Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[Dark Soul # 7]

As someone who dropped off regularly following mainstream comics in...

Oh wow...

Erm... 2006? 2006 is about when I stopped buying/reading issues regularly. One More Day happening really helped cement that decision because I really did not care for that story.

After that I kept buying trades for stuff from the Big Two for a while after. I think I mostly stopped doing that in like... 2016 maybe and had fully pivoted to primarily buying Image, Vertigo, Dark Horse and, increasingly these days, obscure indie comics from small presses.

Last couple of Marvel/DC things I got was Vision: Little Worse Than A Man/Little Better Than A Beast trades and Tom King's Mister Miracle but nothing much beyond that.

But yeah, I got tired of sliding continuity and nothing really being forever and the wild inconsistency between runs depending on authors and artists. At least with manga it's a consistent authorial voice or artistic style which eases things going forward.

I do hope people continue to get stuff out of the comics, there is good stuff in there, but it's not been my thing for a good long while now.

I have recently gotten rid of the vast majority of my single issues (only got my beat-up Swedish Spider-man comics left that I'll keep for nostalgia) and I'm currently going through what trade collections I'm willing to part with. It's quite a lot. Getting all that room in my shelves is rather liberating in a way.

Manga also has the advantage of being able to end, most of the time (stares at Boruto and Dragon Ball). I've recently realised how much I appreciate storys that are able to end, and the unending format of Marvel and DC comics just don't jive with that development.

i was almost at that point when slott, for some stupid reason, retconned franklin into NOT being a mutant anymore and was just pretending to be a mutant.

with a lot of this stuff, it really does feel like "write what you want. history and logic be damned".

A big turning point for me was when they regressed Galactus from his Life-Bringer role. Al Ewing had done the most interesting thing anybody's done with Galactus in ages and made him the opposite of what he was, explaining that this was his natural role and that he'd just not evolved properly when he first woke up.

So he became the Life-Bringer. Now he gave life to dying worlds and helped protect the cosmos instead of terrorising it with his endless hunger. A new role with tons of potential for interesting stories exploring his relationship with the universe and past relationship on a cosmic scale. As soon as Ewing ended the book where this happened Marvel turned Galactus back into the devourer in an event story. Because they're boring like that. And there's most likely no plan to do anything interesting with Galactus forced back into this role. He'll just be brought out every now and again to job to whatever fancy new cosmic threat that needs to be established or to show how clever Dr. Doom is or something.

There was just something so disappointing with the whole thing that it pushed me further towards my recent decision.

Eh, Continuity in Big 2 comics has always been something the requires people to actively ignore a ton of problems. Hard continuity is impossible as long as the sliding timeline exists.

Take the Post-Crisis DC Comics for example. In continuity, Jason Todd died. That never changed. But the storyline that was original published about his death sure as hell did. That story involved the Joker being hired by the Ayatollah. That **** didn't stay canon.

Widely Disliked stories like the one where the Terrigen mists were lethal to Mutants are especially prone to getting changed. Remember when Hal Jordan went psycho and slaughtered all the Green Lanterns? Well now he was posessed by a space bug.

Ultimately, you have to take comics on a run by run basis. No comic Run has ever been fully consistent with what came before it, so the most you can reasonably expect is internal consistency within the run

Yeah. I know all that.

I just don't care for it any more.

[Dark Soul # 7]

Looks sick. Very keen to see it and no Warren Ellis involvement means I feel have no moral qualms about consuming it as media!

As far as fridging goes, if you've played Symphony of the Night the idea of Sypha not getting a happy end isn't a new one. Playing SotN last year having watched the show definitely made that boss fight hit different.

I kinda figured that, it is a dark series after all. But the possibility of it becoming so apparent just stung a bit. But hey, it seems like this quite a bit far removed from the previous cast so there's hope yet.

I don't think that's Sypha, that's probably another Speaker magician since it's during the French Revolution indicating this takes place after a significant time skip.

I know this series is a fast and loose adaptation of the source material, which is fine enough, got to make something new out of a pretty thin plotline, but other than Maria summoning the white tiger and a silhouette of Shaft the dark priest, giving this Rondo's aesthetics with what feels like Bloodlines - and Countess Bathory - story seems a bit tacky to me. They might as well call Richter here Jimmy Belmont or something, and they might as well all be original characters.

shouldn't be sypha at all since trevor is a descendant of trevor and sypha. i know they mess around with the lore but even within that timeline, it shouldn't be her. could be a distant cousin. the belmonts do have a very large extended family.

