Superhero comics: What insane story/character developments do avid followers take for granted but would blow the minds of anyone only peripherally aware of them?

Here are some things for me:
Plastic Man, Superman, and Shazam inhabit the same continuity
Green Lantern isn't afraid of yellow anymore
Lex Luthor was President
In addition to being a mutant, Kitty Pryde is also a witch, and fights Count Dracula!

Haha we are talking about ppl already predisposed to comics, right? Because I am imagining my wife's reaction to the Green Lantern one and "mind blown" is nowhere near the reaction.

Batman has a son? And he's dead?

There's a weird disconnect between superhero comics and the potential audience for them -- so many more people buy the live action movies, cartoons, t-shirts, videogames than have probably ever even picked up a comic, so yeah those people. I guess we're the equivalent of Christians who don't read the Bible, but buy the bumper stickers and veggie tales DVDs.

"Batman has a son? And he's dead?"

If you tell me Batman's son is actually Billy BatSon, my brain will explode a second time.

to clarify: Batman's dead. And he has a son.

to clarify: Batman's dead. And he has a son.

Really? Why they kill off all good old superheros?

to clarify

haha yeah i did look at that and go: but i thought damian was alive!

if that's his name. i can't remember.

so who's batman these days?

nightwing

Batman seems dead more regular than he's alive.
The whole Spidey clone thing put me off the book forever.

how did they end up unwriting that spidey clone thing?

oh yeah, cyclops' dad is a space captain!

everyone who was ever Robin now has their own comic, I think.

maybe not Carrie Kelly. Or maybe she's Magog?

1) Reggie, Jughead are now the same guy
2) Bob Hope comic still published after 54 years
3) Batman clashes with internet pirates in almost every issue
4) frequent depictions of cunnilingus in mainstream Marvel titles
5) fully articulated action figures now six feet tall
6) Spider-Man shoots man in Reno (you know why)
7) "Maus" now a monthly title, part of DC continuity
8) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles slowly dying of cancer
9) Animal Man no longer "all that"
10) ILX-Men

cute.
cyclops dad was ALWAYS a space captain.

A baby space captain?

Didn't Wolverine used to be short?

I would like to point out that a few months ago I was called on to explain the premise of (Morrison's) "Batman and Robin" TO CHRIS CLAREMONT--onstage--and, while I don't know if it exactly blew his mind, it did elicit a fairly intense WTF expression from him.

Dr. Superman, I don't _think_ Jason Todd has his own comic. But he may be the only exception. I mean, Stephanie's got one!

lol Douglas, u shoulda been like 'dude it's your own fault'

heh wow, that sounds hilarious

I think Spider-Man no longer being married to Mary Jane qualifies as a "mind-blower" for casual comic book christians.

they weren't married for something like the first fifteen years of the comic

- harry osborn is alive and now leading the avengers

no, i think it's still a mindblower for the fact that he MADE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL to save his aunt's life, and hence sacirficed his years of marriage and future child for it

In addition to being a mutant, Kitty Pryde is also a witch, and fights Count Dracula!

Don't forget she's a ninja too, as she was kidnapped and trained by an immortal evil ninja master (In Kitty Pryde & Wolverine). I'm not sure if anyone's referred to that story since the 80s, but theoretically she should still have her ninja skills, right?

they mention it sometimes - well, at least the ninja skills part, if not the origin. i'm pretty sure it was referenced in that Wolverine: Enemy of the State story

I don't _think_ Jason Todd has his own comic
Oh, I was under the completely ignorant impression that he was the Batman in the Judd ApatowWinick series.

I thought Jason was Red Robin...?

Never mind, I keep forgetting about that Drake kid. I'm not very well versed in the DCU.

Jason was "originally" the Red Robin.

all that spidey stuff kinda does blow my mind but in a why the fuck are you doing this continuity bullshit way
like, just tell stories why don't you

when I was 10, I made the mistake of trying to explain parallel earths and the Crisis to my Scouts group.

I can't be the only one on this board to know the shame of being shunned by the fucking Boy Scouts...

Whereas they, now all grown up, would be only too happy to show you Barack Obama's Kenyan birth certificate.

Comic books have gotten really odd. There is some Moore's Law kind of thing going on where more and more replacements.

OK

Captain America - replaced by Bucky, Steve Rogers currently lost in time with current comic called CAPTAIN AMERICA REBORN.
Batman - replaced by Nightwing (aka Robin), Bruce Wayne currently lost in time with current storyline mastheads saying BATMAN REBORN.
Robin III - is now Red Robin (who was dead Robin II)
Robin IV - is Batman's son
Hulk I aka Bruce Banner is not the Hulk
The Hulk is someone new but not yet known, but now the Hulk is red and people call him the Rulk
Hulk has a son who has shown up on Earth
There are two She-Hulks, but you can tell them apart as one has red hair
There are 4 Earth Green Lanterns, but there are now Orange, Red, Blue, Yellow and Indigo (?) Lantern Corps
There are again 3 Flashes, 1 Kid Flash
Wolverine has a son, so there are two Wolverines

A son?! I thought he had a daughter. I guess that's one less thing we have in common.

I thought Wolverine's son was called Daken or something like that, not Wolverine.

There was also Wolverine special (drawn by Mike Mignola) back in the 90s, where he travels to some time-forgotten valley or something, and battles Apocalypse, and has a kid with one of the cavewomen in the valley. I wonder if that kid has been seen ever since, or has the whole story been erased from continuity?

Seriously? The Rulk?

if you think that's bad, you should've seen the Wendigo-afflicted Hulk, AKA WENDIHULK

Jeph Loeb is to "thank" for this "entertainment"

I'm waiting for Loeb to introduce The Rulk's arch-nemesis: The Reader.

They got Daken dressing up in the brown uniform now in Dark Avengers and is the star of "Dark Wolverine" which is the old Wolverine book without Wolverine. I haven't read that series, but I suppose the public is supposed to think he is Wolverine.

It's all just odd, it's like Bizarro comics land. No one is who they should be, those who should be are dead.

Superman, (aka the Last Son of Krypton) left the Earth and is living with a bunch of Kryptonians on another planet. He isn't even in the comics Superman or Action anymore, which he pretty much has starred in since the late 30s.

Hawkeye (who was also Goliath II-- not the black one that got killed) is now Ronin (who was another character at one point)
Bullseye is now Hawkeye
Spider-man's black alien suit who was Venom got a new host in the Scorpion, who everyone thinks is Spider-man

Henry Pym (aka Giant Man/Ant-Man/Yellow Jacket) is now the Wasp, as his wife who was the Wasp is dead.

Oh yeah, there is this other character called Hulkling, who looks like the Hulk with a blonde surfer hair cut, but get this...he's actually a 1/2 Skrull bastard of Captain Marvel (the Marvel Captain Marvel not Shazam! Captain Marvel, who is now not Captain Marvel as he is Shazam! the Wizard and Captain Marvel Jr. is now Captain Marvel (the DC Shazam! one, not the one that got cancer). Whew...

There are also now like 5 teams of Avengers, if you count all of the off-shoots and none of them are on the west coast.

I may have mentioned this before, but West Coast Avengers from the $0.25 bin was pretty much my favorite thing as a kid. i got almost the entire series that way, missing less than a dozen issues.

that's how I got into Cerebus! And Alan Moore/Rick Veitch Swamp Thing. And Area 88. And a bunch of others. There's a thread there I think.

I'm waiting for Loeb to introduce The Rulk's arch-nemesis: The Reader.

lols

Oh yeah, there is this other character called Hulkling, who looks like the Hulk with a blonde surfer hair cut, but get this...he's actually a 1/2 Skrull bastard of Captain Marvel (the Marvel Captain Marvel not Shazam! Captain Marvel, who is now not Captain Marvel as he is Shazam! the Wizard and Captain Marvel Jr. is now Captain Marvel (the DC Shazam! one, not the one that got cancer). Whew...

ouchies

Hold on, if Superman isn't in his own comic book, then who is?

Mon-Orail.

Action features Nightwing (not the Dick Grayson character) and Flamebird, two Kryptonians who are hunting down other Kryptonian sleeper agents who are on Earth plotting some big takeover. Superman features Mon-El (who is Superman-ing in Superman's absence) primarily, but also the Guardian and Steel and the new Zatarra, et al as they protect Metropolis. The Superman: World of New Krypton maxiseries is currently the only title in which Supes is the star. It's not hugely amazing or anything, but I'm enjoying the Supes titles these days. They've gone back to the cross-continuity 'triangle issues' days (along with the Supergirl book), so it's a fun near-weekly story.

And isn't the Nightwing in Action the adult son of Superman?

The informally-adopted, rapidly-aging adult son of Superman. General Zod is his real pops, but that's Bad News.

(judging from covers alone)
Adventure Comics features 90s remakes of teen versions of classic superheroes going on picnics. Adventure in name only.

I have to admit this Superman storyline sounds kind of interesting to me. Hopefully it'll be properly collected in trade so I can get it from my library. I read a few of the post-Infinite Crisis collections, but unlike the Batman lines I found them kind of boring - Busiek's work in particular was less than I was hoping for (to be fair, I didn't really have high expectations for the other writers). But then again, I find Superman storylines kind of boring in general so I'm not really sure what I'm looking for... All-Star was really good, though.

The Busiek stuff in Superman proper started out really promising, but fizzled out awfully. Nice Pacheco art, though.

I was really digging both of the Superman books with Busiek and Johns. I'm kind of bummed they never finished up the Intergang storyline that was a subplot.

