GRAND MAGNETO THREAD

[DoomInABox]

Ack! I totally forgot this was a Magneto thread ... (dunno how, having to click on that GREAT MAGNETO link to get here) ... but I didn't mean to derail it or anything, honest! I swear!

I haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Excal 9 yet, but I don't mind the spoilers ... looks like it would have been hard to miss anyway. I'm really enjoying ol' Mags right now ... he's one of the characters Claremont does exceptionally well. I just like how he behaves in Excalibur ... he's trying to do so much to help Genosha, even doing it the hard way. You can tell he just wants to magnetically grab everything and stuff it back in the right place ... but he can't. He's stuck doing small-scale stuff ... it must be so frusterating.

[spoiler] Though that looks like it's about to change, soon ... from the previews I've seen anyway. I wonder, now that Avengers have "disassembled", if Wanda's going to join the cast of Excal? That would be something ...[/spoiler]


Well, here's my reply to your last post anyway ... just to get it out of the way ... next time I'll make a new thread for this sort of thing.

Wow, that was a ton of info about Wendy I din't know before ... I'd imagine you butted heads with a lot of big names while you worked in the comics biz ... you seem like the kind of person who won't bend over backwards when your artwork is concerned. I know the feeling ... I try to draw some of my boyfriend's characters sometimes, and though they look right to me, the way I do hair and clothing and even expressions sometimes just look wrong to him. The furthest I'll go to changing my style is when doing fanart for certain animated shows, or as gifts for their creators.

And uber thanks for offering to check out my art sites! Getting your opinion on my stuff would be great! Though please don't mind all the Nightcrawler and X-Men fan pics hanging around there ... hey, some of the best work is inspired and all that. Oh and if anyone's curious for more info about that self-publisher, I found their website: Konsequential Studios. Like I said, she's kinda my hero. And I agree, being able to say that your stuff actually sells is one heck of a high card to stick in a portfolio.

I have a few TPBs of Elfquest (Skywise is my fav too ... he's just so inquisitive), that a friend bought for me as a gift, and I remember goggling at how unique and detailed the art was ... (might be something of a challenge to put in an animated movie ... maybe that's why she's having problems). They weren't coloured, though ... I'll have to look for some old issues and check out your colouring. Heh, I think the only reason I'd have for staring over someone's shoulder while they worked on my stuff, was if I'd just handed them the one-and-only copy that I'd just painstakingly finished ... I'd be chewing my fingernails off right in their ear the whole time. But I'm in the whole computer age thing now ... unlimited copies and errors undone with just the click of a button. It must be easier on pencilers and inkers to know this.

But what's this about your storyplots being too deep? Some of the Elfquest stories opened up a whole new level of "deep" for me ... there were things that I'd never seen done in a comic book before. Yours must have been massively off the scale. But if it involved Skywise, I commend you. Do you write stuff of your own at all, just for fun if not for anything else? I try all the time, but can never seem to finish ... maybe that's part of the allure of doing a comic book ... an ongoing story.

I don't really know what's happening with the series right now ... my TPBs were published by Warp about six or seven years ago, but that's hardly recent. I remember recently picking up an Elfquest book in a store, seeing different names on the cover and remarking that the art was near to indistinguishable from my B&W paperbacks. Beyond that, no clue.

[Paty]

:mags
well... as you can see, dave and I don't exactly keep the 'ON TOPIC" rule as strictly as others... we're sooooo easy...LOL

the skywise plot that Richard liked involved, if I remember it aright, skywise being injured and actually getting out of his body and exploring the spaceways..acually travelling to the stars, following a voie from the ether that said his place was truely out there. Leetah finally coaxed his spirit back to his body and healed it...and we were left with skywise going out each night to look at the stars and cry.
the other storyline involved the finding of another high one... called Eea. He came with the original settlers who formed the ancestors of the different tribes of elves... and who like some of the Blue Mountain folk, were tall and imposing and very magickal. this one got separated from the others, nearly died and fell into a pocket of wild magick like the one that created any nujmber of big, nasty beasties like the one...Madcoil? that killed Cutter's father. Anywaay, that pocket of bad mgick ended up making Eea a vampire. He needed elf blood to live...specifically, female blood taken at the time of mating. He wiped out a whole tribe before he evolved it enough to live on only a small amount... but it so horrified him that he ran away... sailing over the sea to another continent... an ilsand... where he helped the human inhabitants to evolve faster and with a more advanced civilization and society than their mainland counterparts. but his need for elf blood was still there and he feared that if he came into contact with his own kind ever again, that he would slaughter them... having not had any for centuries. Also at this point, he is wasting away and dying because of that lack. His human servitors and people love him for his gentleness and being the founder of their society... he is kin to a god as far as they are concerned... so two of them go, unbeknownst to him and in violation of his orders, in search of others of his kind, hoping they might have a cure for their "Lord". they end up on the mainland where tales of pointy eared, three fingered monsters in the forests pique their interest. they speak some elvish.... having learned it from Eea...but hide this fact ... along with their reverence for these creatures... from the human folk around them. They go into the woods to find the monster's tribe... and are found by the wolfriders. taken back to the holt, simply because they speak elvish... which is a wonder to the wolfriders...they are brought before Leetah and cutter...who question them on their aims and motives for searching them out. On hearing of another "old one" Leetah and cutter determine to go and try to heal him and establish contact. Of course skywise comes along to protect their back... grumbling about trusting humans all the way. they return with the humans to their ship and sail into the vasdeep sea towards the island kingdom. when they get there, Eea already knows they are coming... against his orders to his humans to try to find others of his kind...because he can smell Leetah's blood. He welcomes them to his island, and tells them they must flee for their lives and not to speak with him again and then goes into his quarters and slams the door...leaving the others wondering what the hell? the humans don't know of Eea's need for elven blood... there having been no other elves on the island...but they do know, because Leetah told them so... that she is a healer and they know their Lord is dying... and they beg her to save him! She agrees. she goes into Eea's chanber to face him down and finds out his terrible secret. to live he must drain her blood while he makes love toher...he has become a monster that kills in the moment of giving life. He wishes to die and to spare the world his curse... which he cannot, to his knowledge, pass on... but which is death to any he could love. At the same time, both he and Leetah, "recognize" each other as good mating potential... which wendy says is not unusual in her elfdom... and which other stories pointed out. recognition just happens...sometimes between lifemates and sometimes between strangers... it doesn't affect the living arrangements of mated pairs... it just brings a special elfchild into the family picture. Meanwhile, cutter, sharing a paychic bond with Leetah, knows something's wrong and decides to crash the party. the humans are staying out of the way of elvish business...wisely... and don't stop them. they bust in and see Eea holding an unconscious Leetah...who has blood allover her. He begs them to take her while she still lives and go. He calls his human servitors and bids them take the elves back to their holt... which they do. On the ship, Leetah comes to herself again and tells cutter and skywise what happened...how they mated and he drank her blood... how Leetah now carries a child of this High one... and how she healed him... but obviously he doesn't know this. Her blood will give him life for centruies more, she says... and hopefully he will realize he is cured...or take the final steps within his own psyche to complete his cure... which is up to him. they go back to the holt. The story edns with Eea sitting huddled in a darkened room , conjuring an image of leetah and crying because he knows he can never see her again...because he doesn't know he's cured and wouldn't believe it if someone told him... but also knowing that her blood has doomed him to centuries more of a lifehe has grown weary of but cannot take other than by letting himself die of starvation... which didn't work due to the love and vigilence of his himan friends and servitors.He's trapped for what he thinks is a loveless and lonely eternity...and he sits in the drkness with Leetah's image in front of him and weeps. And that's how I ended it.
the guys at the offices loved it. I thought it was an OK story. they said the implications of that storyline would and could really inject some really good storylines into the elfworld... and I thought so too. when I asked the staff if they thought Wendy would let me do it, they said"No way! it is too good!"
Hmmmm...OK...I had spoken to Wendy about some of the salient points of the plot and she had said that they were well within the mythos and were interesting and she would like to see a story treatment. so I made the story as good as I could, not wanting to tamper toomuch with established mythos... with subtle nuances and implications and emotional involvement as well as action and character interaction as much as possible. It was a self contained story and basically, except for intorducing a new elf baby... something Wendy had said she was not loathe to do... would not have disturbed the ongoing storylines. All of which the staff agreed with. They all said that Wendy wouldn't use it because it was TOO good! Go figure...