Yeah, I'm not really up to date on my Castlevania lore and had thought that Richter was Trevor and Sypha's direct kid rather than someone further down the Belmont line. But ok then, that eases my concerns a bit.

[master of read]

I kinda figured that, it is a dark series after all. But the possibility of it becoming so apparent just stung a bit. But hey, it seems like this quite a bit far removed from the previous cast so there's hope yet.


Yeah, I'm not really up to date on my Castlevania lore and had thought that Richter was Trevor and Sypha's direct kid rather than someone further down the Belmont line. But ok then, that eases my concerns a bit.

trevor was the first belmont to fight dracula, depending on if you consider the gameboy triology canon (and if so, then all the belmonts are direct descendants of dracula). that happened around the 1400-1500s. i'd have to look up the dates. trevor doesn't thrown down with dracula until the late 1700s. and he would be the last belmont to hold the vampire killer until the 1990s when julius gets the whip and perma-kills vlad.

[Postmania]

The continuity thing is def a reason I couldn’t get into comics beyond single runs for the most part even when I was more into the subject matter years ago

[master of read]

watched the venture bros. movie.

if you like the venture bros, you will love this movie. lots good meta humor, fun interactions, great action and lots, and i mean LOTS, of twists.

but then there is the question rusty and the monarch. oh boy.
spoilers:

so.........turns that rusty and the monarch are not brothers in the traditional sense. they are in fact clones of jonas venture sr. with a splash of baboon DNA, hence the title of the movie. in the 60s, there was actress named bobbi st. simone, who started in a movie where she had to become invisible. while on set, she meets with dr. venture and he takes her back to his compound and makes her become invisible, ala sue storm. they bang. the movie bombs and bobbi wants get rid of her invisble powers. jonas, being the dick he is, decides that would work better as a spy. she infultraes the guild and falls in love with the then sovereign, Force Majeure. the two have a kid but then force is killed by the new sovereign, david bowie. fearing for their lives, bobbi and her daughter debbie flee and go into hiding. years later, bobbi wants to get rid of her powers and goes to rusty, whom she knew when he was a child. he got rid of her powers and became the owner of a rescue farmer for sidekick animals. debbie wanted to be a supervillain and asked rusty to give her her mom's powers. in exchange, she gives him her womb or uterus, i'm not sure which. rusty uses that to personally "birth" hank and dean. so techincally, rusty is the both mother and father to the boys. also, part of the reason the monarch hates rusty is because he used to date debbie and falsely believed that she and rusty banged. so yeah. rusty and malcom are more like solid snake and liquid than anything else.

end of spoilers

[grampagen]

I kinda figured that, it is a dark series after all. But the possibility of it becoming so apparent just stung a bit. But hey, it seems like this quite a bit far removed from the previous cast so there's hope yet.


Yeah, I'm not really up to date on my Castlevania lore and had thought that Richter was Trevor and Sypha's direct kid rather than someone further down the Belmont line. But ok then, that eases my concerns a bit.

Ah the Netflix series is entirely its own entity, so I wouldn't worry about it too much

For nerds - like me - that have been playing these games for decades, spotting the nods and winks in the fanservice is a mixed bag. Sometimes it's lore congruent, most of the time it may as well be an entirely different series, but for the brand recognition.

Of course when I think 'Richter Belmont anime' my 90s brain takes over.

[Jcogginsa]

that's not an excuse for bad writing. and what they are doing with kamala is bad and lazy.

The death was terrible.

The ressurection is just kind of there. It's nothing amazing but nothing worth complaining about yet.

And yes "Marvel's ignoring that the Terrigen Mists were lethal to mutants" isn't something worth complaining about. I was there when those comics were coming out "This writing sucks and it contradicts canon" was something people said about those comics too.

The fact of the matter is that there isn't a single comic book fan who actually wants hard continuity. They want the stories they think are bad to be ignored, and the stories they think are good to be acknowledged.

Do Green Lantern fans want Hal Jordan to be someone who snapped and murdered a ton of his friends? No.
Do Superman fan want him to be a lapdog to Ronald Reagan? No
Do Spider-Man fans want him to be a guy who makes a deal with Satan to dodge responsibility for his actions? No.
Do Batman fans want Bruce Wayne to be a complete ******* to his children? No.

