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[Hades Hotgun]

He used to let the artist tell the story sometimes when it was an artist he was really exited to be working with.

When Barry Windsor-Smith drew an issue for example his dialogue suddenly got a lot leaner.

The BWS issues of Uncanny are fucking outstanding.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/dixon-a...ism-became-kryptonite-for-superman-1402265792

It was the WSJ, my b.

Still, dude is kinda shitty.

Oh no, I absolutely agree that Dixon says a lot of shitty stuff. He did an interview with fucking Milo Yiannopoulos. (interestingly, he complained about the treatment of Steph Brown, which was an anger he shared with the liberals and feminists he seems to dislike) I just meant in regards to creating Azazel. That was Chuck Austen.

 

[Jack Random]

Funny thing, when i was in High School, Claremont was literally the only person to write the x-men during my lifetime. he literally had my entire life to lay plot lines out and develop characters. it's mind boggling to think about.

 

[Hades Hotgun]

IIRC, he was gone before that came to fruition

Claremont had come back to Marvel by then, I believe.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

Claremont had come back to Marvel by then, I believe.

Officially Alan Davis wrote the Twelve but Claremont helped him ghost write it. Still, it's not really his fault since it was something that was in motion way before he came back to X-Men (he was busy writing terrible FF comics instead) and he was really just trying to clean shit up before his run started.

 

[Frozenprince]

Oh no, I absolutely agree that Dixon says a lot of shitty stuff. He did an interview with fucking Milo Yiannopoulos. (interestingly, he complained about the treatment of Steph Brown, which was an anger he shared with the liberals and feminists he seems to dislike) I just meant in regards to creating Azazel. That was Chuck Austen.

Phone autocorrected Azrael to Azazel lol. My bad, didn't even notice.

 

[kswiston]

I didnt mind Claremont's Fantastic Four (being 16 at the time probably helped). He did create the original version of Valeria. Speaking of which, Mark Millar making her a super smart 3 year old was the only good thing to come out of his run. Hickman deserved a medal for cleaning up Millar's mess instead of just sweeping most of it under the rug like most people following Millar do.

 

[Viewt]

I didnt mind Claremont's Fantastic Four (being 16 at the time probably helped). He did create the original version of Valeria. Speaking of which, Mark Millar making her a super smart 3 year old was the only good thing to come out of his run. Hickman deserved a medal for cleaning up Millar's mess instead of just sweeping most of it under the rug like most people following Millar do.

"I am come to pass sentence."

Oof.

 

[Slayven]

Maybe I just did enough drugs when I was growing up that it's more coherent to me.

I can agree that Batman RIP is peak Morrison fucksanity that people that dislike him see though, shit makes NO sense. Weapons grade crystal meth? Batman of Zur-Ehn-Arh? Bruh, I get it, the Silver Age makes you giddy in the nethers. But I don't need you puking it all over the page every panel.

He owes me 5 dollars for Superman 3-d

 

[thetrin]

Does anyone else like Remender? I like a lot of his stuff but I don't know if I would consider him mainstream.

I like Remender a lot. His Xforce was great.

 

[kswiston]

He owes me 5 dollars for Superman 3-d

I like Morrison, and when his craziness pays off, it really pays off. I do agree though that his work would be stronger if you didn't have to question what the hell you just read every 2-3 issues.

There was a guy on the Comic Geek Speak podcast that wrote a thesis on Crisis on Infinite Earths. He loved Morrison and used to break down all the references in Morrison books for the other members of the Podcast (who were basically blue collar guys who loved comics). This was when I still listened 5-6 years ago. I don't remember any names, but those episodes were interesting.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Without Claremont there is no X-Men today. Flatout.

He was gone too long and by the time he came back the industry and style had changed and he really hadn't and he wasn't there enough in the gap between his runs for him to pick up on the changing world.

But Claremont saved the X-Men and there's a reason the best films in the movie series are from Claremont arcs.

His Mister Sinister plan was hilarious too.

 

[TAJ]

I like Remender a lot. His Xforce was great.

His Punisher stuff was pretty fun.
But he wrote Uncanny Avengers, which was shockingly bad. And he wrote Bulletstorm. I didn't like his Captain America stuff that a lot of people seemed to love.
So I'll probably never read Uncanny X-Force.

 

[kswiston]

His Punisher stuff was pretty fun.
But he wrote Uncanny Avengers, which was shockingly bad. And he wrote Bulletstorm. I didn't like his Captain America stuff that a lot of people seemed to love.
So I'll probably never read Uncanny X-Force.

What did you read of Uncanny Avengers?

 

[TAJ]

What did you read of Uncanny Avengers?

