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Marvel Mythology Surgery

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09:56 / 23.11.05

This has been addressed, back in the Claremont mid-80s—I think in the first Wolverine mini-series—and the answer is: Yes, but he has to drink an awful lot.

04:59 / 24.11.05

Marvel website's got the line up as; Madrox, Guido, Wolfsbane, Siryn (red hair), M and Rictor (guy on filecase).

Three Fallen Angels on one team? That can only be a good thing.

What happened to Fantomem (Phantom X)?

Oh, he also showed up in the Mystique mini-series.

Jocasta is Vision's stepmother, since she was basically created to be Ultron's mate (Alkhema replaced her)

I thought that maybe there was a stepmother/secret lover thing going down (because of her name). I guess whoever created her just flipped open an encyclopaedia and threw a dart. It seems incestuous, robot love-triangles were never that popular.

P.S. I love Alkhema…she’s such a loon:

18:18 / 26.11.05

1.) I didn't want to start a whole new thread about this, but has anyone been reading the "New Thunderbolts" book, and if so, is it any good? I've never had any strong feelings one way or the other about the Thunderbolts franchise or Fabian Nicieza's writing, but the premise sounds fun. It's got some of the old Thunderbolts, Captain Marvel, and Speed Demon and Radioactive Man. Kind of reminds me of those old 70s Marvel books where they'd just throw a bunch of random characters together and call it a new team book.

2.) I've just finished reading Mark Millar's Spider-Man run, and I want to know when and why Doctor Octopus got long hair and a black leather outfit. Is it meant to be cooler, and if so, did someone miss the point of Doctor Octopus's design (namely, that he's supposed to look like Roy Orbison but with crazy metal tentacles)?

18:39 / 26.11.05

See, what people seem to miss (other than Erik Larsen in his 'Revenge of the Sinister Six' storyline)is that Doc Ock can be immensely menacing even while he looks like Roy Orbison with robot arms coming out of his ribcage. He looks goofy, he talks goofy, and he's a bit off his rocker, but he can fuck you up. The adamantium-armed Doc Ock busting up Hulk and then moving on to slaughter a whole bunch of people in another dimension was quite cool. Yeah, adamantium arms don't provide leverage, but, y'know, comic book physics.

Making someone look threatening, deliberately, in the "now they're a scary badass" never works right. That David Lynch-style bait-and-reverse where someone looks blithely innocent and turns out to be a devious cannibalistic dogfucker? Midwich Cuckoo Ichi the Cute Killer Roy Orbison with Robot Arms of Death... there's the method for real creepiness.

That's the major difference between the two versions of 'Cape Fear' in that the original, Mitchum's kinda got this weighty beauty to him, he's alluring in a way that DeNiro's only during the wolf bit. DeNiro played seedy while Mitchum just walked around, kinda babyfaced, like he owned the world.

Depp's evolution into King-with-a-shit-eating-grin by the end of 'The Secret Window' or how cute and very dead the young prince beside his throne looks in 'Adolescence Apocalypse'.

Dr. Octopus, classic version, is far more horrifyng than Venom would ever be, because Venom, Carnage, those guys? They can kill you but they can't ever seduce your ancient aunt, move into your house, and make nice to the neighbors, then kill you in some horrible flesh-peeling way.

19:35 / 26.11.05

Ed Brubake & Steve Epting are doing nice work on Captain America - which inspired this question. Who made the Cosmic Cube? AIM? I have a very basic knowledge of the cube but never read the original Cosmic Cube storyline, so I don't know its origins.

20:05 / 26.11.05

That's a question with multiple answers, as there have been multiple Cubes. I'm not sure which of them Bru is using.

21:30 / 26.11.05

Most branching-off, alternaverse, retakes on Marvel characters or storylines are eventually worked into the greater scheme. Heroes Reborn came right out of Onslaught (well, the Onslaught stuff was fitted to get to Reborn, but, still...) and 'What If?' covered quite a bit. The New Universe got worked in through 'Quasar' and Squadron Supreme's earth was right out of Avengers. So... 'Supernaturals' with Brian Pullido and the Marvel Remix project(s). Any connections to the MU proper? And the Inhumans graphic novel... with the kid and the council and so on... in continuity?

22:03 / 26.11.05

I thought the story with the cube was it was some all-powerful Beyonder-alike entity called, uhm, the Shaper of Worlds. Looked like a skrull?

