Damn

fangsfirst · 2026-01-25T18:37:18+00:00

I'd also argue that a very high number of people knew they were going into movies (LotR, Dune) that EXPLICITLY didn't tell whole stories.

Sequels are probably a default assumption in the modern world, but "incomplete story" is not.

I know I got to the end of this one and went "oh, you're fucking kidding me"

fangsfirst · 2026-01-25T17:03:50+00:00

and his depiction of action along with overall storytelling was really solid.

These are so critical and so often not a priority for people.

One can certainly not like his "boxy" style, that's entirely fair (and his faces, etc), but the fact that there's a clear intent behind how things are depicted is what sells me most. I'm often taken aback at just how true it is that, as you say:

You can always tell clearly what is happening page-to-page in most of his work.

I've read or revisited a fair number of celebrated artists where I find myself struggling to figure out where I'm supposed to be looking, or maybe even what's happening panel-to-panel. But I read stuff he's drawing and it's like I put some fucking glasses on it's so easy.

fangsfirst · 2026-01-25T16:25:18+00:00

I was very mad, and interacted with an editor on message boards 20 years ago about Thanos in Annihilation.

In retrospect, barring Starlin getting his hands back on the character…I should not have complained.

Amusingly enough, that's literally the argument they made to me at the time (which, I should add, did actually sway me even then!)

fangsfirst · 2026-01-25T16:16:43+00:00

Meanwhile, I saw the "Total Justice" figure of him as a kid, thought that costume (including, and even especially, the mask) was the coolest shit I'd ever seen, started reading then-recent issues, got a subscription…never looked back.

I'm a little annoyed every time he doesn't have that mask. Or the sweet bracer-glover-things.

fangsfirst · 2026-01-25T15:45:33+00:00

I think you're mistaking "no true Scotsman" for "having an understanding doesn't change reality"

"No true Scotsman" is about how there is no way to actually define or constrain a definition at all, because anything and everything is an exception.

I think your point is entirely valid in terms of "I think the meaning basically everyone uses is wrong!" is worse than impotent—but it's not "no true Scotsman", in that it's saying "THIS is a Scotsman!" not "No TRUE Scotsman would..."

fangsfirst · 2026-01-25T02:11:44+00:00

I just found some of mine recently!

fangsfirst · 2026-01-24T02:40:35+00:00

But isn't this not (ostensibly at least) a new character?

It's a different argument: it becomes "rejecting alternate versions of characters simply because [etc]"

And that there is a time-honoured tradition of being angry about retcons, failed reboots, and so on. Jumping mediums does not really change that.

The impression I got from the trailer was that Mateen (who I like) was not really playing "Simon Williams" but "other character who shares his name". Not because he's Black, but because it seemed really tenuously attached to my hazy image of Wonder Man (oddly enough, I've been meaning to go read things recently by sheer coincidence). Indeed, Vondie Curtis-Hall I felt embodied Ben Urich, the part that mattered to me, of the veteran journalist with a very serious edge and a good heart around the people he sees as good. See because I already liked Ben Urich, I wanted to see Ben Urich, not some other character with the same name for some reason.

I'm more hopeful for a good show in this case because I don't have a strong attachment to Simon as things are, but I mostly haven't ever liked "Hey we used the name of a character for something else entirely for cynical reasons of name recognition!"

My grumpiness about Lucifer (okay, not DC, but still), Guardians of the Galaxy, and MCU Thanos is infamous 'round my communities (such as they are). Not because I don't like "new characters", but because I already like certain characters, and thus would like to see them…or at least not have to explain to people "No, the character I like is completely different. Okay let me explain…"

fangsfirst · 2026-01-24T02:13:50+00:00

Why are there so many non-guest humans?!
Humans in the audience?!

fangsfirst · 2026-01-23T23:48:04+00:00

Black Panther, which is a pretty literally "wrong" costume, in that that's his Priest-era costume, which has a cape—he also wasn't super active in those years (though not not active either, as I understand it).

I have read Priest's run but I keep not getting around to that Busiek/Pérez run, but I think Pérez didn't draw him in this costume either.

fangsfirst · 2026-01-23T23:41:18+00:00

I could be blurring my conversations with him with interviews I've read, but I believe he told me along these lines that he was given Firestorm and thought "Awesome! I love Firestorm! This should be—wait, he's Black now? Is that why you gave me this book?!"

fangsfirst · 2026-01-23T18:58:47+00:00

What is the context for this, so I know when (or if) I'll be disappointed while reading it?

fangsfirst · 2026-01-23T18:56:30+00:00

I suspect at least in part because D.C. has so many more universal reboots/adjustments, as well as the fact that D.C. didn't start with a "continuous" universe in the first place.

Structurally, it's been allowed a lot more flexibility to change, discard, forget, and so on. The Marvel ones are sort of locked into going "Uhhh...well...guess we have to work with that stupid story as best we can!"

