keep the kobra from doing evil things while on the other hand Ryan would be the ‘worlds most reluctant superhero’ trying to stop the Kobras plans in order to make Danny look like a terrible leader (while also trying to usurp Danny’s position from him)

so i’d go mostly comedy, fake supervillain secretly an anti hero vs a fake superhero secretly an anti villain (ish), constantly trying to foil each other’s plans, you’ve got hero’s and villains teaming up with with the wrong twin and it’s not because they’re identical (most of the time) and because I love angst and nothing hurts more than sibling tragedy, I would bring up frequently how although they do hate each other, they’re still twins, they’ll always be twins, no matter what happens when they look in the mirror they’ll see their brother looking back,

if one of them gets hurt they’ll still care no matter how much they don’t want to or claim they don’t, if someone hates their brother but it’s for reasons they don’t agree with they’re going to speak up and deny it to his face when asked, knowing he won’t be believed because he’d do the same

They’ll never get along like the wonder twins do but there’s always the knowledge that maybe if they weren’t kobra clones and had a normal upbringing and Danny wasn’t given this title just because he was seen as stronger when they were just babies they could’ve gotten along

but they’ll always be kobra, they’ll always have that childhood, so they probably never will, they’ll always be at odds with each other, even if secretly they both don’t want to be

[rootbeerrex]

@taters-for-tots ranks more dc characters: this time heroes

learning from our past mistakes, this version will be one long post.

once again, all opinions belong to

Superman (5/10)

"This kind is better because he's... he's just more wide, do you understand? he's more superman cause he's just very wide."

"Superman is like custard... and I won't elaborate on that."

"He's just. There's not many things you can say about him, everything's already been said. And also because he's a boring white boy. I am more interesting than superman."

"I haven't seen a superman who looked over the age of thirty in so long... this is what we should be doing. Superman should be a tired older man."

"Overwhelmingly average"

"The wonderbread of superheros, mostly in the color scheme."

2. Batman (6/10)

"We have discussed this before, but we need to bring up the duality of his ears..."

*looks up bat*

"order of flying mammals, that sounds like they're an organization" (Rex note: I don't think he knows what taxonomy is, but that's gonna be a shock for another day).

"what kind of bat is batman supposed to be. that's my question."

"'The batman cannot be comprehended and therefore cannot be stopped' I think I could stop him pretty easily. He can definitely be comprehended, I'm comprehending him right now! look at that, it's batman!"

"I'm just so desensitized to batman cause he's like. Everywhere."

(BTAS specific)

"Batman the animated series is so wild because- okay I love his design because he's so ANGULAR. This man is a POLYGON. that's just how things were in the 30s 50s 90s."

*rants about mickey mouse vs batman for about a minute straight*

"I know there were different rating systems when BTAS came out, but it's wild to be watching an animated PG series and seeing the joker fully pull out a machine gun and start SHOOTING at him. It's even MORE wild when he pulls out a pistol! And then it's not the little flag-gag like you expect, and he actually SHOOTS him!"

"I also think they got the length of his ears right on this one."

3. Wonder Woman (9/10)

"This crown design is. Goddamn."

"Wonder Woman is pretty cool. I have a Wonder Woman cape in my closet. I just think that she's pretty neat. I thought the Wonder Woman movie that came out recently- (rex note: it was 7 years ago) was pretty good!"

"I think it's cool that she's got her initials not once but twice on her outfit, and doesn't use a lot of weapons. She's got her lasso and her cuffs, and other than that she's just kinda punching people and that's awesome. And no one asked but she would beat captain america in a fight."

"Original comic wonder woman is also cool. She just always looks neat."

"The CALVE strength this woman must have to be doing all of this in high heels must be insane and I appreciate her so much for that."

"DC Superhero Girls newest version isn't very good because they made her too spindly, but this version looks like a person."

4. Martian Manhunter (guy/5)

"Hello?? who is this guy?? what's um... why is... what. who?"

*hearing his name without seeing spelled*

"John... Jones... Is his name???"

5. Flash (7/10)

"I want these boots. let it be known that I want these boots. Him eating a burger while running very fast.

