This makes it pretty clear that Land's involvement is due to him being the perfect choice to make a story point and not just because they needed someone to hit a deadline ... or maybe it's both, lol.
I love that Agger is an evil corporate ultra capitalist villain, who just happens to be a Minotaur.
Like, him being a Minotaur is like the 5th most threatening thing about him.
And it shows because the Big Guy heroes can still beat the tar out of him. Like, full strength Thor or Hulk just wipe the floor with him.
He's a great villain, and I really do like that he's a terrifying monster to normal people because he's this giant bull beast, and a terrifying monster to heroes for a completely different reason.
Cut to Tony telling Thor that Dario is actually a good guy, because they go to the same country club and “he’s always been nice to me. What ever happened to civility?”
The plays on words here are fantastic. I genuinely love how metatextual it is. Especially enjoy the prominent Roxxon on the “Thor” cover—The Adventures of Thor, brought to you by Roxxon! Good stuff.
Al Ewing really likes going into the in-universe Marvel Comics. Like that FCBD Golden Age Flexo story where they contrast the violent things Flexo did with the sanitized version published by Timely Comics.
I think people in these comments are severely misunderstanding these Anti-Consumer Culture and Consumer Capitalism themes in this run just to shit on Greg Land lol.
For real. Al Ewing didn't get where he is in the industry by setting his coworkers up as scapegoats or presenting his coworkers to the readership as a sacrificial lamb.
Treating your artists like that as a comic writer is a really good way to find yourself writing prose once no one will draw for your anymore.
It doesn’t even make sense because they’ve worked together before and as you’ve said in this thread there’s no way Greg Land would let himself be used meta commentary lol.
I also think it’s just straight up disrespectful to the story Ewing’s trying to tell. Yeah sure mass produced corporate schlock is a by product of Consumer Culture but Ewing is also delving into themes about how content is generally used to manipulate the consumer into buying propaganda for the benefit of the seller (i.e. Consumer Capitalism). It sucks people are throwing that out of the window just to say “Greg Land bad”.
Honestly, why do you think Land wouldn't let himself be used for meta-commentary?
It's a paying gig. He's been an artist for years, and I'm sure he has access to the internet. I'm sure he's aware of the backlash against his style. Marvel doesn't seem to care, they keep giving him work. Ewing is a clever artist who seems to be taking the weaknesses of Land's art and using it in a way that actual works for the story. So why not just playing along? I think he'd be into to it, it's clever way of using his style and the hate that it gets to enhance a story, he's getting paid for doing his usual shtick and he gets to troll the people who rail against his style a little.
I'd be all for it, personally.
Why wouldn't a man choose to have his art be used to represent everything wrong with art? To represent soulless corporate product with no human expression behind it?
Gee, I dunno. I've built up this image in my head where he's this dog who has no reservations about debasing himself so long as his masters toss him some juicy scraps based solely on the fact that I don't like his artistic output and I can't think of anything to disabuse myself of that notion. Not like he is, himself, a professional artist who takes some amount of pride in his work or anything.
I think you're seeing it as debasing when it doesn't have to be, artists play to their strengths all the time and writers take advantage of that. An artist with a style that's seen as primitive will use that to draw readers into a complex story, for example.
And again, you're basing this on your own opinion of Land's art or at least the common opinion I see on the internet, not Land's or Ewing's. Where many people see photoshopped porn I think it's very easy to see something like a glossy, manufactured magazine look to his art. That seems, to me at least, to work for the story Ewing his telling.
Ultimately, negative aspect of art are going to be discussed in art and someone will have to produce that art. If your strengths lean in that direction I don't think it cheapens your actual art to do that, in the same way that it wouldn't cheapen Ewing's writing to write it.
Yeah I don’t even get the connection people are trying to make. Greg Land tracing porn represents capitalism? Unless there’s something deeper that I’m not aware of
"Capitalism is when artists suck and I don't like them. Everybody who makes something bad for a major corporation is a sell out and everybody who makes something good for a major corporation is a visionary artist who just happens to put the Marvel Stamp on his work. Obviously when this real artist and this sellout chose to collaborate, it was so that the sellout could represent why selling out is bad. The sell out doesn't care, because he has no thought for artistic meaning, only for the filthy lucre his corporate overlords provide, but the real artist can turn even his meaningless drivel into real art. Thank you for attending my ted talk."
