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Y’know, Spidey…I was reading your bit on “how to fix Marvel” (”reboot everything”) and then I remembered that I was thumbing through a copy of Spider-Gwen - which, if I recall, does not take place in the “main” Marvel universe - and then I remembered an earlier thought I had, about how so many of the best comics have been “elseworlds” or mostly stand-alones (The Dark Knight Returns, Kingdom Come, Old Man Logan)…
And then I thought about how they just did their whole Secret Wars “battleworld” thing, with all of these “alternate universes” all together on display…
And it hit me: Marvel doesn’t need to do a reboot. (Neither does DC, in another four years or so when they decide to hit the “reset” button again). They already have what they need.
Do everything as an “elseworlds” series.
Have each comic follow its own continuity. The Amazing Spider-Man takes place on Earth-2327. X-Men takes place on Earth-4412. The Mighty Thor takes place on Earth-921. The Avengers takes place on Earth-119. And so forth.
That way, if Marvel decides to turn Daredevil into a Filipino transsexual communist and everyone fucking hates it, well, that was Earth-3011 Daredevil. So let’s turn to Earth-3012 Daredevil, who’s still a white Catholic boy. And if there’s a call for the return of Filipino transsexual communist Daredevil, they can come back to Earth-3011 Daredevil if they want, or even run both at the same time; two different universes, two different Daredevils.
You fucked up Spider-Man beyond repair by making him sell his marriage to the Devil? Go to a different universe and follow a different Spider-Man. They can even go with the old “What If?” comic line for that (”What If…Spider-Man turned down Mephisto’s offer?”), and just keep following events from there, because they don’t have to worry about how to justify these events within the continuity of the rest of the Marvel Universe. They don’t!
They can even kind of tie it all together, by having a sort of omniscient narrator (The Watcher, maybe?) who does the old-school intro narration like they used to do back in the 60′s and 70′s. “There are many realities, dear reader…many alike, but each unique in its own way. And in these worlds, there are many unique beings; people with extraordinary powers, far beyond anything you have experienced! Now, let us look at the universe of Earth-488, and the strange case of Bruce Banner, also known as…The Incredible Hulk!”
This gives writers a lot more free reign, because they can do things with deeper, more long-term and far-reaching consequences, since they don’t have to worry about the Grand Scheme of the Marvel Comics Universe. It’s now the Marvel Comics Multiverse, which is much more sandbox-y for the writers.
*turns evil in marvel comics* oh fuck gotta wear G R E E N
Purple is also a common villain color. I think in the early days of comics green and purple we’re the cheapest inks.
I think it also had something to do with differentiating them from heroes. Heroes wear red and blue (and sometimes gold). Villains have to contrast with that, so they wear green and purple.
What about The Hulk?
The Hulk is interesting because if I’m not mistaken, he was meant to be sort of an anti-hero; a sympathetic monster who society views as a villain, but just wants to be left alone. Villainous colors work for him because the world views him as a villain, and he is dangerous.
And it’s not a 100% “Heroes always wear red, gold, and blue, and villains always wear green and purple”; Green Lantern wears green (naturally); Aquaman and Robin both wore green and orange; Martian Manhunter is green and purple; Batman goes around in shades of purple sometimes, depending on the inker (DC likes to break away from the color script a bit more, it seems); Namor used to go around in that green and yellow speedo (although he’s a bit of an anti-hero as well); Hawkeye wears purple; Rogue wears green; and that’s off the top of my head. It’s just that red and blue (and maybe yellow or gold, with a splash of white or black) are (or used to be) the most common.
Spider-Man? Blue and red.
Superman? Blue and red.
Batman? Well, his color scheme is mostly “dark” and tends to switch up a lot, but he’s very frequently in a very dark midnight blue.
Captain America? Blue, white, and red (of course).
Iron Man? Red and gold.
Wonder Woman? Red, blue, and gold.
Thor? Blue, red, and gold.
Wolverine? Varies, but yellow and blue was his classic outfit.
Daredevil? Red (although it was black and yellow originally).
The Fantastic Four? Blue.
The X-Men? Varies, but the original outfit was blue and yellow, and I think the more recent versions are yellow and black.