"a lot of the rating for the boots, and the rest because his name is barry"

"I think it's fun that they were like- these other heroes have all these things like Superman has X-ray vision and flight, and Batman has grappling hooks and tech, and Wonder Woman is a GODDESS, and he just. He go fast and that's who he is."

"He's just a guy. He's just a little man. I like his little ear lightning bolts. Sometimes I forget that's what they're supposed to be and I think he's just wearing bluetooth headsets on both ears for some reason"

"I'd very much like to know what's going on here."

"This might've been a joke but... is there a reverse flash? What's his deal? I like to think that he runs really slow and it doesn't benefit him at all."

7. Cyborg (6.5/10)

"He's a guy. For sure. I don't know what's happening here where the skin on his fingers is all- like- crinkly? That's weird. But otherwise I think he's pretty cool. He's got a nice color scheme going on, I'll give him that."

"There's a cyborg guy, right? Is his name just cyborg?"

"I think he looks cool. It's a neat design, I just think he looks neat. yeah. I think he's pretty cool. I remember him mostly from the justice league ride at six flags because there's a really creepy animatronic of him standing outside the ride."

"Neat idea for a character, IDK a whole lot about of him, but he looks pretty cool."

---

And that is all for now, once again don't shoot the messenger for these opinions, @taters-for-tots is the one who called superman the "wonderbread of superheroes."

[aaronsrpgs]

X-Men '97, Generative Human Intelligence, and My Problem With Studios

For me, the biggest problem of AI/generative art/predictive text is that it's created without the permission of the people who produced the source material, trained by underpaid people, and used by venture capitalists to suck up money and stop paying people.

A lesser problem is that, because it's trained on extant work, it almost always feel derivative and/or bad. I don't want to pursue criticizing it based on aesthetic stakes; I want to destroy the machinery and rob those who fund it.

It's me, I'm the Luddite.

HOWEVER, I can level those same aesthetic criticisms at someone else: the studios producing superhero shows and movies based on comic books. I just finished watching X-Men '97 season one, and it felt like it was created by generative human intelligence trained on X-Men comics. Which I mostly mean in a bad way.

Caveat: The show is decent, there are some cool moments, and I honestly feel like the people who worked on it had their heads/hearts in a good place and worked hard. I want studios to keep paying people, especially marginalized people, to work for them! Preferably under union protection.

However, as someone who's read entirely too many X-Men comics, the show felt like a vinegar reduction of decades of comic books.

Now, is that bad? Not necessarily. It's a good way to attract new audiences, and as someone who can appreciate stripped-down prose and movies that are only 90 minutes, I understand the impulse to get rid of the cruft and show the "greatest hits."

But the reason I like the X-Men comics I keep revisiting is that they're full of what I like to call friction or tension. And I don't mean dramatic tension. I mean that these comics were produced by (usually) a writer, a penciller, an inker, a letterer, a colorist, multiple editors, some sort of company president, and response to reader reactions. And they had to come out every month (usually), meaning there was an intense deadline, and they were heavily situated in the time they were produced.

God bless Ann Nocenti, editor extraordinaire.

Whoa, sounds bad, right? The opposite of an auteur system. But there's a very human friction in these books, because they were caught up in the interests of the (mostly) young (mostly) men making them.

Why did multiple issues of X-Men written by Chris Claremont feature sci-fi author Emma Bull's "filk music" band Cats Laughing? It wasn't because they were thematically related or popular at the time. It's because Claremont and Bull were friends.

Most fiction teachers would say that this sort of idiosyncrasy was bad, and in a novel written across years and released all at once, I'd agree! But in a serial format, I think it adds friction; it slows down the reader and makes them notice that is a product of humans in the specific time they were produced. And I like being reminded of that! I don't think all works should include it, but it's something that comics and TV shows can pull off, and that movies and novels are less able to do.

Speaking of Chris Claremont, he was the writer that really brought in and magnified themes of civil rights and queerness in the X-Men. His characters were human, radical, and varied. He wrote powerful women in a time that was rare in the industry. Also, his stories were very horny.