Wendy and I came to a parting of the ways later because of an incident that happened at the office. It was hunting season and I was itching to get into the woods, but I also had to deliver a batch of pages that I had done some coloring changes she had wanted. I went out early, cuz the offices didn't open until nine thirty... and I was in the woods, dressed in my red plaids and hunting boots and such... by five thirty AM. at nine, I came in and drove over to the offices... a drive of about an hour or so...to deliver the pages. then I was gonna go back out hunting for the evening hours until sundown... when you had to quit, cuz among other things you couldn't see what you were shooting at! LOL. so I get into the offices , looking like a giant red teddy bear... and ask if she is there. No... she is out to lunch with a guy from Hollywood whom she is discussing a movie deal with. Now, this guy is a gobetween... not a mover or shaker... he's feeling her out to see how much he can get for how little...they abound in Hollywood...but to wendy he was sa foot in the door.Actually... she had a hot property, and should have gotten herself a good agent to run blocker for her and help her over the pitfalls... owhich Hollywood is famous for. But she was bound and determined to do this herself. OK... so I wait for them to come back. and when they come in, Richard goes to his office and I am standing there in my hunting togs with the pages she wanted to see. I want her to check them over and OK them before I head out. she introduces me to the yoyo and he looks me up and down and what he sees is this little ol' granny lady in red. He doesn't see that they are hunting togs or see the pacs I am wearing on my feet or even the hunting license on my back... all he sees is this little ol lady in red. When I tell wendy I would appreciate if she looked at the pages cuz i wanted to get back into the woods, he asks why? and I say I hunt. He looks at me and says "I don't believe that for an instant." Wendy knows what is about tohappen I think... she gets this "OMG!" look on her face, cuz she knows I do not suffer asswipes lightly. This dodo has just met me and basically, within thirty seconds calls me aliar. I turn to him and ask what kind of idiot is he? A regular one or a flaming one...I vote for the latter. Doesn't he see the hunting gear? doesn't he see the hunting pacs, the license on my back... which had been at one time, turned to him as I spoke to Wendy... I tell him I have personally taken and gutted and dragged out more deer than he has ever seen in his miserable stupid life and if he doesn't make sure his brain is engaged before he puts his mouth in gear here on the EAST coast, he can get his miserable stupid self killed. We aren't as laid back as the west coast...and people on the east coast take offense at being called a liar to their face when you don't know dogshit about the person you are calling aliar. I was hot. If I hadn't had the flu and had been feeling a bit better, I woulda mopped up the damn floor with him. As it was, I just dressed himdown royally...letting himknow this ol granny lady could gut him before he could say another stupid word and would if he tried.
Wendy rushes me into another room ... babbling to the guy to go into the conference room and she would be right with him. She closes the door and proceeds to have a hissy fit jumping up and down and saying the pissant was an important person and all. I told her I didn't think so...he didn't have the look... or the intelligence. He wasn't that important if he didn't know enough not to be as stupid in what he said to people as he obviously was. I mean... I was perfectly willing to be nice until he called me a liar to my face thirty seconds after he met me. So wendy at that time, decided, I guess, that she couldn't control me... something she had never been able todo anyway, ut had tried hard to do. several times, to no avail...and decided not to give me any more work. She didn't tell me, however... saying the next book wasn't ready yet and I would have a week or so until it was... which suited me fine, it being hunting season and me being in the woods most days, anyway. When I checked in with the office later, the office manager sorta strung me along for a while...until I cornered him and asked if the little scene had put wendy off and she wasn't gonna give me any work... and he sorta hung his head and sid yeah... so I said OK...her loss...and didn't blame him, for which he was very grateful... but it wasn't his doing. Wendy went west not long after that, looking to find a movie deal for the elves...Richard stayed on the east coast, putting out the books. To my knowledge, she is still searching out a venue for her property... don't know what Richard is doing with the publishing end...haven't seen an elfquest book for a while... and every time I check Previews, I don't find the imprint or company listed.

Wendy and I butted heads more than once. She loved Hawkeye, I loved the Vision...LOL...she pranced around in her Red sonja suit, pretending to be a warrioress... and I was the one who didn't mind having hot blood running down my arms and who would kill you if you got out of hand... and she knew that. But she wanted the movie deal so much, I think, that she was willing to take a lot of shit from anyone she thought could help her in this. I think if she had laughed and told the guy that he had to watch himself with the creative crew around here... she might hafve gotten a bit more respect from the dodo. As it was, he could see her hunger for a deal and I think he played that fiddle like a pro. I still haven't heard of an Elfquest movie deal... although it would be a very hot property. Of course they would have to deal with Wendy, who controls every facet like an iron maiden.. and that is not really how you get things done in Lala Land. so maybe that's the reason we haven't seen an Elfquest movie... Every once in a while,you hear rumors of "Oh, yeah... Elfquest movie..." then you don't hear anything else... so who knows?
As I said, if anyone knows if they are still publishing I would be interested to hear of it. The whole universe she created had a lot of possibilities...none of which,I think, were completely developed. which is too bad. You only control all aspects of production if you do everything yourself...when you start bringing in other artists, you are gonna have to deal with their "takes" on the characters. their stylistic approaches to art, coloring or storytelling. The only entity that has controlled their artistic representations completely is Disney. Otherwise you just goetta sorta judge where to fudge the boundries between what you want or would do yourself and what you are gonna get from others.Either you can live with it or you can't. Wendy had this problem, that her audience loudly wanted HER art and storylines...but they wanted more books than she could produce herself... so she had to open the gates to other artists and writers and let them into her universe. which was OK... eventually the audience accepted that and gleefully read elf books. It wasn't WENDY... but it was better than nothing. Then, as the artists involved got a handle on the characters and got better and better, it seemed that Wendy didn't want them to be SO successful in replacing her... so you couldn't please her she wanted seasoned pros right at the offices so she could keep what they were doing right under her thumb all the time... and that just didn't work with the artists and inkers and colorists... who preferred to work freelance. It was just a weird setup. I think richard would have mede it work if Wendy hadn't had this "iron fist" policy with regard to the pros she got to work for her. she knew their capabilities.. what their work looked like... and it seemed that she wanted to change their work to mimic her own... but that she didn't want them to be TOO good at it. If that makes any sense. Some of us stood for it... some of us didn't.

But that's that story...LOL...moral: don't dis da witch if you don't want to get handed your head ...or other tender parts...on a platter... fricasseed!

LOL...honestly... I 'm really even natured and good tempered...um...right...heheheheheheheeeee..
Paty
:mags

[DoomInABox]

Hmmm ... I wonder if Wendy felt the pressure of being a female in the comics business? I could undertand if that was why she was so controlling ... she had something good and didn't want anyone to take it away from her. I take your side about the movie guy though ... someone that dumb and judgemental isn't so much 'important' as he trying to weasel his way up there. Methinks maybe he thought Wendy was as much his ticket up as she thought he was. In any case, Wendy seemed to know you well enough that she probably should have seen the whole thing coming a mile away ...

Your story was great, though! It definitely had the feel of an Elfquest book ... a vampire elf. That is an interesting idea ... it sounded very emotional and the characters seemed true to their parts. I wouldn't have minded seeing something like that in Elfquest. The one about Skywise is beautiful too ... I can picture his sad face as he looks up at the sky, knowing but not really remembering. I remember a similar thing happening with the calling back of the spirit ... I think it was when they were looking for the Palace of the High Ones, and One-Eye was killed by trolls. One of the preservers (Petalwing ... I loved those little guys) saw Clearbrook crying over him and wrapped him up in that silk stuff, catching him on the brink of life and death. When Leetah found him later, she tried to heal his body but was unable to convince his spirit to come back ... so they left it wrapped up in case he ever wanted to return. I remember finding that story inexplicably sad, not for One-Eye or Clearbrook, but for Leetah because she actually failed at helping someone and it really shook her up. There was also the sense that she had done something wrong by trying ... I dunno. The Skywise story probably would have felt the same ... would it have been better to let him die and be happy, than to call him back just because she could? Big questions. I think you have some fantastic ideas for writing.

Speaking of good writing, I still need to pick up a copy of Excal 9 ... I wasn't sure at first why I liked the series, except that it portrayed a lot of the real friendship between Mags and Xavier ... that they can actually work quite well together when they want to cooperate. I think now, though, that it's also because of the mesh of old and new cast ... I think I just needed a fresh book with some familiar faces.

[Paty]

:mags
which is, I think, exactly what Chris is giving us. When Dave, Len wein and chris started the new X Men, back in '75... they brought in a whole set of new characters...and a couple of old ones to tie it all together. As it went on, more of the old cast made their appearance and got integrated back into the cast... but the new members made the book more interesting because there were fresh psyches to interact with. you knew how the old characters would act and react... but the new cast was an unknown factor...and that was exciting and opened new relationship possibilities. Chris is a master of interacting characters... it is what he does best... and what Marvel needs more of.
I do think that Mags needs to see more action and hope the thing with Wanda will provide a venue for him to interact with his daughter... we shall see, I guess.
But the subtle touches are one of the things i love about chris's plotting and writing. You can bet that scene change was purposely done to tickle our minds. If you'te not paying attention, it goes right by you...but if you are paying attention, it is a little goose in the mind and you say to yourself..hehehehehheee that's GOOD! Verrrrry good!
I got the first look copy... my comic shop keeps it for me. They KNOW not to lose it or give/sell it to anyone else! THEY don't want to "dis" the witch! THEY know better! LOL
The copy will be out this wednesday. You'll see what i mean.
As far as the Elfquest story goes, I think I found copies of the treatment I sent Wendy, including some copies of some of the art. If i find them again, I will have Dave scan them and let you see... big IF... this place has more crap than the city dump! and that doesn't count what we threw away or lost in the move!!! LOL...
paty
:mags

[DoomInABox]

YAY! That would be awesome! I hope you find them! *crosses her fingers*

Heh, yeah, my comic shop saves stuff for me too ... they have a file system where you put your name down with the list of stuff you want, and they tuck it away for you. 'Scept I'm friends with the owner and he knows me like he knows the cover of Spiderman #1 ... so of his own volition he usually will save stuff that he thinks I'll like ... I'll come in and find six extra titles in my file that I didn't know about before, just because they Nightcrawler on the covers.

