tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105844689832543332.post4447898766184770600..comments2024-03-27T11:32:34.392-07:00Comments on NOT A HOAX! NOT A DREAM!: FANTASTIC FOUR #238Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105844689832543332.post-81052856848131515512017-08-15T08:53:56.409-07:002017-08-15T08:53:56.409-07:00Welcome aboard, and thank you for the promotional ...Welcome aboard, and thank you for the promotional tweet a few days ago! I hope you like what you see.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105844689832543332.post-55816454832829063422017-08-11T05:02:50.803-07:002017-08-11T05:02:50.803-07:00Great blog! Discovered this while trying to find ...Great blog! Discovered this while trying to find what year/month this issue was published!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00511421048408724137noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105844689832543332.post-2332031207525215212016-02-04T09:56:41.870-08:002016-02-04T09:56:41.870-08:00I would bet that the reversion to the sixties mold...I would bet that the reversion to the sixties mold was Tom DeFalco's idea. He did something similar on Thor around the same time, and his artist, Ron Frenz, even got in on the act too, illustrating the first chunk of their run in a <i>faux</i> Kirby style.<br /><br />Some of the stuff you mention is actual change, no doubt there. But things like the female characters coming into their own simply had to happen, or Marvel would be looked upon as a dinosaur in the modern age.<br /><br />Other stuff, I'd argue is more a case of changing the window dressing than actual change. Daredevil being broken down and "born again" is a huge story and feels momentous, but when it's over, Matt Murdock is still Daredevil, he's still fighting the Kingpin, and Foggy is still his law partner. The only thing changed is his social status and the setting. I'd even argue Sue changing to the Invisible Woman is really only window dressing since she's still the same character.<br /><br />But Johnny and Alicia and Peter and Mary Jane marrying are certainly real, major changes. I don't like the idea of Johnny/Alicia, since I prefer Alicia with Ben, but I grew up on married Peter so, even though I feel it was probably a mistake to do it, I can't dislike that one too much.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105844689832543332.post-1538147039750968492016-02-02T09:24:03.238-08:002016-02-02T09:24:03.238-08:00While all that certainly is true, it seems that i...While all that certainly is true, it seems that in the 1980's characters could actually change. <br />Female characters for instance, finally started breaking out of their helpless archetype. ( Which is something I generally dislike from 1960's Marvel comics. The chauvinism on display is a turn of, and its one of the things that I really cant stand from the Lee\Kirby FF run. ) Helped along with Claremont spearheading strong female characters in 1975 and on with the X-men. <br />Some became leaders, some became more mature, but they finally broke out of their archetypes, but other characters also seemed to be allowed to grow. <br />Spiderman for instance, finally graduated settled his oldest score with the burglar, put his education on a side burner, married and gotten a scholar ship at ESU. <br /><br />Daredevil...well he got deconstructed and torn down in Born Again. <br />The FF ? Sue upgraded her name from girl to WOMAN and got a power upgrade.<br />Johnny and Alicia started to develop feelings for one another and were even allowed to marry. <br /><br />And then DeFalco's run comes along and resets almost everything. It's almost so much of a throw back to the silver age, that it's insulting. <br />Alicia is back to becoming a helpless mewling damsel in distress. <br />Johnny turned out to have married a skrull and she is killed off, to rub more salt in the wound. Especially considering he loves Lyra no matter what. <br />And even Sue got some of the 1960's archetype back. <br />I don't know if it was DeFalco, who seems to be a decent writer or an editorial edict, but the FF got slammed down hard there.<br />Considering some of Defalco's writing in Spidergirl it seems this was an editorial edict. <br />Because everything is thrown out of the water, just to dial back to issue 102. <br />Alicia's and Johnny's and partially Sue's characterisations be damned, and people's attachment to 7 years worth of stories also be damned. <br />Why not stop the publication of FF stories period and just reprint the first 103 issues ?<br />Because that's apparently what Marvel wants at times.<br />A slavish reinvention of the first 102 issues instead of letting creators do what they do best, tell good stories and let the characters move on. <br />( There is no love lost or nostalgia with me for the silver age, I'm sure it shows.) <br /><br />I've mostly read Waid's FF run and those are as far as I am concerned, great issues. Fun, filled with humor and levity and great character interaction, but still moving the characters forward. <br />Doom is even more of a monster then we first thought him to be and Waid seems to get the characters like only few before him, like Simonson and Byrne seemed to do. <br /><br />( there we go another essay)Snowkatthttp://focusedtotalitycomics.