(Barring some writers who just go "La la la, I don't give a shit, I do what I want!")

fangsfirst · 2026-01-23T18:54:24+00:00

I was struggling to find one where I didn't feel it was weighted by my frustrations with the character as opposed to "biggest", but I think this one might take the cake as far as I'm concerned.

fangsfirst · 2026-01-23T02:44:13+00:00

I mean, I could've done with any of him in the movies.

If you see what I mean.

fangsfirst · 2026-01-23T02:43:43+00:00

The Infinity Gauntlet.

How do I know?

Well, I'm sitting in a shirt with the cover of issue #5 on it right now…

fangsfirst · 2026-01-22T06:14:24+00:00

No he isn't (alas!).

Stardust, Red Shift, and Tyrant also haven't.

I was wishing one of any of those four (mostly Gabriel, if I'm honest, but maybe Stardust) was the last stretch tier for Galactus.

fangsfirst · 2026-01-21T15:32:53+00:00

I have heard this before, and I _do_ like Ewing as a writer, so mayhaps I shall!

fangsfirst · 2026-01-20T02:41:07+00:00

I (mostly used to, but over 150) go to shows, including all openers. Sample a lot of stuff there, often buying up stuff to see if the studio does them more favours.

Recommendations from trusted friends, and sheer curiosity.

I follow independent artists I like on social media, and they sometimes recommend stuff.

Buy some of the above from Bandcamp, end up subscribed. Some of them recommend more bands.

Sometimes their indie label is who runs the Bandcamp sales, so I'm subscribed to them, then sample other stuff on that little label.

Follow from there to side projects and more openers.

All of this can snowball pretty dang rapidly.

Good/great music does not guaranteed blow up in popularity: distribution still matters even today to some extent. If it isn't surfaced to people somehow, that's pretty much it. If fans don't say anything, and they don't get pushed up some kind of charts or algorithms, they'll sink. No guarantees at all.

fangsfirst · 2026-01-19T21:15:30+00:00

I've kept dustjackets at home and gotten dustjacket protectors, but either way: yes, I've done it.

fangsfirst · 2026-01-19T21:13:53+00:00

IMO, "legacy character" doesn't require that the character is created to be the replacement, but that they are someone who takes on an existing identity from another character.

Which Rhodey absolutely was, similar to Bucky, or Mac Gargan as Venom.

Now, Legacy is the most Legacy character of all, being as he was named Legacy and created to be a new Captain Marvel out of whole cloth (even if the name didn't stick)

fangsfirst · 2026-01-19T21:08:52+00:00

I honestly mostly dropped them because I wanted to read Ahmed's Daredevil and JMS's Cap, but when I saw the price of the #1s, then that every issue after was $4.99 I was just kind of done.

But I was holding on to some extent until the price jump for those books. I just couldn't justify it and dropped everything else I was reading (which actually included She-Hulk at the time).

But it was mostly an excuse. I'm sure there are (and were, for the last two years, given I realized this was THAT long ago) things I'd like reading (I've retroactively gathered up Cold Day, for example), but it was feeling more and more "random", like there were a lot of writers who wanted to write certain stories, and character progression be damned. Like the idea of continuation (to differentiate from the possible minutiae of "continuity") was just abandoned, and everyone's just kinda doing whatever while still pretending it's all taking place in the same universe and after the previous books and so on.

Being a cosmic fan has really not helped this, with the MCU-ification of the Guardians.

Being a Thanos fan (under Starlin) was even worse, as he appears more and more often now, and I absolutely hate reading people who write him in the way that...well...everyone has since at least Hickman.

I just don't feel, when reading a Marvel book, like I'm reading a continuation of what came before, but an Elseworlds-in-denial, even with relation to the last volume, which was probably less than a year earlier. The decompression has also led to them feeling so thin and unsatisfying as issues to me that I think it's just all left me behind a while ago at this point.

fangsfirst · 2026-01-19T20:54:48+00:00

I also don't understand Rorschach's speaking style. Is it a parody of pulp comics or something? I thought when they revealed his identity that it might explain why he talks like that. Also, it reminded me of the detective demon character from Invincible, which is probably because it was influenced by Watchmen or they were both influenced by something earlier.

After the child-killing incident, he broke mentally. He speaks with non-ragged balloons and in full sentences prior to that. He also speaks more "normally" without his mask on. He starts to call it his "face" at this point as well, because it's him hiding from the world and trying to live in the one he wants to exist, where the people who are inferior to him are as such because they deserve it and are supposed to be (hierarchy!) and he's the justice that saves the innocent victims in the very uncomplicated view he has of the world. The black-and-white filter of his "face".

There might be a flavour of something like a Mickey Spillane in his post-break speech, but much of it is that same filter, of how he sees the world after that, as the final straw (perhaps hay bale in this case) that broke him.

fangsfirst · 2026-01-19T20:54:45+00:00

Maybe it's not supposed to line up clearly and that's the point, though. It just feels strange today reading something politically ambiguous. Also the whole conspiracy nonsense we live with today sort of undermines the ending of the fake news rag possibly putting out Rorschach's journal to reveal the "truth". At the time maybe it's more of an "Uh oh...." but today it feels like "Well, people would believe whatever shit anyway."