Yeah, Claremont was the man ... long time ago, I bought one of the Essential TPBs to get some history on the title, and wound up becoming a total eighties-comics freak and buying nearly every one I could get my hands on. I got so sucked in because that stuff was so different than anything else I'd ever read ... I remember in one the X-Men strolled around my home city for an issue, and I nearly burst with excitement because I could pick out familiar places and old haunts out of the backgrounds. I wouldn't be nearly as big a comic fan if it weren't for those old issue ... huge points of development for nearly every major character. None of them would be what they are today without it. Which makes me anticipate all the more what Claremont has in stock for Excal.

[Paty]

:mags
the boyos at marvel seem bound and determined to ignore Claremont's contribution to the X mythos. I can only think it is jealousy. chris spent seventeen years on the X titles...He CREATED a number of the offshoots from the main title, Uncanny. He CREATED the X Universe that is extant today for the most part. His body of work stands unequalled in the history of the comics industry. He should be treated with respect and deference and he is routinely run over, stomped into the ground and poopoohed as "old fashioned" at that damn company...and the only reason I can see is that no one there can even hope to match his body of work or his effect on the industry... so basically they try to ignore it or destroy it werever possible. they are just that jealous of his writing talent.
sure, chris recycles plots... EVERY writer does that. Look at Stephen King, for God's sake! round and round we go... but claremont, when he's allowed to do what he wants to do is still the best writer they have there...Marvel rose to power and first place in the industry on the back of Claremont's X Men...written without major interference in the seventies, eighties and early nineties. It wasn't until Hardass came in and basically made it so impossible for Claremont to stay...or fired him outright ... that marvel's fortunes began to decline. Now, I am sure that wasn't the only reason, but it was one of the biggies. You cannot discount the effect of corporate raiding and bad management, of puerile and incompetant editorial decisions and other factors. But When you take a thriving fandom and basically boot out the writer they have been following for DECADES, what the hell do you expect the fans to do? when the characters they have been following and are extremely loyal to are so warped by other writers that they are no longer recognizable to you...you are gonna throw down the drekky book with disgust and say "That's IT! I quit!" and take your bucks and loyalties elsewhere.
those children at Marvel are so afraid of Claremont it isn''t even funny. they make sure to undermine what he is doing every chance they get...they don't hype his books like they do other books. If he claws his way back to the top it will not be with any help from editorial or the company, that's for sure.
while Joe quesada may be a nice guy, he surely isn't a good editor in chief. He needs to firmly take a hand and guide the starship Marvel through the asteroid belt of petty jealousies and subversive infighting that is so obviously going on there. He has not done this yet and I am not sure he is capable of doing it. Right now, Marvel is a rudderless ship that sways and yawls with every internet breeze...and you simply cannot be that way. You have to have a set course and the storms of internet babblings must not sway you from your course... you must battle through them. this isn't happening. they swear up and down that they don't listen to internet babble... but it is patently obvious that they do. They go this way...they go that way... Let's try THIS for the bucks... let's try THAT for the bucks. Meanwhile the continuity that the company is famous for...and which is actually written into it's discriiption on the Exchange and federal company registry is being eroded and wiiped out. All of a sudden, continuity and canon, upon which Marvel as a corporate entity is built, is old hat. But you cannot take out a foundation pillar and expect an edifice to stay intact. It is gonna crumble sooner or later... just like the twin towers. It'll hold on as long as possible and then...KABOOM! Marvel's sustaining superstructure is it's canon and contiuity of the shared Universe. Without it... you don't have a coherent presentation to make to the public. And a lot of the mistakes of the past decade have been allowing writers to ignore or actively try to destroy that continuiey. Until management understands this and wkes up and does something about it, you are gonna see the inevitable decay of Marvel's fortunes. They make a horrible gaffe... such as Planet X ...and then have to jump around like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs trying to FIX the mess...when it shouldn't have been allowed to happen in the first place. And if management were smart, they would have fired everybody who willfully exacerbated that mess. The same with Avengers disassembled. I am sure they lost a lot of loyal long time fans on that one... the cry of outrage could be heard across the continent. Sure, the new avengers title is gonna sell well. It's a number one! all number one's sell well. It has Spidey and wolverine...illogically... but thery are there to bring in die hard Spidey and wolvie fans who collect anything that has them in it. If these characters don't stick around,...and logically they simply cannot stay for any length of time, because they are being used extensively in other books and sooner or later you simply cannot have them in two places at the same time and maintain any decent sense of continuity...then,d when they leave, the fans of those characters will probably go with them. Marvel is banking on those fans being so enthralled with the book, that they will stay on...but fans are tricky... sometimes they will and sometimes they won't. The asswipes at Marvel took a big chance with disassembling a cornerstone of the Marvel empire. first they monkied with the X titles... to their detriment. then they tinkered with Avengers. At the same time, they devolved relationships and beloved characters in SpiderMan. What next? the FF? Thor's book was cancelled and Asgard wiped out, or so I hear... so where does that familiar character go? And what happens to continuous publication copyrights and trademarks and merchandising revenue? there is a lot of merchandist out there on the characters. if you discontinue the books and disaffect the fans of these characters and they leave in disgust, do you think they are gonna buy merchandise on a character they no longer follow cuz it's not a characterization they know and like? Not on your tintype they won't! Fans aren't like cockroaches! there aren't unlimited MORE where they came from any more! there is simply too much entertainment possibilities out there these days.
Marvel better wake up and start realizing this.
I can well understand Chris's early stuff hooking you in and making you a fan. He did that to hundreds of thousands of readers. He tells a good story and makes you care about the characters with out all the sex and violence of some writers. He involves you in the lives of his characters and you care about them and want to follow them wherever they go to see what is gonna happen to them. He makes them real to you, while maintaining their core personalities... and developing those core personalities in such a realistic way that you think of the characters as real people. That's his talent. It is what a really good writer does. But it takes time. You cannot do it over a two year stint. while you can grab someone's interest with an interesting story to keep them you gotta have characters they like and come to KNOW... and that takes years and years of careful character building. That's something a lot of these guys don't understand... and don't WANT to understand or even acknowledge... cuz they know THEY can't do it.
I do believe that if Marvel would back Chris up, let him dohis thing fereely and with the kind of support he got in the seventies and eighties, that marvel's star would rise again. But I am not gonna hold my breath or hope to hang for the time it takes management to realize this. Perlmutter really needs someone to grab him by the ears and say "Listen to me, you dodo... or you are not gonna have anything worth sinking your money into or anything left to leave to your kids!!! Wake up and learn something about the biz... or at least take a long hard look at the last five years here, and try to deduce what has gone wrong... cuz it HAS gone wrong!"

that won't happen, either. Oh well... here we go round the mullberry bush one more time... the seventies and eighties stories are still the best because the characters were not only real people but they were heroic... something the modern day writers don't have a clue about.Oh... let's make them MORE like real people... but to do that we have to destroy their heroism... their ideals... PTUI!
I am glad they are still publishing the trade paperbacks for folk who, like yourself, want a little history, buy one and get sucked in to their stories. It does give me a little bit of hope for the fandom of the future... cuz those stories and characterizations were the best. with any luck at all, some of these fans will say"Hey, this is good stuff.. what is this writer doing today?"
Marvel needs a little luck...it doesn't have any intelligence plotting it's course. Course? what course? We don' need no steenking course!!!
OY!

Paty
:mags

[DoomInABox]

The difference between Claremont's recycled plots are just that: they're usually HIS plots, and he usually knows what he's done with them and what still left to be used in a different way. I remember Garock, the Petrified Man in the Savage Land, coming back more than once in unrelated storylines, as both a foe and an ally (though I don't quite remember, I could be mistaken). It's why I'm not upset in the least about [spoiler] Psylocke coming back[/spoiler], because it was Claremont's move to kill her and it's his call if he wants to play with that. I've noticed he usually leaves openings if he ever decides to go back on the death of a character (ie: Jean Grey in the stasis egg after Pheonix). I never mind that ... heck, I love it, it makes the whole thing tie into itself in one ever continuous story. It's just when you get these stories that are "Heroes fight miscellaneous villian in location number three and good guys win in the end. Yay." there's something brutally lacking. It's been done a thousand times. Whoopee.