Comic fans what bad comics to get ignored. That's just how it is

[Sharkerbob]

When it comes to Continuity, to my mind anymore, it's just another tool in the box. Either you can use it as a foundation for your story or series, or you dismiss what doesn't add up for your story or series. (Continuity should be consistent within a series, of course, just, if you're making a new Spider-Man series, and you want to maybe not worry about the events of a couple side-series from ten years ago, screw it, if it makes for a better story, leave 'em out.)

Especially when it comes to the big iconic characters, I've seen so many versions and takes on the big ones, I don't even care anymore about "staying faithful to a specific continuity", just as long as a few key elements that make the character what they are are maintained, even if only as a basis to start from. Between comics and anime, I'm so used to things having multiple versions, I don't have an issue just accepting a run as it is. I can see why it becomes a deal breaker for some, but it doesn't bother me anymore, and I don't think it really did that much in the first place.

I will say that I largely just don't care about Marvel or DC anymore, aside from the very occasional shorter run I might check out that catches my attention. A part of me will always love superheroes, but I'm also not as into them as I used to be. I really think America lost out being pigeon holed into supers content being 95% of the market for decades (even among the indy scene), while other countries were allowed to flourish in a variety of genres. Comics will always be the medium that speaks to my soul, but if I never read another DC or Marvel book again, I don't feel I'd miss out too much. There's just such a wide world of literature out there, there'll always be something new to read.

[grampagen]

I suppose that's one way to look at it. Yet we know that fans get invested in the content of the stories they like, and in longform stories it's not too much to ask for some consistency and internal logic.

There isn't a binary distinction to be made from that level of expectation and companies managing their iconic properties, wrestling with keeping these brand icons relevant, modern and meaningful in some manner that will move products and get people talking.

But echoing many of the sentiments expressed earlier, the forever stories needing to return to their status quo with predictable and sometimes lazy, often pandering, shakeups are a problem with the big two comics. Everything's already been done across the decades, and they're not allowed to end, so the stakes of these stories don't matter.

No comment on Ms Marvel, but I felt a similar sense of disassociation when the Guardians of the Galaxy put it all on the line and Peter Quill died to contain the Cancerverse, until the movie came out.

Drax was disintegrated? No, he got better, shut up though.

The story was over, but the brand wasn't, they needed to keep it going, and so it is. Why bother getting invested then.

[master of read]

The death was terrible.

The ressurection is just kind of there. It's nothing amazing but nothing worth complaining about yet.

And yes "Marvel's ignoring that the Terrigen Mists were lethal to mutants" isn't something worth complaining about. I was there when those comics were coming out "This writing sucks and it contradicts canon" was something people said about those comics too.

The fact of the matter is that there isn't a single comic book fan who actually wants hard continuity. They want the stories they think are bad to be ignored, and the stories they think are good to be acknowledged.

Do Green Lantern fans want Hal Jordan to be someone who snapped and murdered a ton of his friends? No.
Do Superman fan want him to be a lapdog to Ronald Reagan? No
Do Spider-Man fans want him to be a guy who makes a deal with Satan to dodge responsibility for his actions? No.
Do Batman fans want Bruce Wayne to be a complete ******* to his children? No.

Comic fans what bad comics to get ignored. That's just how it is

prof.X: welcome to krakoa, kamala. turns out you are a half inhuman/half mutant hybrid.

kamala: how did that happen?

prof. X: i dont know.

i just want things to make sense. you can play with a character's backstory. that's fine. i was fine when JMS gave spiderman's origin a more mystical quality to it, thus introducing one of my favorite villains in his whole line up. i was fine with maria castle being brought back to see another side to frank castle before that day in the park. and i was more than fine with hickman doing house of X and giving the xmen a much needed shack up.

i'm not fine with lazy writing that makes no sense. if you are gonna make ms marvel a mutant, you better have a damn good explaination for it, other than "we don't know". and i don't even really care about her that much.

[grampagen]

When it comes to Continuity, to my mind anymore, it's just another tool in the box. Either you can use it as a foundation for your story or series, or you dismiss what doesn't add up for your story or series. (Continuity should be consistent within a series, of course, just, if you're making a new Spider-Man series, and you want to maybe not worry about the events of a couple side-series from ten years ago, screw it, if it makes for a better story, leave 'em out.)

