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Marvel Mythology Surgery

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20:15 / 10.09.04

".. Hear me roar!"

22:51 / 10.09.04

For a wee kid that doent know any better, it's actually quite helpful to see a purely (previously good guy ? ) like captain mountie or whoever he was, get slapped down for being a homophobe, against his own son no less?

That comic was one of the first anti-anti gay things i can remember reading, so crass as it may appear to such folks, it has had a genuine positive impact.

That alone deserves your respect.

23:31 / 10.09.04

Gaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy.

Man, that made the press in England, was it a no news day? Or was it really that big a deal?

Moon Knight was fantastic - Bill S. on the art gorgous, but I always got the impression that Frenchie knew everything about 'Marc' that was why he called him Marc.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:12 / 11.09.04

Around the time of the Infinity Gauntlet/Infinity Watch/Infinity Parfum Pour Homme there was a storyline involving Sue Richards meeting her darkside, called Malice and absorbing her, which led to her giving the Hulk and the Thing a bit of a bitch-slapping. Did this storyline go anywhere (the Malice-absorbtion, not the slapping) or was it quietly forgotten a few issues later? And didn't Dr Doom kill himself and Reed Richards around this time too, and didn't they actually stay dead for a year or so? What was up with that?

16:03 / 11.09.04

A few years back I read a story where Wolverine travelled to another dimension as some kind of assasin for Laundu Luckman nad Lau. While there his contact was a woman who could move the body mass of her arms in a simular way to Lady Deathstryke. My question being were these people one and the same?

18:34 / 14.09.04

* begin huge geek-out *

Malice-as-Sue was created by John Byrne towards the end of his terrific FF run -- but this was towards the end of his run, when the ideas & quality were starting to spread a bit thin. Turns out it was the Psycho-Man, I think, who instigated her transformation into Malice, which was all the dark, selfish, repressed parts of Sue brought out. Gotta love Psycho-Man - a Kirby villain with a big honking machine with LOVE / HATE / ENVY or some shit like that written on it.

* end major geek-out from a fan who used to love John Byrne, like many of us (even Grant Morrison!), and now hangs his head in sorrow when Byrne is mentioned, sort of like how you might react when a former talented, intelligent friend who has now become an alcoholic bum after parting with all common sense & maturity is mentioned... *

18:43 / 14.09.04

FEAR / DOUBT / HATE, actually.

Turns out Psycho-Man rates his own li'l microhero .gif...

Awww.... who's a cute widdle alien headfucker, then?

20:21 / 14.09.04

The Malice story line was fantastic - along with the Human Torch kid who set himself on fire, it was my favourite of the Byrne FF stories.

I haven't gone near anything he's done since Next Men, is he really that bad now?

20:59 / 14.09.04

Let me put it this way, Chuck Austen gets invited to comic shindigs before he does.

19:45 / 11.10.04

Here's something I was just thinking of when some other, un-comics-related fiction used the same trope. I think it's come up on here before, but I'm not sure.

Wolverine.

He's got this power, right, where he can regenerate after injuries really fast. I understand he's been tossed into space, sliced up, whatever, and I think the line is if there's only one cell left surviving, he can bring himself back.

Well, what about all the cells he loses every time he gets into a fight? Droplets of blood are like his trademark -- we can't have every one of *those* springing up into a whole new Wolverine after every dustup with Sabretooth.

So how does that work? Is there an official explanation?

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

20:38 / 11.10.04

I think he regenerated from one cell once, but he was cosmically charged up or something, I don't think he can do it as a matter of course. DC's Lobo though, could regenerate from a drop of blood.

20:46 / 11.10.04

The only time he's been brought back from a single cell was an Alan David annual where his powers were amped from exposure to a magic crystal.

I would assume that unless he's got some generator amping up his powers, like that crystal, or magic, or the phoenix, Wolverine needs the cooperation of major organs to repair his body.

Like he can rebuild limbs and even his abdomen, or a lung or a heart, but he needs a certain number of still functioning paerts to accomplish his healing factor abilities. One person suggested that Wolverine could possibly be a starfish, but that was never explored by the writers.

20:58 / 11.10.04

used to be there would be a lobo for each drop of lobo blood spilled.

The one story that had wolverine doing something similar was a result of a sort of wish-granting crystal... (I suppose there's more than one when it comes to the X-men) It was a sort of cosmic race to find it and wolverine was the only survivor. He was right with-in reach of the crystal when he was shredded by the crystal's guardian. a drop of blood splashed onto the crystal and not only was wolvie completely regenerated he attained cosmic awareness and powers. He subsiquently resurected the rest of his team but stoped and gave up those powers before he could become corrupted by them. It was an Alan Davis Annual.

