Chris B

Okay, latest Panel Talk is up, discussing Maus. Next time, we're discussing Frank Miller's Batman trilogy (Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again).

Thoughts on any of the three, all of them, or Frank Miller generally?

During the mid 90s when Diesel was WWF champion they played some vignettes of him going to a school and signing autographs. At one point he signs something for a girl, she goes to pay him for it but he refuses the money, saying "No, I don't work that way". I'm pretty sure it was meant as a dig at WCW in some way but seeing as I never watched WCW back then it was lost on me.

FUCK! What a memory you just brought back. I remember that advert, but its never even entered my brain since about 15 years ago! I think it must have been more to do with WWF being great guys and how unlike alot of celebs, they wont charge you for an autograph. Doesnt seem like a shot at WCW, as I cant think of any examples of WCW being tight arses. The irony that its Big Kev turning down the cash brings a smile to my face though.

I think it was part of the WWF's campaign to make out they were better than any other sport. There was another one at the same time with a reference to how they, unlike most sports, have no off-season. So it was probably a reference to baseball or basketball.

Latest Panel Talk is up, discussing Crisis on Infinite Earths!

Our next one is about Art Spiegelman's Maus - have any of you read it, and do you have any thoughts?

Also his matches are overlong.

'Sean, it's time to go home.'

.......'Sean, go home now'.

.................'Sean?'

PTW have to do a story where Midnight gets the shit kicked out of him because he hasn't heard the bell to start the match.

Or a Royal Rumble where he doesn't enter because he doesn't hear his name being called.

And the crowd HAVE to do 'WHAT' chants or they're fucking mongs.

It can be. Depends entirely on the writer. It's more the comic equivalent of Hulk Hogan - been around forever, but has done some really good stuff.

Why would I laugh? Age of Apocalypse is fantastic. We covered it in the first Panel Talk, as Ric and I are both enormous fans. We were both around the same age when we read it, and it's still the standard I hold all other crossovers to.

We're actually going to expand this out a bit on the podcast, into a discussion about DC vs Marvel.

So, which do you prefer, and what do you dislike about the other brand?

Fell episode is up now!

Alexander - apologies, but forgot to read your Fell feedback this time around. I got your podcast feedback, but not feedback on the comic. Will make sure to get it next time.

Next up, if anyone has any thoughts on it - Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Cheers for the feedback in the thread, chaps. Latest podcast is up now, with us looking at V for Vendetta, recent graphic novels, and Alan Moore craziness. We've discussed feedback in this thread, so any more is always welcome.

Next one up will be Warren Ellis' Fell. If you've read it, give your thoughts on it, and we'll discuss them in the podcast. If you haven't picked it up yet, you can pick it up for under nine quid from Forbidden Planet, or under seven quid from Amazon.

I was just thinking. Compare this reaction to how Spud reacted to being in the first shitarse group.

The way he responded made me more of a fan, and I suspect the same of others. The way this guy('s mother) has reacted will probably result in him being effectively blackballed from the business.

The cops gave a shit about this, but didn't read the Paedogeddon Alley thread?

I like Stark as a lovable douchebag. I couldn't care less about reading about a war profiteer Tony Stark who puts his friends in prison camps. Just like I don't care about "couldn't give a shit about his family" Reed Richards or "more than happy to work with Supervillains and murderers" Captain America or any other of the depressingly out of character heroes from Civil War. This puts me in a minority of a minority and I have long ago accepted it.

 

Whereas I liked all of those takes, because all of them were doing it because they believed they were right, and that it was important. Stark finally faced up to his responsibilities, and I adored that.

 

Siege had its moments. Took far too long to tell, as is usual with these Bendis big events. And the end of Loki's arc made little sense (also, fuck off with the magic stones that do fuck all then stop doing that and what the hell does that do to amplify Luke Cage's powers anyway? Make him more bulletproof? Pshah) plus it had loads of The Sentry in and seriously, no one cares about The Sentry. The Gillen/McKelvie Siege: Loki one-shot was the best thing by a country mile to come out of that crossover.

 

See, I'm the one guy that REALLY liked The Sentry, especially once Bendis started writing him. That switch in focus in Siege was, for me, jawdropping. And worth the entire thing - it's one of my favourite moments in comics in years.

