Let me be your implement

[alexsarll]

The parents really have chosen well. If you sit in the living/dining room, your whole view is sea (unless it's fine in which case you can make out the Isle of Wight). Real British Sea Power country - much as I love that album, I hardly ever listen to it in the city.
Not that the view back in London is without its charms, of course - and this morning the leaves seemed to be migrating rather than simply falling.

Having somewhat lost the taste for prose fiction these last couple of weeks, and with all the novels on my To Read pile being rather too urban, I read Paxman's The English on the train. It was every bit as acute and amusing as I'd hoped. The only downside is that the chances of me finishing Ackroyd's Albion this decade are now even lower.

The parental digital radio means I've finally heard BBC 6 Music, and I love it. It's XFM minus the ads, plus better DJs. Essentially, it's XFM if XFM didn't suck.

Many, many comics to read. Am finally up to speed with Avengers Disassembled, and musing about continuity and hypertime. But that can wait for another post, and an LJcut to protect the non-geeks.

Comments

ANECDOTE

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Did I ever tell you about the time I went across the Isle of Wight on a double decker bus?

Re: ANECDOTE

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. I initially read that as "went across *to* the Isle of Wight on a double decker bus", and that would be quite some anecdote.

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

6music is indeed good but occasionally baffles me by playing too much stuff I've never heard or heard of. Unfortunately Xfm goes to the other Xtreme (see what I did there) by playing only the safest, chartest indie all the time.

-x-

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

They would occasionally go into huge swathes of new stuff but crucially, much of it was ace new stuff. They also played the bonus track from that new Verve compilation; I wasn't too impressed.

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've heard the new Verve single or whatever it is and amn't overly impressed either.

-x-

[london-imp.livejournal.com]

Well what do you expect, it's the fvcking Verve for god's sake!

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

They were great, once. A lot better than the fvcking Clash anyway.

-x-

[london-imp.livejournal.com]

Tw@t. :D

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Radio 6 is the only music radio I even consider listening to...
Is JLA/Avengers as wank as everyone else says? I've heard terrible things, but they're mostly from the kind of people who are still rather peeved about the move in the 70s to make Green Arrow socially relevant because that sort of thing does not belong in comics; also I have more time for Busiek than many people seem to...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I've not yet read it, tbh. I find Busiek fun enough to read on loan from a friend or the library, but not good enough to buy; he's not a hack or anything, just a little too fond of the past - I'd put him moderately ahead of Mark Waid.
The people you describe are known to me, and irk me. I can read very few comics from earlier than Alan Moore without finding them infuriatingly dated.

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

Dunno *why* I read Avengers Disassembled as JLA/Avengers...
With Busiek, I mostly download rather than buy myself, but I did buy the first Astro City trade, and I'll probably pick up a couple of his JLA run. And yeah, Waid falls into the same category for me, the kind of writer who occasionally does a memorable story, and whose dialogue doesn't sound too stilted, but who's hardly the most memorable writer in the world.
And I have the same problem with pre-Moore comics. I can make exceptions if the ideas are *really* good, like Kirby or someone, but even then I'm always thinking "couldn't you get someone *literate* to do your dialogue?"

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

"...and by that I don't mean Stan Lee"

I'm not even that big on such touchstones as Kirby or Jack Cole - give me the moderns any day. Though I make an exception for Eisner.

This has turned into a long comment, sorry...

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

Oh, I only read a very few Kirby things - I have a passion for the Fourth World stuff, but mostly the characters and ideas. And I find it almost impossible to read Kirby now without thinking "This man is the inspiration for John Byrne", which leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I'm all for not sticking rigidly to continuity, but that man's utter determination to attempt to erase the work of creators whose shoes he isn't fit to lick is quite astonishing - and I say that as someone who has fond memories of reading his Superman run as a kid.

And how could you possibly fault the flawless, funny and frenetic dialogue penned by that prince of poets, the stellar scribe, the alliterative Aesop himself, stellar Stan? Say it ain't so, true believer!

The scary thing is that he *still* writes like that. I read a couple of the "Just Imagine" things, and his DC Comics Presents contribution, and GOD they were awful. I'm always amazed that people talk about his subtlety and realism and say that Kirby was the unrealistic one - Kirby had some fairly subtle ideas, like he always conceived Dr Doom as actually having a tiny, almost invisible scar that he merely believed was a hideous flaw because it marred his perfect visage. That's not a Stan Lee kind of idea. Lee is one of my personal bugbears - I still find it hard to read Marvel stuff because his personality comes through in the characters so much (as well as the fact that the average Marvel comic seems to aim at a two-year-old with a breast and pectorals fixation - I'm talking about the well-written stuff).