The New Krypton storyline isn't a bad idea, it actually seems kind of Robert Heinlein to me in a way, but the whole Nightwing/Flamebird (w/ Chris Kent) part doesn't work for me and I loathe the idea of Superman not being in Superman & Action. They are also completely dragging the whole conspiracy storyline out, it hasn't really moved in a year and probably won't for another year, although the initial setup was interesting. They also have not tied any of Morrison's storyline with the Guardian in at all, which is a shame, as that was really good.

Oh well...I dropped them off my pull list. I'll pick them up in a year or two for a buck an issue.

There are two She-Hulks, but you can tell them apart as one has red hair

Post confirming pictures or it isn't true.

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/savage-she-hulk1.jpg

Professor Xavier being a power-mad dick 1/4 of the time, while the rest of the time all characters act like he's the greatest saint who ever walked the earth.

Okay, I'll admit Xavier was always kind of a dick (like faking his death and not telling his own team about it in the late '70s) but ever since around Deadly Genesis it feels like they've been moving him more and more into his ultra-pragamatic, almost heelish Ultimate incarnation in the main books.

I can't but think that the ability of comic characters to keep coming back from the dead would cause a non-comic fan to suspend disbelief.

We're missing that the main Hulk book is now stars Hercules, and he has spent the past few months pretending to be Thor.

hahaha, i didn't know about that second bit

And Zeus is now a child and is Herc's sidekick (sorta).

Also that half the issues being published now don't even feature Thorcules, but his former sidekick, a kid named Amadeus Cho who technically shares the superhero name Mastermind Excello with a character who appeared in two issues of a comic published in the early '40s.

All of which helps make The Incredible Hercules one of the only superhero books worth reading.

yeah i have to admit i dig Cho and Herc too

I dunno, Superman not being present in any of his monthly titles works if you're reading all of the Supes books. It definitely makes sense in terms of the overarching story (Kryptonians banned from Earth, Supes keeping an eye on New Krypton to make sure they stay in line). I think the books are pretty nicely paced, but there's definitely some decompression taking place. They read better in big gulps.

wow, a lot of this stuff did kind of blow my mind

I think Hulk nuttiness lost the ability to blow my mind back when he went gray (the She-Hulk stuff comes close, though).

(ps I am totally fronting here because LMBO @ "the Rulk")

Yeah, that's the kind of dumb shit that occasionally makes me embarrassed to read superhero comics. Rulk. Jeeeesus.

All we need now is a Hulk/Scooby-Doo crossover and my life will be complete.

Scooby is possessed and tears out Shaggy's throat until Shaggy is resurrected by the Phoenix

Actually Disney crossovers are much more likely. Anybody want to take bets on when that DELICIOUS SYMMETRY overflows from the kettle?

If Disney were smart they would cull this freakish mindblowingness in favor of closer, commercial movie continuity. smart and heartless and moneygrubbing. I have faith that they are at least two of those three things!

If anyone has proven they could not give a shit about comic books, it's Disney.

fwiw i am half wondering if you guys are making all of this up so yes

you have blown my mind

Yes, 'Rulk' is the only semi-mindblowing thing to me in this thread. I'm pretty convinced at this point that Loeb has complete contempt for comics and everyone who reads them.

I guess if he's turned sienna, he'll start being mopey?
If he's blue, he'll put on weight?

I think Hulk is very interesting for a long-running superhero character, because he's never really had proper status quo, has he? He's been grey, he's been green, now he's apparently red (though wasn't there a red Hulk some time in the 90s too?), he's been intelligent, he's been stupid, he's been a good guy and a bad guy, and sometimes he just wants to be left alone, he's been separated from Banner and united with him again (wasn't Rick Jones Hulk for a short while in the 80s?). As far as I know he isn't associated with any city or area like most superheroes are, and the only constant supporting characters he's had are Betty Ross and Rick Jones. (Are they still around, by the way?) So it seems writers are much more free to do weird shit with him than with most superheroes, because there's no real status quo he always needs to return to, like Superman or Spider-Man need to.

I'd say status quo is definitely green, stupid, angry, just want to be left alone Hulk. Because every time he starts to branch off into other hulks, evolve, get smart (see Planet Hulk/World War Hulk to now, again) he reverts back to the Hulk of olden days. He definitely suffers from a lack of lasting character change as much as Spider-Man or Wolverine (though I wonder how long it'll take them this time to revert him back to feral).

Bear in mind before you get all fanboy outrage on Rulk it is completely silly and tongue-in-cheek, especially compared to recent Hulk exploits. I mean, they point out how stupid the name is in the comic, and for god sakes, Rulk PUNCHES OUT THE WATCHER for basically comedy hijinks in his third or fourth issue. (Ok I admit there's no way I'd be amused if I was actually paying for the comic.)

I would buy a monthly comic called "Rulk PUNCHES OUT THE WATCHER"

Rulk's war on peeping toms will never end!

Scooby is possessed and tears out Shaggy's throat until Shaggy is resurrected by the Phoenix

that is a whole lot of throat-tearing

forks you really gotta see it -- the Watcher actually does his whole opening splash page narration bit, followed by page two GIANT PUNCH'D IN THE FACE, it's kinda amazing

scans plz?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Gd8NBIma-zo/SGVQShCogZI/AAAAAAAAELc/4cyFQrI28Yc/s400/Hulk+4+-+punchesOutWatcher.jpg

hahaha wait

lol forever! that is unbelievable; i have to have that as my avatar

OW!

Thing is that the Rulk isn't Banner at all, I guess there is a big mystery of who it is (probably Glenn Talbot back from the dead, I guess). Banner got shot up with some stuff at the end of the whole World War Hulk and right now he cannot become 'the Hulk'.

The gray Hulk stuff when he became Mr. Fixit that Peter David did is awesome. I also really liked the Planet Hulk stuff. That wasn't the first time they had shot the Hulk into limbo though, as Dr. Strange shot him into mystical limbo when Bill Mantlo was writing the book for a couple of years back in the 80s. I think the

The Arizona desert where the Hulk was born is pretty much the biggest home locale for the character. One of I think most brilliant things about the Hulk is how he just jumps around and doesn't even fly.

Ravid Ranner?

It would be awesome if Rulk turned out to be David Banner from the TV show instead of Bruce Banner from the comics. Head-slappingly stupid as that sounds, it would fit right in with Loeb's writing.

has he done that sort of thing before?

Sounds like bargain basement imitation BKV plot twists

The thing is that Loeb is terrible as far as ideas go and the only way his writing really works is when an actor can successfully make you ignore the bullshit inherent in it (see Heroes S1) or when he basically says "yes, this idea is shit, laugh at it" (The RULK, apparently).

His Ultimates run was actually a worse concept than David Banner as Rulk.

Hank Pym is under house arrest at Ultimates Mansion. One of Pym's Ultron robots drugs him and leaks a sex tape of Stark and the Black Widow to the Internet. These distract from the robot's fatal shooting of the Scarlet Witch. Magneto abducts Wanda's corpse and retreats to the Savage Land, where he is confronted by the Ultimates. Pym and Wasp discover the truth about the Ultron robot, which has adopted the identity of Yellowjacket and uses the Ultimates' DNA to create a series of android duplicates. Although the true Ultimates destroy their android counterparts and Yellowjacket, Quicksilver is apparently killed by Hawkeye. The Wasp then invites Pym to return to the Ultimates, and he accepts. The mastermind behind the robot's plot is revealed to be Doctor Doom.

yikes

ha, yeah that looks like the kind of thing I would've plotted out in junior high on the inside cover of a social studies book

One of Pym's Ultron robots drugs him and leaks a sex tape of Stark and the Black Widow to the Internet.

I mean what the fucking fuck

Magneto abducts Wanda's corpse and retreats to the Savage Land

exeunt, pursued by a bear

That summary misses Captain America masquerading as the Black Panther for no particular reason I remember. Just more wha?

The first rule of drama is that if you show an ultimate nullifier in the first act, it will be shot by the end of the comic.

And then read a summary of Ultimatum. What Loeb did to the Ultimate Universe makes me feel uncomfortable just for knowing.

Hawkeye helps Hank Pym search for the Wasp, but they discover the Blob eating her corpse.

This kind of sums up the ickyness that is Ultimatum.