Fans are fickle people to please ... the younger ones make up the majority, and they want the action-explosion comics their parents are iffy about letting them read. You know, the kind of comics that make your teacher say "oh, that's not either WRITING or ART ..." and then confiscate them all on that basis. Comics are supposed to be a mesh of the extremes of both, good art and beautiful story. There are some issues that stand out in my mind as truly emotional stories ... the Unlimited where Wolverine is having a drink in Psylocke's honor and remembering what she meant to him. The Wolverine issue narrated completely by Electra with no other dialogue, only pictures as she tells a story of her childhood while she watches out for feral Wolverine. Many of the Classic X-Men vignettes by Claremont, dealing with the personal issue of each character and villain, the things they tuck away from the light of day. You can never say things like that are examples of anything poor.

I'm noticing less of this ... it's being replaced by more and more things done just for shock value than to get a good story. Something to make the fans go "NO!?" and press their noses against the page. Planet X was rivetting to read, learning that Magneto wasn't really dead and that Logan and Jean were having a "moment" while flying into the sun ... but then Mags was suddenly on drugs, killing stuff and blowing stuff up and making speeches no one listened to for some reason. I was like, "that CAN'T be Magneto". Pheonix biting it was the final click ... my first thought was "ten bucks says she'll beat them home" ... killing Pheonix, of all people, is the wrong way to elicit shock factor. I did NOT like the fact that "Magneto" was so eager to brutally kill all his foes, like it was his purpose ... I remember Mag's shocked face in Uncanny one-hundred something when he learned Jean had died that very first time ... no matter how many times they fought each other, it was never his all-consuming wish that his foes die, only that they stop impeding him. That, to me, was the real Magneto, the one who cared for the person though he was forced to fight the hero. I know I laughed and cheered when I read the first two issues of Excalibur ... the real Mags was back!

There are some writers who can just do these things better ... Claremont is one, and there are many others. Claremont's history with the X-Men will tie him to the series no matter how hard anyone tries to forget about him. I know that REload made me the happiest fan ever ... Claremont and Davis, both back on Uncanny. It seemed like something was right with the universe. I had an argument with a friend who was less pleased ... he said Claremont's stuff was too angst-ridden. I told him he was mistaking angst with emotion. Angst is when a character sits and mopes around, moaning "Oh, my life sucks, I love him/her but he/she doesn't love me back and being a hero is so lousy I have to do all this icky stuff and oh, woe is me ...". Angst is when they complain about it, but ti's never resolved. No matter much Claremont's heroes like to talk about their feelings, there's usually resolution or at least closure in one way or another. I was outraged when I read Secret Wars I and realized that Shooter had blatantly KILLED the relationship between Kitty and Piotr by making Colossus fall in love with Zsaji (a character who was about as developed as her ability to speak English) ... but did Claremont roll over and let it die? No, he turned it one of the best themes I've ever seen, that people's emotions are often out of their control. I remember Kitty crying in Ororo's arms because she still loved Peter, but she couldn't hate him because she understood completely how he felt, and knew it wasn't his fault. It tore her up so much she had to leave the team, but when she came back, she and Peter remained friends. Sure, sometimes some stories can seem like bottomless plotholes, looping over themselves again and again with no resolution ... no one can produce perfect works all the time, but I'll still take Claremont's writing over all the generic fight-explosion comics.

[Paty]

:mags
Oh, absolutely. and the Uncanny issue you mentioned was 150. dave drew it. and I have the very page on my wall that shows Mags reacting to the news of Jean't death. It is one of only three original X Men pages we have left. the other two are from the same issue and show Storm finding Mags asleep in the upper reaches of the citadel. Sleeping Magneto is one of the sexiest things I think I could imagine...yum...
Uncanny 150... the one where chris began to develop Magneto as something more than just a mindles, snarling villain. that issue marked the introduction of Magneto as a rational adversary with a purpose we could identify with and a background and history we could commiserate with. He went on to explain how this change came about in a very logical way using stories in canon that set up scenerios that were both viable and reasonable. They explained this monumental change in his behavior...and they explained it well. Chris knew he had to do this... it was logical that he do this... and he did it Subtlely over a period of years...so it wasn't just a six year old saying"And then THIS happened... and then THAT happened..." like a couple other recent writers have done. He interjected the information into other stories as they unfolded. then, knowing that Hardass was gonna force him out, he did the explosive X Men 1, 2, 3 that told us the real and heretofore hidden reason for the physical change that preciipitated the emotional change...and, of course, the behavioral change.
this is the whole development that Hardass and crew and, later, Morrison tried desperately to ignore or destroy . this is the change that made the character a real person to many readers. Uncanny 150 was the beginning of one of the deepest and most interesting characters in comics history...and the damn little rats tried for over a decade to destroy that....thought they had succeeded with Planet X... until it blew up in their kissers like an exploding cigar! sometimes more is not better!BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA
Now we have the REAL, claremontian Magneto back... also thanks to Avi Arad and the movieverse... which established for good and all, Magneto's connection to the Holocaust and his Jewish heritage.
Now, some modern writers and readers have a problem with this...but we notice that they don't seem to have a problem withwolvie... who was an adult in WWII so is older than any of us know...and who has never seemed to raise this bullshit issue of age... he just segues through history... as a good superhero should do. If anyone wants a reason for the longevity...it is right in the mutant genome...it lets you reach maturity... the peak of your form and then if you age at all, you age so slowly it doesn't make any difference...and if you seem to age suddenly, it is probably your power draining your resources and you will look fit and hale again after a good seventy two course meal! It's that simple. Batman was an adult when he first appeared in the thirties...so logically,Bruce wayne is pushing a hundred... but he's not. that's how mythic figures ARE. You don't try to hold them to a specific era...Sure, maybe having a childhood in Auschwitz ties Magneto's youth to that historical event and gives his actions a basis for their irrationality... but once his mutant power manifested, it kicked his physical being into the mutant...immortality factor...If they would establish something like that as a given for the Marvel Universe, they would save themselves a whole batch of readership disbelief and convolutions trying to resolve timelines.
And the canon nutballs DO that! They fash themselves silly trying to work out this aspect or that one of a character's age and place in history. Of course, history marches on, stopping for none and comic timelines have to keep up or get terribly dated. But you want the characters you know... stopped in time... to go along. So they should establish something like "once you reach maturity as a mutant, the mutant genome will keep you there... at the heighth of your power." Now THAT would really piss off humans... who grow old and die. I mean... not a fear of the overt powers... but a rage at the longevity or immortality of the hated mutants. And the only way they can really die...or even grow appreciably older... is by trauma... being killed. and, of course, some, like wolvie, even have that beat. Falling into the sun, yeah... that might do it...LOL but damn little else.

It would be interesting to find out that wolvie was the basis for all the werewolf legends of old Europe. this, before adamantium,of course... but then, we know, in the wake of X Men 25, that he has bone claws when he is without his metal enhancement.... that the metal claws are actually adamantium enhanced and coated bone claws that, when shattered, have a phenomenal regrowth factor. But that's WOLVIE! LOL

Claremont still tells the best stories if you want stories deeper than the mindless mudpuddles we have been recently fed . Well... recently is relative...It is amazing to me that it is over a year since Planet X shat it's vile presence upon the Marvel Universe. It seems like only yesterday that we were outraged and disgusted so much...It is difficult to let something that vile go by the board. It's sorta like the Holocaust it mimicked and desecrated... if you don't remember, you will be doomed to repeat it... and that is just not imaginable... at least to me. Avengers Disassemble came close to the same feeling...not quite as bad, but proposed, i am told by the same Hardass clone, Millar. sure, the writer and the editor will take it in the neck for that storyline, but the real proposer of the abomination was, we are told, Mark Millar. And, apparently, there was a lot of protest that got shouted down and steamrolled because of Millar's power at the offices.

Quesada better watch his step... Millar probably wants his job. and Quesada is a nice guy... and historically, nice guys get their heads handed to them. I shudder at a Marvel headed by Millar...it would be wholesale slaughter. and it is inconcievable to me that Marvel management is not able to see this. Maybe it is a "can't see the forest for the trees" kind of thing. To close proximity and not enough knowledge of the "trees".

Anyway, Excalllibur is moving right along... number nine comes out today, I believe and it is very interesting...in the best Claremontian tradition.