All of it.

 

[kswiston]

All of it.

Did you like any of it?

 

[TAJ]

Did you like any of it?

No.

 

[kswiston]

No.

Ok.

The entirety of Uncanny Avengers is quite a bit weaker than Uncanny X-Force, but the stuff with the Apocalypse twins in UA is probably closest in tone. If you have Marvel Unlimited, you could read the first Uncanny X-Force arc and go from there. It's pretty short.

Typically, Uncanny X-Force is considered Remender's strongest Marvel work. Uncanny Avengers seemed to be where he started to phone it in (culminating in the horrendous AXIS).

I liked the first arc of his Cap run because it wasn't afraid to accept the fact that it was a comic book, and just went nuts. I wasn't as big on what followed though.

 

[Matty77]

Without Claremont there is no X-Men today. Flatout.

He was gone too long and by the time he came back the industry and style had changed and he really hadn't and he wasn't there enough in the gap between his runs for him to pick up on the changing world.

But Claremont saved the X-Men and there's a reason the best films in the movie series are from Claremont arcs.

His Mister Sinister plan was hilarious too.

While I do think his stories were going off the rails by the end (after the seige perilous in my opinion) and I stand by the opinion that he had some clunkers, comics are the better for him and some of his best stories are all time classics not just in X-men.

And while it gets overlooked in favor of Uncanny both New Mutants and Excalibur were great while he was writing them, I think Excalibur especially it's a shame so many overlook it.

 

[BKatastrophe]

Claremont's Uncanny X-Men is godlike. There's a reason writers keep trying to emulate his run or at the very least state they're inspired by it. Morrison and Whedon, frequently hailed as two of the best X-Men runs of all time, both have clear callbacks and homages to Claremont's run. Hell Grant Morrison states that it was the one comic book he continuously stuck with over the years. Then you have to look at how many people use his characters as the primary members of their teams (The upcoming X-Men Gold, for instance).

And the he wrote X-treme X-Men, which is also godlike. Or at least what I read. I mean, he had Ororo packing a 9 mm and Rogue beating the shit out of Vargas across the entirety of Madripoor while calling on all her powers at once

 

[excelsiorlef]

While I do think his stories were going off the rails by the end (after the seige perilous in my opinion) and I stand by the opinion that he had some clunkers, comics are the better for him and some of his best stories are all time classics not just in X-men.

And while it gets overlooked in favor of Uncanny both New Mutants and Excalibur were great while he was writing them, I think Excalibur especially it's a shame so many overlook it.

Yeah but when you write a book for 17 years you are bound to have clunkers here and there.

Fact is though other than spurts of greatness like say Whedon's Astonishing run, the X-Men have never reached the levels of quality and lasting story as they did in that 17 years.

Like I said no coincidence the two best X-Men films directly take from Claremont books.

And yes his hand in creating the X-panded (heh) X universe is frequently forgotten. He also had a hamd in bringing in Louise Simonson to the X books, specifically he helped get Marvel to give her X-Factor which lead to her doing some great work on New Mutants as well.

 

[Wiseblade]

Is there an explanation for Brian Bendis? like how can Ultimate Spider-Man be so goo and stuff like his X-Men run be so terrible?

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

Is there an explanation for Brian Bendis? like how can Ultimate Spider-Man be so goo and stuff like his X-Men run be so terrible?

His Spider-Man was a lot easier to write. He got carte blanche to reinterpret classic Spider-Man stories that time had already proven were great during a time when people were STARVED for good Spider-Man stories.

Also, X-Men is a notoriously hard book to write

 

[Sandfox]

Civil War started this shit, it sold like gangbusters so now they need to do two a year because it's the only way they can prop up the books editorial wants to push (coughCapMarvelcough) that don't have any justification to continue to be propped up.

It's gonna get worse man, they're gonna start doing this shit twice a year, there won't be a point pretty soon where there ISN'T a linewide event going on.

We're not going to get more than one linewide events a year. Also, House of M was when Marvel started trying out big events again.

Is there an explanation for Brian Bendis? like how can Ultimate Spider-Man be so goo and stuff like his X-Men run be so terrible?

Bendis is better on books with a lesser focus on continuity and starring few characters. Opinions on his X-books seem to be mixed though because there are certainly people who like them.

 

[Wiseblade]

His Spider-Man was a lot easier to write. He got carte blanche to reinterpret classic Spider-Man stories that time had already proven were great during a time when people were STARVED for good Spider-Man stories.

I guess, but USM basically carried the entire line for 15 years. even if you're improving on existing material, that's a long run to maintain that kind of quality.