22:14 / 26.11.05

That Skrull-inna-box made a cube, I think AIM made one, and baby-Beyonder was a cosmic cube, in and of eirself (well, one of the Beyonders - there's some wave-patterny discontuity there). There are many cubes, and they are and are not but one.
Sorta like King Solomon's Frogs, Doctors Who, and the Phantoms.
Red Skull actually was a cosmic cube for a bit there.
I think it's like, even when someone thinks they've made the cosmic cube, that they invented or engineered or shaped it, really, they're just manifesting or housing the real, pervasive cube.

22:22 / 26.11.05

Oh, and the cube is also a golden-white not-woman, bigger than big, with the brain of a small child or a cosmic kitten. She and her pink-skinned boyfriend kidnapped the Fantastic Four once, ran them through personality tests involving fighting (of course) and presumably she's shown up elsewhere too.

22:30 / 26.11.05

what are the limits of a cosmic cube. I know it can recreate reality...but on the level of the infinity gem- reality- by itself? Or the whole infinity gauntlet?

23:04 / 26.11.05

Cosmic Cubes seem to be of an order less than the Gauntlet. I don't think they've ever affected anything bigger than a planet.

23:12 / 26.11.05

I think, with the Infinity Gauntlet, it's all you, the wearer, basically. With the various Cube(s) iterations, it's a psycho-reactive box and pulls not only from its user but from any ambient thoughts, too. Hence, folks trapped in cube-based worlds, illusions or remakes or whatever they are... can often detect the irreality of the situation. With the jeweled power glove, you're inside the effect, you would never catch on without outside influence.

00:01 / 27.11.05

Happy Pants Panther.
Lemme see if I got this straight:
Future Panther thrown back in time, adventures around in Kirby's BP book, gets unconscious and entombed. Resurrected for Priest's BP book and then dies.
Right?
Sort of successfully explains how Panther goes from tech-heavy badass in Fantastic Four to Don McGregor's kitty-suit punching-bag with honor to Kirby's frog-hunter through the Marvel Knights king of a small African nation.
And heavy drugs explain Mr. Little, nicely, too.

00:26 / 27.11.05

Not quite.

Happy Pants Panther wasn't the Panther in those Kirby issues. But he had the same personality.

06:15 / 29.11.05

There are writers that come onto a pre-existing character or series, and recombine old elements in new ways to great effect.
Grant Morrison taking Cyclops' criminal guardian's diamondy-ness and the sub/dom angle, combining with his love of the telepathic gals (the perpetual JeanScott entity, and the minor and quickly forgotten Psylocke pseudo-seduction; probably Xavier, too) and doing the White Queen romance. Or, Beast jumping to conclusions about Emma's continued evilness, just like the other X-Men jumped all over him, back in the day, when they were immediately sure he betrayed them to Magneto and Unus (he didn't, he just tried to make some money as a wrestler).
Those amalgamated X-characters from the 30th anniversary stuff. Grey King and all.
Happy Pants Panther.
My question is something along these lines: There was a story, possibly by Mark Gruenwald, that explained these things as being, sort of metaphysical elements from which the heroes narratives had to be composed. They could be reorganized and recombined, you could have them just do the same things over and over again, as often happens, or they could be put together in news ways with innovative or with novelty impetus. What was the story, who did it, and was it really a Marvel story, or am I totally on the wrong track?
It's probably from 'Quasar' but my collection is two thirds of the country away, so I ain't checking actual issues for a bit.
And I don't mean '1602' and the Marvel U. starting wherever Cappy Flagman revives in time or space.

I ask here, primarily because that story, that is continuity and universe and mythology surgery.

Horatio Hellpop

04:12 / 01.12.05

i think you're probably thinking of quasar 18 by mark gruenwald and greg capullo.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

16:29 / 06.12.05

When the Beast first got furry, he was coloured blue because the printing technology couldn't do a good black. But was it understood at the time that he was in fact black-furred? And isn't it now a fact that these days he is considered to be blue-furred? When did the change occur, or did it just sneak in there somewhere?

17:05 / 06.12.05

As I recall, he was originally depicted as having GRAY fur. (Well, technically he originally wasn't furry at all, but you know what I mean.) He didn't turn blue until a couple of issues later.

17:06 / 06.12.05

I believe they've acknowledged this in-story as being a delayed mutation on the part of the serum he drank, or something along those lines. It hasn't just been ignored.

17:09 / 06.12.05

He was often refered to as blue-furred by members of the Avengers and the Defenders, if I remember correctly, I haven't got old x-men to hand, so don't know if it dates from then or seventies and eighties.