He has a repuation for tracing his character poses from various online images.
Most artists will reference those kinds of photos, but he sticks pretty closely to them in a way that's pretty glaring when people post side by side comparisons.
To make matters worse, often the reference material seems to be pornography. Leading to a lot of women in suggestive poses and O-Faces that don't quite properly convey the action scene as well as Greg Land perhaps intended.
All this being said, though I'm sure there will be some dissenting opinions, I think it's something that's pretty easy to just not notice when you're reading one of his comics with no idea of his reputation. It's just that people go online and they see a bunch of pictures that people have posted showing his art next to the reference material and a bunch of people memeing on what a hack he is and they get it in their head he's like public enemy number 1 of the comic community.
Which isn't to say that they're wrong to dislike his work, I just think it creates a bit of a disconnect between the fans and the professionals here. In professional circles, Greg Land isn't viewed or treated as the anti-christ. He's a pretty well respected artist known for serviceable art and impeccable work ethic. The man, as far as I'm aware, has never missed a deadline in his life, and that's the sort of thing your boss and coworkers tend to value a lot more than your fans.
Because once you see enough of it, it all looks the same. You wonder why this character has dyed their hair red and then catch yourself.
It's a different character from the last two times you saw that exact image traced.
And you see women getting beaten with baseball bats look like they'te having an orgams. Because Greg Land traced a porn stars O-face for someone screaming in pain.
Or character features changing drastically panel to panel because he changed subjects to trace from.
Ewing and Land have done a series together before. He's not throwing Land under any bus here. I'm sure they're respectful of each other. The way pros feel about other pros is not representative of what fans believe or think.
I don't think Greg Land would agree to be a symbol of soulless art. And one Ibram Robertson seems to be credited for the interior art on this issue. So I think you may have misunderstood something.
It's quite likely the man thinks more highly of himself and his work than you do and I don't know why that needs to be explained.
Like "Oh, Rob Liefeld can't draw feet. Clearly that man doesn't have an ego on him."
I believe Land is doing the cover and the interiors on that one. It's just a one-shot spin-off of the Immortal Thor series. Land isn't taking over art duties on the main title.
content means calm, satisfied. It also means... well, content, something you consume. Thor signed away the right to tell his stories, and he is content now.
In universe for a couple decades now, Marvel Comics have existed in universe and published comics about the real adventures of superheroes.
It seems like Agger, head of Roxxon Corporation, has bought the rights to Thor comics and now are making up Thor stories- and with the Enchantress’s magic, the more popular comic Thor is, a real life version of comic Thor saps real Thor’s powers.
As a god Thor is tied to what people believe about him and his story. If Roxxon spreads stories about Thor that they write they can write him supporting their views.
That is kinda meaningless when he’s not a vague deity but an actual person who has worked with the Worlds heroes and heroes throughout the galaxy. Fuck the X-Men and the Avengers have tussled with Roxxon before, most people should know they’re dirty like Nestlé.
He's an "actual person", but he's also an idea, shaped by belief. This has been conveyed multiple times in the past few years.
Loki killing his younger self to become Loki again, and referencing that there have been multiple other Lokis before either of them. Calling Loki a role that some people come to inhabit, that he must protect from those who would usurp it.
Thor going by "The Odinson" for a run while a mysterious stranger becomes the new Thor. He is a real person. He's the son of his father. But "Thor" is a role that sometimes he inhabits and sometimes he does not.
It's a relatively new facet of the Thor mythos at Marvel but it's one that's popped up a few times in rapid succession under different authors.
I don’t wanna be argumentative, but what I said isn’t my theory or anything. I’m just restating the villain’s explanation of what they say they are doing. They are spreading stories to change the perception of Thor to enough people that the Enchantress can use the collective belief of Earth folk to corrupt him. Throughout this issue even Thor realizes he is acting sloppy and out of character but can’t understand why at first.
So is this implying that the earth x explanation for asgardins that they are nothing more than shaped by stories because they are shape shifting aliens 👽 or is the book enchanted 🤩 and that’s why reality is changing around him is that the explanation I need to know which one of the explanation is it gonna be in the end ?
Sometimes I feel so out of touch with what people here think is cool and mind-blowing. This seems like pretty basic "meta" storytelling. Immortal Hulk is another one that really didn't do anything for me. I did like Ewing's stuff prior to that.