Paty
:mags

[Paty]

:mags
Gee... we have been awfully quiet lately, haven't we? Here I just picked up Excalibur elven...I love the way Lopresti draws Mags with his shirts/costume off...LOL...yum!
I was a bit worried through issue s nine and ten because Mags zipped off to rescue Wanda... appeared to the Avengers in the freakin Morrison isues costume! Talk about stupid! but that is probably editorial mucking about with Claremont and making him set up their House of M thing.
Y'know, it amazes me... they cannot leave him alone with that character. Morrison gets exclusive rights to the character for TWO freakin years, does NOTHING with him for all of that time then brings him back to trash him in a puerile temper tantrum of a story. So the fiaxco needed to be fixed and Chris got the character to rehabilitate and bring back and wipe out the character's participation in the disastrous Planet X. and they don't even give him a year to do this! they gotta screw with it as soon as possible.
Now, the X universe that these boys are playing with and in wouldn't BE there for them to muck around in if Claremont hadn't spent seventeen years CREATING IT! X Men was dead in the water until Len, Dave and Chris brought in the new team and revamped it. Then, with numerous artists, Chris carefully built the X Universe.
No one there can hope to match his body of work or creativity... you would think that he would be shown some respect in the offices...wouldn't you? Nope...there's none that we can see. They don't support his books... they grab off his characters and do whatever they want with them without a by y'r leave...witness House of M...and he has to change his storylines and timelines to match their little plans. they don't change theirs tomatch HIS timelines or plots...
The most recent issue is a case in point. It was never Claremont's way to jolt us with "Three months later..." or "Six months later..." especially if the story happening within those three or six months was worth telling. Xavier's working with wanda,the happenings in Genosha, all the fallout of the last couple of issues...that story needed telling... but to match up with House of M ...I am sure... Claremont was forced to wipe out six months of story time.
Now I don't believe that nothing happened during those six months. sure, Xavier worked with Wanda... Callisto's ars started growing back...big whoop. Other things had to have happened... the kind of things we have seen in former issues. Where are the space pirates? what happened to the starving children... and the growing season? What kind of rehab was going on on the island? Is there still a blockade?..which never made any sense at all.... you go in and help find and rescue survivors of a national disaster...don't you?
For trying to be "realistic' the whole scenerio after New 115 was unreal...no world reaction...and when there was reaction, it was botched so badly it couldn't even have been labled "fantasy" much less "realistic".

So when I ssee Claremont doing stuff like "six months later..." I know that editorial is jerking him around...again. It's too obvious. And there can be only one reason... "come in line with house of M or else."
Yeah... that's a guess. I'm not there in the offices. But people who are have posted salient facts that give credance to my own guesses based on what I know of internal politics and how Marvel bullshits the readership.

OK... so will there be an Excalibur published during the House of M tenure? No? We hear that there will be a hiatus of the book during the House of M tenure. What a way to kill a book. Glomoff the major characters for this storyline and of course they cannot be seen in a book they have been starring in at the same time... I maean Xavier and Mags arenn't the Multiple Man like Wolverine, who can apparently be seventeen different places at once..and that doesn't even count his stupid stint in the Avengers. wolverine...and Avenger... RIIIIIIIGHT... guess they have to have a house "jerk" now that Hawkeye's dead...might as well be a wild card like Wolvie...doesn't leave him much time to be all the other places he has to be, does it? Logan as Mr. Goodwrench...everywhere...

What I am most concerrned with, of course, is Magneto. Speculation on the net is that the House of M will probably throw him back in to the guise of villany...protecting his daughter... and, of course, it would be the perfect ploy to get him closer to where some of the wretches at marvel want him...ratbastard villany. Can't leave him to Claremont, can they? Claremont might make him really likable...he is doing a good job of it so far. I guess there aren't enough villains in the Marvel stable to fill in... which makes Morrisonn's killing of him really stupid. I mean, if you NEED Magneto to be a ratbastard, then why kill him? Really good villains are hard to come by...right? So of course... kill him! right... that makes no sense at all. So if he was expendable by beheading, why cannot he be brought back as a conflicted adversary? He has to be brought back... he is in the third movie, from all our information...at least all the major players have been signed, including Ian McKellan. so why cannot they leave him alone and let Chris have at least as long with the character as RBM had. Of course, Claremont will do interesting things with him... and Morrison didn't. He did horrible things... but they weren't interesting...they were just horrible, disjointed and lame.

so I am gonna enjoy what Chris is doing with Mags, and drool over Mags in a tank top until my salivary glands dry up...and I will buy House of M... but if they trash him again, I am done. I've had it! Keep him interesting, and complex, I'll stick with the books. Trash him again and I'm gone and I will encourage every other reader who loves the Claremont magneto to be gone, too.
Now, I have heard a rather nasty rumor ... and the Morrison mindslaves are jumping for joy because they think they are gonna make this Mags thePanet X Mags...which they simply can't and save any face at all...or maintain the trust of their readership. I really hope this one is an unfounded rumor, but Marvel has done stupider things... they printed Planet X and the Future arc, didn't they? Can they get any stupider than that? Unhappily, it seems that marvel can outdo itself with stupidity.
sooner or later it has got to catch up with them.

[Diablo]

Well, this "six months later" insert is really odd...
It appears in the middle of the story, and nothing has really changed... It sure is a way to relate Excalibur to wathever they're planning in House of M.

I've heard no rumors, so I'll wait... afraid for Magneto, as usual, LOL.

[Nightcrawler ZERO]

Bendis has a new interview concerning "House of M" on Newsarama.... and Magneto is dicussed in one section of it:

http://www.newsarama.com/Marvel/HouseofM/Bendis_HoM.htm

The stuff about Quicksilver is pretty interesting, as well...

[Paty]

:mags
thanks for the link, NZ...went and read it. I am still not sanguine about the hints about the Magster.I just don't trust Marvel on this character... they have screwed him over too many times in the past twelve or so years. there is so much good characterization that could come out of this, but I don't expect anything good. this is the boyo that gave us Avengers Disassembled, after all. He doesn't want to step on anyone's toes...right...so if Excalibur and Astoishing are going on hiatus for the duration of House of M, why aren't New Avengers and SpiderMan...or any of the other major characters books?
Ok...Joss might not care...in fact, might even welcome this hiatus, since it would free him up to do other things...but Claremont's stories on Excalibur are gonna take a big hit. It bodes not well. chris isn't saying anything but that he is cooperating..but is he cooperating under duress vile? How does he REALLY feel about his major character, Magneto, being yanked out from under him just as he was doing good and interesting things with him? He isn't saying anything... but then... he cannot. writers at marvel have contracts that say they can't bitch about anything... on pain of lawsuit. Even if he hates what is happening, he cannot say anything but good comments.

The Scarlet Witch was always my alter ego... precipitating some interesting feelings, since I got the hots for Mags... who is her father...LOL. the yoyos have never let her control her power... she started out as a Stan lee girl... helpless, unable to control her power and led around by the nose by her brother...eg, strong male. PTUI! Roy Thomas wrote her well... gave her strength and tranquility and a modicum of control of her power. But her power was potentially great... and the greater it got, the more they wrote her as a weak sister...and, I am sorry, that was so wrong. Now, the yoyos are at it again...blame it on the woman's weak mind and inability to control anything... shit! It sounds like the damn victorian males who told women they couldn't even breathe without a male telling them to. Nauseating.
Oh, I will read this thing... and if it IS good, I will say so. If it is drek, I will say that, too. I would like to think that someone at marvel has a professional bone in their body... but I dispair of it. Hope I am wrong. I would love to be wrong... but I ain't holding my breath...or hoping to hang until a professional thought shows it's literary head.

Paty
:mags

[Entropy]

Paty,
I have no idea what to think about the upcoming House of M, although i do harbour doubts, but at least some of the art looks good. Scroll down to get a look at Magneto (i't's so regal it has to be Magneto and not Quicksilver) in royal attire.


http://www.newsarama.com/Marvel/Houseof ... ouseM2.htm

[Nightcrawler ZERO]

Originally posted by Entropy
Paty,
I have no idea what to think about the upcoming House of M, although i do harbour doubts, but at least some of the art looks good. Scroll down to get a look at Magneto (i't's so regal it has to be Magneto and not Quicksilver) in royal attire.


http://www.newsarama.com/Marvel/Houseof ... ouseM2.htm

Magneto is the King of Spain!!

[Paty]

:mags
Mags can be the King of anything he jolly well pleases when he looks like that!!!Damn that's fine!
Geez...talk about swiping!!! i mean the least they could do was change the flippin' back ground! or the medal spread on his chest!Obviously the artist didn't think people would notice the swiipe! Obviously the artist doesn't understand the thoroughness of the comic fan community.
I'll tell ya... I believe that to some of these "pros" the fans are just nerds and geeks and mindless to boot... so you donn't even have to camoflage your swipes! and you certainly don't have to worry about telling a coherent or viable story!
I wish I could be positive about House of M... but the fact that as soon as Chris started to do interesting stuff with him, they had to yank Mags away from Chris and make him villainous again bodes not well. If they take this opportunity to make him into a rat bastard again...or, worse, give validity to that abberration in Planet X...I and a shitload of loyal fans are gone.

