The GTXForums Comics Thread

[Alan P]

Anyone still reading comics?

With Avengers: Infinity War coming up, I thought it would be the perfect time to read Infinity by Jonathan Hickman. The story was from 2013. It was a pretty good and solid story. Definitely very busy throughout. It was also a bit confusing, as I didn't really recognize a lot of the characters. The main reason for reading this was because I wanted to familiarize myself with Thanos' lackeys, the Black Order: Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight, Ebony Maw, and a couple of others. They'll be playing prominent roles in the movie coming up.

In a nutshell: The majority of the Avengers go off-world to deal with a big cosmic threat, leaving the Earth vulnerable. Thanos finds out about it and makes an incursion.

Thanos is written very 70's style...basically as a two-dimensional brute, who just wants to kill for the sake of killing. That was annoying, but expected. Most writers not named Jim Starlin tend to write him that way. They willfully ignore the years and years of character developments Starlin made for the character, and revert him back to a power mad killing machine. I would expect that for the Infinity War movie, because it's introducing the character to a new and more broad audience, but in the comics, where the character is already well fleshed out, it gets annoying when they do that.

I'm now going to read Starlin's follow up stories, which will be a breath of fresh air, as he's really the only guy who knows how to write Thanos. Well him and may two more guys, everybody else stinks.

Have to say Thanos was written really well in the Movie. You understand his motivation which is more than can be said for most movie bad guys who seemingly just exist as a punching bag.

[sandydandy]

Have to say Thanos was written really well in the Movie. You understand his motivation which is more than can be said for most movie bad guys who seemingly just exist as a punching bag.

That's refreshing to know. As you could probably tell, I'm a bit of a Thanos fanboy. Ever since 2004. Just love the character.

Can't wait to watch Infinity War!

[sandydandy]

Thought I'd resurrect this thread to talk about X-Men. Not the comics or eventual upcoming movie(s), but the 90's cartoon series.

I don't know about movies, but the X-Men animated series from the 90's was my favourite TV show for a long time. The serious and mature tone was appealing, and really made it different and unique from most other cartoons.

It's coming back!

X-Men 97

This is actually old news. I first heard about it in late 2021 and simply couldn't believe it. Fall 2023 release on Disney+, which is just around the corner. I heard rumors about X-Men being re-launched a few years back, but dismissed it as being too far-fetched to be true. I even heard rumors way back in the early-00's that they wanted to continue it but never believed it, as 99% of the time when a TV series is cancelled it's gone for good. So obviously this was a pleasant surprise for me.

This series will pretty much pick up where the 1997 series left off, give or take a few years I'm thinking. The coolest part is they were able to bring back the iconic original voice actors, (sadly a couple of them passed away - the voices of Cyclops and Magneto). What I do find kind of weird is the girl who voiced Jubilee won't be returning to that character, instead she'll voice someone else. She willingly surrendered the role to an Asian voice actress. While I'm as woke as the next person and think it's a noble thing to do, it doesn't really make much sense here. This is a VOICE role. Plus she's the recognizable voice of Jubilee...unless her voice drastically changed like Al Pacino, since it has been 25+ years since she last did the character. I'm fine with it I guess as long as Jubilee doesn't suddenly have an Asian accent, which will make no sense for someone born and raised in America.

I've always loved the X-Men. This TV show, (and related video games also featuring those same voice actors), was very special to me, and served as my gateway into the comics. This team was always my definitive X-Men, and I really felt I knew them. I have the original series on DVD and still watch it every now and then, usually once every few years. I don't know what their plans are going forward storytelling wise, but whatever they do I'm sure it'll be fun. I'm almost 48 now, so not really picky. It was a different time in the mid-90's when I first watched this, being in my late-teens and into early adulthood, which is a challenging time for most people. It was nice to have this as an outlet. I'd suspect that's why it's a sentimental favorite for a lot of people.

I do hope they retain the mature and serious tone of the original series. That was what set it apart for me from the other kid's TV shows of that time. Yes it was a kid's show, but not a particularly kiddie one. Battling discrimination and bigotry was always the central and underlying theme of X-Men, and that's what made it easy for me, and so many others, to relate with it. We all know these issues are in no short supply in this day and age, in fact it's gotten even worse.

I don't know how these cartoon shows have evolved over the years and decades, but I doubt X-Men will have trouble finding its spot. I read somewhere that they won't face as many restrictions under Disney as they did with Fox Kids, so Wolverine is free to stab and slash away at actual flesh instead of just robots.

I remember we saw many cameo appearances in the original show - Dr. Strange, Thor, Spider-Man, War Machine etc. I hope we get to see more interaction with the more mainstream Marvel characters this time around. I guess they didn't do it last time because, aside from Spider-Man, the X-Men themselves were the most popular and mainstream characters in the entire Marvel Universe, as their books were the only ones selling at the time. Today it's an entirely different world thanks to the MCU, and they need to sell the X-Men again - this time to a new audience. I think bringing in previous fringe characters, (who are now household names believe it or not), will help greatly in that regard.

Overall I'm very excited!

[FaultyMario]

Bird Studio informed today that Akira Toriyama passed away last week at age 68.