Marvel Comics blabbery

I like both Masterworks (paperback) and Essentials. They really need to rethink Omnibuses. They are way too expensive and impossible to read (for their price you’d expect a textbook binding).

<I>I mean, they're finally starting proper reprints of Priest's run starting this month or next. So keep your eyes peeled.</I>

!!! This is very good news, just recently discovered my old floppies.

And the second volume is due in December or something, so it looks like chances are good that they'll plow through to the end.

I was looking at an Ant Man Epic Collection just the other day - on the one hand, it reprints some very rare and expensive early Marvel comics at a reasonable-ish price - on the other hand, most of the stories are utter rubbish.

Yeah, those early Ant-Man stories are really awful. Pretty much the low point of the Silver Age, from what I've read. That collection is a little silly, since the material they're reprinting was already issued in an Essentials trade and, to the extent that the movie was an impetus for its publication, it would have made much more sense to put out a collection of the as-yet-unreprinted Scott Lang stuff from the '70s. Deep sighs, Marvel.

Tell me about the recoloring on the epic collections. I am defaulting to the assumption that it is hideous and detrimental but would love to hear to the contrary

It probably depends on what era is being reprinted, yeah? The coloring in those Spidey alien costume trades looks appropriately '80s-ish and understated, IIRC. I don't think I've ever seen recoloring as awful and garish as what Dark Horse, et al did to the reprints of the '70s R.E. Howard stuff, so I rarely have complaints in that regard.

I take it you haven't seen the Nick Fury paperback reprint of SHIELD stuff

This is true. I will, however, probably buy the new, complete Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD omnibus sight unseen despite what I've heard about the earlier trade.

Jon, I wouldn't say that the (re)colouring on the epic collections is 'hideous' - I'm guessing that it's matched to the original comic printing in most cases, and as Old Lunch says, on the whole it's understated - they haven't added flashy computer colouring effects to old Kirby/Ditko pages. In comparison to the early hardcover Masterworks - truly some of the nastiest recolouring I've ever seen - they're a model of taste and restraint. But it is still obviously colour produced on a computer, so 'feels' wrong, and I would be more interested in Marvel reprints shot directly from the comics themselves. Of Of course,Marvel kept very very poor copies - if at all - of their early superhero titles, so that almost from the start, reprints of the Silver Age material have involved greater or lesser amounts of 'correction', redrawing etc, that often significantly departs from the original artwork and its first printing.

hmmmmm
http://nypost.com/2015/07/14/did-stan-lee-steal-spider-man-from-a-brooklyn-costume-shop/

The costumes looks nothing alike, beyond what you'd get if you got two guys to design different spider-man costumes. I am curious how common the <something>-Man name would have been back then, though.

I think there was a Superguy or something back then

there was also whatsisname, Batfellow

Aquachap

Amazing-Man, Atomic Man, Bronze Man, Bulletman, Cat-Man, Doll Man, Dynamic Man, Hawkman, Hourman, Hydro Man, Master Man, Mighty Man, Plastic Man, Robotman, Rockman, Sandman, Skyman, Starman, V-Man, Wonder Man

are all from the 40s

but seriously, while it's usually safe to assume that Stan Lee never thought up anything worthwhile by himself, the costume thing seems like a stretch

If you look at the mask and squint a little from a distance you get a little bit of the same feel as Marvel's Spider-Man but... yeah, this could be completely unrelated.

I mean, two independent people come up with spider-related costumes and they both use webs? What are the odds!

xpost Ahem, Stripperella?

you're right, I stand corrected

some day we will figure out the composite of characters he absorbed traits from to come up with his Stan Lee character

PT Barnum and Robert E Lee iirc

he saw a funky flashman costume at some point

http://brevoortformspring.tumblr.com/post/124153395043/can-you-explain-why-marvel-thinks-that-doing-hip
uh

David Brothers is patient on that:

http://tumblr.iamdavidbrothers.com/post/124166143967/can-you-explain-why-marvel-thinks-that-doing-hip

booming response there, hope marvel pays attention

still bigger than hip hop

It looks like the response from David Brothers had already been written and reposted by Brevoort, along with another response that was responded to by Brevoort wherein he fleshed out his response, prior to any of this popping up in the thread.