To my mind there are maybe five or six truly talented writers who've ever worked in comics - people who could actually write well enough to make you sit up and notice, like Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Eisner and Dave Sim before he went mad. There's maybe the same number again of writers who are usually readable - Busiek, Waid, Wagner & Grant, Ennis, a couple of others, a few of horrendously variable quality (Mark Millar springs to mind here), and so many hacks that I'm just astonished the field still survives when it's trying to aim at adults - can you think of any other branch of art or literature where Chuck Dixon or (God forbid) Devin Grayson could get employed?

Long comments are always welcome!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh, Devin would do just fine writing chicklit, and Dixon could do turgid thrillers. Every field has its muppets.
Most of the stuff I read last night was Marvel, and aside from the continuity tangles, most of it was pretty fine. This was Millar, Whedon, Milligan and especially Bendis, all using Stan's toys to play their own games. Bendis in particular has a brilliant handle on how life would actually be in the Marvel Universe. Which you could, admittedly, claim is a fairly pointless talent.

As for Byrne...I liked some of his artwork back in the day, and Nextmen wasn't too bad, but now...he needs to be hunted and killed even before we take Geoff Johns out. His sheer solipsistic hackery was best dealt with in Bendis' multi-spoof 'Who Killed Madman?'

Re: Long comments are always welcome!

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard from a few places that Marvel is in a good phase right now (or at least just coming out of one), and I've been meaning to pick up some of the comics - especially Bendis' stuff, because I've never read him and it seems pretty much obligatory to at least have an opinion on the man. My problem is firstly that I started reading comics in the late-80s/early-90s and still have a sort of visceral reaction where I think of Marvel in its proto-Image phase - "We don't need writers! We don't need anatomy lessons!"

And secondly, none of the big Marvel characters appealed to me, primarily because they're all essentially the same character, the one that Stan Lee can do. So in the past 10 years or more I've read I think two Marvel comics - Marvels and 1602. The DC Universe seems a far richer place to me, just in terms of the vast number of *ideas* there.

But I've always prided myself on choosing comics by creator rather than by company or character, and so I feel a little odd that I've never yet read Morrison's New X-Men, even though I'll read almost anything he writes. I *should* investigate Marvel's better stuff sometime, I know...

Byrne is just an astonishing individual... the idea that we have to pretend Morrison's Doom Patrol, or the last 15 years of Demon comics, never happened just because he wants to play at being Jack Kirby again astonishes me - what's even more astonishing is that the companies let him do this. And the man himself - I looked at his message board once or twice. I believe he was saying 'all spics are whores', all women who are raped asked for it, if you read comics in a shop rather than buying them you should be locked up for theft, and people with AIDS should be locked up to stop them infecting God-fearing Christians. Or something very simillar. The man's at least as mad as Dave Sim ever was, but he's allowed to play with the big boys' toys...

Re: Long comments are always welcome!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The really puzzling thing with Byrne is that these days his series never sell and always get cancelled within 10-20 issues - yet still he keeps being allowed to do them! If they were bad but successful, I could understand it.

Marvel is not entirely free of its old vices - Rob Liefeld is back on X-Force - but if you stick to the writers you trust (and give some Bendis a go), you should be fine.

Bendis-wise, the best places to start are probably Daredevil, Powers and Alias - or from his earlier indie stuff, Goldfish.

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

"avengers disassembled"

what they're using that name again?

*tisk*

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Dan, you are still the only person I have seen claim that the title was used before. As I recall, you reckoned it last appeared when the team had Gilgamesh, right? I've seen people comparing Disassembled to that line-up. If the title were the same, I'm sure they'd have mentioned it.

Besides which, even if the title has been used before, this storyline deserves it. Long-time members are dropping like flies and it looks pretty certain that another one is to blame!
(Yes, I'm sure they'll all end up resurrected. But - and this is the crucial point - not by the same writer, and not as part of his plan)

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

avengers dissasembled was the story were the avengers were picked off one by one by some masterplan of kain or immortus or whoever leading up to the issue before the issue before the issue which was one of the hundreads, which happened in the inferno cross over, where captain america (who was just the captian at the time) reformed it with gilgamash, thor, mr fantastic (spit), and invisable woman (spit) iirc

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Even with the aid of various qualifiers on Google, the only Disassembled I'm getting is the current one.

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

yeah but it was in the days before the populisations of t'interweb and either way it'd be swamped by the current dissasembled on google innit

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes but there are plenty of sites which archive comics plots from pre-web days - thexaxis.com for X-Men, for instance - and even subtracting Bendis and adding Gilgamesh from the results only gets me the current one (via a brief cameo by Gilgamesh and speculation that he'll be in the new team).

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

like I said... gilgamesh wasn't in the avengers disasemble thingy, he was in the team that was formed after they were dissasembled

the dissaembled team included capt. marvel, she hulk dr.druid and some others

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Well, it seems that there was one issue by Steve Englehart in 1988 which went by the name 'Avengers Disassemble!' ie, no D on the end. I wonder if the rubbish tramp/Avenger D-Man is somehow to blame for the confusion?

