vacur005

May 8, 2021 6:30 pm Damian Darkblood is briefly in the comic and appeared more in the show with his investigation. He says he is investigating in the comic where he disappears only to show up again after the Invincible and Omniman confrontation. He says he figured out that Omniman killed the Guardians and then is mocked since he was late to the party. He’s a combination of Rorschach and Hellboy where the first time you see him in the comic is from behind where the hat, trench coat, and the back of his head being white makes you think it’s a version of Rorschach. He says “Hrm” often in the comic. You can’t see his ears in the comic either with white going all around his head.

May 8, 2021 3:10 pm The show is great except for how William and Amber to a certain degree have been portrayed. William as portrayed in the show was a stereotypical gay teenager where it came across as Kirkman not actually knowing anyone who is gay. He shouldn’t have to know anyone, but that’s the opposite of the comic when that reveal happens so much later. He was an integral part in the beginning as his best friend. Referring to comics as “straight things” in episode 1 was pretty terrible dialogue. Mark should have also flown with William before flying with Titan which makes that moment later funnier. William was forgotten for 4 episodes where it felt like a meta reference in episode 6 with why Mark has not been around. I like it a lot more in the comic when Mark reveals he is Invincible to Amber where she finds out much earlier. There were also 2 missed opportunities with dialogue from the comic. First was Immortal not saying “I never liked you” followed by Omniman saying, “The feeling is mutual.” Then later the second time is when Eve tells Mark people never look up when they fly and change. I do think the show is great with a stellar voice cast, but those issues and specifically William’s portrayal stood out to me.

May 2, 2021 8:29 pm This is all true. Solo was so rough and also made Han that guy who did everything he was known for in a week where he then bragged about it for 10 years. He was made less cool by that film and Alden Ehrenreich didn’t have the charisma needed to play the character.

May 2, 2021 6:13 pm Damian was said to be 10 when he first debuted and then in Rebirth was said to be 13. I know that Conor doesn’t think that Damian is that popular and well liked, but unfortunately for him, that is not true. Tim Drake isn’t as popular as Damian now which started with the New 52 and not using Tim well at all. It took until the first arc of Tynion’s Detective Comics to treat Tim with respect again before he was gone for a long time in that series. I’ve seen too many lists ranking Damian as the best Robin over everyone else. I’m not against Damian existing where he has been at his best when with Jon Kent since they work incredibly well together as friends. I am the opposite of Conor where I do like seeing characters change since having the same type of status quo gets stagnant and I’m fine with super heroes having children. It’s why I wasn’t against a timeline for DC honestly.

April 28, 2021 1:11 am I was hoping you would cover Alien #2 if only for a Salvador Larocca rant. It was pointed out to me that Salvador Larocca drew himself as the main character of the comic and I can’t believe it happened. He should not be drawing that comic and frankly it’s embarrassing. Maybe this should have been an email question, but I don’t know if I can think of a time at a DC or Marvel comic where something like that occurred. I’ve seen people draw themselves in as cameos, but never the main character. Salvador Larocca just doesn’t have the chops honestly and relies too much on real people including himself.

April 9, 2021 1:48 am I read Ewing’s work which was mostly bland other than The Ultimates 2. With the Immortal Hulk, he changed things significantly and invented other nonsense where we have the real first Hulk debuting. People ignore it though. Empyre was just another useless Marvel event and not all of them need to be these earth shattering events, but they need to be good. I would strongly disagree with Jason Aaron not trying to put his stamp on the characters with the Odin and Phoenix nonsense along with the prehistoric Avengers. No one is reading it though and no one cares. Avengers: No Surrender was a good weekly series that Ewing was involved in with Waid. That was back to basics, but wasn’t a great story. It is the best Avengers story of the past few years by default though. That wasn’t supposed to be the point of Death Metal and the ending was changed which Scott Snyder discussed with Sal from Comic Pop. You can even see in the final issue with editorial getting involved and the forced Future State references. Dan DiDio wanted the Tales from the Dark Multiverse to lead into another Crisis and then 5G while Death Metal would be its own thing. You obviously had the forced 5G reference in the final issue of Doomsday Clock with that ending change. Then DiDio was fired and Snyder was essentially forced to make Death Metal do many different things at the end to set up Infinite Frontier and Future State. The last Tales from the Dark Multiverse issue was all about Duke being the hero of the Dark Multiverse which was not DiDio’s intention by Snyder. Snyder just ends it completely. I was in at the beginning of Hickman’s run up to issue 7. Then I fell off and nothing really happened. X of Swords with inventing the Apocalypse family wasn’t necessary. Keeping Evan dead from an event no one read and not using him as part of it was stupid. The latest issue was actually good. Kurt Busiek years ago said about Hickman that he stretches 2 issues of story into 6 issues. I would agree with that except with Secret Wars and his Fantastic Four run.