I can't buy that. Cap, Reed and Stark have spent their entire lives doing difficult things because they believed they were important. Without losing the basis of why anyone liked those characters in the first place whilst doing it. Seriously, if you were describing what defined the Reed Richards character to someone, one of the most important things you'd say would be "loves his family quite a bit" - a Reed Richards that's too busy building a murderous clone of one of his friends so it put some of his other friends into a concentration camp because MATH MADE HIM DO IT to notice his wife is leaving him is not only zero fun to read about, it's just not Reed Richards. Same thing applies to a Captain America who's lost his moral centre, or a Tony Stark who's making a fortune off a war he helped start. Those aren't just bad versions of characters I like, they're unrecognisable. But hey, explosions and body count.

My point was hardly 'explosions and body count'.

What I liked about it was that the Superhuman Registration Act covered both sides of the argument. Cap was willing to put a lot of what he believes in aside because of how wrong he believes this is - and indeed, regains his moral compass by the end. Stark and Reed have been working so hard on this act, because they absolutely believe it has to happen. Of all the things he could have missed, it just didn't occur to Reed that Sue would have such a problem with what he was doing. I liked the fact that both of them were so blind to what they were doing. I liked the fact that everybody involved got it wrong, and I liked how it pointed out just how flawed these heroes were. I'm far more interested in heroes who screw up than heroes who get it right.

Whether you agree or not, to write it off as 'explosions and body count' is fatuous.

Outside of the original Sentry mini, which was alright, and the Age Of The Sentry mini, which was awesome and had nothing to do with the character, really, Sentry has to be the most worthless invention in the modern age. "WHat would it be like if Superman was all mad and stuff and nothing like Superman?!" Well, the answer is clearly no-one would give a shit.

The original Sentry mini was all about the marketing, which was genius. After that, I didn't massively care about The Sentry until he started totally losing his identity. I started liking him during Bendis' run, and loved his interactions with Osborne.

I like Stark as a lovable douchebag. I couldn't care less about reading about a war profiteer Tony Stark who puts his friends in prison camps. Just like I don't care about "couldn't give a shit about his family" Reed Richards or "more than happy to work with Supervillains and murderers" Captain America or any other of the depressingly out of character heroes from Civil War. This puts me in a minority of a minority and I have long ago accepted it.

Whereas I liked all of those takes, because all of them were doing it because they believed they were right, and that it was important. Stark finally faced up to his responsibilities, and I adored that.

Siege had its moments. Took far too long to tell, as is usual with these Bendis big events. And the end of Loki's arc made little sense (also, fuck off with the magic stones that do fuck all then stop doing that and what the hell does that do to amplify Luke Cage's powers anyway? Make him more bulletproof? Pshah) plus it had loads of The Sentry in and seriously, no one cares about The Sentry. The Gillen/McKelvie Siege: Loki one-shot was the best thing by a country mile to come out of that crossover.

See, I'm the one guy that REALLY liked The Sentry, especially once Bendis started writing him. That switch in focus in Siege was, for me, jawdropping. And worth the entire thing - it's one of my favourite moments in comics in years.

SWORD is one to keep an eye out for as well, when it comes to Trade Paperback status.

I disagree about Millar fucking up Tony Stark - I loved that run.

However, Marvel's last crossover, Siege, was fucking epic. Started out like it wasn't going to be anything great, and then got REALLY good towards the end.

Only other two ideas are the Snowtown tag (which would be badass) or a Spider Jerusalem tattoo.

Well, I fucking love Fell and Warren Ellis comics in general (I have a Warren Ellis themed tattoo, in fact...) so I'll be very interested in that one.

Engine logo?

I think Lucifer goes in a lot more interesting directions than Sandman and (although I now know Chris will bizarrely not care about this) the art is consistently great all the way through, whereas Sandman's is, at times, infuriatingly inconsistent for something so well loved. Don't get me wrong, I really like Sandman, I just think it's probably one of the more overrated series of all time, whilst still being very good.

Heh. I actually prefer the art in Sandman, partially because I think it always tends to suit the story. While I love Peter Gross' artwork (and think it's one of the selling points of 'The Unwritten'), consistent art tends to fade into the background to me. Bad art tends to stand out though.

Chris! I have listened to your podcast. All in all, I enjoyed it. It's a good start. Some points of constructive criticism though -

Awesome, thank you.

I know you said you wanted to make it easy for anyone to listen to, but I think too much of the conversation got derailed by explaining things. I don't think anyone listening to a comics podcast needs to have who the X-Men are explained to them.

It's a difficult balance to get. Some of the feedback we've gotten is thanking us for making it easy to understand for non-Marvel fans. We will try to get better at it though.