Put Professor X in bondage gear, you Disney cowards.

But Claremont is also a Zionist (I gather) and has written a lot of pro-cop X-Men stories. That sucks! To see him try to write stories of radical civil rights and boundary-pushing feminism while also objectifying women, writing about his personal fetishes, and doing some All Lives Matter stuff—that's tension.

I appreciate tension because, again, it helps prove that there are humans behind the work: fallible, changing passionate humans. I would rather read a story that tries and stumbles than a story that speedruns hitting all my personal beliefs like some sort of American Ninja Warrior MFA Graduate.

Watch him smoothly ride from queer representation to police abolition before front-handspringing into post-capitalist utopianism.

Which brings us back to X-Men '97. it's a sleek 10 episodes with clear character arcs for most of the characters involved. Impressive storytelling! But every sleek beat it hits is drawn from old X-Men comics (Lifedeath, Fatal Attractions, Second Coming, and many more). It feels like the writers' room was trained on 60 years of X-Men comics and isn't producing anything outside of that.

A short digression: isn't that how all human creativity works? Good question. Let me address it from a deeply objective and researched position: FUCK NO!

A single example: Jack Kirby read the pseudoscientific works of Erich von Daniken, which proposed that aliens had visited Earth in the past, as documented in many works of ancient peoples. It's a boring historical book. And Jack Kirby read it and made The Eternals.

POW POW! Shoot your alien gods.

I think a rabid consumption of media buttressed by a devout pursuit of creative skills will cast whatever work you do in an exciting and alien light. Please try!

I want to end on a positive note and mention my favorite part of X-Men '97. It's Morph! Morph's a shape-changing mutant who didn't appear much in the source comics. In the show, Morph is explicitly nonbinary, referred to with "they" pronouns. And they're 100% in love with Wolverine (who Claremont at one point wanted to write as a gay guy).

There are lots of great scenes with Morph coming to comfort Wolverine while he's in the shower, or turning into Wolverine's unrequited love Jean Grey to say "I love you" while Wolverine is unconscious and healing.

It reminds me of Mystique, the "evil" shapeshifter originating in Claremont's X-Men run. According to later X-Men writer Scott Lobdell, "It was always Chris's plan that Mystique and Irene Adler (Destiny) were lovers, and that Mystique at one point had transformed into a man and impregnated Destiny and she gave birth to Nightcrawler. So, Mystique and Destiny were actually Nightcrawler’s father and mother."

According to Claremont, Mystique was also Sherlock Holmes, and Destiny was the same Irene Adler that appeared in Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia."

Later X-Men comics went pretty deep in exploring how Mystique, as a shapechanger, made a perfect spy, a confused double-triple-quadruple agent, and someone who transcended gender and fucked with identity.

And while X-Men '97 flirts with that (by having Morph flirt with Wolverine), Morph mostly serves as a vehicle for fan service cameos; they turn into X-Men and Marvel characters that otherwise won't appear in the show, seemingly so that fans can point at the screen and identify the character.

The end of season one sets up a potential status quo for Morph and Wolverine that's more character focused. And I would love to see that! But until then, Morph remains the face of human generative intelligence, referencing the history of X-Men comics that Disney and the show's writers' room have consumed in order to regurgitate as a 20-minute cartoon.

[brw]

28, 40, 41

28 - What got you into comics?

Hercules. For some reason, I guess bc I saw a beefy man in a skirt & blacked out, I bought the Greg Pak Incredible Hercules run one day on a whim and I loved it. I was obsessed with this large muscular man & his super smart friend Amadeus & their little adventures it was good. I went online once I finished, found there was a new solo called Still Going Strong, went back to Forbidden Planet & read that & I loved it too! I wasn't like majorly online, not in marvel fandom spaces at that time, so I didn't know unfortunately of Dan Abnett biphobia, although sir you did have Herc & Gilgamesh live together in a one bedroom apartment later with a genderfluid immortal seer & a woman from prehistoric times so task failed that was pretty bi & polyamorous of you? Anyway, then discovered Civil War 2: Gods of War, and went back to Forbidden Planet & bought & read that.

