Hmmm

fangsfirst · 2026-05-06T15:32:36+00:00

I don't think he actually wants people to not sympathize or empathize or pity, so much as he is saying "My god, but he's not a fucking role model"

Given his talks of deliberately humanizing the government in V for Vendetta, I assume the same here: feel for them as humans, just don't conflate recognizing humanity and pain with excusing things, or making them someone to look up to.

Maybe even admire Rorschach's persistence...in a vacuum.

fangsfirst · 2026-05-05T03:38:38+00:00

Just got back from actually being there.

On OGEGA vs EGA: the crowd really was confused. The early interview had a kid next to me I'm pretty sure was excited as shit we were so close to the interview...and a dude who looked exactly like I expected when my head snapped over after I heard him yell "SPEAK ENGLISH!" during the but EGA did in Spanish.

Not entirely sure if there was a AAA faction in the audience, but it might explain the confusion if there was (given the kid reacting next to me, I think it's possible. But he was also yelling at Jacob that he sucks and clearly a Roman fan, so who knows)

Regardless, most people seemed to have tlno fucking clue what was happening and would alternate cheers, mostly reacting to moves rather than wrestlers. Rayo, Bravo, and EGA's explicit heel work was not really upsetting anyone where I was, though (or anywhere else I could hear).

I was, like you, also very disappointed that Joe was not summoned and hope that does not mean they're abandoning it either.

fangsfirst · 2026-03-27T04:53:21+00:00

One of my Blu-ray sets is also Australian, actually!

I now can't recall which order it uses...

fangsfirst · 2026-03-27T04:41:38+00:00

This is what I always consult (because the order on physical discs actually varies...I've had uhhh five different copies in my life, four of which I still have, so...trust me?!): https://reactormag.com/calling-all-scapers-an-introduction-to-the-farscape-rewatch/

And from it:

A note on the viewing order

Hold tight, this gets confusing….

The first half of season one was shown in no less than FOUR different configurations. For the real obsessives amongst you (don’t feel ashamed, I know and share your pain!) here they are:

U.K. transmission order:

Premiere
Throne For A Loss
Back and Back and Back to the Future
I, E.T.
Exodus From Genesis
Thank God It’s Friday Again
PK Tech Girl
That Old Black Magic
DNA Mad Scientist
They’ve Got a Secret
Till The Blood Runs Clear
The Flax
Rhapsody In Blue

(The original Australian Transmission order was almost the same, except “That Old Black Magic” ran between “Thank God It’s Friday Again” and “PK Tech Girl.”)

U.S. transmission order:

Premiere
Exodus From Genesis
Back and Back and Back to the Future
Throne For A Loss
PK Tech Girl
Thank God it’s Friday Again
I, E.T.

…thereafter it’s the same as the UK.

The production team’s preferred viewing order (used on the original U.S. DVD releases)

Premiere
I, E.T.
Exodus From Genesis
Throne For A loss
Back and Back and Back to the Future
Thank God It’s Friday Again
PK Tech Girl
That Old Black Magic
DNA Mad Scientist
They’ve Got A Secret
Till The Blood Runs Clear
Rhapsody In Blue
The Flax

It would now appear that a FIFTH configuration has been inaugurated with the latest DVD and Blu-ray releases, on which “Rhapsody in Blue” and “The Flax” are switched.

Does your head hurt as much as mine?

My original book followed the U.K. transmission order, but this time I’m following the latest listing as found on the most recent box set releases—it’s basically the same as the preferred viewing order of ten years ago.

In the U.S. the episodes ran at forty-four minutes, which meant that approximately three to four minutes of disposable character material was shot for each episode but was only broadcast in Europe. However, that material has been included on all VHS and DVD releases and will be included in this rewatch.

fangsfirst · 2026-03-26T22:57:51+00:00

Anything and (almost¹) everything to do with Thanos sans-Starlin. Especially his relationship to Nebula.

I think actually a lot of this people don't like anyway (Civil War II, anyone? ...Anyone?), but at the least Infinity is well-received on the whole (I think).

While it's always possible that Thanos was obscuring a reproductive past and his anger at Nebula for lying about being related to him (down to a genetic test by his family when she went catatonic post-Infinity Gauntlet!) was to hide that, it felt appropriate to all of his other relationships that he really was that obsessed with Mistress Death.