Especially when it comes to the big iconic characters, I've seen so many versions and takes on the big ones, I don't even care anymore about "staying faithful to a specific continuity", just as long as a few key elements that make the character what they are are maintained, even if only as a basis to start from. Between comics and anime, I'm so used to things having multiple versions, I don't have an issue just accepting a run as it is. I can see why it becomes a deal breaker for some, but it doesn't bother me anymore, and I don't think it really did that much in the first place.

I'd largely agree with this take, yeah.

Off the top of my head the Spider-Verse films more than speak to the value of the key characteristics and resonant elements that make a story click rather than adherence to specific rubrics.

I will say that I largely just don't care about Marvel or DC anymore, aside from the very occasional shorter run I might check out that catches my attention. A part of me will always love superheroes, but I'm also not as into them as I used to be. I really think America lost out being pigeon holed into supers content being 95% of the market for decades (even among the indy scene), while other countries were allowed to flourish in a variety of genres. Comics will always be the medium that speaks to my soul, but if I never read another DC or Marvel book again, I don't feel I'd miss out too much. There's just such a wide world of literature out there, there'll always be something new to read.

Yeah no sense getting bent out of shape. The good stories are still out there, and even more still if you wanna go digging.

prof.X: welcome to krakoa, kamala. turns out you are a half inhuman/half mutant hybrid.

kamala: how did that happen?

prof. X: i dont know.

Professor X: By the way MARVEL STUDIOS'S THE MARVELS COMING TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU

Kamala: What?

Professor X: What?

[Jcogginsa]

The story was over, but the brand wasn't, they needed to keep it going, and so it is. Why bother getting invested then.

The key is to take the indivdual stories/runs on their own, instead of the entire brand

Thefact that the guardians came back doesn't change the quality of the run leading up to the cancerverse. Those stories still exist, and they're still just as good as they always were. You could go back and read them whenever you want.

Be invested in the stories being told, not the brand. If you don't like what the next story is, you can just ignore it until someone tells a story with them that you do like

[Sharkerbob]

I suppose that's one way to look at it. Yet we know that fans get invested in the content of the stories they like, and in longform stories it's not too much to ask for some consistency and internal logic.

There isn't a binary distinction to be made from that level of expectation and companies managing their iconic properties, wrestling with keeping these brand icons relevant, modern and meaningful in some manner that will move products and get people talking.

But echoing many of the sentiments expressed earlier, the forever stories needing to return to their status quo with predictable and sometimes lazy, often pandering, shakeups are a problem with the big two comics. Everything's already been done across the decades, and they're not allowed to end, so the stakes of these stories don't matter.

No comment on Ms Marvel, but I felt a similar sense of disassociation when the Guardians of the Galaxy put it all on the line and Peter Quill died to contain the Cancerverse, until the movie came out.

Drax was disintegrated? No, he got better, shut up though.

The story was over, but the brand wasn't, they needed to keep it going, and so it is. Why bother getting invested then.

Yeah, I agree with you there. Very frustrating when you do want to be invested, and then this stuff keeps happening.

I'd largely agree with this take, yeah.

Off the top of my head the Spider-Verse films more than speak to the value of the key characteristics and resonant elements that make a story click rather than adherence to specific rubrics.

Absolutely!

Yeah no sense getting bent out of shape. The good stories are still out there, and even more still if you wanna go digging.

There's such a gold mine of comics history, and I feel I've barely scratched the surface!

[Postmania]

I think I also just want stories to have a beginning and end, which is kind of antithetical to the mainstream medium now. Without them, things can't progress for me.

It's also looking like it's antithetical to too much of comics movies too now for me

[grampagen]

The key is to take the indivdual stories/runs on their own, instead of the entire brand

Thefact that the guardians came back doesn't change the quality of the run leading up to the cancerverse. Those stories still exist, and they're still just as good as they always were. You could go back and read them whenever you want.

Be invested in the stories being told, not the brand. If you don't like what the next story is, you can just ignore it until someone tells a story with them that you do like

Then perhaps the brand should stop flaunting itself as a next exciting interation of an ongoing story with trapping and icons I used to like.

Like I said, I'm out because the forever story with all its jangling keys ultimately doesn't go anywhere and no longer appeals to me.