The Flash? Red and yellow.
Doctor Strange? Red and blue.
Captain Marvel (as in Mar-Vell or Carol Danvers)? Blue and red.
Shazam (aka “Captain Marvel” before Marvel Comics got the copyright to the name)? Red and gold.
this is the first time I have ever reblogged something twice
This guy was amazing
Fucking legend
Hey, I knew the guy in the gator suit lol He’d always nonchalantly mention how he wrestled Steve Irwin
A Brief History of Superhero Comics
Golden Age Comics Creator: I created a hero who can fly!
Silver Age Comics Creator: I created a hero who can fly who has real life problems and personal flaws. Oh and there’s also a talking gorilla! Excelsior!
70s Comics Creator: I’m going to take an established character, give him a diverse supporting cast and deal with real world issues. Oh and there’s also kung-fu magic werewolves.
80s Comics Creator: I’m going to take an established character and deconstruct genre tropes while taking a nuanced exploration of dark, sometimes disturbing issues.
90s Comics Creator: Duuuuuude! I made a guy with a robot arm and a giant gun and he’s going to talk about how dark and tortured he is while punching people. Oh and there’s going to be 8 number one chrome covered holographic foil chocolate dipped covers. We are going to be so rich!
2000s Comics Creator: All previously established characters are mine to destroy just to show how edgy and groundbreaking my work is. Any B and C list characters you like are now cannon fodder to be killed and dismembered in gruesome fashion. The A-list characters will undergo a never-ending cavalcade of suffering until the point they are unlikable psychopaths. Oh and if you complain about it we’ll just reboot continuity to make things even darker.
2010s Comics Creator: I made a hero who can fly that’s also a black gay teenager!
This is accurate.
The ABCs of 90’s Comics!
U is for the Ultraverse!
In the early 90’s, we experienced a boom period for superhero comic books and comic book publishers. Marvel and DC were churning out hit after hit. Image and Valiant were building their respective catalogues of titles, and Dark Horse comics released its own superhero line, with its “Comics Greatest World” imprint. Malibu comics, who were no strangers to the long spandex heroes having published Image comics until they established themselves enough to take over, decided to introduce their own collective comics universe, The Ultraverse. The Ultraverse would utilize veteran comic talent like Steve Engelhart, Mike Barr, and Barry Windsor-Smith, among others, to establish their new heroes in a universe that stressed the connections between their titles.
Among the Ultraverse’s stable of stars was:
- Prime, a modern take on the. Captain Marvel archetype, with a teenage boy transforming into a super powered muscle man.
-Mantra, the saga of a warrior who’s constantly reincarnated to battle an evil sorcerer, but this time, the super bad ass warrior possesses a single mother. Tumblr, you would’ve had a field day with Mantra.
-Night Man, who was Johnny Domingo, jazz musician turned crime fighter. Night Man also had two seasons of his own TV show.
The Ultraverse also had its share of team books, like the aptly named Ultraforce and the Strangers. The Ultraverse was popular enough to find themselves in the crosshairs of Marvel comics, who bought out the characters. Soon enough, the 90’s practice of crossing over every character it could struck, with Ultraverse characters finding themselves standing toe to toe with the likes of the Avengers. Rune, the evil vampiric entity of the Ultraverse, soon found himself warring with Marvel’s Adam Warlock over the Infinity Gems.
Unfortunately, the Marvel buy out was the beginning of the end for the Ultraverse. With Malibu, the likes of Prime and Hardcase were too priorities. With Marvel, they were just another set of characters, and far from the top of the list. Marvel kept interfering with the Ultraverse and its day to day business, until they finally cancelled the entire line. The fact that by this time, the comics boom was fading away and sales were down across the board didn’t soften the blow for the Ultraverse creators and fans. However, the Ultraverse and Malibu comics pioneered coloring techniques, and their strides in that field led the way for the rest of the comics world.
That Mantra cover is a near-perfect example of 90′s comics art. The only thing it’s missing is about two dozen tiny pouches on each of the character’s outfits.