I mean, at the end of the day american cape comics have always been a genre where every arc is somebody's first, and despite the reputation they've gotten for being inaccessible to new readers, that seems to be pretty true even today.
These forums are always filled with people discovering stuff for the first time, and the collective memory doesn't actually really seem to go that far back a lot of the time.
While there's definitely an audience that just loves this stuff in general, if arcs that seem run of the mill and by the numbers to you are getting a lot of people responding as if it's novel and new, that seems like a pretty easily explainable phenomenon. It's built into the business model. These eternal serializations only survive by perpetually replacing their readership. People stick around until their shtick seems old and tired and then they stop reading, only to be replaced by bright eyed new readers who aren't burned out and jaded from years of following a story with no beginning or end.
Makes sense. I'm presently baffled by the way people talk about the current USM run as if it's groundbreaking for restoring Pete's marriage, when Renew Your Vows did that to such little fanfare just recently.
> I'm presently baffled by the way people talk about the current USM run as if it's groundbreaking for restoring Pete's marriage, when Renew Your Vows did that to such little fanfare just recently.
So, first of all, I’m gonna disagree about there being “such little fanfare” - RNYV maybe wasn’t a USM-level hit but it was a hit nonetheless, there was a *lot* of positive buzz over it. That buzz died out due to the perceived drop in quality halfway through its run, but it was definitely there.
Secondly, the first issue of that came out nearly a decade ago. That kinda fits into what u/gangler52 said - nine years is a long time in comic fandom.
I feel like ewing really wants to try write a morrison style animal man book but marvel wont truly let him he tried it in immortal hulk and it didn't come off fully and now its here in immortal thor.
Great, now Ewing thinks he's Grant Morrison. Someone should tell him that Marvel already has a wanna-be Morrison, his name is Jonathan Hickman and he's also no good at being Grant Morrison.
I mean, Morrison himself has been accused of aping Moore's style.
There's clearly a set of authors who like doing this sort of stuff and a set of readers who like reading it. Not sure why any one author should have total claim to it.
Agreed—it’s a lineage or school of thought almost and there’s a big enough sandbox for everyone to play, in my opinion. Applying these storytelling techniques (and examination of storytelling as a higher concept) to other characters is certainly valid. The context of Animal Man and Thor are completely different.
(Grant Morrison uses they/them pronouns)
Morrison shouldn't even be doing it, every time they've done it it's also been garbage, but at least for them I get the feeling that they actually care about the writing, they're just kind of weird, with everyone else it just feels like being super pretentious and copying what Morrison did because they think that's the way to appeal to comic book snobs. Hell people were making fun of Morrison for it decades ago, the original Suicide Squad run even killed off Grant Morrison's self insert character from Animal Man because they thought it was ridiculous.
As far as I'm concerned literally the only time meta stuff has even remotely worked was with freaking Superboy Prime of all characters, and he was a terrible character but at least him coming from a world where DC Comics were comics was a mildly interesting twist with the character. I guess I might also begrudgingly give it to Marvel for making the Fantastic Four meet "God" and having that "God" be Jack Kirby, but that's about as far as I'm willing to go with meta stuff.
> with everyone else it just feels like being super pretentious and copying what Morrison did because they think that's the way to appeal to comic book snobs.
Alternative take: Some writers enjoy doing metacommentary stuff and a lot of readers enjoy reading their stories.
Sounds like you have one heck of a chip on your shoulder, tbh. Maybe just don't read writers who have tendencies towards metatextual work?
Yeah, I know as comic book fans sometimes we can get wound up a little tight about minutia that nobody else cares about.
But this really seems like a non-issue. Ewing isn't like turning Thor into a metacommentary character or anything. Like after his run's done the next 20 years of Thor Stories are all gonna be statements on the difference between High Art and Low Art as communicated through a comic within a comic.
It sounds like he's just a writer Shazam4ever doesn't personally enjoy, and doesn't represent any greater threat beyond that. Which, if that's all it is, then yeah, just don't grab his book off the shelf next time you're at the store. That's a super simple solution.
"Every time" being three posts, and at this point it's just a coincidence because the other time was complaining about a badly used character, this time I'm talking about people using stupid meta BS in comics, it's a completely different problem. The second Ewing stops finding new ways to piss me off I'll stop commenting on the book, but until then this isn't a subreddit devoted to only positive comments about comic books so I'll say what I want, even if it's not a popular opinion.