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105844689832543332.post-15234370315122646682016-02-01T09:06:05.020-08:002016-02-01T09:06:05.020-08:00I think real change is easier to do on a creator-o...I think real change is easier to do on a creator-owned title. Erik Larsen has allowed other people to play in the SAVAGE DRAGON universe, but he fully controls the characters and their fates. He can do what he wants and, presumably, after he retires, there will be no more SAVAGE DRAGON issues.<br /><br />The FF, on the other hand, are owned by a corporate entity, and Marvel has a responsibility to keep the characters in place with a relatively unchanged status quo since they will continue to exist perpetually well after each creative team moves on.<br /><br />Personally, I appreciate the merits of both ways, based upon their reasons for being.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105844689832543332.post-32005767062457228882016-02-01T09:03:33.509-08:002016-02-01T09:03:33.509-08:00They pretty much just call the robot "Frankli...They pretty much just call the robot "Franklin's robot babysitter" and so on. Though you're right; he really only pops up a few times.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105844689832543332.post-79398550579789408412016-01-28T14:05:52.912-08:002016-01-28T14:05:52.912-08:00No. Frankie is not an android. She was accidentall...No. Frankie is not an android. She was accidentally exposed to chemicals from a scientific experiment involved with the creation of the original Human Torch.<br /><br />Yes, that is "This Man, This Monster" which is truly a classic Marvel story.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105844689832543332.post-83629479432722725102016-01-28T00:37:10.268-08:002016-01-28T00:37:10.268-08:00Further, is she a virgin? Not that there's any...<i>Further, is she a virgin? Not that there's anything wrong with that; but the implication here is that literally no one, including herself, has seen her naked in six years.</i><br /><br />She's been wearing a blouse on those sort of occasions, he said, in fully appropriate no-prizesque explanation way and totally not in any questionable fan fiction way.Teemunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105844689832543332.post-34340072598264371182016-01-27T12:58:36.502-08:002016-01-27T12:58:36.502-08:00So does that mean that Frankie is a android ?
Th...So does that mean that Frankie is a android ?<br />The whole costume idea is rather ..strange, but it could work if the costume only appeared recently. <br />Otherwise its one o those things you'd best not think about too much, otherwise it all comes apart at the seams. <br /><br />This man, This monster, isn't that the one where some criminal siphons off Ben's powers for some petty slight Richards did upon him and the realises that Richards isn't a monster after all and sacrifices his life for him ?<br /><br />I hate to harp about The Savage Dragon here, but that's one reason why I like that series so much. <br />There is no illusion of change, there is actual change.<br />Character grow and grow old and are retired or die. <br />On flagship Marvel titles a writer and artist always have to put the toys back in the box when they are done. <br />Course they still can do wonderfull things, but there is always just an illusion of change opposed to actual change. <br /><br />Snowkatthttp://focusedtotalitycomics.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105844689832543332.post-91892227989689197972016-01-27T12:44:47.724-08:002016-01-27T12:44:47.724-08:00I believe official sources have named him HUBERT, ...<i>I believe official sources have named him HUBERT, but to my knowledge, Byrne never addresses the robot by any name during his time on this title.</i><br /><br />That seems...odd. I mean, to have a recurring character in a series and somehow never reference him by name? <br /><br />Then again, I doubt Unnamed Robot appeared all *that* much. Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7105844689832543332.post-46378871371937770562016-01-27T12:18:01.374-08:002016-01-27T12:18:01.374-08:00Yeah, HERBIE also appeared in the comic book, gett...Yeah, HERBIE also appeared in the comic book, getting possessed by the computer entity Doctor Sun (a TOMB OF DRACULA foe to, well, Dracula, hence Ben's shock), and then pulling a Father Karras by destroying Sun/sacrificing itself.<br />Ben returns to his muddy/oatmeal form, which is suggested as permanent (this does contradict an earlier Byrne-penned MARVEL TWO IN ONE, which has Reed tell Ben that his rocky form was the more impossible phase to cure, forcing Ben to go back in time and cure his past self in the muddy/oatmeal phase). At any rate, Byrne soon regretted this change to the older form, finding it harder to shade it. angmc43@hotmail.comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15379700547226493861noreply@blogger.com