Superheroes!

[EgonSpengler]

The first episode of season 2 of Loki was a lot of fun. Good start.

Spoiler :

I really like the design of everything. I found myself almost straining to see the city outside the windows of the TVA, and that suit Mobius was wearing was awesomely ridiculous.

I heard someone on a podcast about Loki say that Loki & Sylvie were the heart of the show, but I disagree. Loki & Mobius are the pair I want to see. I never really connected with Sylvie. Ourobouros is fun, though. I wouldn't mind if our bro duo became a trio.

 

[Cutlass]

When did it start?

 

[Arakhor]

Today, I think.

 

[EgonSpengler]

In the US, new episodes premier on Thursday nights at 9:00et. [EDIT: That's 9:00pm, not 0900.]

 

[Gorbles]

Quan crushing it as O.B. without a question. Loved it.

Spoiler :

(and especially loved the time slipping explanation / catchup via simultaneous chats in the past and present)

 

[RobAnybody]

I haven't watched it (Loki) yet. I'm just burned out on Disney Marvel/Star Wars content right now.

But... I have one important question that might change my mind on starting Loki 2: how much is Sylvie involved?!? And how interesting is her involvement, as opposed to "just there"? (I trust @EgonSpengler to understand my question, no offense meant to anyone else who wants to answer: go for it, but I don't even want to say one way or the other whether that's a positive or negative in regards my question, which is why I direct the question to Egon specifically).

 

[Cutlass]

Only 1 episode so far, and very little in that ep.

 

[EgonSpengler]

‘Daredevil’ Hits Reset Button as Marvel Overhauls Its TV Business

Launched during the pandemic with a playbook to shoot $150 million-plus seasons with no pilots, the Disney unit is undergoing growing pains and seeing the logic of "traditional TV culture."

www.hollywoodreporter.com

It didn’t take long to see the problem after Marvel Studios’ Daredevil: Born Again paused production in mid-June during the writers strike. Fewer than half of the series’ 18 episodes had been shot, but it was enough for Marvel executives, including chief Kevin Feige, to review the footage and come away with a clear-eyed assessment: The show wasn’t working.

So, in late September, Marvel quietly let go of head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman and also released the directors for the remainder of the season as part of a significant creative reboot of the series, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The studio is now on the hunt for new writers and directors for the project, which stars Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer turned superhero.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Keith Giffen, Comic Book Writer-Artist Behind Lobo, Blue Beetle and Rocket Raccoon, Dies at 70

The creator was known for his infusing his work with his subversive and sarcastic sense of humor.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Well, that sucks. For me, Giffen was most notable for his 1982-1984 run on Legion of Superheroes, and for the 1987 reboot of Justice League with J.M. Dematties and Kevin Maguire, and a Dr. Fate miniseries. I believe Giffen also created the character Maxwell Lord. Giffen was both a talented writer and penciller/artist.

 

[Clubber Lang]

R.i.P Giff (Rocket Raccoon co-creator)

Keith Giffen, Justice League and Legion of Super-Heroes Icon, Passes Away at 70​

By Brian Cronin
Keith Giffen, longtime comic book writer and artist, best known for his work on Justice League, Legion of Super-Heroes and Lobo, has died at 70

Keith Giffen, the star comic book writer and artist best known for his long and acclaimed runs on Legion of Super-Heroes (both with writer and co-plotter, Paul Levitz, and then on his own with scripters Tom and Mary Bierbaum, the so-called "Five Years Later" Legion) and Justice League International (with scripter J.M. DeMatteis), as well as co-creating major DC characters like Lobo, Ambush Bug and the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle (as well as Rocket Raccoon for Marvel Comics), has passed away at the age of 70 following a stroke earlier this week.





Giffen's hilarious, if dark, humor took him right to the end, as he had a piece prepared to be posted on his Facebook page to commemorate his own death...