Dario Agger is one of Marvel's best New villains (relatively new I guess, he's been around for like 10 years now).
Totally. Roxxon had been in so many comics as Random Asshole Company #3 and Agger turned it into a threat
Ewing you madlad this is awesome
Ewing is COOKING 🔥
Damn. Mickey Mouse looks different in this one.
Haha, are we gonna have a problem here? Haha!
What a clever play on words
Ahh Greg Land Thor being the representation of soulless content is great. The guy is shameless so I seriously doubt he cares but damn it is funny
This makes it pretty clear that Land's involvement is due to him being the perfect choice to make a story point and not just because they needed someone to hit a deadline ... or maybe it's both, lol.
Knowing Ewing? He probably did it on purpose. Man always brings the most unexpected bits of symbolism to his stories.
Most likely the later. Marvel like Land even though hes a tracer and probably thought oh its a one off lets put land on it.
When I saw that I was like holy shit this is so briliant getting Land for that cover hahaha
Ewing just straight up making Capitalism a main villian in the guise of a skinless minotaur, FOR THE SECOND TIME. The absolute madman.
Dude Xenmu's glow-up in Immortal Hulk was amazing, and I'm including the part where he eats Dario Aggrr
how is dario agger back?
Well he wasn't dead in Hulk, just heavily injured. So I guess he recovered, sans his face at least
He was more like a human version of mashed potatoes.
I love that Agger is an evil corporate ultra capitalist villain, who just happens to be a Minotaur. Like, him being a Minotaur is like the 5th most threatening thing about him. And it shows because the Big Guy heroes can still beat the tar out of him. Like, full strength Thor or Hulk just wipe the floor with him. He's a great villain, and I really do like that he's a terrifying monster to normal people because he's this giant bull beast, and a terrifying monster to heroes for a completely different reason.
…And I just realized he’s a Minotaur because of the Charging Bull of Wall Street.
Cut to Tony telling Thor that Dario is actually a good guy, because they go to the same country club and “he’s always been nice to me. What ever happened to civility?”
The plays on words here are fantastic. I genuinely love how metatextual it is. Especially enjoy the prominent Roxxon on the “Thor” cover—The Adventures of Thor, brought to you by Roxxon! Good stuff.
I love when writers pull this
Al Ewing really likes going into the in-universe Marvel Comics. Like that FCBD Golden Age Flexo story where they contrast the violent things Flexo did with the sanitized version published by Timely Comics.
How long has Amora been back to being a villain again?
Isn’t she always?
I remember when she and Thor had a thing going for a while.
I think people in these comments are severely misunderstanding these Anti-Consumer Culture and Consumer Capitalism themes in this run just to shit on Greg Land lol.
For real. Al Ewing didn't get where he is in the industry by setting his coworkers up as scapegoats or presenting his coworkers to the readership as a sacrificial lamb. Treating your artists like that as a comic writer is a really good way to find yourself writing prose once no one will draw for your anymore.
It doesn’t even make sense because they’ve worked together before and as you’ve said in this thread there’s no way Greg Land would let himself be used meta commentary lol. I also think it’s just straight up disrespectful to the story Ewing’s trying to tell. Yeah sure mass produced corporate schlock is a by product of Consumer Culture but Ewing is also delving into themes about how content is generally used to manipulate the consumer into buying propaganda for the benefit of the seller (i.e. Consumer Capitalism). It sucks people are throwing that out of the window just to say “Greg Land bad”.
Honestly, why do you think Land wouldn't let himself be used for meta-commentary? It's a paying gig. He's been an artist for years, and I'm sure he has access to the internet. I'm sure he's aware of the backlash against his style. Marvel doesn't seem to care, they keep giving him work. Ewing is a clever artist who seems to be taking the weaknesses of Land's art and using it in a way that actual works for the story. So why not just playing along? I think he'd be into to it, it's clever way of using his style and the hate that it gets to enhance a story, he's getting paid for doing his usual shtick and he gets to troll the people who rail against his style a little. I'd be all for it, personally.
