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Messages - Bico

#751
General / Re: Byrne on Moore & Brits......
13 June, 2006, 10:54:38 PM
After an embarrassing climbdown from claims he made about Roy Thomas, Howard the Duck featured a Byrne spoof called Greenberg (or something similar) - a character who came complete with removeable spine.
Savage Dragon vs Megaton Man had a funny spoof, too.  A seemingly endless collection of incredibly stupid superheroes committed terrorist acts to draw out their creator 'Johnny Redbeard' so they could get their stories finished (their books kept getting cancelled after Redbeard fell out with management over his ill-informed opinions).
"We demand closure!"

I used to read the reprints of the Byrne stuff Fleetway did in the early 1990s, and he was churning out variations on the 'everything you know is a lie' riff like it was going out of fashion to explain how different the 'new' versions of old characters were - the Superboy/Krypto issue being a particularly bad example.
#752
General / Re: Byrne on Moore & Brits.........
11 June, 2006, 07:47:48 PM
It could be argued that Byrne attempted much the same thing with Superman - the original character was a nerdy, clumsy Clark Kent and a heroic know-all Superman, yet Byrne transformed the character and settings.  Kent was a babe magnet, his parents were alive, Superman was vastly depowered, Lex Luthor was a billionaire businessman, Batman and Superman didn't get on, Lois Lane was a kung-fu-kicking army brat, Bizarro was a clone of Superman (rather than an alien), and that's before we get to Byrne's recurring 'themes', like the cigar-chomping, crew-cut, jack-booted lesbian police captain Maggie Sawyer.
I'm personally of the opinion that Byrne is bitter that Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tommorrow appeared at the same time as Byrne's Man Of Steel miniseries, yet we all know which is considered the true milestone in Superman mythology and possibly even in comics storytelling.  Moore had a respect for the silly age of comics storytelling that he updated without attempting to retcon out of existence, whilst Byrne is king of retcon revisionism.  Man of Steel  dismissed all the 'silly' stuff from the Superman mythos altogether, and the less said about Byrne's Spiderman retcon monstrosity the better.
'Hypocritical' doesn't cover the half of Byrne's problems, but then Moore-bashing is a favoured sport at the moment among writers.  I'd be more worried about JB's assertion that Jessica Alba wasn't going to be a good Susan Storm (this was before he'd seen the film) because latino women with blonde hair look like whores.

Strange man.
#753
Off Topic / Re: smee (shameless self-pimp).......
08 June, 2006, 10:30:41 PM
Oh, I have no trouble keeping them seperate - I still read the Ultimate line of Marvel books, for a start.
What I object to, and which undoubtedly annoys DC's notoriously anal fanboys about a million times more than it does me, is that now certain stories are no longer 'canon'.  For instance, the story 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?' (argueably one of the finest comics ever written) is now an 'Elseworlds' tale - the continuity of the Superman mythos is robbed of an era-defining moment of comic-book storytelling in which the Golden Age Superman's story ended in a moving tribute to the age that spawned the character, and now is replaced with a juvenile slugfest between Superman and Evil Superboy.  Apart from the complete lack of respect for the characters involved, it's a slap in the face for the fanboys (whatever your opinion of them may be) who've supported the character through the godawful reinventions and blandstrosities of storytelling  that have plagued the books for quite some time now.

Sure, you can always re-read the original comics, but it doesn't undo the contempt for the books and their long-term fans that the publishers display.
#754
Off Topic / Re: smee (shameless self-pimp).......
08 June, 2006, 04:52:04 PM
The Jason Todd retcon in Batman is the worst I've seen.  Being lifted wholesale from Captain America's ressurrection of Bucky didn't help matters, either.  

DC recently had another of their regular continuity cleanups with the Infinite Crisis storyline.  One character actually comments that the 'timeline' of events has changed now, and Superman showed up earlier than he did before.  All those stories you loved?
They can fuck off and so can you, fanboy.
Haven't read Origins yet, so the jury's out on that.
#755
Off Topic / Re: Spider-Man, Spider-Man...They ...
08 June, 2006, 02:50:44 AM
Pff.  Get with the *times*, daddio - the Japanese phrase of choice these days is 'supah cool'.

I'm well used to Japanese toku shows thanks to the wonders of the interweb, and I'm of the opinion that if someone was to show that over here as part of a 'cult viewing' package, like a themed weekend of tv or something, it would go down a storm.  Even the 'funny' subtitles don't disguise that the Japanese Spiderman is more entertaining than the American live-action tv show of the same name.
Mind you, that was gash.  There's no denying it, really.
#756
Off Topic / Re: TO EVERYONE...
03 June, 2006, 01:13:00 AM
UP YOURS, HIPPY!
#757
Links / Re: Small Press 'Monkeys Might Puk...
02 June, 2006, 05:56:46 PM
Beatniks defenestrate communists -

"That'll teach you to believe in controlling the means of production!"


Of course, it's small press, so it's automatically rubbish.  Read Batman instead.
#758
General / Re: Good review of Dredd TPBs on A...
02 June, 2006, 05:38:56 PM
I've thought Danny Cannon got a raw deal from the off.  The Dredd script was written by the guy who wrote (and directed) Street Fighter: The Movie.
You can't polish a turd.
#759
Website and Forum / Re: New fan strip online
02 June, 2006, 02:22:03 AM
Some lovely visual ideas there.  I don't mind admitting I'll be nicking some of that.
#760
General / Re: OFT stuns publishers by tearin...
01 June, 2006, 05:54:04 PM
Nice British comics industry we had there.
#761
General / Re: Dredd - Origins - the backlash...
01 June, 2006, 04:33:57 PM
It'll probably be alright.
#762
Off Topic / Re: Boku no tanjoubi desu......
01 June, 2006, 03:12:58 AM
Appi burthdah!
#763
Prog / Re: Prog 1491: Dino-FRIGHT!..........
07 June, 2006, 10:47:46 PM
You have a woman's icon.
#764
Funny how all these straight writers never seem to create gay MALE lead characters as much as they do catsuited lesbos.

As I recall, wasn't Batwoman created to divert attention away from the idea that Bruce and Dick were up each other like rats in a pipe?  Freddie Wertheim (sic) explained to America at large how - once you closed the pages of the Batman comic - the characters were all having gay orgies.  AND THEY BELIEVED HIM. The equivalent of saying that once you leave the house, your kid's teddy bears have a picnic.
Anyhoo, I quite liked Batwoman and the original Batgirl (green cape, red dress - not the most co-ordinated of lasses, it must be said), as they were just daft and colourful and sexless and were what comics were supposed to be: fun and harmless.    Seems a bit pointless reinventing the Batwoman character as a leather-clad slapper with big jugs, although what with there being so few characters like that in comics, I admire DC's bold risk-taking strategem.
#765
General / Re: It's my birthday!
30 May, 2006, 06:19:44 AM
Happy birthday, Jim, you scurvy dog!
Yarr!