Deaths

* Angel - Killed and partially eaten by Sabretooth. (Ultimatum #4)
* Beast - Drowned. (Ultimatum #1)
* Blob - Head bitten off by Hank Pym. (Ultimatum #3)
* Cannonball - Blown up by Madrox. (Ultimatum #3)
* Captain Britain - Blown up by Madrox. (Ultimate X-Men #100)
* Cypher - Presumably blown up by Madrox, shown alongside other casualties (Ultimate X-Men: Requiem)
* Cyclops - Shot in the head by Quicksilver. (Ultimatum #5)
* Daredevil - Found dead by Spider-Man. Presumably drowned. (Ultimate Spider-Man #131)
* Dazzler - Drowned. (Ultimatum #1)
* Detonator - Tortured and killed in the Savage Land. (Ultimatum #3)
* Doctor Doom - Head crushed by the Thing. (Ultimatum #5)
* Doctor Strange - Killed by Dormammu after his body is constricted, causing his engorged head to explode. (Ultimatum #4)
* Emma Frost - Blown up by Madrox. (Ultimatum #3)
* Forge - Tortured and killed in the Savage Land. (Ultimatum #3)
* Franklin Storm - Drowned. (Ultimate Fantastic Four #58)
* Hard-Drive - Tortured and killed in the Savage Land. (Ultimatum #3)
* Hank Pym - Blown up by Madrox. (Ultimatum #3)
* Juggernaut - Hit in the eye by a poisonous dart shot by a Sentinel soldier. (Ultimate X-Men #99)
* Longshot - Tortured and killed in the Savage Land. (Ultimatum #3)
* Lorelei - Killed by Wolverine. (Ultimate X-Men #100)
* Madrox - Killed by Wolverine. (Ultimate X-Men #100)
* Magneto - Decapitated by Cyclops. (Ultimatum #5)
* Nightcrawler - Drowned. (Ultimatum #1)
* Polaris - Blown up by Madrox. (Ultimatum #3)
* Professor X - Neck broken by Magneto. (Ultimatum #2)
* Psylocke - Listed by Marvel as dead, shown alongside other casualties (Ultimate X-Men: Requiem)
* Sunspot - Blown up by Madrox. (Ultimatum #3)
* Syndicate - Dead after one of his heads is blown off by William Stryker. (Ultimate X-Men #99)
* Thor - Surrendered his soul to Valhalla. (Ultimatum #3)
* Toad - Listed by Marvel as dead, though his death was never shown.
* Wasp - Cause of death unknown; corpse partially eaten by the Blob.(Ultimatum #2)
* Wolverine - Killed by Magneto after the adamantium is ripped from his skeleton.(Ultimatum #5)

I know I keep saying it, but this is TOTALLY the kind of shit me and my friends plotted out in junior high.

I hear ya. Sadly, Loeb isn't in junior high; he's 50-something.

chaining who killed whom is kind of hysterical

Basically, after much foreshadowing, Dr. Doom's masters, the Marquis of Death and his apprentice, arrive on earth. The Marquis mocks Doom's failures and opens a portal to the Cretaceous period, dropping Doom there to be eaten alive by dinosaurs. Once the Fantastic Four have defeated the Marquis, Doom reveals that he was in fact the Marquis's new apprentice all along, having survived millions of years by using the dark arts, and has now become significantly more powerful, posing a greater threat.

Last plotline in Millar's FF. This was far more wtf when you were reading it in floppies tbh.

So wait, Dr. Doom is now Bruce Wayne now? WTF.

Ha!

Dr. Doom is now Vandal Savage & Jason Blood rolled into one.

Just popping in to say that I'm really enjoying this thread, although I'm sadly unable to contribute.

wow, that Ultimate stuff is more horrible than I imagined

Ditto! That Ultimatum stuff is nuts.

Xpost

It is kind of sad that Marvel pretty much trashed the Ultimate stuff. The Spider-man and Ultimates stuff was pretty good. Thing about the X-men is that they immediately went right back to just doing re-hashes of the dumb stuff that kind of corrupted the line in the first place.

It is either the editors have no clue how to say no or these are their stupid ideas. I'm actually leaning a bit to the latter for a lot of this stupid stuff.

I like the idea of Elseworld or Ultimate kind of things, I'd just like to see a writer have a good long while to tell their take. That is one of the things that I thought was kind of cool about the Ultimate Spider-man stuff I read. Take something like Sandman Mystery Theatre, that book was excellent and I would love to see someone do the JSA like that book or fit that continuity. Thing is do do something like that and make it work, it would take a few issues.

One of Pym's Ultron robots drugs him and leaks a sex tape of Stark and the Black Widow to the Internet.

― so says i tranny ben franklin (HI DERE), Monday, September 21, 2009

only Loeb could make this not awesome

sex tapes! internet! a-whomp-bam-boom!

Since I haven't read comics in years, I thought I'd keep a running list of the stuff that has blown my mind, but I'll admit it--by the time I got to the end of this thread my mind had been blown multiple times over. Also it has made me glad I missed alot of this.

Was the Ultimate line starting to not sell very well or something? I still haven't figured out why they pretty much wrecked it and collapsed it into fewer, shittier books.

I could be wrong, but i think because after ten years of the Ultimate universe basically fast-forwarding through 40 years of original Marvel Universe storylines, they canceled out the intended effect of the Ultimate line, a simplified reboot that new readers could get into without baggage of so much history. It might not have been the best idea to have a new line-wide crossover every summer, eh?

Ultimate X-Men was basically a crazy mess within a few years, UF4 was frankly never that great to begin with. The first two Ultimates series were entertaining, and Ultimate Spider-Man was pretty consistently readable since Bendis and Bagley stuck with it for the most part, but really the whole unified universe concept (that they were trying to create from the '60s Marvel days) had gotten overwhelming - sad because it started out pretty promising with most books connecting somehow to the global super soldier projects. It probably didn't help that Ultimates 2 and 3, both major books for the universe, had major delays - I was sort of out of this by the time they were working on Ultimates 3. Can someone provide more clarity on the last two or three years?

Ummm. It just got messier - or at least USM did. It turned out Peter's dad was alive after all and had been working on a super soldier project in secret. He had created a cloned MJ (? Might have female leads confused, but cloned from Peter and her cells) who became Spidergirl for a while. Kitty Pride started going to Peter's school and he was seeing her behind MJ's back. Final issue was atribute to 'Nuff Said.

It's back post-Ultimatum and Peter is seeing Gwen. MJ and Kitty are friends. My head hurts.

The Gwen Stacy that's some kind of weird Carnage/Venom symbiote and/or clone? And MJ and Kitty are friends? ...How is this a fresh start?

This goes with the Kitty Pryde one: Count Dracula is afraid of Stars of David.

Just logged in to mention Jason Todd:

He was originally Robin but was killed off after readers voted successfully by telephone to have him murdered. He came back 14 years (RL time) except it wasn't him it was a shapeshifter. But then he did come back when Superboy-Prime, the evil Superboy from our world that we, the readers, live in, punched reality too hard. He most recently went by the name Red Hood, who used to be the Joker.

And now Morrison has another Red Hood, who may or may not be him, that has a kid sidekick

...And that sidekick's name is what? Minge?

No her name is Scarlet, she is angry about how ugly she is since Professor Pyg gave her a lumpy pigface.

They should have given Red Hood an entire posse and called them The Crimson Tide.

The Mandarin has a ring that can turn people Chinese.

Looking forward to Jet Li replacing Robt Downey Jr. in sequels.

All of the Justice League have died at least once except Wonder Woman

Didn't Wonder Woman die some time in the 90s too? I wasn't reading WW's own title back then, but I remember in Morrison's JLA people mentioned she was dead, and her mother became Wonder Woman for a while.

Anyway, I thought it was kinda preposterous that DC actually brought back Egg Fu in 52. Okay, the new Egg fu was much less of a racist stereotype, but he still was a Chinese giant monster egg with a face, and there still was no explanation how such a thing came into being.

Okay you win Chinese Eggface Killah has exploded my brains.

I know Egg Fu from ambush bug.

Has anyone in this thread just made something up yet? How would we tell?

I can attest that the vast majority of this thread is true, believe it or not.

there still was no explanation how such a thing came into being.

KANIGHER SAYS... DON'T ASK - JUST BUY IT!

* The Power Pack have been revealed to all be aspects of The Hate Monger's personality, which was split into four and put into clone bodies by Nazi scientists hiding out in Genosha.

* Machine Man contracted machine cancer, and created tiny avatars of himself in order to enter his own body and befriend the rapidly mutating rogue metal cells. This backfired when the avatars achieved autonomy and declared his body to be the First Free Machine State. The original consciousness was overwhelmed, and Machine Man's corpse currently orbits Neptune and continues to grow exponetially and play host to a Utopian society of identical purple robots.

* Hawkeye is now the Herald of Galactus.

* MODOK was briefly president of the US in the Ultimates universe, and ironically did a pretty decent job.

* The current FF line-up is Mr. Fantastic, Sue Storm (Now known as the Invisible Lady), a cured Ben Grimm armed with an uzi, and Kuurgo, Master of Planet X.

One or more of the above may be made up.

i was about to say!

i really like your power pack idea tho'.

If Power Pack is Hate-Monger, can we bring back Razorback and his 18-Wheeler, Big Pig?

http://www.samruby.com/SpectacularA/Large/SpectacularSpider-Man014.jpg

Of course, in that storyline Hate-Monger was actually Man-Beast in disguise. Maybe Power Pack are actually Man-Beast in four parts because the Genoshan Nazi docs made a mistake?

By the way, I had those Spectacular Spider-Man issues with the great electrified mane of Razorback. Some of my earliest comics (1977 or 78?).

Big US1 fan here
http://ape-law.com/GAF/images/us1logo.gif

I remember US1! Ulysses somebody, with Poppa Wheelie and Wide Load Lady or something like that. Not bad, but Razorback was a mutant with the innate ability to drive any vehicle instinctively.

Killing Me Softly With His HATE

sorry guys, Egg Fu? A giant egg with a face? This is amazing.

Pre PC version, as Wonder Woman foe: http://www.supermanartists.comics.org/silverage/EggFu-WW157.JPG
http://www.supermanartists.comics.org/silverage/EggFu-WW157.JPG

PC version, as introduced in 52: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/Egg%20Fu%203.jpg
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/Egg%20Fu%203.jpg

On one hand, the idea of a giant talking mad scientist egg is kind of funny. But on the other: AMELICAN? oh god so racist, at least that didn't carry over to the reboot

I thought the 52 Egg Fu was merely a freaky monster who just happened to be egg-shaped, but when he was shot his shell actually broke and yolk spilled over...