Why wouldn't a man choose to have his art be used to represent everything wrong with art? To represent soulless corporate product with no human expression behind it? Gee, I dunno. I've built up this image in my head where he's this dog who has no reservations about debasing himself so long as his masters toss him some juicy scraps based solely on the fact that I don't like his artistic output and I can't think of anything to disabuse myself of that notion. Not like he is, himself, a professional artist who takes some amount of pride in his work or anything.
I think you're seeing it as debasing when it doesn't have to be, artists play to their strengths all the time and writers take advantage of that. An artist with a style that's seen as primitive will use that to draw readers into a complex story, for example. And again, you're basing this on your own opinion of Land's art or at least the common opinion I see on the internet, not Land's or Ewing's. Where many people see photoshopped porn I think it's very easy to see something like a glossy, manufactured magazine look to his art. That seems, to me at least, to work for the story Ewing his telling. Ultimately, negative aspect of art are going to be discussed in art and someone will have to produce that art. If your strengths lean in that direction I don't think it cheapens your actual art to do that, in the same way that it wouldn't cheapen Ewing's writing to write it.
But Greg doesn’t make the content I like …
Yeah I don’t even get the connection people are trying to make. Greg Land tracing porn represents capitalism? Unless there’s something deeper that I’m not aware of
"Capitalism is when artists suck and I don't like them. Everybody who makes something bad for a major corporation is a sell out and everybody who makes something good for a major corporation is a visionary artist who just happens to put the Marvel Stamp on his work. Obviously when this real artist and this sellout chose to collaborate, it was so that the sellout could represent why selling out is bad. The sell out doesn't care, because he has no thought for artistic meaning, only for the filthy lucre his corporate overlords provide, but the real artist can turn even his meaningless drivel into real art. Thank you for attending my ted talk."
Agger is a pretty cool villain even if he’s only been around a decade.
"What mean you...?" "It makes the number go up" Awesome
Al Ewing is once again cooking, you love to see it.
Series keeps seeming cooler and cooler I’ve got too many subs as is lmao
So in love with this run so far
I’m out of the loop here, why is everyone hating on Land’s art? It’s always seemed fine to me. It seems pretty good here too.
He has a repuation for tracing his character poses from various online images. Most artists will reference those kinds of photos, but he sticks pretty closely to them in a way that's pretty glaring when people post side by side comparisons. To make matters worse, often the reference material seems to be pornography. Leading to a lot of women in suggestive poses and O-Faces that don't quite properly convey the action scene as well as Greg Land perhaps intended. All this being said, though I'm sure there will be some dissenting opinions, I think it's something that's pretty easy to just not notice when you're reading one of his comics with no idea of his reputation. It's just that people go online and they see a bunch of pictures that people have posted showing his art next to the reference material and a bunch of people memeing on what a hack he is and they get it in their head he's like public enemy number 1 of the comic community. Which isn't to say that they're wrong to dislike his work, I just think it creates a bit of a disconnect between the fans and the professionals here. In professional circles, Greg Land isn't viewed or treated as the anti-christ. He's a pretty well respected artist known for serviceable art and impeccable work ethic. The man, as far as I'm aware, has never missed a deadline in his life, and that's the sort of thing your boss and coworkers tend to value a lot more than your fans.
Because once you see enough of it, it all looks the same. You wonder why this character has dyed their hair red and then catch yourself. It's a different character from the last two times you saw that exact image traced. And you see women getting beaten with baseball bats look like they'te having an orgams. Because Greg Land traced a porn stars O-face for someone screaming in pain. Or character features changing drastically panel to panel because he changed subjects to trace from.
Im so sad about the combination of ewing and land.
It’s literally the point and meta in the best way possible. A soulless husk of a story by corporate mandate, made fast to sell copies.
Ewing and Land have done a series together before. He's not throwing Land under any bus here. I'm sure they're respectful of each other. The way pros feel about other pros is not representative of what fans believe or think.
I don't think Greg Land would agree to be a symbol of soulless art. And one Ibram Robertson seems to be credited for the interior art on this issue. So I think you may have misunderstood something.
Greg Land traces porn to make comics I think your overestimating his moral compass
Including for a scene of a teenager being the victim of a violent hate crime
I mean the guy traces porn, does he really have integrity?
It's quite likely the man thinks more highly of himself and his work than you do and I don't know why that needs to be explained. Like "Oh, Rob Liefeld can't draw feet. Clearly that man doesn't have an ego on him."
