Who's got the THRILL POWER?

Seaguy had thrill power out the wazoo.

Okay, here's a question. Did the original CRISIS have thrill power or not? I wasn't into DC at the time, so only got the historical perspective. Any old-timers wanna tackle that one?

Possible sources of THRILL:
- The Dark Phoenix Saga
- early AM Swamp Thing
- early Byrne FF
- Y: The Last Man
- The New Frontier
- early GM NXM (the entire Cassandra Nova arc, really) (& Planet X!!!)
- Ditko Spidey & Kirby FF!!!!

Transmetropolitan had Thrill Power, when it wasn't about how journalism would save the world.

Anything Brian Bendis has written is by definition not.

a) the companies know what the market wants.
b) creators are allowed time to do their stuff rather than having to publish something before the giant scorpions get them.

This doesn't prevent current comics being terrific and exciting and so on, and with some comics (Manhattan Guardian for instance), the pastiche of thrill-powered mentalism is so on that it would seem the act of a grexnix churlish to deny that there is thrill-power present. But something like New Frontier? I'd say not. Brilliant comic, huge sense of wonder, hits its artistic aims dead-on, beautiful to look at etc etc. but not thrill-powered. I guess I think of thrill-power as something that comes out of a context, and individual works produced in that context are more likely to have it. Hence a piece of total crap like ANT WARS (or ANT-MAN for that matter!) has a level of thrill-power and several works of genius do not.

Having absolutely no idea how you are going to end a story: thrill-powered.

Knowing how a story ends and being given an unlimited amount of time to get there: NOT.

(Grant Morrison's superhero stuff is basically the Xenomania and Richard X of comics.)

Thrill Power is the 45rpm of comics (or amI saying this bcz I've read someone say it already? Can't be bothered to check so apologies if I've lifted it.)

Watchmen is far too considered and paced to have Thrill Power. It's still a masterpiece, though.

a) the companies know what the market wants.
b) creators are allowed time to do their stuff rather than having to publish something before the giant scorpions get them.

And then considering this:

Grant Morrison had intended Xorn to be the real Magneto. However, knowing that what he had planned for the character and the school would cause behind the scenes problems, he deliberately sent in his scripts at the last possible moment, to minimise the chances of being asked for rewrites (the New Mutants writers, whose book was also set in the school, only found out that Morrison had destroyed the school when New X-Men #147 came out).

I resubmit my "Planet X" application for THRILLPOWER STATUS!

Giffen's The Heckler is completely thrill powered!. It's absolutely insane, with no idea of where it's going, plots were left dangling and everything drawn in glorious NINE PANEL STYLE!. Can't help getting excited remembering it.

Does Jack Cole's Plastic Man have thrill power?.

in colour on bog paper would be ideal though.

OTM about GM's JLA being totally constructed from Thrill Power. I was reading DC 1 Million last night and had forgotton the insane hyperbolic nature of it...everything is to the nth degree.

Which, I would argue, possibly the definition of Thrill Power

But really, you just have to read it. It's totally bonkers. I laughed out loud several times while reading it.

ps. D'you think 2000AD should have copyrighted the phrase?

Another thought: I've been reading Cities of the Fantastic, Incal, Bilal's Nikopol, and Metabarons, and I think these comics certainly have the absurdity and idea-heaviness of a GM comic, but they're usually much heavier and much more perverse--in a sort of fatuous Germanic way. I think maybe thrillpower in narratives usually means no subtext and lightness rather than "deep" meaning.

Also I think thrillpower in comics usually arises from the narrative (and maybe upturning old conventions), so it's hard for me to imagine very many indie comics having thrill power.

You really should go back and buy Louis Riel, it's great (albeit containing pretty much nil thrill-power).

No, skip right to the second issue of the Black Panther crossover (#176) and read it from there on. He's just kicking in right now, the previous issues are this really long set up. Though there are some great bits in Golgotha and Bizarre Love Triangle, he was obviously in a holding pattern until Decimation happened and he was allowed to run full steam ahead. Which is why I totally, totally, totally disagree with the notion that the current crossover is "hampering" him in any way. Doop's back next month too!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/103-3561357-8435036?_encoding=UTF8&node=13881271

http://www.thesuperest.com

Having just finished the reprints of NEMESIS THE WARLOCK, I submit those as vital examples of thrill-power. I suspect the harsh weekly deadline had something to do with it.

I think Preacher had a few arcs that were big on thrill power, especially when they do the assault on The Grails compound and the Saint of Killers shows up with that big tanker ship. The later battle at Monument Valley with the Nuke and the ending was also something else.

Maybe it is the 'Guns of Navarone' effect, but the big thrills episodes with The Invisibles were also when they were breaking into the base to rescue King Mob and then break into that army base to get the cure for AIDS.

the Penny Century story in the new Love & Rockets has some thrill power for sure!

Nemesis up to The Gothic Empire is unimpeachably thrill powered.

I've held a fantasy for years that someone's going to make a stop motion Nemesis animation one day.

I think Bryan Talbot's Luther Arkwright sequel Heart of Empire is one of the most thrill-powered comics I've ever read. It takes all the cool things from the first Luther Arkwright series (parallel histories! Victorian steampunk science! PSI powers! the end of the world!), but the story flows much more smoothly and has more humour, plus it lacks the main weaknesses of the original series, i.e. new age pretentiousness and text-heaviness.

Heart of Empire is great, except for the cheesily happy ending.

Whilst I do love 'em both, Luther Arkwright has substantially more Thrill Power than Heart of Empire

Really? I like the first Luther Arkwright too, but I've always thought its thrill power is diminished by the fact that it's so heavy to read, whereas Heart of Empire just flows so smoothly and effortlessly.

(Also, I like HoF's optimistic ending more than the first series' new age mumbo jumbo finale.)

I agree with Tuomas re readability and excitment levels - the first I admire more as a formal experiment.

Yeah, me too.

I agree with Tuomas on this, except that the first Luther Arkwright is actually a bit rubbish - incoherent plot, hero developing new superpowers whenever he needs to get out of a scrape, etc.