This was when I made a fatal mistake. See, Gods of War, which I loved, is a tie-in to Civil War 2. I, a fool not knowing anything about comics, rationalised to myself "hey. if this is a tie-in, I bet Hercules shows up in the main comic too bc they make a big deal out of it in the tie-in!". So I returned to the comic shop & purchased the collection of Civil War 2, which by the way was fucking expensive! & I read & hated it! the art was nice & that's all I'll say! The writing was sloppy & ridiculous, I barely understood who the Inhumans were, & I've never fully liked Carol since.

Anyway, I didn't touch comics again after that, not until I was watching MCU films with a friend whowas heavily into the MCU & Stucky. I had watched some of these but was mostly casual. This changed when I got out of Endgame & was suddenly angry about the fact that Vision hadn't shown up. Like, in a way I hadn't felt about them before. Anyway, I went online & discovered No Road Home was a thing. Hercules was there, Vision was there, Wanda was there, as was a bunch of characters I recognised, so I bought & read that and immediately became insane & I am now the incredibly annoying individual you see today.

Shout out to @solipsism-lemonade though for rping with me on my wattpad days who fuelled a lot of my obsession <3

40 - What's a comic that's so bad you ended up finding it funny?

I've talked abt it before but what the fuck was going on in Vision (1994). Why were they a detective. Why was their evil alternate universe self there. Why was Ultron an alcoholic. Why was Jocasta golden. They explain it all but do they really. What was Vision's roadtrip with alcoholic Ultron & Jocasta about what happened. There's just so much going on & it's so viscerally 90s but it's good??? 90s alcoholic Ultron come back the kids miss you.

41 - What's a comic that keeps on giving (you enjoy rereading)?

Age of Ultron #10 for sure, I've reread it many times & I love it so much. There's so much genuine hope & inspiration there, it's a comic I think everyone should read before they talk abt how horrible Hank is. Like it's the comic I come back to the most to explain why he resonates with me so much; because he so clearly struggles with himself, with others, with being a superhero, but there's positive sides to that too & I really appreciate after years of being given such a short stick or usually focusing on the worst of him, that Waid gave a real focus to the best. Mr Waid stop touching Dr Doom n get on Hank instead!!!

comics that i love ask game

[liaroflesbos]

Book ask game cribbed from @sixth-light

1) Last book I read:

Last thing I've finished was the collection Queer Little Monsters edited by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli. It was definitely enjoyable, some good weird shit in there that I'm still mulling over. I particularly like Hiromi Goto's short story, "And The Moon Spun Round Like a Top"

2) A book I recommend:

Oh, probably The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Adison if you haven't read it. I have read it.... so much.

3) A book that I couldn’t put down:

Hmmmm I actually do this a couple times a year, where I keep reading until I finish. I'm pretty sure I did it mostly recently with Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, a book I really super enjoyed.

4) A book I’ve read twice (or more)

I'm constantly rereading and relistening to things, especially because I have space for it while I work at my job. Right now I'm relistening to Seasparrow by Kristin Cashore, the most recent of her Seven Kingdoms books... which I think the series has a new name now that there are like 11/12 kingdoms lol

5) A book on my TBR

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez. I heard he's an underated author and I'm psyched to check him out!

6) A book I’ve put down

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dosteovesky. I'll finish it one day, it was just long and giving me a headache

7) A book on my wish list

What's the difference between a TBR and a wishlist? If it's something I wished I owned, I would like to buy Textual Poachers. I keep looking in used bookstores to find fan studies texts after I got Enterprising Women at one, but so far no luck.

8) A favourite book from childhood

Well, the first fic I wrote was for the Charlie Bone series, which I read A Lot. Oh, I also loved this book called True Talents by David Lubar? Both of them very much about kids how had some special talents but were still caught in the grindstone of hostile adult institutions.