I told them I was sick... Anything not to go to New York Comic Con Thanx Keith Giffen 1952-2023 Bwah ha ha ha haPosted by Keith Giffen on Wednesday, October 11, 2023



Giffen had one of the most unusual breaking into comic books imaginable, explaining to Eric Nolen-Weathington in TwoMorrows' Jack Kirby Collector #29:





I broke into comics by doing everything wrong. I was working as a hazardous material handler and I took a week off and said, "Hey I think I'll break into comics." So I just drew up a bunch of pictures and slapped them together. I figured, let me call up the companies and find out how you do this. I didn't want to start at the top. I wanted to start at the bottom. I didn't want Marvel, I didn't want Charlton. Atlas was publishing then. So I called up Atlas and the woman was so positive on the phone. "Oh, yes. Bring you portfolio. Absolutely. We'll take a look at it. Blah, blah, blah. However, we're going out of business next week." [laughs] I said, "That's interesting," and after I hung up the phone with her I thought maybe I should just take the bit in my teeth and start at the top and get turned down all the way down. Just wind up someplace. Back then the top was Marvel. So I call up Marvel. I don't know who the secretary was then, but it was not the most positive—"yeah, um, bring your portfolio in and they'll look at it and you can pick it up tomorrow." I was stupid enough. I go into New York and drop off the portfolio and I go home. Next day I figure I'll go get it and I thought, "No that's not a good idea." So I let a day go by and rather than just go get it, I called. And the woman said, "Get in here now." So I go in and she's yelling at me, she's really pissed off at me. It took a while for it to sink in that apparently Ed Hannigan—prior commitments had forced him off this back-up strip in a b-&-w magazine called The Sword and the Star. And Bill Mantlo, who was the writer, happened to see my samples laying around and said, "I like him; why don't we get this guy?" And they couldn't contact me, because like the genius I am, I had dropped off my portfolio with my name on it and that's it. No phone number, no address, no way to contact me. So they needed me yesterday and that's pretty much how I got my start in comics.



Here's a page from that first story, from Marvel Preview #7, which also served as the first appearance of Rocket Raccoon (sort of)..

He didn't get steady work at Marvel, so he went to DC, where he was offered regular work on All-Star Comics, but as Giffen noted to Nolen-Weathington, "I bounced around and eventually went over to DC where they wanted to give me steady work, but I was so stupid I blew myself out of the business. They had me working with Wally Wood and I didn't see the benefit of that. Talk about idiot."





So he then returned to Marvel, where he became a standout drawing the Defenders. Look at this double-page splash from Defenders #50...

Giffen grew tired of comics, and ended up doing the mid-1970s version of "quiet quitting" Defenders, just not handing the pages in to his assignments. He explained to Nolen-Weathington, "And so I left and bounced around with odd jobs. I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners door-to-door, repossessed things. Then one day I just thought, 'I'm doodling these things on my own; I think I've gotten a little bit better.' So I called Joe Orlando [at DC}, because I had screwed him over pretty bad and I thought at least I owe Joe hanging up on me—I owe him that much. He said, 'Come on in. You've been an *******, we're going to put you on probation, but you're going to learn this time. We'll put you on the Ghost books.' And I gradually worked my way up until I landed on Legion."





Giffen joined Paul Levitz on Legion of Super-Heroes with Legion of Super-Heroes #285 in early 1982. It was not long on the book before Levitz and Giffen began co-plotting the book together, and soon they started on the epic storyline that became their most notable work, the Great Darkness Saga, which introduced Jack Kirby’s Darkseid as a villain of the Legion, in a brilliantly moody action adventure story that saw the Legion involved in a battle greater than any they had seen before (or at least more visceral).





Check out the amazing reveal that Darkseid is the villain (right after Brainiac realizes that Darkseid has turned the entire population of Daxam against the Legion)…

What a stunning reveal.



Giffen’s artwork handled both action scenes and character moments with equal greatness, and Levitz was sure to give him a lot of both, keeping the book extremely grounded in humanity, while also keeping the action at a breakneck measure.

Giffen and his inker, Larry Mahlstedt (who also did finishes over Giffen’s layouts on a number of issues), were also quite good at depicting the future as a Kirby-esque place of bizarre devices and places.

After the Great Darkness Saga, and a few character pieces, they had the landmark 300th issue, after which Giffen began to experiment with his artwork while, at the same time, he began to have more of an influence in the writing department.

Levitz, Giffen and Mahlstedt launched a brand-new Legion series together, a brutal storyline that left one Legionnaire dead, and Giffen departing the book.

