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What did everyone make of the AVP movie, then?  Technically, IT'S Alien 5.

How did those aliens gestate and grow to maturity in about 30 minutes?  Why did the producers think the Predator/Alien hybrid at the end was such a twist?  Didn't they remember the bit in the film where the Predator snapped the baby Alien's neck WITH HIS THUMB?  I somehow doubt that fully matured Predators would worry much about that little nipper running around the ship.  They'd probably just step on it or something.
Liked the Predator/Queen fight at the end, but it was too little, too late.  And they expect you to believe Alien Queens can drown, now?  BAH!

I does all that fancy stained glass guff you see in kitchen cabinets, and that frosted effect you see on mirrors.

It's rubbish.

That's true.  The Reaper was about YEARS before Batman was.  And that demon who inhabited the city (from that Peter Milligan story).
And Catwoman turned up around the same time as Batman, not afterwards.

Yes, but you're taking JMS' point too seriously, lass.  The thing you have to remember about JMS' writing is that his characters don't half talk some shite.

I was only taking umbridge at the whole "I don't get superheroes, therefore they're all shit" school of thought, not people who dislike superhero comics/films - because the majority of these (by some measure) ARE complete shit.

And just to clear things up, it's PROFESSOR, not doctor.  Cheeky sod.  I didn't spend five years in cave-dwelling carnivore college* to be a pissy doctor.


*Hull.

Ah - Ultimate Spidey.  Shit.  I AM trying not to do that anymore, Dribs.  Sorry.

Not sorry about giving off about the whole 'superhero' arguement, Philt, so sorry about that - if you see what I mean (wee bit o' trolling).  I was actually hoping you'd rise to that one and inform me about how the whole arguement holds water, because I'm increasingly hearing how some people don't 'get' the spandex genre, yet they seem to read an awful lot of comics.  It seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face, to be frank, since the genre is pretty much the default state for comics in the west.
Don't get me wrong, it's still an elitist view.  I don't like gangster films, but there're plenty of good ones that I could happily sit through again - but I'll accept that I don't get the genre because of my hostility to certain recurring trends (machismo, glorification of criminal scum), but that's bad writing, not the genre itself.  If you've got specific problems with the genre, by all means share them.
I don't know if this is the same thing, but giant robots are pretty 'dumb', yet they've been a successful genre in Japan for decades - mind you, so has the whole 'magical girl' genre (Sailor Moon) and sniffing schoolgirl's knickers, so I don't know what point I'm making there...

I think it's ridiculous to give even the smallest measure of credibility to people who use the "I don't get superheroes" arguement in relation to the movies or comics based on the genre.  Yes, superhero comics can be dumb, but that's the fault of bad writing, not the genre itself.  It's someone in a mask who fights crime - there's nothing to 'get'.  Do you 'get' gangster movies?  Do you 'get' westerns?  Do you 'get' action movies?  Or romantic comedies, true-life telemovies or courtroom dramas?
The whole "I don't get superheroes" arguement seems like nothing more than the basest intellectual elitism, but paired alongside the simple cowardice of the person expressing the opinion.  "I like comics, but not superhero comics" is just an attempt to escape criticism of your love of comics by other people who DON'T read comics.
It's like those people who claim not to watch tv - that doesn't make them clever, it makes them an elitist twat.
Watchmen is a superhero comic, and you won't get far claiming it's stupid.

Fair enough, I didn't go into extreme detail with my synopsis of the whole Venom thing, but I stand by my assertion that he's a shite character, and the Ultimate version, while still shite, was still LESS shite than the shite version from regular Marvel continuity - which was shite.
And Ultimate Carnage is f*cking RUBBISH.  Don't get me wrong, he's still shite - just more so.  I was happy he killed off Gwen "What am I doing in Ultimate continuity, anyway?" Stacy, but he's still bloody rubbish.

Oh, hang on, I've just remembered - he's rubbish in the regular comics, too.  All the symbiote stuff is shite, come to think of it.

Pathetic that I know this, but the Venom symbiote was brought back from the whole Secret Wars storyline, tried to bond in some unwholesome way with Spidey and was 'killed' in a bell-tower (symbiotes are sensitive to sonics and extreme heat) when Spidey took umbridge to the obvious gay overtones to such an enterprise, but it actually ended up seeping through the floor and 'bonding' with Eddie Brock, who hated Spidey AND Peter Parker, and became Venom.
In the 'Ultimate' universe continuity, though, Venom was a living cancer created by Eddie Brock based on the research notes of Peter Parker's dad, who joined with Parker, then Eddie, and they became Venom, who just mumbled and jumped about the place before falling on some electric cables. (zzzzzzzz)
The tv show version condensed it all down into about three episodes and narked off quite a few fans who thought it should have been drawn out over a few more episodes, but I thought it was alright, as these things go.

The Peter Milligan 'Venom vs Carnage' series is quite good, too.  Bit light and breezy, but still fun, which is all I really want from my comics, to be honest.

It'll be Norman as Green Goblin, and the Lizard for the next one, I'll bet - the Spidey movies have been good, I'll admit, but unsurprising.  I don't think they rate alongside Raimi's other films, not even darkman, which got critically mauled, but was still good crack.

(munch munch)

BWAH-HA-HA-HA!

Reading it at the moment.  Better than Dredd vs Death, it must be said.
Liking it.

Bloody hell.  Fair dos to the man.

Can I be ship's bear?  I can rustle up food in the most difficult of circumstances, that's gotta be a handy talent.
Once, when I was stranded on a stricken boat bound for Hong Kong with no supplies, no radio, and a serious problem with people jumping over the side, apparantly preferring the briny to starvation, I was recognised as a modern-day miracle worker by the captain because of my ability to almost magically make fresh meat appear on the table each night.  Bet that made those people who jumped ship feel really stupid - if they weren't eaten by a shark or something.
Or something.

Anyway, I make a mean Bosun's Broth, even if I do say so myself.  The secret ingredient is bosun.  LOTS of bosun.

That fact that they've met you?

;)

Don't rate Chris Claremont in general, but if he's paired off with a decent artist, he's bearable enough (if you can see past the unfortunate trend in his writing for women to lose their clothes and/or get tied up/tortured - especially young and/or ethnic women) The reason Morrison only used a few X-men in his run was because Claremont used the rest of the team in X-treme X-men (probably an editorial decision), which ran alongside the regular book (New X-men) in case readers jumped ship from that title.
The Alan Davis/Chris Claremont thing going on at the minute in the American X-books is quite fun, and features the Fury, from Alan Moore's run on Captain Britain, which was probably Davis' idea.

Anyway, that's enough of my playing devil's advocate for that hack.  Robbie Morrison's Authority was pretty shit, but to be fair, I remember thinking he'd make a good Avengers writer.
(and it's widely believed that he was sabotaged on the book by bad feeling towards the Authority comic that emanated from staff writers on the 'Superman' books - can't speak for whether it's true or not, though)