HEEEE-HO!

EGG-FU VS. M.O.D.O.K. TS AND FITE!

I choose M.O.D.O.K. because I'm a Marvel zombie. And he's more boss.

I don't think Egg Fu makes any sense if he isn't racist.

I choose the Elvis Modoks from Nextwave.

hahaha Nextwave was so great

I think Nextwave fits this thread perfectly. One of the best things this decade for sure.

"Remember the bubble-gum chewing Jubilee clone from X-Force? Well..."

To be fair, Boom Boom was around well before Jubilee. Just sayin'.

I was gonna say, if anything Jubilee was Boom Boom + Kitty Pryde!

Oh yeah, right! I forgot.

First off, I wanna say it was really hard to figure out the exact words to search for to bring this thread back. Damn.

I haven't even read this, but apparently the Punisher had his head cut off by Wolverine's long lost son, then got brought back from the dead and is now some sort of undead Frankenpunisher on a superhero monster team with Morbius, Man-Thing and Werewolf by Night.

Someone tell me they've read this!

I have. Frank Castle is as confused about it as you are.

It's got to be less perplexing than that time he turned himself black

Where did that happen?

In the "I am murderous, black" storyline.

okay I might read about zombie Frankenstein Punisher

I haven't enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. Figure it's just a way to eventually rejuvenate Frank Castle by giving him a new body -- a Vietnam vet would be way too old to go around committing slaughter in 2010. Or have they already explained that one away? Did he get a dunk in the same stuff that makes Nick Fury never age?

have we mentioned Psylocke (i.e. Betty Braddock, Captain Britain's sister) being kidnapped and turned from an English woman with mild pscyhic powers into an Asian martial artist?

no one mentions Psylocke due to the risk of yr head exploding Scanners-style as you attempt to explain her entire back story

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psylocke#Fictional_character_biography

I mean, large chunks of this oscillate wildly between "o_O" and "O RLY?"

Looking at that - makes a little sense, at least US-wise, since she only appeared for three years here (ten years after her first UK appearance!) before the bizarre ninja transformation, so that original poofy haired incarnation didn't have time to set too long in our minds. But it was still pretty damn weird.

all this punisher stuff has to be ennis, right?

No, the Frankencastle thing is Rick Remender.

Where did that happen?

in "The Punisher," a comic book about the comic book character The Punisher

all this punisher stuff has to be ennis, right?

nah, apart from him having been gone for a couple of years before Frankencastle, the I Am Punisher (Black) thing was early-90s. Make sure to read the alt-text.

oh i how i loled.

jeeeeeezus

don't they explain the Punisher's age (or lack thereof) the same way they do Iron Man's, by pushing the war onvolved forward? At least in the main Marvel timeline; pretty sure Ennis's Max stuff kept it as Vietnam and made Frank appropriately crotchety.

Cold lampin'!

not a comic book dude, didn't read the whole thread, and a whole lot i read was inside baseball to me, but my mind was still blown several times, good werk.

Nightwing being the son of Zod blows my mind. I didn't know the name had an origin in the Superman comics at all.

The one from a few years ago that is pretty high on the yuck factor is the idea that Gwen Stacy, Spider-man's girlfriend who died in a battle with the Green Goblin in the early 70s in a recent story had that re-written that Gwen was sleeping with the Green Goblin and had had twins by him and that Mary Jane knew about it the whole time. That has to be one of the bigger WTF things I have come across since starting to read these things a few years ago. I guess it was all just a precursor to the idea that Spider-man would make a deal with the devil (or Mephisto--hope you remember my name) to get his secret identity back and save Aunt May.

All I can say is if you love Spider-man comics, in some ways you are just better off not knowing what has been going on the last 20 years or so. I don't even really want to know what that whole clone thing was about, it seems too weird.

Oh yeah, Catwoman had a kid, but not with Batman.

Gwen was sleeping with the Green Goblin and had had twins by him and that Mary Jane knew about it the whole time.

That's just gross.

Yeah, that was exactly when the JMS run went sour. Such a shame, because before that it was pretty good.

http://i45.tinypic.com/jgtkj5.jpg

damn, i'm glad i don't follow canon anymore

from Rob Liefeld thread:
"The link says it's Kaare Andrews. I think he's the guy who wrote and drew that weird Spider-Man dystopia story, where Mary Jane was killed by Spider-Man's radioactive sperm.
.
what
.
yes, it happened"

Definitely NOT taken for granted; it was not in continuity, and all the comics fans I know were all WTF? when it happened. Thankfully ignored/forgotten for the most part, unless you want to elicit groans and or laughter.

oh! apologies all around!

Don't apologize - it is always good to mention that it was an actual, sanctioned, Marvel product that involved Spider-Man having RADIOACTIVE SPLOOGE. Someone, somewhere, thought that this was an idea worth sharing with the buying public.

Seriously, it was awful. Making a Dark Knight Returns-inspired geriatric Spider-Man story was already a bad idea, but that particular bit was the worst of it.

Now I kinda want to read it. :-/

Isn't that the way it is though...

This was mentioned in another thread, but it really needs to be included here too.

http://www.savagecritic.com/brian/i-have-read-the-worst-comic-i-have-ever-read/

And, of course, Superman is about to walk across America in order to draw attention to the plight of the family farmer.

Race. To. The. Bottom.

Rulk turned out to be General Ross btw.

waht

And She-Rulk is the alive again Betty Ross.

Why the hell are you reading the Loeb HULK to begin with?

I read the first two issues (utter trainwreck), then have been reading discussions of it on other boards. Sadly, it's currently crossing over with real Hulk in this Fall of Hulks/World War Hulks fiasco, so I kind of have to be aware of it to understand the story.

Shameful admission: Ed McGuinness is the perfect artist for that book. And his stuff looks soooo good in b/w before it gets the candy-color treatment.

And I read the first issue off the Marvel Comics digital store 'cause it was free. I can't imagine following that mess.

How did World War Hulks turn out? I tried to read some of it, but the issues of it I did were nothing but Hulk foe history to get you up to speed on the story that you were supposed to be reading.

I cut it loose when Herc died, but for some reason the LCS put the reveal week in my slot.

Just read the Fall of the Hulks prelude trade. The artist on the last issue in the collection, where She-Rulk stabs Rulk with the sais, gave me bad '90s flashbacks. Ugh.

I think Marvel has plotted itself into a corner with all this Green Hulks-Red Hulks crap. It's horrible. The characters are too powerful to interact with the rest of the M.U. On the other hand, I agree that McGuinness' stuff looks good.

What in the name of sweet fuck is a Rulk?

For some reason (read: he's an idiot), Jeph Loeb decided to come up with a new way to say Red Hulk.

Sadly, though they introduced the Rulk and She-Rulk, they didn't do Roc Ramson. Missed opportunity.

Man, almost forgot they made Rick Jones into the new Abomination, called A-Bomb.

Loeb hurts my brain.

Ruh roh.

Of course, Rulk will beget a whole range of rainbow hulks. Orulk, Yulk, Grulk (the original), Blulk, Indiulk, Vulk.

Yes, this is likely an old joke.

agh, hope to hell Loeb doesn't read this board, because it sounds like something he would actually do

lol @ "Indiulk"

BLULK BLULK BLULK BLULK

Indiulk is immature and afraid of the middle parts of his body. All the other *ulks laugh at Indiulk. Indiulk writes furiously in his three-ring binder.

I'm afraid to even mention the Hulked-Out Heroes and Hulkpool thing...

This thread is gold (gulk?). Thank you all so much.

Gwen Stacy getting it on w/the Green Goblin is extra gross, though.

I haven't read this new Rulk stuff, but it's kinda sad if they've managed to screw up Hulk so quickly after Greg Pak's awesome run. World War Hulk and especially Planet Hulk were the best Hulk stories I've read in years. Though TBH I would have preferred it if Hulk's outer space adventures would've continued longer, as Pak managed to move Hulk into an interesting new setting and give him a well-fleshed new supporting cast, which is kind of a rare feat with such an old and established character. As fun as WWH was, it was still just the basic Hulk story (Hulk just wants to exist peacefully, but others manage to fuck that up for him, so he goes into an angry rampage) taken to its logical extreme, so it's kinda difficult to think of new things to do with the character after that. The Conan style barbarian-on-the-road-to-kinghood story of Planet Hulk would've provided a better premise for fresh new Hulk stories.

Dr. Superman, I don't _think_ Jason Todd has his own comic.

WHO IS READING COMICS NOW, BIG BOY?
http://comicsmedia.ign.com/comics/image/article/107/1078280/batman-the-origin-of-red-hood-20100317034100119_640w.jpg

Dr. Superman, you win!

Also: one of Gwen and the Green Goblin's twins currently has his own miniseries.

(obviously that was intended as overstuffed Gordon Ramsay funny haha and not actual internet doucheface pwnage slapdown)

Just to jump on the dogpile, the last issue of Rise of Arsenal (Q: Where, exactly, is the Rise?) was despicable on all levels and has really made me depressed as a comics lover and a father.

So browsing the comic shelf today, I guess that Thunderbolt Ross turns out to be the Rulk. WTF?

This is still going on. I like Fear Agent, but this is still a weird way to take the Punisher, hell they retitled his book for the last couple of months.
http://warrocketajax.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/frankencastle1.jpg

As wacked out as it might seem, I kind of thought the first issue of that Jason Todd mini-series was decent. It all depends on the follow through...