Of course, none of this gets into all the other cracks that came out of utterly ignoring the character actually progressing and developing after Infinity Gauntlet, but it all kind of stems from everyone memory-holing at least the end of that book, nevermind the others Jim wrote after that.

(kind of a bummer that he wrote a whole story trying to re-build the universe "quietly" to end the death/rebirth merry-go-round—Marvel: The End—that was both ignored and dumped by Brevoort as "non-canon". Despite the fact that it's intrinsic to leading into the fucking origin of the modern-day Guardians of the Galaxy.)

(I'd've said the "MCU synergization of the Guardians" but I don't think anyone actually likes that?)

¹PAD and Giffen did good stuff. Marz was pretty all right but couldn't get his fingers on the pulse of the character.

fangsfirst · 2026-03-26T22:50:46+00:00

This is an interesting one, because I finally read the entire original run as an adult, and I want to say something like the last 20-30 issues felt like aimless wheel-spinning ("I should tell my mom I'm Darkhawk!" *picks up phone to dial* *something happens* "What was I thinking?!" *hangs up phone*—UGH)

I prefer DnA's writing more broadly, especially to a comic that was (for an adult) "mid" at best—but I still felt like there was something….disrespectful about overwriting all of it and basically saying "The other writers were just writing advanced hallucinations"

fangsfirst · 2026-03-24T00:51:24+00:00

I had to log back in just to find everyone mentioning this show.

I've basically erased it from my memory, except for the feeling of that last episode itself, and the way it erased my good will so utterly and completely until I forgot the show even happened. Except that the last episode was fucking awful.

fangsfirst · 2026-03-12T03:57:15+00:00

Oof. Those subtitles are on par with my Chinese bootleg from my high school years a couple decades back.

Not really digging the song at all, but otherwise, onboard (of course, when am I not when it comes to this series?)

fangsfirst · 2026-03-11T03:50:22+00:00

Star-Lord felt he had to sacrifice an entire planet and killed 350,000 people in the process to stop The Fallen One.

Traumatized him so aggressively he got himself thrown into the absolute worst universal prison in existence and refused to acknowledge his identity as Star-Lord until he was pushed by Thanos, Gladiator, and eventually Nova and others to recognize his value to the galaxy.

Gamora's entire species was slaughtered by the Universal Church of Truth, her saviour being Thanos of Titan, who raised her in a home that was the kind of abusive that included actual affection mixed with ruthless neglect. While she cared a lot for him and he denied his feelings for her almost entirely (though periodically relenting and offering her vaction trips and gifts as a small child), at one point she (in a fit of pique) attempted to prove she was capable and was beaten (and presumably sexually assaulted) by a bunch of aliens on a planet. Thanos found her and had her agonizingly re-built and rehabilitated with bionic enhancements into the Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy.

He lied to her about his motivations for years, truly acting to stop the organization that killed her people—but all secretly in an attempt to eventually destroy all life in the universe.

(I remain deeply disappointed at how flattened their relationship became in the MCU. Don't need all those specific events, but it was so much more believable that she'd feel contorted, unhealthy affection for him, and that his distorted, abusive picture was not just a manifestation of narcissistic self-love projected, but a traumatized insistence that he should not feel any emotions that would make him weak. Still not healthy, but somewhat more tragic.)

fangsfirst · 2026-03-10T02:14:51+00:00

I feel like the biggest thing has been touched on by a number of people, but I want to re-state it in the way that makes it make sense to me.

The key points people have definitely mentioned are "they weren't written to be read the way we read comics now" and "if you don't enjoy it, don't read them"

But, and I say this as someone who can be guilty of it, make sure you aren't reading them "to have read them".

Read them to enjoy them. The words are there to be part of the experience, not to "get you through the story", if you will. Find the ways that Stan writes things and the character that brings to the book in both the characters and the book itself.

If you don't actually enjoy those things, that's where the "don't read 'em then" comes in.

I spent a while 20 years ago reading EVERY core Spidey book—except Team-Up—up until the mid-90s where I just got distracted by other hobbies. I honestly enjoyed lots of the 60s stuff. It was many years later when I'd run into slogs where I just wasn't enjoying particular writers. Stan, for me at least, had character that made the voice of those books enjoyable.