Based on his Handbook entry:
"Wolverine possesses an accelerated healing factor based on his physiology. While most normal humans heal injuries over a long period of time, Wolverine's healing factor speeds up that natural process. Wolverine's natural healing has been advanced to the point where he can heal extensive injuries (such as broken limbs) in a matter of hours to days. This factor gives him a higher resistance to poisons and toxins, and he can recover from almost any injury. The more extensive the injury, the longer the healing time will be."

Seems that entry is a bit out of date.

16:03 / 13.10.04

Maybe the Lobo thing is what I was thinking of....

19:29 / 13.10.04

WOLVERINE RULEZZ, LOBO DROOLLZZZ!!!

17:40 / 20.10.04

I don't remember too well, so sorry if this is obvious, but what happened to the Beyonder?

17:57 / 20.10.04

um...he walked off into the sunset to be with the whole of creation at the end of the truly titanic SECRET WARS II, after taking the form of man like Christ and learning what it feels like to need to pee [actually true]...?

I honestly don't remember. Anyone?

19:17 / 20.10.04

He exploded and formed a new universe, IIRC. Not just a new universe, but Marvel's New Universe line of comics; although editorial pussy-footed around coming out and actually saying it, the dissipation of the Beyonder's energy was widely believed to be the "White Event" that triggered the emergence of paranormal abilities across the world.

19:22 / 20.10.04

Wow, that's actually something kinda cool about Marvel's [failed] New Universe.

I remember John Romita Jr.'s art on the Jim Shooter-written STAR BRAND was pretty fun, and the comic itself was the strongest of the New Universe line. (John Byrne took over writing and drawing STAR BRAND in its final 3 issues.)

08:31 / 21.10.04

ben grimm, sharon grimm and the torch went into the beyonderverse along with vic and the molecule-man. they ruck with the yonder for a bit, then kubik and the shaper turn up. kubik and the beyonderonderonder have one of the best cosmic scraps in marvel history, throwing entire galaxies at each other. turns out that the beyonder isn't in the same cosmic-cube powered league as the shaper and kubik, but that a cosmic-cube event was responsible for the creation of both the beyonder and the molecule man's powers. so they have this touching moment where they are kinda recombined into one cosmic groovy cube, ending the molecule man and the beyonder in one go. shame really, liked the molecule man - all this was yonks ago though, so he may have been retconned back to life any number of times since then.

04:46 / 22.10.04

There was a period in the early 90s when I was reading Fantastic Four, and they "killed off" Reed Richards & Dr. Doom by having Doom's time platform explode on them or something like that. How was that resolved? I checked out before they got around to bringing them back (it lasted a surprisingly long time, IIRC...)

07:44 / 22.10.04

Isn't how they got Doom into the year 2099, or am I misremembering?

11:11 / 23.10.04

Re: Doom and Reed's death, after a loong series of shenanigans involving the team plus Namor(who's there wooing Susan now that that pesky reed's dead), Nathaniel (reed's dad), Lyja, Kristoff(Doom's adolescent heir), and Zarkko the tomorrow man, its revealed that our boys were timenapped by new uber-villain Hyperstorm (Bad name, Worse costume) who has conquered the universe in his own time. After much sturm und drang the team rescue Reed and Doom and battle Hyperstorm only to get their ass kicked and find out he's actually the son of a grown up Franklin Richards(Everyones fave mind-numbingly powerful kid), and future sweet-heart Rachel Summers(Phoenix 2).
I dont know how they did eventually defeat Hyperstorm(ugh!) but they did so just in time to get caught up in that dreadful Onslaught and Heroes Reborn thing.
As for Doom 2099, does anyone know who he was? Wasnt able to follow that and find out what was going on. The few issues that i did get were pretty cool though, with some nice Warren Ellis writing.

21:03 / 23.10.04

For all your Doom-Knowledge-Needs, be sure you can rely upon this random guy's asskicking Dr. Doom FAQ! (warning: annoying angelfire pop-up behaviors imminent)

It has the basic lowdown on what Doom 2099 was about (they never did reveal whether that Doom was REALLY Doom, but he had Doom's memories), and even answers such time-honored questions as 'Why is Doom so powerful?', and 'How can I distinguish a Doombot from the real Dr. Doom?'.

I get chills reading about Doom. I really do.

22:08 / 23.10.04

Thanks for the clearing-up of that one -- I recently saw Hyperstorm on a Summers family tree (was that linked to in this thread?) and thought "Who the fuck is that?" And now I know. Grimace.

And yes, Dr. Doom is truly amazing. I pledge to all Barbelites, if I ever grow up to write a Marvel comic (ha!), I will bend over backwards to include Dr. Doom. In fact, I will bend over backwards to have somebody -- possibly M.O.D.O.K. -- chain-fight Dr. Doom.

08:05 / 25.10.04

Yes, Doom, yes...