9) A book you would give a friend

Also agree with sixth-light--all book gifts are heavily personalized for the person I'm giving it to, that's the joy of a book gift: an attempt to discern exactly what they might like and to find it. That being said, I might go with Howl's Moving Castle or maybe Swordheart

10) The most books you own by a single author

I would say I don't own very many books right now, but it's getting up there again. Not a lot by the same author though. Not counting comics (probably I have the most Chuck Dixon? I have a lot of 90s Batman stuff), it's probably manga from Jun Mochizuki, between Pandora Hearts and Vanitas.

11) A nonfiction book you own

Just yesterday I bought Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and their Fans by Jeffrey A Brown at the used bookstore. I'm excited to try it!

12) what are you currently reading

I switch between a couple formats of books at once depending on where I am and what I'm doing. Right now I'm reading on ebook Hearts of Atlantis by Stephen King, listening to Doppleganger by Naomi Klein on audiobook, and reading the collection Broken Stars translated and edited by Ken Liu on the trains and such. Oh, also trying to finish Bacchus Volume 1

13) what are you planning on reading next?

Oh, my book club book for next month is School for Good Mothers--the theme was Philly. I have Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino out on ebook right now, and next time I head to the library I want Akira Volume 2.

[aaronymous999]

Ms marvel is pretty easy: you're gonna want to start with 2014 Ms marvel: no normal and follow her up til secret wars. you can ignore secret wars. she has another ongoing that started in 2016? I believe? and that one goes on for a while. all new all different avengers (2016) and after that, champions (2016) and champions (2019) are pretty good for her too. wrt x men: pick a character (probably pick someone who was introduced in the 70s-80s-90s cause that should give you a fair bit of material unless you go SUPER niche), go to cmro.com, and read everything with them. it's not going to make sense and that's okay. but you'll probably get a good sense of what's happening in the comics world around them. keep in mind: alternate universes (like secret wars in 2015, like age of apocalypse in the 90s or age of x in the early 2010s) do not matter and you can ignore them. given that you mentioned interest in Spiderman, you might try following Angelica Jones, firestar in "Spiderman and his amazing friends". she was introduced in the 80s iirc, had an origin story solo, and actually jumps to the new warriors and doesn't appear in x men much -- but she's a solid choice, esp bc she's got plot shit going on in comics rn. you also mentioned liking Nightwing, so you might look at nightcrawler, who is (like dick) also an acrobat. he was introduced in giant sized x men back in 1975. he's in the main x men story for a while, was a founding member of Excalibur, appeared in the movies and TV shows, and he's a well known enough character that you'll be able to follow his appearances through most major x men events. Tumblr won't let me send messages with my sideblog unfortunately but if you want to know more abt getting into comics (mostly x men. I am an x men fan 😔) you can find me at @karmirage . good luck!

I THOUGHT NOBODY WOULD GIVE ME RECCOMENDATIONS TYY SO MUCH!!

I actually really loved Nightcrawler in the movies so that’s a great pick!! He’s such a silly guy tbhh..

I could be wrong about this but I believe in the Ultimate comics Liz Allan was Firestar? So that one might be interrsting too!! ( ofc having a different identity but still the Ultimate Comics have introduced me to a lot of cool concepts that if I like there- I generally enjoy in the main universe so good pick tysmmm!!! )

Excited to read Ms. Marvel especially since I haven’t had much motivation to finish her show but now that I have some good comics of her to read I might! I also loved her dynamic with Miles in those comics so I’m super excited to see her friendship with other superheroes and her differences between the show and the comics!!

[eyeballtank]

Maybe i should do another Rentry post for these but just in case.

1:

Honestly, if Crowbcat wanted to be even more /v/, he could've not bothered with those videos about Halo (Which even Martin O'Donnell liked) and instead gone full "Babby's first FPS that ruined the genre".

He even made a positive video about Doom 2016, for a guy that is essentially "/v/ outside of /v/".

Like he could've technically been worse, since /v/ even had threads shitting on RE4.

2:

Love Death and Robots seems at first to be a spiritual successor to Heavy Metal in terms of being a showcase of different sci-fi stories.

The problem is that Heavy Metal had a particular appeal that isn't really present in LDR, mostly the "nerd into 80/90's heavy metal/sci-fi" stuff while LDR has typical modern elements.