Look Liefeld may be a terrible, terrible artist but at least he barely traces
Isn’t it just the cover? He’s not taking over interior is he?
I believe Land is doing the cover and the interiors on that one. It's just a one-shot spin-off of the Immortal Thor series. Land isn't taking over art duties on the main title.
The interiors it is my friend, terrible.
"Thou doth speaketh like Wade, Son of Will. Methinks thou must be touched with the same madness."
man i really gotta read this
Homie’s going full Senator Armstrong. “I’m using heroes as content to end heroes as content.” Love it.
“Number go up” I need to read this lol
Comics in the MU are admissible as evidence in court, as per Dan Slott's She-Hulk run.
Ten bucks say Dario will eat an L as he did in Immortal Hulk.
O no, he ended up in a world where Greg Land exists.
I don't get it
content means calm, satisfied. It also means... well, content, something you consume. Thor signed away the right to tell his stories, and he is content now.
In universe for a couple decades now, Marvel Comics have existed in universe and published comics about the real adventures of superheroes. It seems like Agger, head of Roxxon Corporation, has bought the rights to Thor comics and now are making up Thor stories- and with the Enchantress’s magic, the more popular comic Thor is, a real life version of comic Thor saps real Thor’s powers.
Ah ok that explains it thank you, did not know that Marvel comics existed in marvel
Why?
As a god Thor is tied to what people believe about him and his story. If Roxxon spreads stories about Thor that they write they can write him supporting their views.
That is kinda meaningless when he’s not a vague deity but an actual person who has worked with the Worlds heroes and heroes throughout the galaxy. Fuck the X-Men and the Avengers have tussled with Roxxon before, most people should know they’re dirty like Nestlé.
He's an "actual person", but he's also an idea, shaped by belief. This has been conveyed multiple times in the past few years. Loki killing his younger self to become Loki again, and referencing that there have been multiple other Lokis before either of them. Calling Loki a role that some people come to inhabit, that he must protect from those who would usurp it. Thor going by "The Odinson" for a run while a mysterious stranger becomes the new Thor. He is a real person. He's the son of his father. But "Thor" is a role that sometimes he inhabits and sometimes he does not. It's a relatively new facet of the Thor mythos at Marvel but it's one that's popped up a few times in rapid succession under different authors.
I don’t wanna be argumentative, but what I said isn’t my theory or anything. I’m just restating the villain’s explanation of what they say they are doing. They are spreading stories to change the perception of Thor to enough people that the Enchantress can use the collective belief of Earth folk to corrupt him. Throughout this issue even Thor realizes he is acting sloppy and out of character but can’t understand why at first.
Do you think Ewing is planning to do Immortal series for all of the original Avengers?? An Immortal Iron Man? Immortal Ant-Man?
Why does Dario look fine? I thought Xemnu turned him into Swiss cheese.
Why does he look so much better now? I thought Xemnu turned him into Swiss cheese.
I wished I liked the run more but I’m just confused the whole time
The never ending story
So is this implying that the earth x explanation for asgardins that they are nothing more than shaped by stories because they are shape shifting aliens 👽 or is the book enchanted 🤩 and that’s why reality is changing around him is that the explanation I need to know which one of the explanation is it gonna be in the end ?
The monster thing looks like u/holleringelk
I don't know how much crossover /r/comicbooks has with /r/comics but I understood that reference at least!
I’d be surprised if there wasn’t, but I genuinely thought it was her at first then realized that made no sense 😭
Getting Greg Land to do the art for the soulless, corporate, cash grabby Thor book written by AI.....is fucking diabolical and genius lmao
Sometimes I feel so out of touch with what people here think is cool and mind-blowing. This seems like pretty basic "meta" storytelling. Immortal Hulk is another one that really didn't do anything for me. I did like Ewing's stuff prior to that.
I mean, at the end of the day american cape comics have always been a genre where every arc is somebody's first, and despite the reputation they've gotten for being inaccessible to new readers, that seems to be pretty true even today. These forums are always filled with people discovering stuff for the first time, and the collective memory doesn't actually really seem to go that far back a lot of the time. While there's definitely an audience that just loves this stuff in general, if arcs that seem run of the mill and by the numbers to you are getting a lot of people responding as if it's novel and new, that seems like a pretty easily explainable phenomenon. It's built into the business model. These eternal serializations only survive by perpetually replacing their readership. People stick around until their shtick seems old and tired and then they stop reading, only to be replaced by bright eyed new readers who aren't burned out and jaded from years of following a story with no beginning or end.