Also, X-Men is a notoriously hard book to write

Hickman isn't wrong, Jason Aaron is the only one I can think of who came out of it well.

 

[Sandfox]

I guess, but USM basically carried the entire line for 15 years. even if you're improving on existing material, that's a long run to maintain that kind of quality.


Hickman isn't wrong, Jason Aaron is the only one I can think of who came out of it well.

Aaron got crap during his run as well.

 

[Wiseblade]

Aaron got crap during his run as well.

But Wolverine and the X-Men was so good!

 

[Mafro]

Aaron got crap during his run as well.

But Wolverine and the X-Men was so good!

That series was great until AvX completely derailed it (and every other title it crossed over with) and it never recovered.

 

[Riposte]

Is there an explanation for Brian Bendis? like how can Ultimate Spider-Man be so goo and stuff like his X-Men run be so terrible?

What's more incomprehensible was that he wrote both Dark Avengers and Siege at relatively the same time.

 

[Onemic]

I love you, Scott
And I, you, Jean

I dont know why he was in love with those lines. No one talks like this.


OG Clarement still the best though.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

I guess, but USM basically carried the entire line for 15 years. even if you're improving on existing material, that's a long run to maintain that kind of quality.


Hickman isn't wrong, Jason Aaron is the only one I can think of who came out of it well.

I was under the impression that the general consensus was that early Ultimate Spider-Man was way better than later.

 

[Weiss]

I love you, Scott
And I, you, Jean

I dont know why he was in love with those lines. No one talks like this.


OG Clarement still the best though.

It's melodramatic as fuck and that's what makes it so incredible.

"Monster, is it? The fools! It is they who are the monsters-- they with their mindless prejudices! Perhps things would be simpler--safer-- If I had stayed with Der Jahrmarkt-- But the life of a carnival frank is not for me-- not for Kurt Wagner! Let them come if they must-- let them try to kill me--! At least if I die, it will be as a man!"

Nobody speaks like this. That doesn't make it any less awesome combined with the the freakish looking Nightcrawler darting from an Eastern European mob carrying literal torches, talking about how human he is while jumping 12 feet into the air and climbing walls.

 

[LiveFromKyoto]

Claremont wrote 3 dimensional characters with actual evolving relationships, and his prose came off as literary at a time when comics were mostly pretty shallow. But the medium evolved and his techniques of writing relationships were absorbed by other writers. At the same time, with advanced printing techniques and the medium orienting towards stronger, more detailed visual storytelling, his works just started to come across as severely overwritten. I remember picking up X-treme X-Men and it being jarring how much of the panel he was blocking out with ponderous sentences and word bubbles:

In a post-Warren Ellis world, action scenes like this one seem weighed down and wooden, with every sentence reading like it has 1-2 words too many. It becomes completely divorced from the pace of the action itself.

And frequently, he leaves you feeling like you're squinting at the world between giant over-expositing thought bubbles:

Basically, the man came from a time before stories became decompressed, and it was incumbent upon the writer to give more information in a single issue. At the same time, he seemed to get caught up in himself and his reputation as a writer, when he would have benefitted from more reigning in.

Maybe I just did enough drugs when I was growing up that it's more coherent to me.

I can agree that Batman RIP is peak Morrison fucksanity that people that dislike him see though, shit makes NO sense. Weapons grade crystal meth? Batman of Zur-Ehn-Arh? Bruh, I get it, the Silver Age makes you giddy in the nethers. But I don't need you puking it all over the page every panel.

I think I am the only comic nerd that doesn't like Morrison. Dude has these grand concepts that quickly become word salad if not outright gibberish. I always thought he should work with someone to flesh out and tame his ideas
I agree with you on Morrison. That's why I said that Millar is a 'more focused' morrison. When Grant was reigned in, like that first Justice league arc, or even when he had a self contained story like Marvel Boy or We3, Grant is a badass. When he's just let to run free, he goes totally Kojima. Totally. Kojima.

I don't know how this thread turned into a Grant Morrison hate parade. He's an out & out genius who works from genuinely deep concepts, and does so with genuine care and emotion. He's not Kojima, because Kojima is a terribly wooden writer who is primarily regurgitating his most recent wikipedia-surf. Morrison has really been out there living this occult & psychological stuff, some of the craziest Doom Patrol issues like Rebis on the Moon were pure biography. His work is weird and provocative, but rarely incoherent if you're familiar with the material he's drawing on.