Marvel writers seem to think that playing games with the readershiip is the be all and end all of being a pro. they have already disaffected huge blocks of once loyal readers...a source of income they won't realize until it is no longer there. The thirty year followers of certain characters were their "bread and butter account". Every business needs a bread and butter account ... loyal customers that will follow you ...almost... anywhere. You cater to those people... they buy your product. when they are happy, they introduce the joys of comics to their children and grandchildren...when they are not happy, they leave...taking their bucks with them. The writers and child editors do not seem to realize this. This is, after all, the business end of the biz... and not the creative end..so they don't concern themselves with it. but the management should understand about loyal customers. apparently Avi Arad tried to tell them about the importance of the customer base... not the saswipe fanboys... but the customers that have been there for decades.
No one wanted to listen..they are too busy being avant guarde....cutting edge...and the people who have been hanging on, hoping against hope that some kind of sanity will take over... and not seeing it happen... are gonna finally leave. I know that if they bash Mags again, I will. I will read other books... other companies... they are out there. there are other characters and books that I will buy... but not Marvel...not if they do what I think they are gonna do.
Y'know, Mags has always been a tough cookie...and the backstory Chris gave him tells us why. chris gave him pathos...you could understand where he was coming from even if you didn't like what he was doing. He was single minded and had a point that a lot of people could identify with... and which had validity. why these children want to return him to the mindless villain of the Lee/Kirby era when even Stan himself says what Chris did was good and made the character so much more viable as an interesting character is beyond me. Marvel has so many cookie cutter villains, that one with complexity and charisma is a wonder to behold and a pleasure to read...when written with finesse.
Of course, these children do not understand finesse, much less have any. they jump around like long tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs telling everyone how smart and creative and savvy they are... and they aren't...or they would recognize the value of the character and build on it...not tear it down at every turn.
Oh, I am masochistic enough to buy House of M... but it may be the last Marvel series I buy. Excalibur is going on hiatus during the HoM run... so is Astonishing. now, I can see that joss whedon might like a couple of months off to catch up on other stuff he is doing, but I know chris still has stories with Mags to tell... but when the HoM is over, will everything he has tried to do in Excalibur be destroyed? will Excalibur even be back? They say so... I don't believe them... and I don't believe they will give chris back a magneto that is recognizable or that he can continue to do stories with...not like he had been trying to do.
Marvel has lied to us once too often and expected us to swallow the crap they put on our plates...and the older fans are getting fed up. I have a number of correspondents that have left... not because of Mags, but because of what Marvel has allowed to be done with other characters that they valued and followed for decades... and would have continued to follow if the characters hadn't been gutted and so changed that they could no longer recognize the character they once loved. In the name of "cutting edge" characters are being destroyed right and left...and you simply cannot DO that and expect to retain your loyal readership. and the loyal readership is the "bread and butter account".

According to SEC readouts, Perlmutter has dropped a block of Marvel stock, retaining only about twenty five percent of the stock. Avi Arad has dropped another block of his holdings and gone from seven percent to three and a half percent or so...and Avi Arad has formed his own company separate and apart from Marvel to make adventure films. Maybe there's a trend here...sinking ship syndrome and all??? If marvel mamagement cannot control the writers and editors of the books and they continue to lose loyal readers, Marvel will go under. Perlmutter and Ared and a few others, turned Marvel around from bankrupcy to viability... but they are divesting their stock... why? You don't leave a healthy company. Unfortunately, there is a cancer in Marvel that has been growing for years and has burst forth in pustules such a Planet X and Avengers Disassemble... and it may be that the patient is doomed... so git while the gettin's good may be the smart thing to do.

I dunno...I am not sanguine about House of M.. I am fearful about what they are gonna do to Mags... no matter how regal he looks there in that art...swiped from the King of Spain...LOL...geez.. amazin'! Y'know, once upon a time I took a shot from a muscle magazine of , I believe , Jack Zane... a Mr. Universe for several years...terrific bod and he had the right "look" for Mags. I painted his hair white and used the transparent Dr. Martins to paint a red and purple costume on the magnificent Bod.. and Damn of it wasn't Mags. In the flesh... yummy and delicious! and with a real, human body! Looked a lot like the pix from Newsarama... only in the classic Magneto costume... but it worked! Even Dave thought it worked! That was a decade ago...or better...nowadays, people "morph" photos on the computer to do anything they want with a fave character.. give them any body they want...in photo realism. LOL...And that pix of Mags looking regal...well, yeah, considering who it was swiped from... does not fool me....I still don't trust Marvel. Hope I am wrong... but don't expect to be.
Paty
:mags

[BH123]

Originally posted by Paty

Wendy and I came to a parting of the ways later because of an incident that happened at the office. It was hunting season and I was itching to get into the woods, but I also had to deliver a batch of pages that I had done some coloring changes she had wanted....

Paty, perhaps you should write a book about your experiences working for Marvel, andf your views on what took place there during that time period. Based on your posts here, I imagine that it would be a memorable, revealing read. Serious suggestion, I kid you not!

[Paty]

:mags
OK...it is over a month later... and Nightscrawlers is back online...sigh.. does anyone know what happened? Why did we get kicked offline for weeks at a shot?

I will not write a book on marvel or anything else. If you want marvel stories... or even Paty adventures, you will have to come to Cockrum corner...LOL...

Now for the bad news. As I figured, Excalibur is cancelled. Not because it was not selling enough... cuz it had stabilized and under Moore's editorship was rebounding from a slump... but because there are nefarious deeds going on at marvel.
Marvel editors got together and came up with House of M, expanding an idea tha Bendis threw out to resolve the Avengers Disassembled mess, which was proffered and pushed into canon by Mark Millar. Bendis is being used. He is a tolerably good writer... but the factions tha cannot stand Magneto being jewish and a Holocaust survivor are gonna use house of M to change reality around Magneto... and use it to strip him of that background that Claremont gave him back in the eighties. Scutlebut is that they also want to disassociate Captain America from WWII also... which is ludicrous, since he belongs to that era and his powers stem from that era. Something about them wanting characters not tied to specific historical events..right!
It is just another move in the ongoing war to take away Magneto's heritage. These children have done something so unprofessional it boggles the mind. They have ripped away star characters from a proven and respected writer to destroy them and not give them back in any usable form. If Claremont is being offered another book after House of M, it is a sop to him and his many fans... so they won't look like the vandals they are.
the whole house ofm storyline stinks. it's blame the woman time again... the same old thing... women cannot control gret power! They wish! Their ploys are transparent and noxious. They have had the balls to say that "when the fans scream, we know we are doing something right."
Now, I ask you... isn't that gall? They can't lose! We like what they do, thy win... we don't like it and yell that we don't like it from the rooftops... they win! Geez! is that two year old thinking or what?

Marvel is gonna drive away all the older loyal readers and I hope they go under. I really do. Any company who is so callous with it's valuable characters, deserves to go down in flames. And would be headed down the tubes right now if not for the success of the movies... which are based on the very universe and characterization they are striving to de construct!
DOWN IN FLAMES, MARVEL!!!

I hear from an interview, that the new director on the X3 film is gonna shake up the audience... so here we go, kiddies...he wants to hear the fans scream and cry and yell, too...that's what HE said...I fear for the characterization to come in X3!
But, y'know... if it is bad, the movie will fall flat on it's face and maybe wake up some people. that won't save magneto from the depravaty of the current crop of so called editors and their little pawns, the writers, though.
I will read House of M... and if it does what I fear, then I will never buy another X title...unless written by Claremont, whom I suspect they are trying to drive out... again. I am sick of these ratzis. they and their machinations are so transparent that it is a wonder that Bendis is duped by them...after all, he IS jewish, too. sorta the ol' "Oh, surely you don't mean to push me into that oven...Ihelped you..." syndrome here. Bendis will ook back on his participation in this pogrom with horror one day... if he has a mind and a soul. But I hold no hope for him to see or be able to do anything decent with House of M. the ratzis are in the ascendant at marvel.
Everything will be fixed in the way they want it... and their politics have been apparent the past thirteen years.
It's too bad. Marvel was once a company of heroes. Now, they are all pathetic... thanks to the little minds and british lairds that hate the American heroic comic book character. Shalow writing and stupid characterization... and we are supposed to swallow it. Sorry... not me. If House of M shits on Mags, removes or warps his backstory and turns him into a mindless raving ratbastard... I am GONE! And I urge everyone here of like mind to be gone, too...and to write and tell the owners of marvel WHY!
As for the treatment of the man who gave marvel the X universe to play in... Chris Claremont... their treatment of him is nothing short of scandalous and totally unprofessional...not to mention totally transparently jealous. It is appalling! and they think the fans won't notice. Well, they twelve year olds might not notice, but anyone with a reading IQ over forty will notice and should openly voice their opposition to this treatment of an icon in the history of comics. No one in the history of comics has had major characters ripped from him to be destroyed by other writers like what was done to Claremont in Excalibur...for House of M!!! that was WRONG!!!
sure, Chris "cooperated"... he has a family to feed and he doesn't want to lose Uncanny... which is their final aim. Chris didn't complain loudly as others have done... no. that is not his style. but that is how they were able to undermine him and put him against the ropes with regards to mags...and Xavier.
Ladies and gents, you are witnessing the eend of honesty and integrety at marvel Comics. the editors tell you one thing... swear on a stack of bibles that it is so...and it is lies that they sneer at the fans for believing when the lies are made manifest. Bendis said in open forum that he would never take another writer's characters... he lied through his teeth. Witness the pulling of Xavier and mags fromExcalibur.. and since they will be unusable when House of M finishes, in any form that Claremont could use to continue Excalibur, they cancelled the book. OH, sorry... they put the book on hiatus for the duration of HOouse of M and it would be back in the fall...NOT!!!
Liars and cheats. And for this we spend our money? For this treatment of both us fans and the writers we value, we support Marvel with our bucks? Not ME any more... not after House of M.
Yeah... I will give marvel a chance to prove me wrong and redeem itself.. but I will not hold my breath or worry about having to eat my words...I am just that sure of their perfidity.
Sorry that on this thread I have to announde the death of the REAL magneto... but i fear that this is what is really gonna happen... cuz the one after House of M won't be the REAL one any more than the one in Planet X was. And that one didn't bear any resemblance to Magneto!