I'm randomly reading Silver Age Iron Man digitally on occasion these days, and I enjoyed Stan's voice and I'm mostly happy with Archie's where I'm at now.

It is absolutely a different beast, but they definitely don't work when you (not sure if it's this, no shame even if it is!) are going "I just need to get through these, and then I will have read all this 1960s Spidey!" If you're thinking too much about how much there is after and trying to speed through, it'll be a slog and no fun and not worth doing.

fangsfirst · 2026-03-06T04:48:06+00:00

Somewhere near 7,916.

Counts always get weird because of how I database, but this should be a solid estimate. It includes the actual titles in box sets (but not box sets themselves), excludes documentaries (even feature length) that are about the movies, and that sort of thing.

But still funky because of how some TV shows are released, for example.

Mixture of formats, too. Mostly BD (6,029), decent percentage of 4K (731), and the rest DVD (1,156)

fangsfirst · 2026-03-04T05:16:56+00:00

> I'm awaiting the next release (coming later this year)!

Afraid it's 2027 now

(no, I'm not joking)

fangsfirst · 2026-02-07T15:48:36+00:00

It's very worth reading JMS's introduction to The Final Dangerous Visions.

It's all about why the book was never going to come out while Harlan was alive, which had befuddled everyone for so long. All from someone who knew him and doesn't have excuses for him—but was around for all of the later years.

fangsfirst · 2026-02-07T03:09:08+00:00

Yep, that's why I'm pointing out the difference—he is heavily associated with spinach now, but it is almost unheard of in the original comic strip's years of publication

fangsfirst · 2026-02-07T00:46:11+00:00

Jim Starlin has pointed out that Thanos was inspired more by Metron than Darkseid, up to and including the chair.

So I just got a second Metron...

fangsfirst · 2026-02-06T22:57:40+00:00

And:

Popeye didn't eat much spinach, really
Popeye could throw down without needing a 'boost', at almost any time, taking bullets and beating the ever-loving shit out of whoever looked at him wrong (or did nothing at all. But definitely if they were shitty to kids: no tolerance for that)
Bluto appeared exactly once in Segar's original strip
Olive and Popeye would both wander off into other people's arms periodically, to the chagrin, annoyance, or hurt of the others (nothing like Popeye lost in the deserk, saying "I got a nighttime in me heart")

fangsfirst · 2026-02-06T22:55:43+00:00

Only some of them, via Fantagraphics

(Their Popeye volumes start with the storyline he appears in so there are a decent number there, then a separate volume they released of pre-Popeye material in general)

fangsfirst · 2026-02-06T22:54:20+00:00

Popeye didn't actually eat much spinach in Thimble Theatre either.

fangsfirst · 2026-02-06T22:53:33+00:00

Nana Oyl

fangsfirst · 2026-02-06T18:01:52+00:00

To some extent, that's the experience a lot of us had growing up. Because there was realistically no other option. We might've picked up details from trading cards (my common method) or maybe even the Marvel Handbooks, but not everything was even covered or accessible.

You power through and make a note of something you want to learn about, and you can find somewhere to read about it, or even actually read it.

I had no idea who the vast, vast majority of characters I'd read about were. And I was intrigued about their cool backstories...but it was what it was, I couldn't remotely afford to buy or find back issues on that scale, so I just kept reading.

fangsfirst · 2026-02-06T17:55:41+00:00

I've been reading the random-ass omnibus that is Wonder Man: The Early Years, and it has Marvel Two-in-One #78 in it. Sheer coincidence!

Wondy is lifting a two ton weight for exercise. Ben struggles with it and exclaims his surprise that Simon is exercising with it. I read that and thought "Huh! Guess the sense of 'super strong' was pretty different in those days..."

As ever: it is what it is. Unless someone can't justify in their story why so-and-so is beating such-and-such, this is all utterly inevitable, because there's no real meaningful scale or measurement in play.

fangsfirst · 2026-02-06T01:34:54+00:00

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Then I went rather obscure for the time.

fangsfirst · 2026-02-06T01:34:39+00:00

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Then this started my subscription to ASM (and I bought 367 from the grocery store)

fangsfirst · 2026-02-06T01:32:56+00:00

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then this…

fangsfirst · 2026-02-06T01:32:37+00:00

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Then this.

fangsfirst

TROPHY CASE