Comments | kali921: Genius vs. Genius: Bishie hair, two PhDs, one hot MESS

kali921

Genius vs. Genius: Bishie hair, two PhDs, one hot MESS

Jun 04, 2009 14:34

Look, this is just a hot mess.

Everyone has bishie hair, the inks are heavy, Jocasta's pose is awkward, Cassie's looking a bit...more mature, as we shall say.

But I can't decide if this is completely batshit awesome or horrible. I am literally in no man's land about this, deeply buried in a philosophical and existential conundrum ( Read more... )

secret six, avengers, comics, gail simone, dan slott, whut is this, marvel

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thehefner June 4 2009, 22:48:23 UTC

The Scandal/Bane scene was absolutely wonderful. I've liked the book already (better than VILLAINS UNITED and the previous SECRET SIX minis... Nicola Scott's art really wins me over in ways Eaglesham and whatshisbucket never did) but that scene alone will ensure that I'll be buying the trades.

One of the many things I miss about the old scans_daily were the posts of the handful of classic (and never-reprinted) Bane material that showed how nuanced and awesome a character he could be. Far more complex and cerebral than I'd ever expected from one of the living icons of 90's excess, or so he seemed to me for years and years. I'd love to find those issues for myself, especially as most readers and writers alike have forgotten the kind of character he could be.

Gail, thankfully, has not, and has developed him beautifully. Throw in the fact that I'm rather crushing on Scandal myself, and you have the makings of one of the best comic pairings I've seen in recent memory.

Not to mention a brilliant addition to the little-explored idea of ( ... )

YOU. YOU OWE ME AN ANSWER. kali921 June 4 2009, 22:53:40 UTC

Not to mention a brilliant addition to the little-explored idea of platonic relationships, much like Rucka did for Renee with Harvey and Vic. I love that sort of thing, it just doesn't happen often enough.

Yeah, Heffie, I actually was thinking of you when I wrote this post because I knew that SS #10 would probably remind you of Renee and Harvey. Bane and Scandal are a less totally-fucked-up-on-opposite-sides-of-the-law-and-doomed-to-end-in-tears-and/or-rage version of Harvey and Renee, aren't they?

I'm not crushing on Scandal, and I didn't really care for the "Scandal decides that being (temporarily) attracted to the stripper that doubles for Knockout is okay" scene - that read as a little too cloyingly sweet for me, and I like the Secret Six better when sweetness is tempered with their trademark bitter - but Ragdoll, Thomas, Floyd, and platonic!Scandal/Bane will pull me in every single month.

You never responded to my comment and question to you regarding the Thor film!

Re: YOU. YOU OWE ME AN ANSWER. thehefner June 4 2009, 23:08:09 UTC

Ha, you know me too well! Damn my predictable obsession ( ... )

Re: YOU. YOU OWE ME AN ANSWER. kali921 June 4 2009, 23:11:32 UTC

Oh, we BETTER have a Balder. AND a goddamn rainbow bridge with Heimdall at the gates of Asgard looking ALL FUCKING BUSINESS. I know that you've never read PAD's Captain Marvel run, but there are only a handful of times that I can remember where Heimdall is actually used for comic relief, and when Genis-Vell comes to Asgard one day in search of godhood, strolls up the rainbow bridge and starts taunting Heimdall (this is when Genis was in Ultra-Insane mode, and Rick Jones is FREAKING OUT in this sequence because Genis almost kills Heimdall), oh my GOD, I hurt from laughing so hard.

Re: YOU. YOU OWE ME AN ANSWER. thehefner June 4 2009, 23:23:57 UTC

I wonder if they can pull off the Rainbow Bridge. We'll see! But if they do, I decree that it henceforth be dubbed THE GODDAMN RAINBOW BRIDGE.

I know, I and I need to! Shit, I should just get all the back issues that aren't reprinted and get the rest of the trades and have myself a marathon read. The bits I've read are really some of the best PAD moments I've seen.

Also, as someone who--prepare your mouth for gaping in horror--has never read the Walt Simonson THOR run, I anxiously await Marvel getting off their butts and putting those trades back in ding-dang print! ARGH.

An actual Harvey-related question! kali921 June 4 2009, 23:30:07 UTC

GODDAMN RAINBOW BRIDGE it is, with Heimdall Unceasingly Fucking Vigilant. (Also, I dearly hope Branagh isn't going to screw with the Kirby!tech look of Marvel's Asgardians. You screw with those helmets, you screw with ME. One of the things that attracts me about JMS's Thor run is that Oliver Coipel on pencils actually has the random background Asgardians BACK IN THEIR KIRBY HELMETS. Yay! He's managed to find a nice balance between our Norse conventions and that cracked out space!Asgardian look.)