That's just how it is...people... I , for one, am gonna boycot Marvel. I am not gonna boycot comics, cuz there are plenty of other comics out there.. but I will not buy Marvel after House of M. And that's the saddest thing I have ever had to confront.
Sorry...
Paty
:mags

[kladyelf]

Aaah I'm online again! *runs around madly glomping anything that moves* It's Time for Random Thoughts!

Heh, random thought for the ubiquitos (sp?) Wolvierine he has a cloning machine or he's actually an ancestor of the Matrix's Agent Smith - for those poor unfortunates who like me forked out cash to watch the last Matrix movie....anyone remember that scene with Neo Vs an entire city of Smiths?

Regarding Mags in royal attire - oooh it is nice even if it is a copy of a real person's picture... I wonder if Marvel thinks that his Highness would be flattered? gaaah,

And if no one minds my non-mags related gripe - on the same page as his royal magneticness - what is it with the Hulk picture? why the caveman look? and why does the woman* on the bottom of the picture look like she has a third breast? (Or is that just me? ... nah... there is definitely a three buhzoomed woman in that pic - the vision of loveliness syndrome taken a step further...) :p

* (who on further examination is someone called Scorpion... so what that means for the spiderman villain i have no idea)


My thoughts on the "6 months later" part is that it could have been dealt with in a two page splash (one if you're stingy... but i think a 2 pager would be ok) saying something like -
"The next six months seem to blur together, negotiations with the factions of survivors on Genosha... [accompanied by a picture of Charles, Erik, Unus and others around a table, arguing]
Organising crops and water for survival [here there could be a picture of mutants using their powers to farm and dig wells - dancing in an upsurge of water coming from the ground]
Dealing with internal matters ... [picture of magistrates being made to work on farms with a sign saying "community service" somewhere]
Defending Genoshas shores from external threats... [insert random pictures of fights with more magistrates and um troll things]
And tending to the ill and injured... in body and spirit ... [picture: field hospital filled to bursting, with a random "doctor" mutant looking at Callisto's injuries, Charles at a microscope, looking tired and an equally tired-looking Mags holding a weeping, distraught Wanda*]

(However a shallow treatment allows for quick shallow reactions meh)

I havent really seen much of house of M except for a preview, so i'm withholding my opinion there, - what I like is that Wanda is at least reacting to what happened in dissasembled - but what I don't get is Xavier telling her that she never had kids! I remember reading about her getting married, having twins and then something happening to them (involving Kang or somebody, I forget) so what is all that about?

Actually House of M isn't that unique as Wanda (according to an Avengers issue somewhere in my collection...) did flip out a bit and went around as "Dark Phoe - *coughcough*- Dark Scarlet Witch" and as for a "goodie" becoming a "baddie" with reality warping consequences, well there is always Onslaught... which isn't the first time that Xavier has lost it either... gaah, i give up.

Okay final random thought - Actually ComplexAngsty!Mags is more interesting than ravin'looney!Mags and this is something that is shown in other media and fiction. For example - from Buffy, - Spike, started out as a hooligan and Slayer-slayer (erm...) and as far as character development is concerned was built on from there. - Heck even Darth Vader (since that movie is out and Star Wars is on the brain) in the original trilogy showed a lot of complexity as the movies went on. - You couldn't have had him as an evil sadist as he was in the first movie (that would have gotten dull after a while) but rather he was more interesting as a noble character who had fallen. By contrast the dark emperor palpatine was the opposite - basic straight out evil and therefore you could'nt really use him much - he only showed up in the last movie as I recall and even then towards the end... so it is a shame what is happening to Mags, as he is no Dark Emperor Whatsisname

[Nightcrawler ZERO]

Originally posted by kladyelf
I havent really seen much of house of M except for a preview, so i'm withholding my opinion there, - what I like is that Wanda is at least reacting to what happened in dissasembled - but what I don't get is Xavier telling her that she never had kids! I remember reading about her getting married, having twins and then something happening to them (involving Kang or somebody, I forget) so what is all that about?

From Uncannyxmen.net:



Constantly being disappointed by the people around her, Wanda was about to give in to the same hatred towards humanity, like her brother, making several statements about mutant superiority. Things only got worse when Agatha Harkness visited Wanda at the Avengers compound. From afar, the old witch had sensed something about Wanda’s children that Wanda was not willing to accept, even though the boys’ various nannies having told her the same: They were unliving constructs that only existed when she thought about them, vanishing when she was too distracted during a battle or even knocked out. Before they could further talk about the subject, a horde of demons attacked and Master Pandemonium absorbed Thomas and William into himself. Turned out that Wanda did not create life when she instigated her pregnancy, she only stole it - specifically two shards of the demon lord Mephisto's soul, which had been shattered and scattered months earlier. That revelation made, Mephisto himself appeared and reclaimed what belonged to him. The only way to drive him away was for Agatha Harkness to erase the twins existence from Wanda’s mind, thus affecting the parts of Mephisto that were still linked to her. [Avengers West Coast #51-52]

Apparently, also, the Time Keepers ensured that Wanda could never bear children, as they'd be too powerful and overthrow them. Of course, this kind of contradicts Nocturne's existence...........



There definately seems to be some tension between Marvel and Claremont- just looking at Uncanny, it seems that there has been a great deal of editorial interference. X-23 was introduced into mainstream X-men continuity through Uncanny, as Marvel wannted to push her, and the latest arc seems to be about putting Wolverine in the Savage Land so that the New Avengers can find him. I heard a rumor today that Claremont was being replaced on Uncanny by Grek Pak (Who wrote the recent Phoenix: Endsong mini)- and Davis has already announced that he's off the book in the near future

[Paty]

:mags
the "six months later"kaka del toro is definately NOT Claremont's doing. He tells stories, not glosses over them. that was the heavy hand of editorial forcing Claremont to speed up some of his storylines to merge with House of M.
While Marvel may have announced tha Claremont was going along with House of M, the truth is probably that he was sucker punched...and Now that Marvel has come out and said that Elcalibur is cancelled as of issue fourteen, the sucker punch is visable and palpable. During all the hype, you notice that Chris went quiet. I guess the rule is "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all!". with House of M as the excuse, bendis, in spite of his announcements to the contrary, STOLE Claremont's two major characters right out from under him...with the sneering help of editorial. these boys cannot hope to match Chris's body of work ... so they are bound and determined to destroy it...and him.
that they are forcing Claremont off Uncannyy is only the next obvious step after house of M destroys Magneto's ethnic backgrund. jews may own the company... but they are getting tortured and destroyed en masse...in the books and on staff. Bendis better watch his ass... after he does the little ratzi's work for them, they will get rid of him, too... mark my words!
Claremont, and the only readable comics in the X universe, goes, I am out of here for sure. I am not gonna condone this totally blatant coup d'etat. They manuevered Chris... who probably gave lip service to the project, just to keep his job on Uncanny. Well, it's like this, Chris...backing down from bullies doesn't work. Ask the Hungarians... ask the Czecks...ask the millions that went meedly to the ovens at...AUSCHWITZ!After they were gutted and burned to ashes, they didn't have to worry about keeping their jobs, did they?
thousands upon thousands of fans are gonna leave. The fans of Claremont will surely go... after this totaly unprofessional attack on a talented and revered creator. there has never been such a blatant political move as the stealing of major characers...FOR ANY DAMN PROJECT!...that matches the theft of Magneto and Xavier by Bendis for House of M.
Claremont didn't have a choice. that is patently obvious. He is being forced to write as they want him to... to try to mitigte some of the damage he knows is gonna come down in House of M...in the last issues of Excalibur.
This is vaguely reminescent of the time Hardass forced him out because he wouldn't write Magneto as either a Gypsy or a hateful eeeeeeevil mindless monster...if he was gonna have to be jewish. In X Men 1 2 3 there is plenty of between the lines mitigation of damage to be seen... then he "killed" Mags... and when i talked to him months after XM3 came out I told him that mags wasn't dead. "Yes, he is... for me, he is..." Chris told me. I didn't realize at that moment what was going on...but learning of the politics of later years, I can look back at that and know what Chris was really saying. Looks like he's finally right. Good try, Chris... the little ratzis are still cooking their evil political potion at marvel... and it is not gonna be worth reading anything they put out there soon.
A lot of younger fans that like a complex adversarial Magneto are very dismayed.... and are actually writing to Marvel.. but the efforts are unorganized. The older fans who are bone weary of over a decade of fighting for Magneto's soul, who have lives to lead and families to tend to, are tired. We don't have time or energy or resources to fight the little ratzis... so we are leaving in droves.
Although I do like the nightcrawler series, I will not read it or any other marvel book if House of M does what I think it is setting up to do... and that is "bring the character into the present" by severing and negating his historical backstory. This has been the goal for thirteen years...ever since hardass came to power... looks like they finally are succeeding. I hope they enjoy the fruits of their perficious labor...for as long as it lasts.I won't be buying the books. or the merchandise...after the very nice Bowen magneto statue...they won't be getting my money....not any more. and I will urge every person who likes Claremont and his Magneto to boycott marvel as I plan to do.
there are some of talking about setting up a REAL Magneto site for us to keep the Claremont Magneto alive and viable in our own art and fanfic. If we can get this rolling, I will let any Magneto fans out here know.

that's all.
Paty
:mags

[Nightcrawler ZERO]

It turns out Excalibur isn't cancelled after all- It will return after House of M, as "New Excalibur"

http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthr ... adid=34476

The article states that it will include a "New Team"- whether this refers to the characters or creators is anyone's guess at this point.