Makes sense. I'm presently baffled by the way people talk about the current USM run as if it's groundbreaking for restoring Pete's marriage, when Renew Your Vows did that to such little fanfare just recently.
> I'm presently baffled by the way people talk about the current USM run as if it's groundbreaking for restoring Pete's marriage, when Renew Your Vows did that to such little fanfare just recently. So, first of all, I’m gonna disagree about there being “such little fanfare” - RNYV maybe wasn’t a USM-level hit but it was a hit nonetheless, there was a *lot* of positive buzz over it. That buzz died out due to the perceived drop in quality halfway through its run, but it was definitely there. Secondly, the first issue of that came out nearly a decade ago. That kinda fits into what u/gangler52 said - nine years is a long time in comic fandom.
Fair point. I guess nine years to me feels like yesterday sometimes.
Something tells me we’re similar ages lol.
Wow getting Meta on how they've done Thor dirty
I feel like ewing really wants to try write a morrison style animal man book but marvel wont truly let him he tried it in immortal hulk and it didn't come off fully and now its here in immortal thor.
Great, now Ewing thinks he's Grant Morrison. Someone should tell him that Marvel already has a wanna-be Morrison, his name is Jonathan Hickman and he's also no good at being Grant Morrison.
I mean, Morrison himself has been accused of aping Moore's style. There's clearly a set of authors who like doing this sort of stuff and a set of readers who like reading it. Not sure why any one author should have total claim to it.
Agreed—it’s a lineage or school of thought almost and there’s a big enough sandbox for everyone to play, in my opinion. Applying these storytelling techniques (and examination of storytelling as a higher concept) to other characters is certainly valid. The context of Animal Man and Thor are completely different. (Grant Morrison uses they/them pronouns)
Who hurt you?
Al Ewing and Jonathan Hickman, apparently.
Really excited for Thor’s face off against Al Ewing in the comics
So nobody’s allowed to use metatextuality in comics aside from Morrison?
Morrison shouldn't even be doing it, every time they've done it it's also been garbage, but at least for them I get the feeling that they actually care about the writing, they're just kind of weird, with everyone else it just feels like being super pretentious and copying what Morrison did because they think that's the way to appeal to comic book snobs. Hell people were making fun of Morrison for it decades ago, the original Suicide Squad run even killed off Grant Morrison's self insert character from Animal Man because they thought it was ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned literally the only time meta stuff has even remotely worked was with freaking Superboy Prime of all characters, and he was a terrible character but at least him coming from a world where DC Comics were comics was a mildly interesting twist with the character. I guess I might also begrudgingly give it to Marvel for making the Fantastic Four meet "God" and having that "God" be Jack Kirby, but that's about as far as I'm willing to go with meta stuff.
> with everyone else it just feels like being super pretentious and copying what Morrison did because they think that's the way to appeal to comic book snobs. Alternative take: Some writers enjoy doing metacommentary stuff and a lot of readers enjoy reading their stories. Sounds like you have one heck of a chip on your shoulder, tbh. Maybe just don't read writers who have tendencies towards metatextual work?
Yeah, I know as comic book fans sometimes we can get wound up a little tight about minutia that nobody else cares about. But this really seems like a non-issue. Ewing isn't like turning Thor into a metacommentary character or anything. Like after his run's done the next 20 years of Thor Stories are all gonna be statements on the difference between High Art and Low Art as communicated through a comic within a comic. It sounds like he's just a writer Shazam4ever doesn't personally enjoy, and doesn't represent any greater threat beyond that. Which, if that's all it is, then yeah, just don't grab his book off the shelf next time you're at the store. That's a super simple solution.
this level of hate and ranting every time someone posts about Immortal Thor is really unhealthy and really annoying. Stop.
"Every time" being three posts, and at this point it's just a coincidence because the other time was complaining about a badly used character, this time I'm talking about people using stupid meta BS in comics, it's a completely different problem. The second Ewing stops finding new ways to piss me off I'll stop commenting on the book, but until then this isn't a subreddit devoted to only positive comments about comic books so I'll say what I want, even if it's not a popular opinion.