If I was a comic writer, Rick Jones would be the coolest guy in the room. I think that character is WAY under played and potential under appreciated. Here you have a true everyman character that is basically every stoner dude with an acoustic guitar that has somehow ended up up tied to the origin of the Hulk, a member of the Avengers, serious cog in the Kree/Skrull War, side kick to Captain America, pretty much 1/2 of Captain Marvel and whatever wacky shit he has gotten into for the last 20 years that I have not experienced.

I keep hoping that Bendis gets into Rick Jones and does some more with him, as from that small Alias story, he kind of gets what you could do with the character.

Pretty much him and Snapper Carr should be seriously kick ass characters for some of these guys to use.

"For some reason (read: he's an idiot), Jeph Loeb ___________" is pretty much the reason/apologia for everything Loeb has ever done.

P.S. I am continuing to buy and read Pak Hulk and completely ignoring the existence of Loeb Rulk. Don't really feel like I'm missing much aside from potential incompetence-induced rage-outs.

I'd probably have kept reading if it had stayed Planet Hulk. That was some entertaining stuff, even if it was sort of Jarella meets Spartacus.

Oh, my favorite only-fans-would-get-it development from DC lately is Deadman resurrecting baby birds.

Since there's no general 'Jeph Loeb sucks and is awful' thread: prepare for all of Marvel's future TV and video projects to suck and be awful.

why

why does this man continue to get work

is "meets deadlines" really THAT much more important than "has ideas"

shaking my damn head
gritting my damn teeth

Remember what happened to Heroes? We got THAT SAME GUY to oversee the new Spider-Man movies!

(only not, since it's just TV and video, so who cares, COME ON it was gonna suck anyway)

come on guys

and writer of hit films Commando and Teen Wolf.

dude is obviously at the top of his game right now

Holy shit, Jeph Loeb wrote Commando?!

Thought of another one:

Tony Stark wiped his brain to stop Iron Man tech being used by Norman Osborn, but Pepper Potts gets him to install a backup brain. Unfortunately he's about as good at remembering to do backups as the rest of us, and the one he uses is a couple of years old meaning he has forgotten the last couple of years of Marvel continuity, including the events of Civil War.

This included Bucky Barnes, who Stark made Captain America in accordance with Steve Rogers' last wishes, telling him that Steve Rogers got shot.

Remember what happened to Heroes? We got THAT SAME GUY to oversee the new Spider-Man movies!

If they're rebooting to high-school Spidey, then Peter will likely be a male version of petulant Claire. Sigh.

Something something Wonder Woman something something leather jacket something something 2010.

Immediately reminded me of the '90s costume, though that was more ridiculous I guess - could be worse. The only thing that looks a little out of place is the jacket clashing with the classic top (though I think might as well have ditched that too, for these purposes). I'm kinda surprised they didn't go with a cleaner looking illustration. More bothersome is the idea that she almost has Superman's origin now (thanks JMS). Do wonder if she'll ever have curly hair again.

Holy shit, Jeph Loeb wrote Commando?!

Yes, Tuomas said that but I thought I'd repeat for emphasis.

And am I the only one who thought of he mid-90s Avengers bomber jacket costumes with the new WW costume?

Giving Wonder Woman Superman's origin story and turning Superman into Kwai Chang Caine is some straight up bullshit.

Wonder Woman has an origin?

So...Mark Waid, what's on your pull list?

blimp

Black Panther - now no longer king of Wakanda, he is now running a diner in NYC.

what part? hell's kitchen? or is he in brooklyn?

He's the new man without fear, as Daredevil has gone walkabout.

this thread's amazing

so hell's kitchen then

Yep.

http://images.brighthub.com/f5/8/f58cb81263945d7b16705b8506e3847f1265da4e_large.jpg

I still think they should have done some sort of audition for Daredevil, or maybe it's a rehabilitation program for superheroes who have done terrible things, they have to go through a year of being the most put-upon and abused hero in the MU.

Basically, I just think Cyclops would make a great Daredevil.

I know one of the things we missed in this thread; Ben Grimm died and was dead for the best part of a year iirc and was brought back to life when the other three went to Heaven and persuaded God to change his mind.

That's all grist to the mill, I suppose, but God turned out to be JACK KIRBY.

Oh, and it's revealed God has a collaborator which it's not that hard to work out is supposed to be Satan.

So the Devil is STAN LEE.

Also: one of Gwen and the Green Goblin's twins currently has his own miniseries.

?

ALF - that lovable alien from the planet Melmac who brought the comic hi-jinx to tv screens during the 80s?

He's part of the Marvel Universe.

That's not at all true.

FUN FACT: The High Evolutionary hypothesizes that the Phoenix was responsible for the destruction of Melmac.

Roy Thomas probably knows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_Girl

Squirrel Girl is originally from the Los Angeles, California, area. She is first seen ambushing Iron Man in a forest. She hopes to impress the veteran hero, wishing him to take her under his wing as his sidekick. The 14-year-old mutant introduces herself and her pet squirrel, Monkey Joe, and displays her abilities (all squirrel-themed).

After announcing the character's role at the 2010 Comic-con panel, Bendis described the audience's reaction citing "...it was so loud, the applause went on for so long... the place went nuts for a while". He went on to describe the applause as comparable to Stan Lee walking into the room.

i didn't know Squirrel Girl dated back that far, though she was a '00s creation

Steve Ditko is also co-creator of Squirrel-Girl, which is one of the reasons some writers like Dan Slott to point out her apparent exploits "HAVE" to be in-continuity.

canon!

Batman has a son? And he's dead?

― there's a better way to browse (Dr. Superman), Friday, September 11, 2009 3:17 PM (3 years ago)

this is true now, right?

yep

Squirrel Girl became the Avengers' nanny a few years back! Only caught the first few issues of that but it was pretty entertaining. Mainly I loved the audition issue with dozens of sad Avengers hangers-on coming out of the woodwork, including a particularly desperate D-Man.

i didn't know Squirrel Girl dated back that far, though she was a '00s creation

Originally, Squirrel Girl only appeared in that one 1990s story, which was just a 10 page story in anthology title... Still, it seems to have been kinda memorable for some folks, because the humourous tone was so different from your regular 1992 superhero comics, and because she was such an awesomely bizarre character: in her first appearance she ends up saving Iron Man and defeating Dr. Doom with only the help of her squirrels. Apparently Dan Slott was one those people who still remembered her, as he revived her for the Great Lakes Avengers mini (which by the way is a great comic that everyone should read), with her gimmick now being that she's able to defeat the biggest badass villains in the Marvel Universe (like Doom and Thanos) despite her goofy and limited powers. I guess her subsequent popularity is partly due to that gimmick, partly because Marvel doesn't have too many funny and innocent characters anymore. (I really, really, really hope no one tries to make her more "dark", like they did with Speedball.)

http://webcomicoverlook.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/glipenancejpgix7.jpg

fun developments with speedball and squirrel girl

love it

Can he see out of that helmet?

he's trying to headbutt Squirrel Girl

Started listening to the Rachel and Miles X-plain the X-Men podcast this week. It's insane story development after insane story development, the whole point pretty much being to make these more intelligible for the layman. As my own X-Men knowledge is somewhere between novice and intermediate, I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

I'm not following the X-books anymore, but I read somewhere that Wolverine is gonna "really", "actually" die this year. Did that happen already?

It's kinda funny how, whenever there's a big superhero movie around, it seems the hero of that movie is dead and/or replaced by another character in the comics. No wonder the movies haven't managed to attract new audiences for the comics, this stuff must seem incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't been reading superhero comics for years already.

no one ever really dies in comics

and yeah superhero continuity is totally incomprehensible to me these days

Yeah, I know, hence the scare quotes.

one of my favorite crazy X-Men stories is how the entire original+ team was captured by a living island

do you mean the original Giant Size X-Men #1 that introduced Wolverine and Storm to the team, or the wacky do-over with the secret team and the secret evil Summers brother

Unfamiliar with that comic, but there's an episode of Rachel and Miles that discusses it intensively.

I meant GSXM #1, forgot about the secret evil Summers brother do-over which basically is like putting frosting on frosting

I think they're teasing a huge change with Wolverine but death is a red herring?

Isn't the living island now their lawn?

It's a progeny of the living island, I think!

God bless you, X-Men; God bless you, each and every one

I thought that had been, and it turned out that he was just mortal (IN A COMPLETE COINKYDINK like he was in the film that came out just sfterwards). And dead in which book? He's got about 5, all with separate continuities.

Anyway, other current potential candidates for the thread title:

Daredevil now lives in San Fransisco (for the first time, conveniently erasing the two years in the 70s he lived there shagging Black Widow)
J Jonah Jameson is mayor of NYC
Doctor Octopus had a blistering affair with Aunt May
Doctor Octopus displaced Spider-Man from Spider-Man's brain but not before he had made him feel what it was like to shag Aunt May
Doctor Octopus was better at being Spider-Man than Peter Parker
Hank Pym and the Wasp miniaturise and crawl about in each others genitals for sexy fun times
The Human Torch was dead for a couple of years
Amy's Crack from Doctor Who destroyed Earth-4
Supergirl is now a Red Lantern, who are led by Guy Gardner (looking like he's in Mastodon)
John Constantine is in the Justice League
Jonah Hex went to the future and got his face fixed up, now he's back in the Old West and nobody believes him when he says who he is

Daredevil now lives in San Fransisco (for the first time, conveniently erasing the two years in the 70s he lived there shagging Black Widow)

I don't think that earlier time in SF was retconned away! I'll check...

