Mightygodking dot com. Hello internetters, its Justin again, recently returned from a self imposed comics blogging hiatus, and I wanted to talk to you about Marvel Comics. What are the odds, right I didnt mean to leave it this long I thought, within a week of my last post, Id get the follow up bashed out and posted, but its beengosh, over a month. Why the delay To find out the answer, I called myself up for an interview on the subject. JkYXRhIjoie1widXJsXCI6XCJodHRwOlxcXC9cXFwvbWVkaWEtam9lLm1heGltdW1tZWRpYS5pZS5zMy5hbWF6b25hd3MuY29tXFxcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcXFwvdXBsb2Fkc1xcXC8yMDEzXFxcLzAzXFxcL3NfMzVfM19fMzUwMDMteGxhcmdlLmpwZ1wiLFwid2lkdGhcIjo2NDcsXCJoZWlnaHRcIjozNDAsXCJkZWZhdWx0XCI6XCJodHRwczpcXFwvXFxcL3d3dy5qb2UuaWVcXFwvYXNzZXRzXFxcL2ltYWdlc1xcXC9qb2VcXFwvbm8taW1hZ2UucG5nP3Y9NFwifSIsImhhc2giOiI2M2FhYzIyMzQwNjJlOWM4Y2ViNjkzNGRlYTA3MWQ3OGFmOWU4YTEyIn0=/s-35-3-35003-xlarge.jpg' alt='Cult Sci Fi Movies Henchmen ' title='Cult Sci Fi Movies Henchmen ' />Christopher Bird talks about whatever the hell he wants to talk about. YesMovies Best Movies Site Online Watch Free Movies Online by yesmovies Sponsored. YesMovies is the most updated and best alternative website to watch movies. MORE LIT LISTS 50 Best Scientific Romances 18641903 Radium Age SciFi 100 Best Novels of 190433 Golden Age SciFi 75 Best Novels of 19341963 75. Check out out Miniatures Games Games from Noble Knight Games. Our collections of Miniatures Games Games are both new and OutofPrint. Noble Knight Games. Jupiter Ascending is a 2015 space opera film written, produced, and directed by The Wachowskis. Starring Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Sean Bean, and Eddie Redmayne. How did an 80s Van Damme action flick emerge from a lost SpiderMan movie and Masters Of The Universe 2 Darkman Bluray Collectors Edition 1990 Starring Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand and Colin Friels. Dr. Peyton Westlake is on the verge of realizing a major. The Gun is good The Penis is evil The Penis shoots Seeds So proclaims the giant levitating stone head at the beginning of Zardoz one of the craziest scifi. Hi, Justin, thanks for sitting down with us. No problem, Justin. Youre looking well. That is a lie, and you know it, but I understand that you want to be polite. I will accept the compliment, insincere though it is. Fine, lets get to it. Last time, you said that you have trouble really connecting with Marvel books these days. That is correct. Are you reading any of Marvels current output No, actually. Really I wouldve thought Mark Waid writing an Avengers book would be an easy sell, at least. We love Waid, as Im sure you know. I know I know. I did actually buy the first issue of All New, All Different Avengers. But I couldnt really get into it. I tried out The Ultimates, too, because I hear such good things about Al Ewing, and the concept is neat. So whats wrong with the books that youre not buying them Honestly I think this is a case of, Its not you, its me. I dont understand. See, now were coming to why this post has been so long in coming. Ive starting writing it a bunch of times, but I cant seem to finish. I keep looking for a way into this post, and each way Ive tried it so far has left me with a Who farted grimace about my own ponderous thoughts. I thought maybe the interview format would help me get the words out of my head. You could ask questions and we could see how I arrived at my current attitudes. Okay, I guess. So what do you mean by, Its not you, its me, exactly Well, most people on the internet with Opinions About Comics like to believe that we are evaluating things based on solid, critical reasoning, right X is not good because Y. And so, when X is a comic and its not good, you try to solve for Y. You should have warned me you were going to use algebra. Okay, fine, what are some of these Y values I mean, there are a lot. For one, I dont understand why writers dont use narrative captions and thought bubbles like they used to. Balloons. Excuse meThought balloons, not thought bubbles. John Byrne saysOh, never mind, the point is, these are fantastic narrative tools that are really only found in comic books, and people shun them now. I dont understand why youd cut yourself off from a tool that helps convey information quickly in a medium where space is at such a premium. Watchmen doesnt use narrative captions or thought balloons. I guess. I mean, I suppose I understand if its a stylistic choice. But in the first years of the 2. I dont think Ill ever understand why. But youre right, ultimately it is just a choice. But its a choice I dont like. Have all the status quo shakeups over the past couple of years put you off Yeah. I mean, its like Peter Parker is Tony Stark, and Doctor Doom is Iron Man, and several