Weapons-grade crystal meth was a great example of how he just has these left-field ideas that nobody else can have which just pop off the page, make your brain go "what!?," and he just throws them out there and moves on. Zurr-en Arrh in particular was incredible - he takes this ridiculous forgotten thing that probably should have stayed that way, and makes it into this psychotropic psychotic break that is somehow triumphant. Like, of course Batman meditated with a Tibetan guru and has a backup personality. And Batman takes that absurd character and owns it, the ridiculous costume becoming a projection of total confidence in a dire situation.

 

[Wiseblade]

I was under the impression that the general consensus was that early Ultimate Spider-Man was way better than later.

Everything suffers from Ultimatum and looking back, the Death of Ultimate Peter Parker seems like Bendis reacting to having half his toys unceremoniously butchered and choosing to start anew (but not really) with Miles Morales.

But USM was always one of the best Marvel books throughout its run.

 

[Viewt]

The thing about Grant Morrison is that, while he has a ton of hits, most people are still going to take a "what have you done for me lately" kind of approach (this extends to anyone, honestly). And lately, Morrison's high-profile stuff has fallen flat. His Action Comics stuff, Multiversity, etc.

His Animal Man run? Doom Patrol? JLA? The Invisibles? All-Star Superman? Stone-cold classics, no argument there. But what's he put out lately that's been on that level?

And to be fair, I actually like Batman R.I.P., and while I initially found Final Crisis jarring and poorly paced, if you actually read it all at once (and include Submit, Superman 3D, and those two issues of Batman in the correct order), then it's actually pretty good. The problem is that the production behind that event made no fucking sense. JG Jones was never going to be able to deliver on a monthly schedule, and whose idea was it to intro the final villain of the whole thing ONLY in the Superman tie-in? And why did it have to be in 3D, honestly?

Thank goodness for Carlos Pacheco and Doug Mahnke. They saved Moz's ass.

Sigh...

Oh, and TAJ, you should read Uncanny X-Force. It's probably as good as X-Men comics are gonna get in this era. I don't know why every X-Men writer who comes on feels like they need to completely reboot the very concept of the team and build everything on a new status quo. Just take 5-6 of your favorite X-characters, put them in the mansion, and let them be good at being superheroes. You know why people hate reading X-Men these days? It's because they're ridiculously shitty at being X-Men. They're all fucking each other behind each others' backs, then betraying one another over dumb shit, then starting rival factions out of spite.

If I was an X-villain, I wouldn't even try to blow up the mansion. All you need to do is put a picture of Jean Grey photoshopped to look like she's making out with Sauron and they'll all kill each other for you.

As far as Bendis is concerned, I think he just got a little too grand in his approach. He had Avengers Disassembled, then he had New Avengers start up, and then there was the split post-Civil War, and then he did Secret Invasion and Siege, and they kept billing his stuff as "storytelling seven years in the making!" and it had to live up the hype and deliver on some epic story, when what the guy really excels at is telling fun teen Spider-Man arcs. That's enough for me, but I guess it isn't for him.

Anyway, this is all very negative, and I don't like being negative, so I'll just say that I'm really liking Vision and Old Man Logan lately. Good books by good people.

 

[kswiston]

Bendis hit to miss ratio is much better on smaller books focused on a single character that fits his writing style (and doesn't rely on continuity with anything else). His team stuff is very inconsistent, with a couple standout characters and the rest of the team spouting Bendis quips regardless of whether they are quippers or not. His events are mostly mediocre to terrible.

 

[Slayven]

Is there an explanation for Brian Bendis? like how can Ultimate Spider-Man be so goo and stuff like his X-Men run be so terrible?

*shurg* how can so many writers be good until they get a Superman book and turn into hot gabage?

 

[The Right Deal]

The thing with Bendis is he really only has a couple of different personalities to paste on to characters, he can get away with that in books with smaller casts like USM, but it becomes pretty apparent whenever he gets put on a team book, starting with New Avengers.

 

[Wiseblade]

*shurg* how can so many writers be good until they get a Superman book and turn into hot gabage?

I don't think Superman and the X-Men are comparable in difficulty to write. At the very least, the X-Men format allows you to simply create a cast of new mutants if you can't find any interesting stories to tell with the old guard. You can't just make a new Clark Kent.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

I don't think Superman and the X-Men are comparable in difficulty to write. At the very least, the X-Men format allows you to simply create a cast of new mutants if you can't find any interesting stories to tell with the old guard. You can't just make a new Clark Kent.

That's when you just make 4 new supermen

 

[Super Moop]

And lately, Morrison's high-profile stuff has fallen flat. His Action Comics stuff, Multiversity, etc.

Who didn't like Multiversity? I thought it was universally adored.