During this period, Giffen also worked on a few other DC Comics, and it was during this time that he created Ambush Bug, one of his most famous creations. Ambush Bug was originally created by Keith Giffen for a DC Comics Presents Superman/Doom Patrol team-up that Giffen was drawing that Paul Kupperberg was writing. They were looking for an offbeat villain, so Giffen came up with Ambush Bug, who was basically like, "What if Bugs Bunny was a supervillain?" The editor of DC Comics Presents, Julius Schwartz, liked the character and asked Giffen to do a new story with the villain, this time written and drawn by Giffen (with Paul Levitz, Giffen's Legion of Super-Heroes collaborator, doing the script, as the issue saw Superman team up with the Legion of Substitute Super-Heroes to stop the Bug). The character was now popular enough that Giffen decided to make him a superhero, and he became a regular fixture in the pages of Action Comics at a time in the 1980s when the series typically featured multiple stories in each issue. He then received his own series, with Robert Loren Fleming scripting the book.

Giffen also worked on The Omega Men with Roger Slifer, and during that time, he co-created the cosmic bounty hunter, Lobo. It would be years before Giffen would return to the character in a big way.

In 1987, Giffen launched a new Justice League series. Originally intended to be an “All-Star cast,” due to various reboots and such, the only MAJOR hero available was Batman, although Captain Marvel was there in the beginning (and lasted one story before HE was taken away – Black Canary lasted about a year before SHE was taken away). The other heroes who were made available were low-level characters with their own titles that didn’t sell a bunch (Blue Beetle, Booster Gold and Captain Atom), Mister Miracle (who hadn’t appeared regularly in about a decade at the time), one fairly notable League member (Martian Manhunter) and a pretty popular Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, from Steve Englehart’s popular "Green Lantern Corps" title.

Without the major heroes, Giffen and DeMatteis instead attempted to really develop the personalities of the heroes they WERE given, particularly once Beetle and Booster’s series were each canceled, giving them free rein with how to write them. They also spotlighted the League liaison, Maxwell Lord, who formed the team for fairly nefarious reasons but soon turned out to be a good guy. Later on, due to a lack of female characters on the team (and notable female heroes available period) when Canary was taken from them, Giffen and DeMatteis added two obscure members of the Global Guardians who soon became stalwart members of the team, Fire and Ice.





The book is most known for the humor of the title, which was a major aspect of the book – it really was a situation comedy.





Here is the first usage of “Bwah Ha Ha” that shows what the comedy of the book was like, where Booster Gold brags about being able to hit on a woman, and strikes out big time...

and then she turns out to be their new Justice League liaison...

Helping the writers in this journey was Kevin Maguire, whose ability to depict facial expressions was extremely key to the early issues of the series, and Ty Templeton, while using a more cartoonish style, was an able successor. Adam Hughes was the next regular artist, in one of his first, and most likely LAST monthly ongoing series. Giffen and DeMatteis worked on the title for five years, including two spinoff titles, Justice League Europe and Justice League Quarterly. Their offbeat approach surprisingly became one of DC's biggest hit titles.





In 1988, when Giffen re-joined Levitz on Legion of Superheroes, the book was already in a slightly darker place, but it only got darker. Levitz and Giffen really began to stress that the Legionnaires were getting older. However, nothing prepared readers for what they were about to experience when Levitz left the book at the closing of that volume of Legion.





When Legion of Superheroes re-launched with a brand-new #1 in 1989, Giffen was now the plotter of the comic as well as the artist, and he brought scripters (and long time Legion fans) Tom and Mary Bierbaum and finisher Al Gordon with him. And the book had moved forward five years into the future. The world of the Legion was now a grim, desolate place, and the days of young men and women in colorful costumes were long gone. Instead, they were now, well, five years older, and no longer in costume – yet they all remained heroes. The story was an extremely ambitious look at a bunch of grizzled characters somehow coming together to reform some semblance of the Legion they all once cared so much about.





One of the most notable aspects of the comic was how DENSE each issue was. Giffen used the nine-panel grid to great effect, making each issue filled with so much story that it would have easily twice as many stories as most other comics of the time (and that’s not even counting the pages at the back of the issues, which they used to fill in readers on what was going on in the Legion world).

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this run to me, personally, was how they dealt with having to come up with a brand-new origin for the Legion (one sans Superboy, who was off-limits), without it really being too confusing. The comics were dark, but they were also filled with humor and great character work.





One of the fascinating aspects of the story was the way Giffen would use back-up pages like Alan Moore used back-up pages in Watchmen. He would have documents that would elaborate on the stories within the comics.





