Kurt Busiek, c/d, s/d?

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Okay, I've just read Avengers Forever, and as everybody probably knows, I don't read much Marvel, but I've like most of Busiek's stuff that I've read (which isn't a whole lot, JLA/Avengers, and three Astro City trades).
However, what really put me off about this one, and I WANTED TO LIKE IT (I'm not anti-Marvel, I just didn't grow up reading it, and since I had already invested all my emotion in the DC Universe...however, I've always liked the idea that there's this whole other Universe out there for me to periodically check in on, like I've really liked the Bendis/Maleev Daredevil stuff that I've read, and the odd Spider-Man thing), was that it was just too wordy. Now Busiek didn't write it on his own, and the book is in the other room and I'm too lazy to go check right now (or I could just check ggl: Roger Stern, okay, I liked his late-80s/early-90s Superman stuff, which is all I know him from), so that may have added to the wordiness of it, but it just felt like everything was being overexplained and not enough action.
Like the old rule of "show, don't tell" was out the window. And so that got me thinking about the other Busiek stuff I've read and, yeah, everything seems to be constantly explained. And I think that it really works well sometimes in Astro City, because the stories I've read have been character pieces and the narration mostly interior and hey, okay...but it bugged me a little in Avengers Forever.
What say you, fussy-britches?

― Huck, Monday, 9 August 2004 05:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Avengers Forever was uneven, I thought, but that may be because I didn't read all of it -- so it goes. I think he's less wordy, more hold-back-and-let-the-artist-have-a-say-too, in Marvels (which is one of those very lightweight books that you just have to enjoy on its own lightweight terms -- there's some backlash against it, I think, because it's so popular that people expect there to be some there there) and most of Astro City -- or at least, like you say, wordy in a different way.

I wanted to like Defenders. I was hyped about it. I'd interviewed both him and Larsen about it. But it just didn't do it for me. Maybe it was just that "my" Defenders were never the Big Cheese Defenders anyway, but the wacky troupes who came after the Dr Strange/Sub-Mariner years.

It took me a bit to warm up to his Avengers, but in retrospect I think it was good from the end of the first arc up through ... I don't know, Maximum Security, probably. Maybe after that, too, but that's when I stopped reading, because of the crossover thing.

Avengers/JLA was fun, too, once you accept that it's an old school crossover like X-Men/Teen Titans or Contest of Champions.

I'm blanking on what other major things he's done ... I didn't love his Spidey stuff, but I didn't hate it, either.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I really liked the "Citizen Kang" arc in _Avengers_ (might've directly followed "Maximum Security"), even if it lasted for 35 years (or 14 issues), and even if 89 artists worked on it.

He recently worked on a miniseries w/ his _Avengers Forever_ partner (Carlos Pacheco) called _Arrowsmith_; it dealt w/ WWI soldiers learning to use magic and dragon familiars to fight the baddies (or something like that; my memory re: salient plot points is shatty), and I don't recall there being any overt omnipotent narration. He used diary entries & letters as ancillary dialogue to cohere the story.

I'm a fan of using caption boxes in place of puffy cloud thoughts, but I really chafe against omnipotent narration as character PR (cf. that X-Man writer dood).

Re: Busiek's / Larsen's _Defenders_ - it seemed too heroic, and simply leaving the wackiness quotient of story on the shoulders of the villain's appearance (and not their behavior, which was quite dastardly in a dull pro-forma train-track-tying way) didn't cut it for me.

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh yeah, "Citizen Kang" was good, too, although I missed a bunch of the middle -- has that one been collected? I was thinking it came before Max Sec.

Oh, also: Busiek wrote Thunderbolts before Nicieza took over, right? Put that in the Search column, too (although I think Nicieza's actually became the "definitive" run for that title).

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:44 (twenty-one years ago)

OTM re: _Thunderbolts_ - I think that was the series that put Busiek on the map (just before _Marvels_ made his dot bigger).

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:20 (twenty-one years ago)

PS - KB's going to be the new JLA writer once the current arc ("Pain of the Gods"?) is finito.

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 9 August 2004 14:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I hated the Astro City what I read. I don't remember why. Possibly due to Alex Ross's limited involvement.

― Mr. Tony Plow (Leee), Monday, 9 August 2004 20:09 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

I read a bunch of Busiek's Avengers last night, at first thinking "God this is way too wordy" but the pages kept turning so I guess I was enjoying it. It seemed incredibly old school, though, like it could have been published any time between 1970 and 2000, in a way that 5 years later most comics aren't - maybe Bendis, Millar etc.s influence? Busiek seems a lot more trad now than he did in his heyday, anyway.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 10:22 (twenty years ago)

Wow, I was going to post almost exactly the same thing - a friend of mine just gave me his run of Avengers Forever and I was totally struck by how old-fashioned it felt - all those pointless descriptive captions!

― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 11:41 (twenty years ago)

Yeah things like "And the one called Silverclaw slips into the night...". I can't work out whether it's intentional pastiche or whether he's just internalised old Marvels so much it comes naturally as a way to write them. It was particularly jarring over Perez art, which is all small detailed panels anyway.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 11:45 (twenty years ago)

I had thought on first reading it, that his work on Conan was very atypical of his stuff. But after reading this thread it strikes me that it too is full of long descriptive captions and explanations of thought processes etc, which makes it seem very loyal to the spirit of Howard. But I guess its actually just his M.O.

Astro City - in the first year or so of its initial run, before he really got into longer arcs and it began to resemble just another Superhero universe full of the usual analogs of the usual characters - is his best work for me.

― David N (David N.), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 22:58 (twenty years ago)

four years pass...

Movie attempt take two

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 19:14 (fifteen years ago)

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