different people are Captain America. Somebody else is Wolverineits a very DC sort of way of doing things. The Fantastic Four arent around anymore. There are a bunch of different Avengers teams, and they dont live in Avengers Mansionthis is a huge deal to me, actually. It all feels wrong. Even the way the books look. The logos arent comic booky. Theres no corner boxes. Everyones costume seems over rendered, with all the seams. Computer coloring can do some wonderful things, but I feel like it overpowers the line art sometimes, and line art is what I like about comic art, you know Even the glossy paper. It just bugs me. Sobasically, its not like it was when you were a kid Basically, yeah. Basically. Well, isnt that kind ofI mean, thats such a whiny thing to say. Thats what I thought too So I fought it for a long time. I thought, Argh, these guys keep messing it up, they dont know what theyre doing. 2010 Blockbuster Movies Capture The Flag. It had to be, right I had all these Y values that I thought contributed to X is not good. And then one day, I realizedwhat if X is good, and X is simply not for meI feel like youre losing the plot with this algebra thing. Can you explain it a different way I just mean thatthe things that I like about superhero comicsspecifically Marvel comicsarent what Marvel comics are about these days. Well, what are the things you like about superhero comics What is your platonic ideal of the genreWell, Bronze Age Marvel Comics, right The Bronze Age is the best. Funnily enough, a big part of the reason I think that is because of Wizard magazine in the 9. People just remember them rigging the speculator market and hyping the crap out of what we called T A books at the time, but those dudes were raised on Bronze Age comics, and they wrote about how great Roger Sterns Amazing Spider Man run was, and the Paul Smith issues of Uncanny X Men, and Walt Simonsons Thor, and Byrnes FF. It was actually a huge influence on my tastes. Wizard. Really Thats kind of embarrassing. Yeah. Actually, could you strike that I want that off the record. Oh sure, Ill edit that out. So youd like modern comics if they were more like Bronze Age comicsWell, sure, I would. But, heres the thing. I could spend all my time complaining about how Marvels not doing it right, and whining that the books should be more like Bronze Age comics. Or, you knowI could just buy Bronze Age comics. There are literally thousands that I havent read, right And if you go to Half Price Books, you can actually get them cheaper than new comics. I filled out my Byrne FF run at Half Price Books, most of them at only a dollar a pop. But dont you miss out on the newness of it I mean, you know how the stories all end, basically. I guess. It is kind of a bummer, but I dont know, even new comics, I dont feel emotionally attached to them, either, so it doesnt matter. Like, when they kill someone off or whatever, or that thing with Steve Rogers being a sleeper HYDRA agent and everybody on the internet flipped outit doesnt bother me or make me angry. Even big retcons. Like, remember when they said Professor Xavier recruited a whole other team of X Men between what we see in Giant Size X Men 1 That bugged me at the time, but it doesnt anymore. To be honest, they dont even take place in the same continuity. What do you mean I have this idea about the Marvel Universe, whichto meis a fictional spacetime continuum originating with Fantastic Four 1 in 1. New X Men 1. 14. Arguably the end of Busieks Avengers run is the real end of the Marvel Universe, as I reckon it, but Morrison and Quitelys first issue is a clearer line in the sand. This Marvel Universe was a construct that, if you only chose to believe in it, allowed you to view forty years worth of comics created by hundreds of hands as a single, unbroken, internally consistent tapestry of events. It wasnt really, but that was part of the game. Thats why they used to give out No Prizes Anyway, the current Marvel comics, I would argue, do not take place in this same Marvel Universe, but rather are comics basedloosely or otherwiseon this fictional history. I mean, all of Bendis retcons with the Illuminatido any of those characters sound right in context Do you believe that they really could have happened between the panels So they are quite welcome to do whatever they like it doesnt affect what I consider to be the real stuff. Thats not a criticism It seems dismissive. I really dont mean it to be. You know, I meant what I said in my last post about how its great that different, more diverse audiences are getting into Marvel. Like, Ive heard that young girls like Squirrel Girl. I dont get Squirrel GirlI mean, I get it, but it doesnt speak to me. But like, maybe they shouldnt have to cater to a thirty two year old man all the damn time.