Ok this made me chuckle
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/deadpool/news/?a=124258
Marvel’s Latest Joke Is A Playful Jab At DC Comics
Check out the new Deadpool "Candy Varient" in which Marvel takes a playful jab at DC Comics advertising department. For those who need to be caught up, read on after the jump

For those of you that need to be caught up, DC Comics stunned the comic book community a few months ago by stating that the June issues will feature half-page ads on story pages.
http://oi58.tinypic.com/34y65c6.jpg

They stunned the comic book community that aren't old enough to remember when half-page ads were kind of a regular thing.

Not that they were a good thing or that I'm in any way advocating their return. Just saying, y'know, there's precedent.

When are we talking about? I've been reading for a few decades and it doesn't ring a bell (but my memory is terrible).

Frequent practice on both Marvel and DC comics throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s at least

More egregious - Marvel's early 70s trick of blowing up a single page into a double page spread

kinda amusing that marvel are decrying dc's commercial policies on the cover of yet another first-issue grab for those collector dollars

Also, it's maybe not wise to draw attention to advertising practices being employed by the Distinguished Competition. Marvel's ad department might start getting ideas.

This seems particularly egregious with the price of floppies skyrocketing, but it just underscores my belief that the Big Two are pushing to make floppies as undesirable as possible before ultimately phasing them out altogether.

most egregious: spelling ingest "injest" in the small print on that cover

or is that something americans do?

only Americans who don't know how to spell

Well, given that the front cover is, you know, in jest...

americans: bad spellers, bad punners

There's a helpful little entry on this blog about Marvel's half page ads period:

http://hayfamzone.blogspot.co.uk/

I read James Robinson's FF run that led up to the present the other day. It's decent, but if anything it seems really rote compared to the crazy stuff Hickman was doing and the villain is underdeveloped. The kids seem... too childish compared to the other recent portrayals? I mean, they are kids, but after the Future Foundation run Val and Franklin are a couple of my favorites.

kinda amusing that marvel are decrying dc's commercial policies on the cover of yet another first-issue grab for those collector dollars

specifically on a variant cover

I'm reading Infinity at the moment and resigning myself to the impossibility of getting caught up soon enough to read any part of Secret Wars in real time. For those interested, I'd break down the first year of Marvel Now! stuff (that I've read) thusly:

I think it's great and recommend it highly:
Captain America
Thor: God of Thunder
Avengers
New Avengers
Secret Avengers

I think it's quite good or at least appreciate the effort:
All-New X-Men/Uncanny X-Men/Wolverine and the X-Men
Uncanny Avengers
Young Avengers

I think it's, y'know, okay:
Fantastic Four/FF
Guardians of the Galaxy
Iron Man
Superior Spider-Man

I'm just not that into it:
Avengers Assemble
Captain Marvel
Fearless Defenders
Indestructible Hulk
Nova
Thunderbolts

The newest iteration (I think! it keeps iterating) of Secret Avengers has a Modok that is in love with Maria Hill

You just made me wonder how a physical relationship with a Modok would work so "thanks" for that.

I assume there's a lot of head

that's the DJP I know and love

lol, a+

Two things I'd like to see in the wake of Secret Wars: 1) fewer title reboots (preferably zero of them, but this is the new world we live in) and 2) fewer mind-bendingly colossal threats to the earth/universe/multiverse. I'm digging Infinity thus far but, between the Builders and Thanos and the alternate earth incursions, the MU threat level has risen to the point where I don't know how anyone could top it.

fewer mind-bendingly colossal threats to the earth/universe/multiverse.

feel like this is just the status quo for superhero comics from the 00s onwards. nobody just robs banks or fights crime or whatever anymore

Hawkeyes does, to critical plaudits.