 

[Slayven]

I don't think Superman and the X-Men are comparable in difficulty to write. At the very least, the X-Men format allows you to simply create a cast of new mutants if you can't find any interesting stories to tell with the old guard. You can't just make a new Clark Kent.

I disagree, Superman best period was when had a strong supporting cast that could take over for an issue or two.

 

[deadscreensky]

The thing about Grant Morrison is that, while he has a ton of hits, most people are still going to take a "what have you done for me lately" kind of approach (this extends to anyone, honestly). And lately, Morrison's high-profile stuff has fallen flat. His Action Comics stuff, Multiversity, etc.

His Animal Man run? Doom Patrol? JLA? The Invisibles? All-Star Superman? Stone-cold classics, no argument there. But what's he put out lately that's been on that level?

And to be fair, I actually like Batman R.I.P., and while I initially found Final Crisis jarring and poorly paced, if you actually read it all at once (and include Submit, Superman 3D, and those two issues of Batman in the correct order), then it's actually pretty good. The problem is that the production behind that event made no fucking sense. JG Jones was never going to be able to deliver on a monthly schedule, and whose idea was it to intro the final villain of the whole thing ONLY in the Superman tie-in? And why did it have to be in 3D, honestly?

Thank goodness for Carlos Pacheco and Doug Mahnke. They saved Moz's ass.

Multiversity is all over the place by design, but I'd certainly put elements of it up against anything Morrison has done before. Pax Americana was brilliant, I wish we had dozens of issues of Thunder World Adventures, and Ultra Comics just broke me. And I'm not sure if it qualifies as high-profile, but Nameless was excellent too. Many months after first encountering it I'm still thinking about it much too frequently...

I had similar problems as you with Final Crisis. Probably hated it when I first read it. On rereads I came around to liking it quite a bit, but it's a rough comic for something that probably should have been more straightforward. It's a comic book massive event that's ultimately written for a pretty niche audience, filled with references to (for modern audiences) obscure characters and having basic narrative itself deliberately breaking down towards the end. It works for me now, but I feel it's actually some of Morrison's most difficult stuff and a Crisis is arguably a bad place for that.

Anyway, I'm not the biggest Claremont fan, but I agree with most (?) people here that he wrote in a certain wordy, soapy style that simply isn't popular anymore. But then again comics aren't exactly popular anymore either, so maybe it's unfair to blame too much on him. If teens were still reading them then maybe his style would remain more popular.

 

[Topfuel]

Claremont had Byrne. Same as New X-Men run by Morrison could not have worked without Frank Quitely`s detailed artwork and storytelling (even though was slow sometimes and you got Igor Kordey to cover for him). Probably the same with Whedon and Cassaday.

 

[Sandfox]

*shurg* how can so many writers be good until they get a Superman book and turn into hot gabage?

A lot of people don't really understand Superman even if they read the comics.

 

[BlackBanditSho]

His Spider-Man was a lot easier to write. He got carte blanche to reinterpret classic Spider-Man stories that time had already proven were great during a time when people were STARVED for good Spider-Man stories.

Also, X-Men is a notoriously hard book to write

you know...it's an unpopular opinion, but the ONLY writer post claremont that i've liked on X-Men who really felt like he captured the vibe of Claremont was Brubaker. His run wasn't long, but I legit enjoyed it. And yes, the Morrison run was fine. Ugly as hell. And cold. But fine.

 

[Silent Chief]

Claremont focused on the development of his characters and had trouble letting go. That led to Misty Knight, Iron Fist, Carol Danvers, etc showing up in X-Men in confusing way. Sabertooth was a nice recovery, but it hurts the continuity of the Marvel universe. Eventually, too many spin offs weakened the episodic nature of the medium. Also, he started to rely on magic powers and fairy tales which would have been more appropriate for series like the Defenders or the Avengers.

 

[Manmademan]

2. One of the worst things to happen to american comics was when they began to copy the tools and pacing of television. One of Claremont's most powerful tools was the inner thought bubble. That tool totally disappeared during the modern age (the bendis years), but it allowed a character to speak one thing and THINK something else entirely. It's actually a VERY popular tool that you still see in anime and manga, but they use it as internal monologue. For example, when, say, Naruto is trying to reason out how he's going to combat a particular move, he'll go through the process internally (which the audience can hear), then the payoff is seeing him act out... or fail. American comics used to OWN this technique. We've given it up, however, for quicker pacing and self-contained arcs. Easier to monetize and make movies from.
.

I'll have to stop you right here- this mechanic hasn't gone anywhere. Marvel has just changed the mechanic so they're no longer illustrated as cheesy "thought bubbles."

for instance:

This is used SO frequently I'm actually amazed you made the accusation.