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The beautiful thing about Wonder Woman is that she’s so many different things. She can be sensitive, and the greatest warrior ever, and strong and confused. She can be all of the above in a beautiful way. – Gal Gadot
That’s one thing I really loved about the movie. Granted, I never read a lot of Wonder Woman comics (I’m more a Marvel reader), but the comics I did read…I had a hard time getting a grip on who Wonder Woman was as a person, other than “generic Good Guy.”
The movie, on the other hand, gave me a feel for who Wonder Woman is. It took her, in my opinion, from being vague to being complex and well-rounded, and an all-around great character.
When people say “I’m sick of so much politics in Comics/Movies/Games”
What you think they mean: I think fiction should be for fun only, with no deep meaning whatsoever. Fuck art.
What they actually mean: I want politics in comics, games and movies, but with nuance, good writing, clever points and interesting characters, not boring propaganda pieces where all heroes agree with the writer and all villains are strawmen of things the author dislikes.
Anonymous asked:
supersoftly answered:
It’s one of my favourite ongoing series right now (up there with One Piece), I highly recommend both the manga and anime plus the extra official side story series Vigilantes. I’ve heard good things about the dub too, so if you’re not a sub-fan, you have options.
I actually read some of the author’s works and oneshots beforehand so watching his following grow and his work improve has really revealed what I believe are Horikoshi’s strengths as a creator. His character development, design and worldbuilding is on par with early One Piece imo. I think he really understands the art of setting up relatable and interesting characters with conceivable plots, even if the payout is much farther down the road, but he doesn’t sacrifice plot for length of arcs and I really enjoy and respect that. I think Horikoshi has a wonderful ability to outline and display the “romance” he has for his creations, and people really connect and feel these emotions in his characters and their motivations.
For example, I absolutely adore Ochako, but it’s for a variety of reasons that’s beyond her just being a genre-trope heroine. She captures the spirit of naivety, innocence and kindness very well, but the story forces her into some very bad confrontations. This doesn’t change her core as a character into something different, instead we get to see her grow, become motivated, BE ANGRY, turn failure into success and all the while being a high school girl with a cute crush that floats away when she’s embarrassed. The female characters are handled very well with respect and I love them all.
On the flipside, I also really enjoy Bakugou as a character, but not just cuz he’s hot (lol). His rivalry to the mc and his aggression is a similar mask to the type of genre character he represents, HOWEVER, as the story continues, we see pieces of kindness, sympathy, respect, loyalty and discipline. He is by no means a great person, but like real people, he is improving and the writer respects this growth by not flipping it on its head or adding cheese to make things easier (like fridging or romantic interests). The manliness and grit in the show is on par with jojo’s legacy imo.
Sorry for the long answer, but, heheh, I am a big fan (*´∀`*)ゞ
I’d highly recommend it to anyone who loves comics, especially if they’ve gotten tired of modern day comics.
The entire series is full of concepts, ideas and subtle nods to comic books. They author knows that the strength of a series is in the characters, where it is about the emotional and personal struggle of a character and not stupid ‘power level’ idiocy that a lot of modern comics gets into nowadays.
You have honestly sincere characters, who are human and who aren’t created to be cynical deconstructions of the tropes they embody. All Might is a good person. He doesn’t harbor some dark, terrible secret. Instead, his faults lay in very real, very human failings. Most characters are like this and it’s hard not to fall in love with the entire cast because of it.
Overall, My Hero Academia is a love letter to western comics, much in the same way Avatar was a love letter to anime. Seriously, if you want to get the same fixes you got from the best of Superman, Spider-Man, X-Men and many, many others.
As someone who read comics for a few years,and quit because they got tired, BNHA really is a love letter to the best parts of superhero comics and a damn fine shounen in its own right, reminding me,of what I like in shounen anime with little to none of the stuff that I absolutely hate.
obsessed with the guy who just won gold in windsurfing
Wasn’t there a whole thing in the comics about aang getting offended over some air nomad super fans using the arrow since you have to be a master to get your arrow tattoos? And basically the super fan group was doing a cultural appropriation by having arrow tats? I feel like that was a whole ass thing in the comics.
well i have great news that will ease your mind. air benders aren’t real