Doctor Octopus displaced Spider-Man from Spider-Man's brain but not before he had made him feel what it was like to shag Aunt May

No. Please, no.

The Doc/May thing actually has an old goofy history, not surprised they brought it back
Wasp/Pym junk was in Ultimate universe, doesn't count
Wait, so does this mean Supergirl spits up lantern-fireblood (or whatever it's called) and she'll die if she loses the ring? Does she hang out with the cat Red Lantern?
That Jonah Hex thing sounds hilarious!!

OK, there are references to DD's previous SF residency in the last series' last issue and the new series' 1st issue.

Mea culpa, I was only skimming the DD stuff because Waid.

Yeah, Supergirl is the whole blood vomiting deal. The cat is away with Atrocitus, who got sold out by GG and died but came back through the ring of a giant ox and is now alive again.

Hex is great, you should all obtain All-Star Western and read it.

The DC-verse was attacked by an evil Superman who drew power from kryptonite and was weakened by sunlight. Therefore, he put the moon in front of the sun, and since apparantly none of the heroes in the US realize that the world is round, he could defeat them all. Only after a long battle did someone realize they could just move the moon away again, and the evil Superman was easily defeated.

I tried to type out the insanity that has been the X-men since schism, but I can't be bothered to check on it. Are the young X-men still around, and is it true that young Cyclops will get his own ongoing where he is in space?

yes and yes.

Cyclops #2 comes out tomorrow.

Doctor Octopus displaced Spider-Man from Spider-Man's brain but not before he had made him feel what it was like to shag Aunt May

Aw jeez. My kid's been reading that title. How bad is it?

Parker goes EEEW and ICK much like your kid would at the thought of old people kissing before it goes anywhere tbh.

Thanks. I used to monitor his comics after reading about this one upthread

Superhero comics: What insane story/character developments do avid followers take for granted but would blow the minds of anyone only peripherally aware of them?

but let my guard down after a while.

Ha, I remember the Torch dying but didn't keep up with it after that, the return sounds just like a total mess:

It is later revealed that the Human Torch was revived by a species of insect-like creatures that were implanted in his body by Annihilus in an attempt to force Storm to help open the Negative Zone portal. However, although Storm refused, Annihilus gained a means of access when an alternate dimension Reed Richards opened the portal for him, forcing Storm to escape and lead a resistance against Annihilus with the aid of his fellow prisoners.

i mean that CANNOT be what they had in mind right? Like at least the Superman thing turned out to have been a pretty well-planned out two-year story arc and was totally awesome. I was a kid, sure, but at the same time was the wretched death and return of Mister Fantastic, which even then I knew was lame by comparison.

Daredevil now lives in San Fransisco (for the first time, conveniently erasing the two years in the 70s he lived there shagging Black Widow)

I've only read as far as the most recent trade (which ends with DD moving out of NYC), but in it the explicit reason why he moves to San Fransisco is his previous history there.

Oops, sorry, I see that WilliamC addressed that already.

Wow, I REALLY skimmed it.

Doctor Octopus had a blistering affair with Aunt May
Doctor Octopus displaced Spider-Man from Spider-Man's brain but not before he had made him feel what it was like to shag Aunt May

Didn't the Octopus/May romance happen, like, decades ago? I remember reading about it as a kid. Or are you saying he romanced and had sex with May while inside Peter's body? Because if it's the latter, wtf?!

No, it's all flashing back to 74 (?) but it's not a supervillain scam like it was in the original book (apparently, not read) but a proper marriage.

So they've retconned it so that he really was in love with May? IIRC it definitely was presented as some sort of a scam in the original story.

Dude, I read something like 35 hero books a week. Give me a break here.

35?! Why?

Because he doesn't have time for a 36th!

ps Aldo are we talking physical copies or do you digi comic too?

Just digi, buy very little in physical.

Marvel and DC, on an average week, put out something like 15-18 books each. Add a couple of indies and BAM.

As to why, search for my "reads so you don't have to threads". Just because i stopped writing doesn't mean i stopped reading (I even say as much on the DC thread).

Johnny Storm's return was pretty awesome, and very intricately plotted. The mechanics of his revival and escape also played a major role in the next phase of the story. I highly doubt it wasn't planned out well in advance.

It was written by Hickman, who seems to specialize in complex extended plots. (Sometimes to the books' detriment when floppies are rolling out in 2- to 4-week intervals. Infinity didn't make much sense to me at the time -- it might read better in a chunk.)

Yup, his plots are insane, and elements back from Secret Warriors will occasionally still get drawn into his new stuff. But at times he loses his handling of it, I think everyone at marvel has admitted that Infinity spun out of control. I liked it, though, but that's compared to crossovers where nothing happens for six out of seven installments, and then half of the final installment is spent setting up new stories.

New insane development: Thanos has an Inhuman son, who is even more powerful than him.

As to why, search for my "reads so you don't have to threads". Just because i stopped writing doesn't mean i stopped reading (I even say as much on the DC thread).

this doesn't actually explain why!

Yeah, your implication is that you were torturing yourself reading all this stuff just to post about it!

OK, by way of explanation...

I stopped writing the DC one pretty much because I found the writing was sucking what pleasure I was getting out of the actual good books away, probably because I was spending all my time trying to think of new and inventive ways to say "this books sucks" about landfill titles like Grifter. I always had time for the good and equally for the awful cf The Liefeldening.

Because I am an Aspie shut-in rube creature of habit, having got myself into a routine of obtaining the comics on a weekly basis I pretty simply never got back out of it. It's helped me in a lot of ways get back to an almost child-like appreciation for them - the good ones are good, the bad ones are bad, and some of them are just FUN. Now I'm moved completely away from my LCS and only get floppies no more frequently than monthly I get a re-read when they turn up of the good stuff, or at least the stuff that I like enough to buy. I also re-read chunks in 'trade' in digi, the whole Doc Ock/Spidey brain stuff was beginning to look like a candidate for that but real life has got in the way over the past couple of months and I only get the weekend to read at the moment so keeping pace is all I can do.

I suppose I'd convince myself I just love comics. You could less charitably say I'm stuck in a rut, and I certainly have a weakness in quality filtering for Marvel.

I was a big fan of this stuff for a decade and I regret that phase of my life. I still love Ditko, Kirby, Everett, Gene Colan and a few others contributions to the mythology but not a whole lot more. Would it be fair to say that only a relative tiny minority of people did anything worthwhile?

I keep seeing smart people with good taste reading this stuff but as I've said in another thread, they seem to treat it like a dirty habit and hold super low expectations for the comics. Like its only morbid curiosity that keeps you coming back (cue an animated gif where someone peers into a dark place and backs away in a horrified manner). It's always "let's talk about how decadent and stupid this stuff is".

I knew a guy who said "I just read the illegal scans to keep up with the story, I'd never pay for this trash", but when there is so much excellent legally free stuff on the internet, how do you justify the precious time and electricity?

So many comic creators and fans know exactly how bad things are but just put up with it out of habit? There certainly is progress but it has been so ssssssssssssssssssssssssssslllllllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww that many creators will never see the benefits of the progress.

It's worth repeating that even many of the biggest comic fans don't really respect the medium as much as they think. People who get ragingly indignant about bad things in music, sloppy prose writing and slightly ill advised character development in Mad Men are just fine and dandy about utterly foul comics.
This seems to have spread into films because so many people who think the superhero films are mostly mediocre are quite happy to talk about them for a long time.

In a world overflowing with great stuff (including thousands of tragically neglected stuff) you can spend time and money on, what in the last 20 years of superhero comics has made it all worthwhile?

For me...

- Gene Colan, Kelley Jones, Sam Kieth, Sienkiewicz and Phil Winslade

- Savage Dragon. I stopped reading this two years ago because I didn't like the art and characters enough but it was often exciting and very funny. It was too confusing and messy a lot of the time but it made a serious effort at continuity and consequences. It was so many of the things that Marvel tries but fails to do with their long running sagas.

Speaking for myself here, I dabble into buying comics once or twice a year, and still love the medium. The whole floppy month-to-month thing is too much to keep up with, hence internet discussion and sites, which admittedly I love connecting to because of nostalgia and fond attachment to characters I read and loved in my childhood. And also I still have a degree of love for the format and expansive universe storytelling, though I haven't really kept up with the bigs in about 5 years or so.

The only current comic I'm reading right now is Saga in trade, and sometimes I'll hear good things about new series and current writers like Matt Fraction and it'll motivate me to take some out from the library and pick up a book here and there. It's harder especially to sort out what the good indie and creator-owned stuff is, it all gets lost in the shuffle.

(frankly I find the common disparagement of webcomics to be far more depressing than laughing at a Masters of the Universe revival)

I really, really, really have enjoyed recent work by Matt Fraction, Al Ewing, Robert Hickman, Dennis Hopeless, Kelly Sue Deconnick and G Willow Wilson. I wouldn't be purchasing their books if I didn't actually like them.

I just love the idea of a superhero-universe. The idea of a thousand small stories building up this massive universe, with a shared past and interlocking stories. It's such a good idea, and I love the stories set on the fringes, like Secret Warriors, S.H.I.E.L.D., Hawkeye or Abnett and Lannings cosmic saga. But in the mainstream, it's all shocking move following shocking move, always going in circles. It just seems so promising, but is so shitty, most of the time.

Which is why I keep on reading, and keep on laughing.