But this might also be partially why the Heavy Metal comics brand is dead, because they dropped that appeal/focus years ago.

If people look at the 2 animated movies or those illustrations by Simon Bisley, they'll get disappointed knowing HM stopped showing tits at some point.

Though someone i follow that is a bigger comics expert points out that Heavy Metal was more about the art while 2000AD was more about the stories and also had better variety so it wasn't just "cool characters nerds like".

3:

The thing with Lois Lane in the new Superman cartoon is that she looks like a generic tomboy but to some people, she was just a white office lady.

I guess it's like how Marian from Double Dragons wans't really a visually iconic looking character, so nobody cares that River City Girls turned her into Dorohedoro Noi.

But it also might be a difference from Harley Quinn where if these characters like superheroes or villains have interesting designs, then the likes of Batman's butler Alfred or Spiderman's Aunt May exist to look normal and not have actual designs.

So to some it isn't a loss because she never had a "design" as they think.

4:

SiivaGunner was a fun gimmick at first but i think what made the channel kinda boring is how many memes they started to incorporate and even make it part of a "lore".

Like Grandad and Snow Halation are "part of it" but then there's all these various attempts at referencing specific e-celebs and memes.

It's specifically lame when they reference Keemstar or Logan/Jake Paul like those are human beings worth liking.

Also makes the "wholesome" aesthetic weird.

"Awww look at Kirby and Frisk from Undertale, videogames are so cute... anyway, here's the shittiest memes you've already been tired of seeing on Youtube mixed along".

People already give Triple Q some shit for being irony poisoned or meme centered, even if he hasn't reached the level of Grandayy.

Probably the same deal with Tumblr people going "NO MORE IRONY, I WANT SINCERITY" but still showing hints of the meme/irony culture they grew around, when they could either develop real life experiences or interact with actual good media.

5:

Maybe a problem with nerd portrayals in pop culture is that the idea of them being outcast and all is there but Star Wars was always popular, so pop culture was "partially correct".

Like replace Star Wars and Star Trek with Heavy Metal comics or something less talked about and all those caricatures in tv shows could've been more accurate.

6:

When it comes to fiction copying/taking stuff from its own fields, comedy is probably the worst case of this because you'll realize certain caricatures or "types" come from someone's observations and then later comedies take it and it becomes autopilot in a way.

Maybe it's the case with media leading to stereotypes or biased views on real people but moreso something that makes characters feel less sincere.

I dunno, making another generic fantasy setting with orcs and dragons is less evil in comparison to a sitcom copying the same character traits.

7:

Seeing people go "you're not a real fighting game fan unless you're part of the FGC" is funny because it's obviously a response to people mad at the censorship in Skullgirls.

But also because it's a way to make any game less beloved than it is because of how exploitable it is.

"You're not a real Mario fan unless you're a SM64 speedrunner".

When Doom Eternal came out, even guys with "hot takes about JRPG's" and those that mock Redditors talked about the Isabelle crossovers and did basic Doom memes.

Most of them might as well be fake fans because they're not too invested in wads and browse Doomworld.

See how that sounds?

8:

I think i already said in Rentry posts that Sseth became either safe or too reliant on current memes.

Emptyhero however still makes risky jokes and is still funny.

If i finish my game, i wouldn't care if he shat on it as long as he made a review of it funny.

9:

If you think about it, Zoomers grew up with Smosh and ERBOH, so they watch breadtubers and essay video makers to overcompensate.

It's the closest they get to "intellectualism" to make it up for watching shit that other online groups would put it beneath 9gag.

10:

I wonder if there's a correlation between people complaining about "edgy animation" (As in, when Spongebob has better animation/is animated by actual animators than SU) and people that hate AAA games with "photorealistic" graphics.

Because there is an arguement for "corporate" art styles still requiring effort but then they'd realize that applies more to 3D "CalArts" animation that even the Mario movie has than Spongebob.

Even with videogames, developers "scaling down graphics" won't just be the end of Naughty Dog but even fantasy or sci-fi designs people like.