In fact, I'd say that more time actually discussing the content rather than describing it would be good. The more interesting parts of the show were when their was actual debate and discussion about what worked, what stuff meant in a wider context, and so on.

This will probably be easier in later ones. 'Age of Apocalypse' is slightly odd in that it's an alternate reality take on a series, and we did need to provide at least some explanation of the series itself.

My interest in the show in general was a little hamstrung by me not being much of a fan of 90s X-Men comics at all, so hopefully you'll be going in all kinds of directions with it. Seriosuly though; don't talk about Onslaught for 90 minutes. No-one really cared about it then, let alone now.

You're entirely wrong. Onslaught was fantastic, and I'll defend it to the hilt. It dropped off a cliff once it became an enormous cross-over, but the build up and pay-off to the revelation of Onslaught was terrific. I suspect we will do it, but not for a while.

The next two are 'V for Vendetta' and Warren Ellis' 'Fell' - the latter of which, for my money, is the single most underrated comic around.

Is Lucifer any good? I remember trying to get into it just after I read Sandman, but the first story arc or two didn't grab me.

Lucifer is good, but it's actually a very different take to Neil Gaiman's, although it does use that as a place to spring from. I liked it, although it wasn't what I expected. I preferred Sandman, but Lucifer does have its moments.

Is the Boys still the most obvious and charmless thing in the world? I haven't been reading it since the "OMFG you wont believe this dudes seriously Prof X is a peado" storyline.

It's improved, but not hugely. It's more about the overall plot now rather than the shock moments, however they are still around.

Unwritten has to be the most underrated book coming out at the moment. Hardly anyone seems to be reading it or talking about it and it's simply fantastic. Hugely clever and ambitious. Carey is a fucking jammy bugger, he's never written anything that wasn't at least "very good".

Absolutely agree. 'The Unwritten' is, for my money, the best comic Vertigo have done since 'Fables', and possibly since 'Transmetropolitan'.

Chris B, the link to your show appears dead.

Not wishing to come across as having a go, but why are you reviewing series that came out between fifteen and twenty five years ago? If it's supposed to be a look at classic series...then it's an odd couple of choices...

It is a look at classic series, although we'll likely end up discussing current stuff at points as well. I wouldn't have thought 'V for Vendetta' was a particularly odd choice. On my previous podcast (the Eclectic Podcast, on the same site, which will be continuing until the end of the year, albeit without me in a couple of episodes), we produced three specials looking at the career of Alan Moore, so I'm wary of going back over 'Watchmen' for a while.

The idea is to pick a different series, trade paperback or character to discuss each episode.

Ric (my co-host) and I both got into comics around the same time, and 'Age of Apocalypse' is a specific and sentimental favourite for both of us. As a result, we thought it'd be a fun one to start with. We also both think it's rather underrated.

Bump for potential interesting comic book stuff.

I've just started a new podcast over at geekplanetonline.com, where we take a fortnightly look at comics. It's called Panel Talk, and for the first episode, we're discussing X-Men: Age of Apocalypse. Also, my podcasting partner (the evil Doctor Crossman) gets savaged by a Daddy Longlegs live on air.

Next episode, we're discussing V for Vendetta. Anyone got any thoughts on that one, or on Age of Apocalypse?

Nah, Michaels was out for four years. Mind you, with injuries, Trips probably isn't far off that either, including time spent on SmackDown.

Mark Henry may be in with a shot. If he hadn't spent so much time on SmackDown, I'd say Taker too. Jericho's probably up there too, even over a shorter time.

So, overall, I'd guess at it being along the lines of HHH, Mark Henry, JBL and Jericho.

This is just a thought, but might it be an idea for us all to post something on the facebook page?

Knowing the kind of stuff that is talked about on this message board, it may not be something entirely appropriate for his parents to start going through. It may be more appropriate for anyone who's posted here to also post on the facebook page mentioned earlier, with each person making a note that he was liked on an internet community.

Partially, I think it might be a bit weird if only a couple of people do it, so I'm suggesting as many as possible do it.

Edit - I didn't realise it had already been done. Facebook defaulted to just showing the posts from his family. Sorry.

That's very sad to hear. Did anyone here know him outside of the board? If so, my condolences.

Andy Gray has been in there. Think about that.

Even stirring the Gray porridge wouldn't put me off.

 

I'm assuming she cleans herself out.

I'm assuming she scrubs herself with bleach out of sheer shame.