So, I realize that I have probably not read all of Harvey and Renee's on-panel appearances together. Could you give me a list (title, issue, etc.)? I have a feeling that I'm missing some stuff here.

Re: An actual Harvey-related question! thehefner June 4 2009, 23:46:12 UTC

God, here's hoping they do incorporate Kirby tech! I hadn't even considered that, but you're absolutely right! That would really help set it apart from just another fantasy film and establish it firmly in MARVEL, y'know ( ... )

Moar questions! kali921 June 4 2009, 23:54:52 UTC

That would really help set it apart from just another fantasy film and establish it firmly in MARVEL, y'know?

YES. Thank you. Eggsactly. Because THAT is Marvel's utterly unprecedented and unique (in the TRUE sense of the word) spin on Norse mythology, and THAT's the essential core spirit of what makes the House of Ideas the House of Ideas.

As he is friended to this journal, Mr. Rucka may very well see fit to add to this discussion!

And then there's the ill-fated "This Issue... Batman DIES!" issue where Harvey writes and draws his own mary sue comic book, with Renee as his own sexy Girl Friday character. Very strange issue. I remember Greg telling me once at a con how he had a whole other plan for that issue, and man, I'd love to have read that one. Alas.THIS I have not read. What title did this occur in? My god, I knew that I was missing out on good stuff ( ... )

Re: Moar questions! thehefner June 5 2009, 03:57:59 UTC

The "Harvey and Two-Face make a comic" issue was DETECTIVE # 753. Definitely an oddball issue. I'm not entirely sure what it was trying to pull off, or how successful it was in doing so, but it's still... interesting, that's for sure!

I think you're really onto something with Priest being the anti-Loeb. Additionally to your point, Priest is NEVER one to employ the Hollywood-style hackery that Loeb is wont to pull, with cliche dialogue and one-note characterizations. If only Priest had the mainstream appeal (or had been given more of a chance for mainstream appeal) that Loeb unfortunately has.

On second thought. kali921 June 4 2009, 23:08:56 UTC

On second thought, the only other man/woman platonic-yet-intense relationship in American mainstream superhero comics that I can think of that is similar to Bane and Scandal is Siryn and Warpath. I'm sure there are others, I just can't think of them right now. (Actually, there are some awesome straight woman/gay man friendships in comics.)

Terry and James easily surpass Bane and Scandal in intimacy, but that's partly because they had, oh, over a hundred issues and almost ten years real time for their friendship to deepen, and it was already pretty intense by X-Force #30. That scene towards the end of X-Force when Feral slices out Terry's vocal chords and James goes BATSHIT in rage, and then X-Force #91, where Terry goes missing in San Francisco for a day because she's so depressed over losing her powers and is actually thinking about suicide, and then she finally comes home late at night from an AA meeting, and she's thinking to herself "Jimmy will know the moment I turn the key in the door, he'll wake up and know it's me before ( ... )

Re: On second thought. thehefner June 4 2009, 23:21:00 UTC

Then more than even more, I'm hoping Gail and other writers stick with the Bane/Scandal dynamic for a long time, fleshing it out and exploring it rather than having it jettisoned or sabotaged too early on in the name of DRAMA.

As someone pretty well totally unfamiliar with X-FORCE and these characters, I would greatly look forward to such a Ballad post!

Re: On second thought. kali921 June 4 2009, 23:42:17 UTC

I still need to finish my Ballad of Zealot and Grifter posts, too. I'll have to crosspost them over on S_D 2.0 (now that my extreme nausea over the mods' racefail is somewhat abating), but with Zealot and Grifter, because their interactions are so oft punctuated with explosions and violence because, as razorsmile once brilliantly put it, they have to pause talking because Grifter has to blast some fool and Zealot has to cut a bitch, their greatest scenes often happen over a span of ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty pages in a single issue. So it's hard to carve out smaller seven-page excerpts.

They're another two that are technically platonic now but far too entwined in each other's lives to ever be totally separate. I mean, I can't even CONCEIVE of an issue of anything in the Wildstorm verse where Grifter and Zealot don't show up together, and when they DO show up alone without the other, the other is so intensely invoked by their absence that it only reinforces the intimacy they have. But they're on a whole other level than any friendship we've ( ... )

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