Dr Druid was great once he went mental and tried to destroy the human race.

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

yeah the final issue of the saga was called that

but the whole ten od issues was reffered to as the avengers disasemble saga = the same name

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Disassemble and Disassembled are admittedly fairly similar, but not quite the same. Like all the JLA stories which were 'Crisis on Earth [whatever]'.

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

put it this way:

it's close enough

[razorcheekbones.livejournal.com]

I like your userpic. It is good.

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

ithankyou

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I would also like to add, yes but you're not talking about the PROPER Avengers are you ie Steed/Peel?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

No I amn't. But matters will be even more confused soon as Avengers is to be succeeded by New Avengers. I am hoping this will see Captain America in a bowler hat and Spider-Man in a kipper tie.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Ohhh it's not RIGHT *clutches head*

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

seeign as new labor was such a success......

don't supposed you've thought about quasar being resoncable (just cozza a random thought)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Quasar took a fairly nasty hit in the aerial battle with the Kree (though whether it was fatal is unspecified), and in any case the hints are now pretty strong that it's the Scarlet Witch behind it all.

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

damn I was hoping it would be either henry pim (mebbie as yellow jacket) or the original human torch or ideally, bruce banner

but seeing as I've not actually read any of it It's quite obvious that I have no idea

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The continuity with the Torch is totally screwed atm; basically, as part of the same MacGuffin which split Kang and Immortus they found a way for the original Torch to co-exist with the Vision.
The former's in the new Invaders (neo-con superheroes, and a rubbish comic); the latter was part of the attack but not its source, and has now been ripped apart by She-Hulk.
Pym could be a suspect, I suppose, but using him as a villain has been done in Ultimates so I doubt they'd duplicate it here. Banner has also been used that way in the Ultimate continuity, and would be a bit too random a candidate here.

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

I've always thought a pym heel turn would happen (ultron has his brainwaes and is a bad guy remember) though obv the heel in the ultimates is a good reason why it's not him (was he a heel at the start or did he turn?)

not having read any of the saga I figured it would be pointing towards someone and then swerved at the last minute or sommat....

anyway didn't they rewrite the history of the original human torch in west coast avengers when the vision turn white.

who else has been part of the attack?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I think part of the mandate of Avengers Forever was to untangle all the variant histories of 1) Kang and 2) Torch, that one included. They had two versions of Pym there (Giant Man knew Yellowjacket was him, but not vice versa) and between that and the original Pym Yellowjacket wifebeating stuff, I reckon he's done his time as a villain. Though he does say "Yellowjacket, Giant Man, Ant Man - all I'll ever be remembered for is creating Ultron." He's a factor, but I don't buy him as the mastermind.
Ultimate Pym almost killed Jan in issue (iirc) 6; the implication is that he was always bad, we just hadn't seen it.

Thus far: Stark (now publicly Iron Man) suddenly got drunk while addressing the UN and lost the team their political status even though he hadn't been drinking; the dead Jack of Hearts turned up, walked into the Mansion grounds and then exploded, killing Ant Man (Scott Lang); Vision crashed a Quinjet into the remaining Mansion bits, explained he was no longer in control of his body, and spewed out loads of Ultron eggs; She-Hulk freaked at this, ripped the Vision in half and caused loads of other damage including putting Wasp and Captain Britain in critical condition; the Kree invaded, but in a somewhat suspicious way (tactics and telemetry readings were all wrong, suggesting fakes/mind control) and Hawkeye killed himself taking out one of their ships.

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

if that's all that's happened I'd still go for someone who had robotics knowlege and go on about how the kree were just robots and stuff

and 10p it's not gonna be the scarlet witch unless it's not obviously her outside your devious mind (you know the waty supprises work)

damn I really liked hawkeye... him capt and the black panther were always the ones who should always be in the avengers..... at least on a part time basis....

scott lang made the avengers.... boooo though I'm glad he's dead.....

if avengers forever was what I think it was then wasn't it a way on having the ultimate war they always said would happen but without it happening....

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

oh and was scott lang targetted personally of was he just who was around....

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

He was just fool enough to go out and talk to zombie Jack when he staggered into the grounds.

The storyline is also called Chaos (as in nature of Wanda's powers) and the most recent issue ended with Strange showing up and saying the magics had been abused.

Forever was an all-round house-cleaning exercise by Busiek and Perez; get that war done, get some continuity stuff sorted, introduce a new Captain Marvel...but quite entertaining nonetheless. Many libraries have it, and it's worth reading.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

It's XFM minus the ads, plus better DJs.

That nice young lady who was at Bohemia that I was talking to for ages, she's one of their DJs, she seems quite good. Her boyfriend designs CD covers. Isn't that a thing, she's purely auditory, and he's purely visual, it's like Jack Spratt.