I'm a few years behind, but I'm a big fan of a lot of what Marvel's been putting out for the past decade or so, especially the extent to which they've steered hard towards making theirs a truly cohesive universe. It's hard on the wallet, but it's one of the things I love about mainstream comics. And the writing has by and large gotten much better than what was standard in the past century. Yes, it's often ludicrous, but that's just another thing I love about mainstream comics.

DC nowadays, on the other hand, can suck a fuck. But even they were doing a lot of solid stuff before they decided to chuck everything (including the goodwill of their readership) into the shredder.

I can forgive DC for its trespasses just for giving Grant Morrison the keys to Batman for a few years and letting him go wild

Yeah, Morrison's BatOpus is seriously one of my all-time favorite runs on any comic. I will give DC kudos on allowing him to wrap it up on his own terms rather than forcing him to conform to their insane new parameters.

I like a lot of Morrison's stuff but I've had absolutely zero interest in his Batman stuff, largely because Batman is a character I'm much more content to watch in TV shows and movies rather than read about (unless of course you are talking about Batman: Odyssey, which should be required reading in schools); ditto Superman

I've just been buying the trades of GMoz's Batman Inc. run - is it done?

I wish Adam's First X-Men had equalled the insanity of Batman Odyssey.

I don't generally have much interest in reading Bat-stuff, either, so I was surprised that I loved that run as much as I did. It helps that it's more about time travel and creating back-up personalities and Bat-Mite hauntings than it is about flitting about in the dark and scaring muggers.

And, yeah, Batman Inc. (and presumably Morrison's extended Bat-arc) is done.

actually now that I think about it, I am much more interested in watching the marquee DC superheroes than I am in reading about them, which is kind of interesting to me anyway

that is kind of weird given how terrible the DC movies have been/are going to continue to be

I like the first couple NolanMan movies but otherwise...

Suggestion for Nolan:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0oefiB5rY8Q/UY0TT40ogWI/AAAAAAAAAKI/N3TF-lwFod4/s1600/tumblr_mkbsneYaDK1s2k64ro2_500.png

http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-S5Mbj9LNYQQ/TYmHVpFNunI/AAAAAAAAJVw/ImZ4KoICebg/s1600/Batman_Odyssey_23.jpg

More suggestions:

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/comicsalliance.com/files/2011/03/odyssey-banana.jpg

Even more suggestions:

http://wolkin.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/odyssey3.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0EiujcV3Tg

when will the jacking stop

Nhex says "It's harder especially to sort out what the good indie and creator-owned stuff is, it all gets lost in the shuffle."

I'd say the opposite.
It's harder to find out if a superhero comic has been stupidly hyped or if it can stand alone as a story with no further context needed or if it has the bad colouring that plagues mainstream comics. I don't think there are a whole lot of good artists now either.

At worst creator owned stuff is harder to track down but in general it's easy to follow.

Yes, the whole connected universe thing is an exciting idea but it so rarely works. It's so haphazard that any attempt to make it look serious and important looks ridiculous because some people are doing their best to make sense of hundreds of bad story choices by hundreds of creators. They play to the very worst weakness of the whole thing by playing up the importance of what is currently going on in relation to previous continuity, which will probably be retconned anyway.

I mostly followed Spiderman up to 2005 and I read all the major storylines except some 70s and 80s stuff (I missed Kraven's Last Hunt, Jean DeWolf, Juggernaut fight, the early Jackal/clone stuff and Hobgoblin stories) and I honestly don't think anything truly worthwhile happened after the end of Ditko's run! If I was being generous I'd say Mary Jane, Rhino, Shocker, Black Cat, The Spot, Tombstone, Venom, Morbius and some elements of the clone saga were good. But generally Spiderman's story went in pointless circles.

That newish Dr Octopus story sounds horrific.

I've been trying recently to isolate what I think were genuine contributions to imaginative fiction in DC and Marvel. I think the whole cosmic side of Dr Strange, Silver Surfer, Eternals is really great, but again I think only a relative minority of creators did this well. I wish it had all happened in creator owned stuff.
I think it's sad that Gene Colan's never collaborated on a truly great book. But I've never read Night Force, Detectives Inc, Stewart The Rat, Nathaniel Dusk or Ragamuffins so I can't really say that. I think his greatest work is his commission output at the end of his life.

"pointless circles" should be Marvel/DC's motto

it's referred to in-house as the "illusion of change"

I remember reading the Son of M mini coming out of House of M - which is absolutely rubbish - where Spider-man goes to confront Quicksilver. It turns out that in the new world Quicksilver forced Scarlett Witch to create, that Gwen Stacy was alive and married to Peter Parker. So not only has Spider-man recently lost the love of his life for a second time, he had also had to admit to himself that since the new world was created on giving the superheroes what they desired the most, that he really loved Gwen more than Mary-Jane. I love that little situation, it's such a great little moment in the midst of these insane and weird stories. I wish there were more stories like that.

i remember that being a weird and trippy story - that's the one where Quicksilver meets the time-displaced duplicates of himself, isn't it?

Yeah, I wish David Hine had stuck around and done more stuff with Marvel (he also wrote District X, the Bishop police procedural set in Mutant Town). I guess he's at DC now? Who knows why.

I'm pretty bored with the marvel tentpoles, but the stuff on the edges - Black Widow, Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Loki - are doing interesting things.

x-post: I can't recall what else happens. It's right after M-day, and Quicksilver has lost his powers. There is something about mutants with disfiguring mutations going from being somewhat special to just being freaks. And then something with the Inhumans and their Terrigan mists, though that might have been from X-Factor?

Avengers just got interesting again, with the New Avengers story line crashing into the Avengers storyline in a big way and culminating with chunk of the team being vaulted forward in time at increasing intervals due to explosions from the Time Infinity Gem. I do like Hawkeye and Loki more, though.

marvel unlimited means that i'm basically reading everything Marvel releases digitally
50% is pretty much unreadable, 25% is dumb but readable, 15% is fun but dumb, about 10% is probably worth picking up in paper if i hadn't given up on floppies for space considerations many years ago

Just looking at all those Batman Odyssey panels, I had never even heard of that before today. Joe McCulloch was considering reviewing all the Adams/Continuity comics, because he said they are totally nuts.
Anyone remember Adams' theories about dinosaurs that he was sure was going to change the world?

One of the old Continuity artists left comics, started dressing like a Christian prophet and tried to fly a plane away from an airport when nobody was looking.

RAG, this is the pertinent thread... lots of laffs:
Can someone tell Batman why not?!?

Yeah, I was just looking. I was amazed.

don't miss the dramatic youtube readings!

Hadn't heard of this The First X-Men retcon series, sounds awful

i don't think that, these days, mainstream, corporately owned superhero comics are really the place to look for idiosyncratic, personally expressive work - there are plenty of other places where that's possible. rather modern superhero comics - when done well - represent the 'genius of system' - a collective storytelling effort

I think it works quite well when superhero stories are completely disconnected from the main timeline. Elseworlds and stuff like that tends make strong impressions from time to time. A lot of the celebrated Batman stories need no wider context.

Anyone read that gory Neal Adams thing for Dark Horse Presents? That seemed pretty crazy too. Wonder if there will be a collected version.

Aldo, what don't you like about Waid's Daredevil? I find it a lot of fun - not that Waid isn't inconsistent. But that title's been pretty great for the whole run.

otm

Oh no I'd agree with both of you, loved the first lot especially the Latveria arc - I just feel that Waid works best read as a Silver Age writer; enjoy the broad themes and the fun, don't get bogged down too much in the plotting. I loved the swinging about working out where the hospital was because he only remembered the NYC locations, didn't enjoy so much the stuff about being a mayor and the new kid in the apartment that might be from the future.

Just heard that The Watcher got killed and his eyes gouged out. Apparently comic shops are selling promotional eyeballs.

Yeah... And I have a feeling people will scratch their heads at what happened in chapter three of that series as well...

The obvious ljnks between that and Uuatu having one eye stolen make the rumours all too attractive for me I'm afraid.

Quit in the late 80's and have only checked Bendis' DD since that but you guys are making me wanna dip back in. Any tips?

what sort of thing did you like in the late '80s, and do you want something similar? do you specifically want to revisit a corporate-owned shared universe that you liked back then?

Yeah pretty much. Really liked DD for the plot driven, quasi noir-realist vibe and found the Bendis/Maleev run fantastic. At the time was also very much into x-men also for the plot and character aspects. All very vague but let's say I'd be keen to check out some great recent standalone stories of the main Marvel characters (was never into DC stuff)

Can't say I've read much Daredevil over the years but it sounds like you'd definitely enjoy Waid's current run, however I did drop it last year and can't be sure that its held up since.

Check out Hawkeye.

Bendis's Alias is a nice companion piece to his Daredevil run, and pretty similar in tone. Recent-ish X-stuff doesn't have much in the way of a logical point of entry, but if you haven't read Morrison's New X-Men yet, that's a must. Planet Hulk is a great stand alone story, although maybe somewhere on the opposite end of the noir spectrum.

Warren Ellis' short Moon Knight run has gotten a lot of raves, and it finished yesterday. Perhaps the first half of Brubaker's Captain America, until they defeat the Red Skull. Which is, like, 42 issues or something. That is quite good. Brubaker and Faction's Iron Fist, also.

yep new Daredevil is still good, Hawkeye is great. new Ms Marvel has been a lot of fun, so have the new Moon Knight and Iron Fist relaunches actually. Deadpool current run is fun if lightweight and silly.... I think Marvel is actually doing some really good stuff at the moment, and as long as you keep away from the X, Avengers and Spider books, you really don't have to put up with much of the crossover event bullshit...

