Originally posted by leonidasNever even heard of AV. I definitely enjoy survival of the fittest-themed books, though. Will definitely check this out... What company is it from?
i think everyone is pretty familiar by this time with american vampire (one of my personal faves...) but their was a mini put out that i only recently discovered. 5 issues called AV--survival of the fittest. very cool..... you read it galan?
Also, I just caught up on Lazarus. You weren't exaggerating when you recommended it--what a fantastic read. 👆
nice. 👆 the backstory is so cool in lazarus. great world-building all done in the background. i actually like that. didn't get bogged down with the whole 'origin' thing, just jumped right in. glad you liked it.
the book i'm talking about was a mini--american vampires: survival of the fittest. very cool addition to the series.
Nice article on Hellboy, and its place within the larger comic world.
Reminds me of Wildstorm, and how it lacked a reset button for the consequences of superhero/villain actions. It was one of the things that drew me to the Authority and, by extension, the WS universe as a whole.
I'm also a bit jealous because I wrote a somewhat similar piece on my personal blog about a week ago, including the synopses of Marvel and DC's history of reboots. Probably a dozen people saw mine, while this guy's making bank for it. Still, I agree with the article, and it's well written.
Originally posted by Digi
Reminds me of Wildstorm, and how it lacked a reset button for the consequences of superhero/villain actions. It was one of the things that drew me to the Authority and, by extension, the WS universe as a whole.
Yea, I liked WS a lot until the semi-reboot, at which point I just lost track. I was gonna get back in, but then I heard they blew everything up on top of that.
(Kinda like how I liked Marvel Ultimates til they blew everything up, and then did it again!)
Hellboy gets props for having an apocalypse without screwing everything up in the process.
Originally posted by Q99
Yea, I liked WS a lot until the semi-reboot, at which point I just lost track. I was gonna get back in, but then I heard they blew everything up on top of that.(Kinda like how I liked Marvel Ultimates til they blew everything up, and then did it again!)
Hellboy gets props for having an apocalypse without screwing everything up in the process.
The apocalypse itself is an artform, yes. But my point is that they all existed in universes where, in one form or another, the end of the world happens. And then it isn't swept under the rug. After seeing real consequences of supoerpowered individuals, it really makes arcs like, say, Age of Ultron seem impotent, because there's always a universal or world-spanning reset button. Even arcs that supposedly change things often just take a little while to slide back into the status quo, like Annihilation or Civil War. Nothing really changed as a result. It was only the illusion of change.
What WS semi reboot are you talking about though? The World's End stuff? That was just a big event, not a reboot in the way that, say, Flashpoint or this current Secret Wars is.
Originally posted by Digi
The apocalypse itself is an artform, yes. But my point is that they all existed in universes where, in one form or another, the end of the world happens. And then it isn't swept under the rug. After seeing real consequences of supoerpowered individuals, it really makes arcs like, say, Age of Ultron seem impotent, because there's always a universal or world-spanning reset button. Even arcs that supposedly change things often just take a little while to slide back into the status quo, like Annihilation or Civil War. Nothing really changed as a result. It was only the illusion of change.
Ah, I disagree there. CW or Annihilation didn't render things to the ground, but Civil War created the multi-team Avengers split, which lead to Avengers being a big franchise, and in all the years since the Avenger status quo has changed a lot but never gone back to what it was before. Annihilation, that kicked off a whole slew of events where among other things, the Guardians of the Galaxy got started, and now they're the premier space team, and the shape of the space stuff is also a fair bit different.
Granted, WS's World's End or Hellboy's Hell on Earth are *bigger* changes to be sure, but Marvel at least has made lasting changes to the status quo on a fairly regular basis for about a decade now.
What WS semi reboot are you talking about though? The World's End stuff? That was just a big event, not a reboot in the way that, say, Flashpoint or this current Secret Wars is.
Before that. Gen13 got reset under Gail Simone, Grant Morrison had his one-issue Authority run where Jenny Quantum got renamed Jenny Quarx... I lost track at that point. Then you had World's end after that.
And... I think I heard about something called Worldstorm...?
Originally posted by Q99
Ah, I disagree there. CW or Annihilation didn't render things to the ground, but Civil War created the multi-team Avengers split, which lead to Avengers being a big franchise, and in all the years since the Avenger status quo has changed a lot but never gone back to what it was before. Annihilation, that kicked off a whole slew of events where among other things, the Guardians of the Galaxy got started, and now they're the premier space team, and the shape of the space stuff is also a fair bit different.Granted, WS's World's End or Hellboy's Hell on Earth are *bigger* changes to be sure, but Marvel at least has made lasting changes to the status quo on a fairly regular basis for about a decade now.
Before that. Gen13 got reset under Gail Simone, Grant Morrison had his one-issue Authority run where Jenny Quantum got renamed Jenny Quarx... I lost track at that point. Then you had World's end after that.
And... I think I heard about something called Worldstorm...?