April 6, 2021 12:36 am Al Ewing isn’t the best example honestly with the very lame Empyre event he did with Slott and especially what he has done in Immortal Hulk. The amount of things he changed has become ridiculous in that run, but a lot of people quit paying attention. Other than The Ultimates 2, I can’t say he is a shining example of GOSH comics where he added to the universe well. He’s not exactly Kurt Busiek or Peter David. Hickman didn’t kill the Watcher in Original Sin and he didn’t kill off every cosmic force and the universe. He brought the universe back. It would be like saying House of M or Age of Apocalypse killed the universe. There were a ton of consequences and Hickman is a far better writer than Al Ewing who stomped all over the Hulk lore. Donny Cates created his own Venom lore and relied too much on Knull just like Snyder did with the Batman Who Laughs. Snyder’s Metal and later Death Metal is much more egregious than anything Hickman did with Secret Wars. X-Men makes more sense as an example of changing everything as I said. Hickman gave everyone a blank slate after Secret Wars and did drop the mic. He was done with Marvel and went out with a great story at the time. Doom was the ultimate villain as he should have been for that story. Making it Doom vs Reed at the end made sense. Anything could be done at that point where most writers just continued their stories from before Secret Wars. He didn’t change that much honestly in that story. Marvel wanted to get Miles in the 616 universe for such a long time and we got Infamous Iron Man. Jason Aaron has done a bad job with his Avengers run where no one notices that either with his reveals. Thankfully Chip Zdarsky is doing Daredevil right now. I never said Dan DiDio was a good example of being a strong editor, but editors do matter. DC is a complete mess right now and more editors would help. The lack of continuity is now a big problem. All writers have egos which isn’t shocking. Some are better writers than others. That’s just how it is.

April 5, 2021 8:42 am *Completely, not completed in that second to last sentence.

April 5, 2021 1:59 am *never wanted Ric. I don’t know know why it switched to “never want rev.”

April 5, 2021 1:58 am Hickman with Secret Wars is an odd choice out of the ones you listed. Secret Wars was great and had an ending that tied info the beginning of Hickman’s New Avengers run. Other than bringing Miles’ mom back where he would have collaborated with Bendis and giving Reed, Sue, and the kids a vacation which wasn’t fully his decision either, it’s not like he tried to rebuild everything there. He just tied it into his great Fantastic Four run and made it ultimately a Reed vs Doom story. Marvel was the one that wanted the Fantastic Four comic cancelled. What he has done with X-Men makes more sense if you are going to choose Hickman. Even picking the Infinity event makes more sense than picking Secret Wars. Tom King was told to use Wally, Harley Quinn, and Booster Gold by editors for the horrible Heroes in Crisis. That wasn’t his decision, but the execution was incredibly poor. His Batman run overall wasn’t good, but he didn’t want to kill off Alfred since it was supposed to be a Scarecrow toxin induced fake out. He was also told to make Thomas Wayne the big bad at the end when it was supposed to be Bane. Thomas Wayne would be Vader to Bane as the Emperor. Then Nightwing was supposed to be fully recovered in one issue with Zatanna helping, but editorial wouldn’t allow it. He gave them the idea to have Tim replace Dick as Nightwing for just 5 to 6 issues instead if they wanted it to last longer and was shot down. He never want rev Ric to be a thing. It caused Ben Percy to quit writing Nightwing and Lobdell wanted Ric to last as long as possible. Editorial at very specific points got involved in King’s Batman run to make it worse where then he got the blame for decisions by ignorant fans when certain decisions weren’t what he wanted. DC has completed empowered Tynion now which is a huge mistake since a writer shouldn’t be essentially running the Batman line. That’s the point of editors, but so many were fired.