12:29 / 07.12.05

He was considered blue by at least '79. And, yeah, he was grey for a bit, then blue, both as stand-ins for black. Sorta like Spidey's costume was black and red in theory and blue and red on the page.
And, am I the only one who doesn't find a great deal of difference in his pre-furry/post-furry personality and tics? I know this bothered John Byrne and some others, but how pervasive is this "It's not the same guy" feeling? I mean: big words, continual and often platonic or flirty romantic gestures, jumps around a lot, periodically wears glasses to enhance his intellect... what were/are the perceived differences?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

20:14 / 07.12.05

Wasn't he more bestial at first? I certainly remember he had a strong aversion to fire, which made him freak out. But I think they possibly backed away from it as a crap idea.

20:41 / 07.12.05

I don't remember any sort of "Aaah! Fire! Fire burn!" deal, but maybe. And, everyone has a strong aversion to fire. It's called: burning flesh. But he's a bombastic, bouncy beastie who was more interested in his studies than in superheroing, at least even in the first year or two of X-Men.
Did he get dumber after Stan Lee moved on, maybe?

21:20 / 07.12.05

Furthermore, when did the Beast become smart in the first place? I only have the first issue of the original X-Men in a reprint, but the Hank McCoy of that book was basically a Thing knock-off to Iceman's Human Torch. The coarse strongman in competition with the young whippersnapper: "Leggo my arm, ya dad-blasted snowball! I like ice cubes in my Coke, not ticklin' my arm," or something like that.

So when did Stan decide to smarten him up? And for that matter, because of the inconsistency in at least the first issue, did some brave continuity-watching writer ever try to explain this away? I can just picture Kurt Busiek in an editor's office begging to write a story about how the original X-Men fought an obscure villain from the third story in a 1943 issue of Sub-Mariner who had a temporary-intelligence-reducer ray, and the Beast had been hit by it just before the events of the first issue.

14:12 / 10.12.05

Can someone explain (probably in detail)Adam Warlock, Thanos, Eros, Infinity Gauntlet, Quest, War? All I can remember is that Adam Warlock was created by some scientist-traveled to the other side of the sun, met up with the parallel peoples and then...what? Is Thanos a rip off of Darkseid? Who is Dax and the Troll who smokes cigars?Didn't Adam One have a female counterpart?

15:15 / 10.12.05

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

09:03 / 11.12.05

John, regarding the Beast, not sure if it was for the reasons you suggest, but in X-Factor around issues 25 or so, Beast did become stupid for a while, I think there was some sort of trade-off between his humanity and his intelligence or something.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:29 / 11.12.05

The Beast did make a machine to magnify Unus the Untouchable's powers (in order to make them beyond his control) in his first appearance (which would have been around issue 5/6-ish), so he became smart fairly soon, but his vocabulary has always been inconsistent, I think it was towards the end of Claremont's run that it settled down.

10:21 / 22.12.05

I have never peeked in this thread so I apologise if this has been asked but back when I used to read Spiderman and Howard Mackie was writing it Peter and Mary Jane had a baby which they didnt know about but Norman Osborn kidnapped. The baby's caretaker was murdered. But what of the baby? Did Marvel ever touch on that or are we to assume it never happened?

12:34 / 22.12.05

I think the folks over at Marvel have just pretended the baby story never happened. Every once in a while, a fan cries out 'do a story addressing that bizarre baby storyline!' and Marvel sort of just ignores them...

13:57 / 22.12.05

Just finished reading all of The Ultimates and I think it's going pretty cool. My only complaint is the character of Iron Man. His dialogue is way too cutesy (with its references to Paris or Xtina) and his drinking problem is waaaaay too obvious.

Here's my question. Spoilers if you haven't read the Ultimates.

In the Ultimates, Tony Stark has an inoperable brain tumour. Is this a new addition to the overall character, or did the original Tony Stark ever have a tumour?

15:20 / 22.12.05

Not that I can remember - he originally had a poor heart, that was the reason behind him building his armour - something to do with him being a POW in Japan, making a pumped up pacemaker out of spare parts, and then designing the armour to help him when he got home - The brain tumour is Ultimates update of this, I think.

15:43 / 22.12.05

Yep, brain tumor made its first appearance in Ultimates #1.

07:59 / 23.12.05

i take it tony's heart is now well in the regular marvel universe thanks to the awesome power of the pacemaker

always sort of liked that old tony angle of the iron man costume keeping his heart going, the vulernability inside the armour

his drinking has been WAY worse in the regular MU though, remember some story that just had a drunk tony living as a bum on the streets, having lost the company, the armour, everything.

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