That wasn't a reboot. The Quarx thing got dropped, but otherwise that was just another Authority arc, albeit by Morrison (and it was about 8 issues). Can't speak to the Gen13 stuff. Cpt. Atom: Armageddon was the only arguable reboot to the WS universe until Wildstorm went out of business and got folded into Flashpoint. And even that arc didn't appear to change anything at all.
And apparently we have different ideas of the status quo. Yes, teams change, new characters come and go, but the mode of operation stays the same. Superheroes and villains, etc. It's reshuffling the deck, not changing the way in which we view the universe. I don't consider that the same kind of change as WS, Hellboy, etc. It's mostly illusory; what Stan Lee called "the illusion of change" decades ago when talking about how comics made money.
Once the Authority brought about the destruction of Washington, DC, they weren't heroes in the public's eye ever again. They were feared. When the World ended and got turned into a wasteland, it didn't get reset. Ever. People and heroes had to adapt. And few heroes ever got brought back after death in the way that legacy heroes always supplant the next generation in Marvel/DC, once a writer with a nostalgia fetish or orders from the higher-ups force them to. It was a universe where consequences were felt and dealt with. There was never a reboot, but there was meaningful change. But months after Civil War, Steve and Tony ribbed each other about the whole thing, and went back to leading their respective Avengers teams. It was beyond stupid.
That wasn't a reboot. The Quarx thing got dropped, but otherwise that was just another Authority arc, albeit by Morrison (and it was about 8 issues). Can't speak to the Gen13 stuff.
There was a reality shifting event and Gen13 definitely got rebooted, with no prior history with anyone. It was, if not a full reboot, at least a Zero Hour type thing.
And apparently we have different ideas of the status quo. Yes, teams change, new characters come and go, but the mode of operation stays the same. Superheroes and villains, etc. It's reshuffling the deck, not changing the way in which we view the universe.
The problem I find is that makes the definition of status quo too wide- it effectively means 'it stays the same genre.'
By that standard, almost no continuing story changes the status quo.
By that standard, the Authority leaving power in Revolutions after having ruled the US for awhile is 'no status quo change.'
And even then, comics shift in feel and approach decade to decade. A 60s or 70s comic and a modern one is often massively different- down even to writing style, in addition to setting and character elements.
If the main cast has changed (some developed, some left, some new), live somewhere else in different circumstances, and their exterior situation is different, then yea, it's a status quo change if the phrase is to have significant meaning.
If you can only do a status quo change by blowing up the planet, and not simply by stuff like character and setting development, then that not only does it make status quo change a very hard to reach goal, but not even one worth caring about at that, IMO.
what Stan Lee called "the illusion of change" decades ago when talking about how comics made money.
And the comic industry has changed massively since that point. Since then, we've gone through the violent 90s, the reconstructionist and cinematic 00s, Alan Moore's additions to the genre has gone from revolutionary to common practice and even overdone.... story arcs can last for literally years, character development arcs longer still.....long time villains can redeem themselves for real and have it stick, even.
The days of the reset button are dead and buried, even if people don't acknowledge it.
Originally posted by Q99
There was a reality shifting event and Gen13 definitely got rebooted, with no prior history with anyone. It was, if not a full reboot, at least a Zero Hour type thing.
Worldstorm was quite possibly the most disappointing thing ever out of Wildstorm. It was handled so poorly, most people don't even remember it and it's hard to tell wtf it was even about. It was meant to be a soft reboot, but it seemed only Gen13 was committed to it. Everything else petered out without really starting. Then they just dumped the idea and moved into the Armageddon setup for World's End.
And I like Gail, but Worldstorm Gen13 wasn't exactly her crowning moment of creative achievement. Very "meh" stuff there. I only kept going because I was just getting into Wildstorm at the time, and this was supposed to be a jumping on point. Wildcats and the Authority didn't get pass issue 2 during the reboot, and Gen13 was the only remaining title I recognized.
It did lead me to earlier volumes of Wildcats though, which had some amazing runs. So not all bad.
Sounds about right. There was some title that... I think had an acronym? I wanna say 'Post Human Division' or such, but I really don't remember. Didn't last long.
One thing about it is it derailed the cool 'supertech is oozing in and changing everything' plotlines in Wildcats and Majestic. And, between the Captain Atom and Majestic/Superman crossovers, a growing sense it was part of the DC multiverse*. Right before Worldstorm, I was hyped about Wildstorm, make no mistake.
Blowing everything up in World's End was a way to salvage Wildstorm, one that was only partially successful (in that I hear it had some not bad stories, but it didn't save sales).
*Combined with the lack of sales, probably inspiring the nu52 reboot to fold Wildstorm into the main universe. Where it was all off in it's own little corner, barely interacted with anyone else, then faded away.
Anyone read Marvel's Figment? It's just a 5 issue mini, but I thought it was great. It has a 'Fables-meets-Steampunk' vibe to it, which I really enjoy. Definitely recommend checking it out if you have a few minutes to spare, and you're a fan of that genre...
Figment v2 just started, and it's currently 2 issues deep. I'm enjoying it so far as well. 👆