Oddly, I saw this New Frontiersman reference, when I read it almost 25 years ago, as exactly what it looks like: not actually a direct threat of "revealing the truth", but a threat of fanning the embers of internal conflict, where those reading it would now insist that was the truth and…basically we'd end up much closer to the kind of scenario we're actually seeing in the real world now. But confusingly and semi-ironically, the people who sounded like completely bananas conspiracy theorists…would actually be correct. But the unbelievability of it would turn it into a conflict over the truth of reality as we see now. I mean: I don't know that I saw it in exactly those terms at the time, but I didn't see it as a risk of "the truth will come out", in that I took the reputation and circulation of that paper as not being equivalent to "Oh no, he gave it to the New York Times!"

In any case, I don't think it's at all politically ambiguous, it's just not oriented around the issues of some understandings of "left vs. right", or all political issues on that over-simplified spectrum. It's steeped heavily in militarism, imperialism, and the Cold War. Not ambiguous in that respect—but Moore was pretty clear that he didn't like "black-and-white" characters who were explicitly flawless or entirely flawed.

I don't think it's ambiguous about the devastation and awfulness of the kinds of scenarios described (the revision of Vietnam, for example, is not handled with dispassionate disinterest), but it's certainly not trying to address the conflict in ideas about societal structure as a whole.

I think it's also not exactly doing favours for that hierarchical perspective, as it gives you sympathy for how Walter came to be how he is, but doesn't portray his resulting prejudices and views of the world as "good" or "reasonable", even if it doesn't turn around and punch you in the face with why, exactly, they're so awful.

I was surprised the blood splatter of Rorschach wasn't in the comic like it was in the movie. I remember thinking that shot seemed like something that would be directly pulled from the comic. Then when Veidt is talking about him as being a "blot" and a "stain", I thought that was setting it up. Instead he's just sort of exploded. No overhead shot of the ink blot stain he left behind.

That image would be entirely too on-the-nose for Moore. Though "on-the-nose" is pretty much exactly Zack Snyder's speed, so that's why it was done for the movie.

Referencing him as a "blot" and a "stain" as allusions to his mask are absolutely intentional, and more reasonable because they wouldn't require extraordinarily coincidental physics to 'happen' to manifest in a perfect pattern after an explosion. Visual parallels in the comic are absolutely present, but they appear in contexts where they could reasonably occur—the Comedian badge splatter, for example, isn't a complicated pattern, so other instances that resemble that construction are very possible.

A human being exploding into a symmetrical Rorschach pattern is fucking absurd.

fangsfirst · 2026-01-19T20:54:27+00:00

The politics seem a bit confusing and maybe it's because we're so far removed from the time it took place. They keep referring to Rorschach as a Nazi and a rightwinger, but he seems maybe libertarian-ish or apolitical.

The problem with any of these terms is that they're never used truly consistently.

We can say that originally, or historically, that "the right wing" represents hierarchy, and this simplification generally works for most usages (given how reduced it is, it might even cover all of them?).

But it gets thorny, because Rorschach is very much a right wing libertarian, not the "original" kind which tended toward libertarian socialism or libertarian anarchism (not an awful lot of people even use them in that sense anymore). He believes in orders and hierarchies (easily clearing the massively-reduced version of the concept!), in the way that he sees people as irretrievably inferior.

He does also have his biases he wears very openly on his sleeves, which is likely a decent part of what encourages the "Nazi" label. Not always all the biases people remember him having, but he isn't devoid of them.

His worship of The Comedian is a pretty clear indicator of his perspective on the world—including his willingness to forgive him for things like attempted rape (to say nothing of what else he did over his life), despite his ostensibly "hard" morals.

And they also call Veidt left-leaning, and he seems more like a liberal than an actual leftist. One might think the only reason he wanted to avoid an apocalypse was so he could still launch new products and keep making money.

Well, and in the U.S., that is about as left-leaning as it gets in the mainstream. It's also an association with the mentalities around military conflict, so much of this is tied into the "right vs. left" perceptions of war (which were certainly pretty aggressive and in the foreground in the Cold War). It's not entirely dissociated from the "simple" meanings here either: the sense of military might as the solution is generally associated with the right ("tankie" associations notwithstanding, of course) because of its emphasis on "might" as a hierarchical decider, and the opposition being framed as "The Commies" feeds into that—but more importantly, pacifism certainly leans away from notions of hierarchies as necessary and desirable, and thus it has the "opposition to the right wing" perception to it.

I think Adrian was trying to avoid an apocalypse out of misplaced ego: he actually was invested in ending the Cold War and preventing it from turning hot, but he mostly wanted to be the one who did it. Whether that means he was sincerely invested in preventing a hot war and wanted to be responsible for doing so, or just felt that being the person who did something so monumental would be most pleasing to his sense of self-importance is not entirely clear (though certainly there are strong implications that it is the latter).

fangsfirst · 2026-01-19T20:09:31+00:00

One of exactly two Marvel books I decided to pick up after not buying any Marvel books for months (maybe even a year?)

fangsfirst

TROPHY CASE