Jon_Sapsed

June 1, 2019 7:46 am Nuke is a fun character, but hardly at the Elektra level.

May 31, 2019 8:38 am I have to disagree on your assessment of the book compared with Miller’s earlier run. While Born Again is a really good story with really good art, it falls far short of the original Miller run of Daredevil: The original run introduced an iconic new character in Elektra, with an involved backstory that evoked mythology and a celebrated costume design. Not only did this character captivate everyone but she is killed off in the run! Those panels where she is dying and bleeding and crawling back to Matt are unforgettable. Born Again introduced no iconic characters. That sequence of panels was typical of the run, where Miller draws from manga storytelling to bring a fresh new dynamic style to American superhero comics. The page and panel designs were both understated and powerful. There was also the noir influence with the use of blacks- particularly memorable with the scenes with the Kingpin and his venetian blinds. This was the storytelling that many others have tried to imitate since. Born Again has some nice pages and panels, but this was not the run that transformed the medium, the original run transformed the medium. On the Kingpin, this was a joke fat character from Spider-Man with a silly jewelled stick. Miller saw the potential and together with Janson recreated the character as a brooding, sinister, clever boss of a criminal empire, again with iconic visuals that have been riffed on ever since, including in Born Again. In real terms it is as dramatic a reinterpretation as Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing or other celebrated reboots like the original League characters or Cap Britain. While Born Again does a good job at characterising the established players, Cap America and Nuke (“Our Boys!”) it does not redefine any of them (as I say this I'm wondering about how much we knew about Matt's catholicism before this, so I may be understating that). I could carry on but you get the idea. Born Again is an expertly-executed and illustrated story but it is ultimately a postscript to the transformational original run.

December 5, 2018 11:34 am In terms of consistently producing groundbreaking work over decades and influencing the medium by others imitating there’s no contest, with all due respect to Denny O’Neil and John Romita etc...

December 4, 2018 2:18 am The GOAT and still living is Alan Moore, surely...?

April 24, 2016 8:08 am @Snts6678 with Ellis and Shalvey it was selling as well as the likes of Thor, Iron Man and the X-Men. Of course its a C-list character, but Marvel's current strategy is to flood the market with lots of titles in order to make a little money of each of them to make the whole business model work. MK has its cult following and the casual readers will look when there are good creators, and we are talking about what everyone including on the podcast says is a really good comic! I'm not sure what the problem is.

April 21, 2016 7:15 am I have a soft spot for Moon Knight since the Moench-Sienkiewicz days, when it was ground-breaking. It’s true there have been a lot of bad runs since, until the Ellis-Declan Shalvey run, which was a critical and commercial success. After they left from selling over 50,000 each month the sales petered out as sales tend to do in comics. I’m puzzled by the “why are they trying to make moon knight work?” view because this is a pattern for almost all the titles. Why are they trying to make anything work? This Lemire-Smallwood issue is the best since that run, it shows the borderline insanity of the character and you never really know if he’s completely delusional. I like this, so I don’t really understand Josh’s comments about not wanting to read delusions in comics, which ought to be the home of delusions IMHO.

March 3, 2016 2:17 pm Good discussion, chaps. Also loving Goddammed- I thought it was interesting how RM Guera is so much better at drawing the ransacked ruined landscape than the lush paradise :) On long-term plotting BK Vaughn was talking about this at the NICE Con last year and said he knows the end of Saga and milestones along the way, but its going to be a looong series (maybe over 100 issues) and he's always open to revising plot ideas, especially coming from artists. Its all recorded on the Orbital in Conversation podcast. Meanwhile Rick Remender seems to thinking more in terms of limited series- judging by what he said about Tokyo Ghost and Matteo Scalera says they are planning Black Science to finish between 30 and 40 issues. I think its better for creators to think in these finite terms and announce it rather than the pretend infinite ongoing.

December 1, 2015 2:04 pm I wanted to offer some advice to the listener who's waiting for the sketch. Tweet the artist about it- not in an accusatory way but just 'did you get my email re commission? thanks'. I just had a similar situation but 10 months later with an artist who is kind of a legend but notorious for artistic timelines, and the tweet has him replying to the email! Eureka! Saga should still be on the shelf. I would add Superior Spider-Man to Thor God of Thunder, Hawkeye and Moon Knight. And nothing from the Hickman run…? We would have said so in the early summer I bet...