Not even "343 overdesigned sci-fi" or "DarkSiders copycat autopilot fantasy" but there's character designs people won't admit have a lot of detail.

Unless that "i want shorter games with worse graphics" image is less about scale and more about quality as in "the Metal Slug series is soulless because it having good pixel art means it took slavework while my shitty indie game is REAL SOUL because the art style being bad is a good thing".

Maybe it's a clique thing where people just advertise the "right kind" of games.

And again, corporations LOVE stiff animation and hate effort taking animation from passionate animators.

11:

I think the reason why people have some interest in people taking shit seriously is because of what comes next: When they "betray" that investment.

Like Zoomers still taking screenshots of art they deem illegal/immoral to mock someone or taking "Proshippers DNI" off profiles to not get blocked by artists.

Or people treating "groomer" as a slur when they could easily use it against the other side when they find their actual examples of groomers.

Something where the issue is not "taking shit seriously" but more "doing a terrible job at it", because when you take something like culture wars or fandom shit seriously, your brain might as well have some connection like your life somehow depends on it.

You can see this with germophobes who wash their hands too many times, then they make food for someone and don't wash their hands: Are they outgrowing their habits? Or are they revealing they only care for their safety, even if the food isn't contaminated by a real threat?

Maybe it's a sign of people only acting a certain way to fit in a group.

Because it can also come off as a sign of a weak character if you fuck up even something you're supposed to base yourself around.

12:

The idea of a Barbie moving having politics is funny because the "outside" of Barbie has all these feminists thinking girls are forced to play with it or that the character is a terrible representation of women.

In a way, politics in media could be about the "outside" and not what's coming from the setting or story.

Same deal with Doom: Why bring up the UAC argent energy plot when you have John Carmack making the games moddable out of a "hacker respector" way and Romero getting the sack by ZeniMax when wanting to share some assets related to the games?

13:

The occasional overlaps between SA and Tumblr are funny because they seem opposite at first until you realize their opposites explain the overlaps.

One thing is troll's remorse, another is nerds that were always easy to mock still trying to be the bullies.

Knowing the history behind Dril and even Homestuck can reveal some lore between a site where nerds wasted money on a forum while telling other nerds to die and another that acted as a hugbox for freaks to feel "heckin valid".

14:

I think a reason why OG Lara Craft is more liked than the boring new Lara is because she's clearly a comic book/action figure type character and the other is a generic "realistic" character that might as well be an NPC.

Part of why you can't put Solid Snake/Big Boss in the same field as actual generic "white guy protagonists" because of stuff related to their designs, backgrounds, personalities, gameplay etc.

Also explains why some Resident Evil fans (Even if a small minority) aren't much into the remakes or 7/8.

And a problem with both Doom movies and the cancelled Doom 4 having generic SWAT soldiers when Doom always had a particular "sci-fi security guard" aesthetic while the new games have the Sentinel stuff.

15:

The reason to make fun of shit like boomers complaining about woke stuff is if they do it in a situation where it's not the case or they exaggerate something, but you can tell some people mock these even in situations where it's not unreasonable.

Otherwise, the people mocking these boomers would still mock shit like ResetEra freaking out over cute girls in a JRPG.

Like you see people claim Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album art is "appropriating LGBT culture" because of the rainbow and instead, it's the boomers talking about that group of people that get to be mocked.

Being stupid isn't exclusive to one side.

It's why people think it's more convinient to be left wing and then get surprised when there's grifters or shit like that.

16:

A lot of "media literacy" boils down to adding modern politics to a movie that otherwise had a very different message.

Meanwhile, Fritz the Cat had political themes that could apply to modern times but "media literacy" types and animation fans ignore it because it's not coming from their desired background/area.

17:

One of the worst images i saw was a Soyjak making fun of people that prefer to ignore Twitter.

Years of guys on /v/ being told to "go to Twitter" everytime they complain about censorship and now when some anons say "stop posting Twitter screencaps on /v/", they're told "um you should care what Twitter people say".

The mere fact that Twittier is essentially "the center of the web" is a bad thing and destroying the site would be one of the few good things Elon Musk ever did in his life.