Giffen and Bill Mantlo were in charge of DC's 1988 crossover event, Invasion!, which led to a modern day cosmic series, L.E.G.I.O.N., that Giffen worked on with Alan Grant. It was that series that re-introduced Lobo as a major character again. He soon grew so popular that Giffen and Grant did a Lobo miniseries with artist Simon Bisley that was a huge hit, and Lobo soon became one of DC's most popular characters in the early 1990s...

Giffen and Fleming did an Aquaman reboot in the late 1980s, and Giffen and Fleming also were in charge of DC's 1992 crossover, Eclipso: The Darkness Within, which led to a short-lived Eclipso series.

After doing a short-lived new comedic hero, The Heckler, in 1992 with the Bierbaums, Giffen then worked outside of Marvel and DC for a few years, including a creator-owned series, Trencher, for Image Comics. He plotted a few other Image comic books. He had an excellent run on Magnus: Robot Fighter for Valiant, as well as a new series, PunX, for Valiant, and then worked on jobs outside the comic book industry entirely for a while in the mid-to-late 1990s.





In the 2000s, Giffen returned to comics in a big way, writing a new Suicide Squad series in 2001, and a new series, Reign of the Zodiac, with artist Colleen Doran, in 2003. That same year, Giffen reunited with DeMatteis on the first of two excellent Justice League reunion series, as well as some fun BOOM! Studios comics like Hero Squared. Giffen then helped co-created Jaime Reyes, the new Blue Beetle, as part of DC's Infinite Crisis event, and then Giffen was the regular layout artist for the year-long comic book series, 52, that followed Infinite Crisis. After taking over from Jim Starlin on Thanos at Marvel, Giffen re-introduced Star-Lord to the Marvel Universe, and then wrote the Annihilation miniseries that brought a number of Marvel's cosmic characters together. Giffen revamped Drax the Destroyer, and then later, for the Annihilation Conquest lead-in miniseries starring Star-Lord, he brought the old Marvel character, Groot, back to the Marvel Universe in a big way (after previously featuring him in a Howling Commandos comic book), and paired the alien with Rocket Raccoon, who all worked with Star-Lord.

Writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning were the writers who made the characters the Guardians of the Galaxy, but it was Giffen and editors Bill Rosemann (and then Andy Schmidt) who set up the foundation for what has become a major part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.





Giffen continued working on a number of other series over the last decade plus, including co-writing O.M.A.C. as part of New 52, and then a number of series with J.M. DeMatteis at DC, like Larfleeze, Justice League 3000 and Scooby Apocalypse. Most recently, Giffen rebooted the Inferior Five at DC with Jeff Lemire.

​

 

[Patine]

R.i.P Giff (Rocket Racoon co-creator)

​

I saw that on my homepage last night.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I listened to Joanna Robinson promote her book about the making of the MCU on a podcast this morning. There was some interesting stuff. Among other things,

• Edgar Wright's Ant-Man was originally supposed to be the 3rd film, after Iron Man and Incredible Hulk. Knowledgeable fans will recall that the original Avengers team was Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, and The Wasp. Captain America was added to the team in issue #4.
• Jon Favreau almost cut the whole section of Iron Man inside the cave right before filming, but the lead designer got mad because they'd just finished building all the sets for it, so he went ahead and filmed it.
• Timothy Olyphant got "pretty far along" in the casting process for Tony Stark in Iron Man before Robert Downey Jr got it.
• Joss Whedon added Thanos to the Avengers basically as a lark, and the Marvel executives were "too tired to fight with him." The Infinity Saga wasn't really planned until audiences started to get excited.
• One of the casting directors for Captain America: The First Avenger auditioned Wyatt Russell for the role of Steve Rogers. She liked him, but he was "just a little off." Flash-forward to the casting for John Walker in Falcon & The Winter Soldier, and someone said to her that the character was "like Steve Rogers, but just a little off."

 

[Cutlass]

As a whole I'd say casting is one of the things that really worked well in making the MCU.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Jon Favreau almost cut the whole section of Iron Man inside the cave right before filming, but the lead designer got mad because they'd just finished building all the sets for it, so he went ahead and filmed it.

That's the best part of the movie!

 

[Synobun]

Loki has been good so far. Though maybe I'm biased by watching it with a bunch of other people who are Loki stans.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Loki has been good so far. Though maybe I'm biased by watching it with a bunch of other people who are Loki stans.