[Paty]

:mags
so, in real life, EXCALIBUR is cancelled. A new team, be it new characters or new writer/artist equals not the old book, which we were avidly following because there sas not only new characters we liked but this dynamic between Xavier and Mags... which was long overdue.
What we are gonna be left with after House of M... at least as far as Mags goes... is, I fear, nothing that Claremont could build on or work with. Claremont is supposed to get a new book after House of M... but will he? Will "New Excalibur" be it? And what happens to all the characters Chris had introduced? some of whom were lots of fun. Marvel doesn't DO fun any more...Chris may try to bring them over to Uncanny...
nah... I fear my days with Marvel are numbered... like so many other fans who don't recognize this company any more. I mean, it used to be about the characters and the stories... now it'a about the creators and the editors who pull the creator's strings and tell them what to write and how to write. Now it'a about jerking the readers around and shocking them...not about teling coherent and readable stories of high adventure and the good guys being good guys. OK... maybe that 's a little altruistic, but I want my good guys to be good guys. I want my "villains" to be marginally interesting...not looney, moustache twirling characatures. Adversaries should have points of view and reasons for what they are doing. and once these points of characterization are established for both heroes and adversaries... and villains...they should be built on not torn down willy nilly cuz the puerile writers or editors can't think of anything to do with them as they stand in their current incarnations. change instituted by good character development that is built on what has gone before is totally acceptable. but change based on "I wanna do this or that, and I don't wanna bother whit what has gone before cuz i don't want to read thirty years worth of continuity so I understand the character I am writing..." is NOT. If you can't be bothered to understand the established characterization of the character you are writing, you shouldn't be allowed to touch the character... for you have no respect for it.
Of course, this assumes there are no hidden agendas... and, these days, it seems there are always hidden agendas.

Nah... Marvel has pised me off once too often... like so many other readers I have talked to. I will read House of M...and if they do devolve the character of Magneto... if they do warp reality to take away his background... which the little ratzies have been trying to do for over a decade... if they take away the interesting dialectic that Claremont was rebuilding after the fiasco of Planet X... if they make Mags back into the Stan Lee-esque mindless raving looney...then I am gone...along with a lot of others. and I will encourage any and all to do the same.
the editors have said "when the fans scream, we know we are doing something RIGHT!" Which is only an excuse for doing anything they damn well please with any of the characters... no matter how out of character or destructive of character it is. If the fans cheer they win... if the fans boo, they win, as well. No, boys...NOT!!! You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. Not possible. The writers and editors are too lazy or inept to build new characters... so they destroy the old ones ... ones who already have a fandom.
But the really incomprehensible thing to me is that they are being allowed to do it by owners and upper echelon!!! The bigwigs are allowing their company to be destroyed right under them! They are allowing aswipes to ruin multi million dollar characters!!! A little creative control is needed... such as the quality control Disney exerts over it's characters. These characters are hugely popular because the characterizations remain the same...bridging the gaps of generations with their immutable characterizations. So, OK... it's easier to write a happy, upbeat rat than a brooding, complex Holocaust survivor. but each characterization has it's merits and it's possibilities... for intelligent and mature writers. Marvel used to have these kind of writers...it used to protect it's valuable characters...maybe not with the iron grip of Disney, but maybe that iron grip is what is needed to protect once valuable characters.
After Planet X, Avi Arad stormed into Marvel yelling to get the characters back to the characterizations of the proffitable eighhties...where heroes were heroes, not drunken adulterers...and villinas were interesting... not raving, drug crazed loonies... so he could sell merchandising... which he could NOT given the depictions of the characters in the books then extant.
So we had reload... which lasted about six to eight months...until Arad calmed down and went back to the west coast to make his movies. Then the little ratzis regrouped and started in on tearing down the characters again... especially Magneto. An acute observer can see the beginnings of devolvement in Chris's writing as soon as House of M was announced. You could see what was gonna happen as soon as Avengers Disassemble ended up with Mags appearing out of nowhere to carry Wanda off. Captain America handing her over to a "dead" terrorist... which is what he believed Magneto to be at that time... is ludicrous. Especially given her previous scorn of her father. You don't hand a comatose comrade in arms over to the person she supposedly loathes and distrusts! Not if you care for her, which is what we were led to believe Cap did with wanda! Makes no sense... but it HAD to happen to precipitate House of M...and what it will do to change Magneto...and possibly Cap, too. But characterization wise...it made no sense at all. Wanda was an adult, and had made her feelings for her father all too clear for a long time. There is no way Cap should have turned her over to Mags without so much as a by y'r leave.... not even a coherent answer as to where he was taking her! No. But it had to happen to precipitate House of M. so the machinations for a plausable plot to deconstruct Magneto's history were being worked on with the whole storyline of Avengers Disassemble.
And the most delicious, to the perps, thing of all? Bendis, a rising, talented, young Jewish writer, was schnookered into doing it! To help the ratzis destroy the hated VERY POPULAR Magneto... who also just happens to come from Jewish stock...if the Holocaust background constructed over years by Claremont and validated by the movies is corret.
Can't have that. Let's find a way to wipe it out. Gee... house of M... Wanda warping reality...works for THEM!!!

OK... I am not gonna rant any more. Read House of M... or don't... I don't care. I will read it. I will give them one last chance to prove me wrong. I have stated what I expect them to do... and what my response will be. I will be happy to eat my words... to be proven totally wrong...but I don't expect to have to munch crow. Their caveat that "everything will be put back the way it was...except for some things.." gives me to understand they have found a way to do what they have tried for over a deecade to do...Screw with the backstory that Claremont gave Magneto. Wipe it out of history, and, therefore, canon. And there is only one reason anyone would want to do that.
It lives and breathes at marvel. Unfrotunately... tragically.
I hope Claremont gets his new book...I will read anything Claremont writes until they finally drive him out again...which i do expect them to do, also. then I am quits with Marvel. I may or may not continue to read the Nightcrwler book, considering Dave's connection with the character...or have they cancelled that, too? I don't remember seeing any issues recently... Maybe it will be in theis week's batch...
sigh...
Oh, well... I have too many things to do here... what with setting up the studio and gallery...and moving Dave into a different room in the house, so he is farther away from the birdies and their possible sources of infetion. He recently landed in the hospital for a ten day stay because of an infection... not traceable to the birdies... for they are gram negative and the infection was gram pos...which meant it was probably the old osteomylitis residue kicking in again ... but it never hurts to b careful. so I will be offline for about a week while i move computers around. so if neither of us checks in, that's why...both the computers are gonna be down for the move between rooms.
So, carry on, while we are gone, y'all! see? I'm acclimating to South Carolina just FINE... LOL
Paty
:mags

[Entropy]

For adventure and fun check out Young Avengers. I was very pleasantly suprised and it is now my fav. book.

also old Exiles issues by marvel were fun. sorta like the TV show Sliders, except for the marvel universe.

other than those, and Uncanny, most marvel books (at least to me) are lacking in fun.

[Diablo]

Young Avengers seems really great. I'm waiting for the TPB.

What bothers me about House of M is that the Marvel Universe's fate is in Bendis's hands only. He's really the king at Marvel... And he isn't my favourite writer at all. I miss Chuck...
But on the other hand, I really like the idea of the Marvel Universe becoming an entire new reality -for only four months OK, but still.

We'll see...

And we'll be waiting for you and Dave here, Paty.

[Nightcrawler ZERO]

Here's the New Excalibur lineup....



Apparently, It's still Claremont-written, and includes Sage as well as the characters pictured above.

I always veiwed Excalibur as a limited series. Xavier would eventually have to return to the Mansion, and Magneto would evenbtually have to return to his role as the X-Men's prime adversary, so the cancellation of the series didn't surprise me at all.