Superior Foes of Spider-Man is the best Marvel book at the moment.

shit yes i do keep meaning to check that out - have heard great things. is it continuity / crossover heavy much?

is ellis's moon knight still ongoing? been thinking of catching up on it.

definitely definitely check out hawkeye.

issue 6 came out yesterday, new creative team from issue 7...
so trade paperback of 1-6 will be out pretty soon i'd say.

there are no continuity bullshit/cross-overs in Superior Foes thus far.

New series of Black Widow is pretty fine, and surprisingly I've enjoyed the hell out of All New Ghost Rider. NOW! Thor has been consistently good, and All New Silver Surfer is a blast (see also All New Doop).

Also do not pass on anything written by ILX's own Vic Fluro, dude has been on fire recently.

Second the Ghost Rider and Black Widow love. I found Silver Surfer a mess, and I'm a huge Allred apologist.

Maybe I'm just Allred apologising too much but I thought the issue now they're back on Earth was really great, like a Scooby Doo ep or something.

I'll have to check it out. Stopped reading after issue #2.

IIRC the next issue of Moon Knight is the last Ellis issue? They've all been great though.

nope, issue 6 has a page basically saying "Don't stop reading now!!!" and then a three page preview of issue 7 from the new team.

Ellis's Marvel work over the years has been so uneven

Best Marvel Runs

Daredevil by Bendis/Maleev/Brubaker -- This is a pretty great modern sequel to the Frank Miller run on Daredevil.
Cable & Deadpool- Fabian Nicieza & bunch of artists -- I thought this comic was a whole lot of fun. It's really one of the few things I have read that had that old style Marvel storytelling. There is also a really well setup long arc to the series. Tie ins to the bigger universe work, as they are self contained. I liked it quite a bit.
Captain America- Brubaker & Company- It waffles a bit as a run, probably because of having to tie into everything in the Bucky Cap chapters, but overall it's probably the best run of Cap comics ever, definitely one of the more popular takes in modern times.
Prelude to Planet Hulk/Planet Hulk/World War Hulk -- I thought the parts of the battle planet was just amazing. They should have just left him out there for another couple of years, as there seemed to be so many stories they could have told and that direction was popular.
The Punisher by Garth Ennis - Ennis' run on The Punisher is like Brubaker's Captain America, it's the most advanced take on the character. The MAX series covers a whole lot of ground but also has some odd turns like a last Punisher story and single issues with really great guest veteran artists. The earlier run of the Punisher is in the regular universe and it's pretty funny. There is an arc with Darick Robertson artwork that has Spider-man, Daredevil and Wolverine as guest stars that is a favorite of mine. Maybe not for everyone, as the Punisher Max series is really violent, but it's one of my favorites.

Grant Morrison's X-Men run is an interesting read too. I don't think it all quite fits, but there some total cool comics in there worth reading. His stuff always is good to re-read.
Fantastic Four- Hickman & Co. -- It's a pretty solid long novel story. I think when they compile it, they really should put the FF stuff next to the regular title, as the story flows that way. It's a definite sequel to both the Kirby/Lee & Byrne runs.

I should say modern runs...last decade or so.

Oh yeah, the Hickman stuff! Also check out his Secret Warriors, that is a pretty solidly plotted out long story as well. And also Gillen's Journey Into Mystery with Kid Loki. I kinda miss Kid Loki...

I liked Hickman's S.H.I.E.L.D. series too. But the best stuff he's done at Marvel is Fantastic Four/FF, which Fraction then immediately fucked up and abandoned.

Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts with Bendis' sequel in Dark Avengers is pretty dark fun reading too. It's kind of tied to the Marvel U macro story line though, so if read on their own, some of the context might be lost. Don't know if they do the review sheets in the Marvel trades, but the ones on the issue are pretty good for catching up what you might have missed in a 'crossover' story.

Some great recommendations here. Thanks guys. Gonna look to see what I can find in omnibus format on amazon.

If you're going the omnibus route, Annihilation is highly recommended. It's the storyline that kicked off the modern era of Marvel Cosmic and reintroduced the members of the new Guardians of the Galaxy. And it's currently only in print as an omnibus (which is why I wouldn't recommend it to someone who wasn't willing to shell out $$$). Presumably, they will be following that up with an omnibus of (the likewise out of print) Annihilation Conquest, which formally introduced the new GotG team. Why this stuff isn't currently widely available in affordable paperbacks in every Barnes and Noble...well, just ask those lovely people in the Marvel reprint department about their keen foresight and awe-inspiring strategic planning skills.

even the trades they do put out are double the price of an image trade, bcz something something marvel? idgi

Yeah, their trade prices are often ridiculously steep. I don't see other paperback books selling for $35-40 dollars. I guess the argument with TPBs in that price range (e.g. the Ultimate trades, which usually collect around 12 to 16 issues) is that they're roughly equivalent to the price point of the individual issues? Except that those are ridiculously overpriced, as well. All the more reason why it's such a shame that they've done away with the Essential line.

i know i say this in every thread but if you have a tablet get a marvel unlimited subscription.
seventy bucks gets you access to about 80% of everything listed above

There's another symptom of the price hikes, too, I'd wager. Marvel Unlimited as a loss leader for physical reprints.

As much as I like having access to stuff digitally and the convenience thereof, I'm apparently afflicted with the inability to ever fully give up on floppies and trades. I way prefer reading stuff that way.

As much as I hate parting with $35 freaking dollars for a trade paperback, I like supporting my local comics shop. If I was just buying stuff from Amazon or whatever anyway, the subscription thing would of course be a great deal.

As much as I love physical copies, I have nine or ten bookshelves filled with floppies, trades and hardcovers and i'm trying desperately to transfer to digital wherever possible.

Oh yeah, I understand that problem too. Fortunately, I'm not quite there with comics, but I've had to sell or give away most of my physical book collection simply for space limitation issues.

weirdly, i've given away most of what i own multiple times due to space limitations / moving and I've lost half of my collection multiple times but every goddamn time i get a little cash i seem to blow it on a comic library and that shit's gotta stop at some point

^ This. Except I've finally conceded that it's never gonna stop, so I've just given in. The realities of physical space be damned.

(I figure the continued employment of actual bookshelves will stave off hoarderhood.)

yeah, but that means every three to five months i have to have the awkward conversation with my girl about how "we totally have room here for another bookshelf, right? and then we can get these books off the table and you want that right? and you're not saying i should get rid of anything right?"

Ha. We live parallel lives, forks. There is, thankfully, a storage room in our building, but that's only going to keep the dam from bursting for so long.

sooner or later my gal is gonna figure out that my ongoing efforts to get her into comics are just a smokescreen for plausible deniability when the entire apartment becomes a constant wall packed with comic storage and ebay will not be kind to me.
thank GOD i got the action figure / collectible bug out of my system in my thirties

Yeah, thankfully, I've largely purged my CD & DVD collections because I don't have the physical or mental space for more than one obsessive pursuit anymore.

going non-physical with music was one of the more important decisions in my twenties; has save me SO MUCH heartbreak

and i imagine as much money as opting not to have a child!

is batman digitizing damian to save on batcave storage more morrison or ellis?

ellis, certainly

seconded on Marvel Unlimited. despite their godawful design problems, I've been having a good time reading the last couple weeks

I was trying to think of something to steer this thread back on topic and realized that, despite the wealth of Kitty Pryde revelations here, no one ever pointed out that Widget was revealed to be KP's future consciousness inside a robotic body.

wow, that is a surprise. wonder how that would impact a reread of the early excalibur books. i mean, not enough to actually read them, but

xp
If that fails the very fact that this happened should work,
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/14/142926/3543170-snowflame.jpg
but then I can't be sure how many avid followers are actually aware that someone at DC in the 80's thought this was a good idea
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Snowflame_(New_Earth)

"I am Steve Englehart Snowflame! Every cell of my being burns with white hot ecstasy."

helluvadrug

'Powers: Cocaine Touch: Touching Snowflame was sufficient to give The Floronic Man a contact high.'

and then somebody rolled up the floronic man and smoked him, circle of dope

Powers: Unique Physiology: The more cocaine he used, the more powerful Snowflame became.
Weaknesses: Drug Addiction: Cocaine

i am dying here

that took me all the way to the ongoing fan webcomic about this guy and dear lord

oh woooooowwww, that's great

http://www.snowflamecomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/2012-08-30-8931b9ce.jpg

http://www.snowflamecomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/814311492_1352973.gif

hahaha

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Murderers-of-Marvel-Infographic.jpg
wait, cap killed truman?

and how is Truman neutral?

immediate nitpicks: X-23 has surely killed WAY more than than that, even counting on-panel only. you'd think her own mother would be a "notable kill"

good thing they didn't include Bishop who straight up committed multiple genocides into the billions during his crazy time-traveling spree to kill Hope Summers

lol at Iron Man's having killed 5 heroes and 1 villain

I guess they're only counting deaths that weren't reversed by the end of the story arc? Otherwise Thanos should be on the top of the list.

Though they do list The Torch killing Mr. Immortal, even though the guy's literal superpower is that he always comes back to life after getting killed.

man things got really murder-y from the 90s on, I don't recognize the names of at least 2/3rds of the characters involved on that chart

Stpuid superhero deaths