I'm liking it, too. I thought Brad was a riot.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I was reading some clickbaity article about the tumult around Daredevil: Born Again and was struck by the possibility that a reboot of the reboot could more closely resemble a "season 4" of the Netflix show. More specifically, that they could go back to Elden Henson and Deborah Anne Woll. I know that Woll wanted to come back; I don't know if she still does. I never read anything from or about Henson. I worry about the possibility that there could be some contractual pay-raise for the actors that's making the stingy suits reluctant to bring back any more of the original cast than will directly lead to new subscribers (I read an article somewhere that speculated that the abrupt cancellations of so many seemingly-successful shows after 2-3 seasons is because of automatic pay raises that kick in after a certain number of seasons or episodes - it sounds cynical, but also plausible). As a fan of the comic, way back in the day, I really cannot imagine Matt without Foggy. And while I stopped reading the comics before Karen became a central character, Woll's portrayal made me as much a fan of that character as I was of Foggy. I also think a 4th season could and should continue the Bullseye storyline, which I felt was left unfinished, if not on a cliffhanger, at the end of season 3.

Whatever they do, I think we have to expect and allow for the 'Disneyification' of the series, which I think would mainly have to mean less cringe-inducing violence. Of course the violence was a hallmark of the Netflix series, and an important one, and I would miss it, but I think you could still do a show that's for adults, one that's visually & thematically dark, without making people cover their eyes. I also think a portrayal of Daredevil back home in New York doesn't have to be as light-hearted as he was in She-Hulk just for the sake of consistency*. As a fan of the comics, I'm unperturbed by different takes on characters across different books/shows, but I don't know if the regular, movie- and tv-watching public is so mentally agile.

The only characters I would be skeptical about in a 'lighter' form are Frank/The Punisher and Elektra. The level of violence they employ isn't incidental, it's integral to their characters. They're both twisted reflections of Daredevil, representing the lengths he won't go to, the people he can't allow himself to become. There's been no hint that Elektra will be coming back, and I'd be satisfied if she didn't, but Jon Bernthal is part of the Disney reboot. I don't know what they're planning to do with him, but I don't know what a less grim version of The Punisher would look like without compromising the character too much. The only idea I've had is that some other character - and Karen could fit the bill - is in a position to insist that Frank exercise more restraint than he's normally inclined to ("If we're going to work together, you can't just kill everybody who gets in your way"). Still, who is The Punisher without guns, a brutal warfighting style of martial arts, and a near-total contempt for the criminal justic system**?



* "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall." - Ralph Waldo Emerson. And, hey, Matt finally got laid in L.A. without somebody trying to take his head off. Jen might have been the least-problematic hookup of his entire life. I'd have had a little spring in my step, too.

** Not to bring politics into absolutely everything, but this is why police officers who display the Punisher's logo are dimwits. They don't even understand that Frank Castle thinks cops are ineffectual at best, incompetent and corrupt most of the time. The uselessness of cops in that story is why he's The Punisher in the first place. Same with basically every vigilante character, but these goobers seem to fixate on The Punisher in particular. Probably a lot of them just like the logo and don't even know what it means.

 

[Cutlass]

I haven't watched it (Loki) yet. I'm just burned out on Disney Marvel/Star Wars content right now.

But... I have one important question that might change my mind on starting Loki 2: how much is Sylvie involved?!? And how interesting is her involvement, as opposed to "just there"? (I trust @EgonSpengler to understand my question, no offense meant to anyone else who wants to answer: go for it, but I don't even want to say one way or the other whether that's a positive or negative in regards my question, which is why I direct the question to Egon specifically).

Second ep she appears in much more.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I still don't know what to think about Jonathan Majors as a person, but his performance in ep 3 was great (as have been his performances in everything else I've seen him in). Also nice to see Gugu Mbatha-Raw again.

 

[RobAnybody]

I still haven't started watching Loki S2. From what I've heard/read (limited, still trying to avoid actual spoilers, but get impressions) about it, it seems... tedious? Spinning the wheels? Essentially... boring maybe? Inconsequential. Leaning into themes/ideas that no one cares about, so I probably won't watch it as well; might be a good way to characterize what I've heard/read?

I'm open to recommendations like "No It's Great" from people here, that might counter that. I'll probably watch it at some point. But it seems like, from what I've heard, that it is... meh, at best & is more like a "well, if you have nothing better to watch" type thing.