Okay answer me this, how is it possible for the obstinate lover of the drink known as Siryn (or ex-copperhat Banshee for that matter), to use their sonic scream on villians without rendering the eardrums of their teammates to pulfurized grapefruit?

I understand that they can focus it in a specific direction but come on, when the trailer park mother of four starts screaming at her good for nothing live-in boyfriend, everyone in the surrounding trailers knows exactly what they were fighting about and who won...

When Banshee took on Moses Magnum and destroyed a mountain, all X-Men present shielded their hearing from his super sonic assault by placing their hands over their ears...like scared school children. If only that mountain had hands with little X-Men gloves, it would have survived...sigh

Shouldn't every X-Man who has ever served on a team with Banshee/Siryn not technically be deaf by now?

Do the X-Men wear special little earbuds which filter out the harmful effects of these ginger wailers?

Just wondering...

ALSO

What was the last official book/issue Stan Lee wrote for Marvel (of the big ones he created ie. X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four...)?

07:29 / 11.11.04

It seems the above questions will be cast into the void of the awkward silence (huh?).

Now it's my turn to ask a question that will hopefully get answered. If Magick is the mistress of Limbo, wouldn't her soul have to pass through Limbo to get to the afterlife and as such being the mistress of this Limbo would she not be able kinda hang around there for a while and thus not die?

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:37 / 11.11.04

Different Limbo. The Limbo that Magick is queen of is not in fact Limbo where nearly-dead people go, IIRC - it's just a pocket universe which happens to be called Limbo. Likewise, the dire wraiths killed by ROM (Spaceknight! Lalalalalalala Spaceknight!) were sent to yet another Limbo, which was something liek a Matalan Phantom Zone...

09:39 / 11.11.04

"I understand that they can focus it in a specific direction but come on"

It's a comic. You might as well ask why a ruby lens can stop Cyclops' eyebeams when they're mainly composed of concussive force, not light.

13:39 / 11.11.04

Smart Mass's question about what was the last Marvel issue Stan Lee ever wrote is a great one. Are we saying just before he left writing in the 70s?

Cause Stan Lee did small little bits here and there in the 80s and 90s (backup stories, maybe something in the Peter/Mary Jane wedding issue, and something else Mary Jane related later, then something Kingpin-related about 10 years ago...also he wrote that garbage man of the future, Ravage Marvel 2099, didn't he??)

back to the Northstar thing --

>> For a wee kid that doent know any better, it's actually quite helpful to see a purely (previously good guy ? ) like captain mountie or whoever he was, get slapped down for being a homophobe, against his own son no less?

>> That comic was one of the first anti-anti gay things i can remember reading, so crass as it may appear to such folks, it has had a genuine positive impact.

>> That alone deserves your respect.

This is true, and yes, it was cool for a comic to take a stance that it was ok to be gay, and not only that, but to show anti-gay violence was wrong. However, it's still fair to say it was a pretty poorly written superhero comic. It's not like it's Schindler's List or anything in terms of deep human social issues. But you're right, every little bit helps, especially to impressionable young kids reading comic books, no doubt.

However, having said that, it's fun to take the piss out of how bizarrely cheesy the writing in that particular comic book is

13:45 / 11.11.04

lee stuck with the surfer long after he'd dropped all the others, no? i thought he was soloing the writing chores on that til well into the seventies.

18:59 / 11.11.04

Doombots even make an appearance in Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King....

21:32 / 11.11.04

Refering to the recent end of the Avengers storyline...

SPOILERS if you haven't read #303 yet.

How come everyone except Wanda remembers she had kids? And what kind of wacko would erase her memories of them but nobody elses? I mean someone was bound to mention it to her sooner or later weren't they???

I remember the kids and I remember them dissappearing, but I don't recall the exact deal at that time. Help appreciated.

22:09 / 11.11.04

I think it was in AVENGER WEST COAST where it was revealed that Wanda's kids where actually slivers of the soul of Master Pandamoneom (who had his soul cut in 5 parts by Myphisto... of course). When wanda "impregnated" herself she used 2 soul slivers. They began to dissappear when he attention would be drawn away from her children (like when vision was er... dissassembled).

Eventually Master Panda found those soul slivers and absorbed them. At this point Agatha Harkness shows up to Fight Master Panda & Myphisto. She defeats them and wanda askes for her kids back only to be told they were never really real.

we can thank John Byrne for all of that BTW. Not that Wanda's motherhood was ever a very good idea either, thanks to Steve Engleheart.
Seems like there was a long standing feud between these two for some time.

22:26 / 11.11.04

God, I remember that bizarre cover with the members of the WCA as fingers on his hand.

I stopped buying the series, so who can tell me if they revealed who the mystery person sending messages to Bruce was in the Hulk when Johns started writing it?

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