I admit it. I first went to Dave Cockrum’s forum to find his wife (and former Marvel staffer), Paty, gossip about John Byrne’s status at DC:
Now, I hear Byrne has been doing very lousy pinup drawings of the X folk and his fans are flooding the net with, saying Wow…aren’t these great? And shouldn’t Byrne be back on the X Men?” Which means that Byrne got tossed by DC… which apparently he just did with the cancellation of the Atom book [Note: It's not cancelled, but Byrne is off the book after issue #3]… probably for badmouthing the [Superman Returns] movie and not shutting up about it when DC told him to cease and desist. Which he didn’t do.
But almost everything else that Paty says is worth quoting. After the jump, your mind will be blown.
Some excerpts to wet your palette (and on the advice of those less eager to get in trouble than myself):
Paty on Grant Morrison and his X-Men run:
Thewhole [Planet X] arc was nothing more than a temper tanturm of Morrison’s. It was so badly written and so illogical that they are still trying to deal with the stupidities of the fallout from it instead of just retconning the whole damn mess outta existance. Well… they HAVE established that the “Magneto” who did all that shit wasn’t really the real Magneto… who was on Genosha recovering from the Sentinel blitzkreig and slaughter of mutants there… which Morrison did in in the first couple issues of his run. They shoulda seen the inept handwriting on the wall then.. but no…he was allowed to run riot through Marvel canon and continuity and characterization for two years and I am not sure Marvel is ever gonna recover completelly from his insanity and ineptitude… To attempt to appease the babbling Morrison fans…my favorite name for them is “mindlsaves” cuz they seem to acept any drivel he writes…Marvel is trying to salvage what they can from his run… and tying itself in knots in doing so…cuz nothing is researched, nothing is logical or fits into canonical characterization…much less the parallel storylines in the shared Universe… which is part of Marvel’s corporate identity! I swear to you… Morrison couldn’t have done Marvel and it’s characters more damage if he had been PAID to sabotage it and them. And the fact that it was printed in ethe first place only shows that there were and still are NO mature, intelligent editors at Marvel to say “NO!” when the pages came through editorial.
the arc starts with New X Men 147 and runs to 150 and is the most stupid, vile and bigotted tirade in the history of comics. Not only for what it does to Magneto… but for what it did to every character Morrison could get his hands on… In the last two pages of 150, Morrison jumps a hundred fifty years into the supposed future in a vain attempt to keep Marvel from using the X folk again in current continuity!!! The monumental BALLS of that bastard!!! And the fans can’t see this is a giant “up yours”??? gimme a break!
That piece of walking, talking excrement damaged the company I loved more than life itself!!! And they are still picking up the pieces and tippytoeing around the shitpiles he left there. They should flush every single bit of it down the toilet where it so richly deserves to go.…Morrison is a button you don’t wanna push with me. I get angry. I am not a nice person when I am angry. You wouldn’t like me when I am angry. I don’t turn green or become wild eyed… OK..I become wild eyed… but I DON’T turn green… when you push my Morrison button…I put on the Magneto helmet and get as wild eyed and irrationalas he made the Magster.
What goes around , comes around, Morrison… You’ll get yours!
Paty on Marvel today:
from what I have seen of Joey, he has the personality to really handle the job if he would only stop listening to his poker buddies and use some common sense… He has got to stop letting Millar lead him around by the short hairs. He has got to sit back and understand the market he is in.. a changing one, even as he thinks about it…and his responsibility for protecting the characters… for it IS his responsibility and it is paramount!
Look at Disney. they protect the characters with rules of cast iron… and those franchises bridge all age groups from the oldest to the youngest. Limiting yourself to the ages between twelve and fourteen is injudicious at best… but this jerk off age seems to be the one thay are aiming for. thirty second attention spans…sex obsessed, violence prone… yep.. that’s the comics today… especially coming out of Marvel. And they are gonna lose the very lucrative older reader and female market…not tomention the ethnic market! The child editors don’t care…they want it that way, it appears. But joey HAS to care.. it’s his JOB!!!
Personally, I think he is getting his feet under him and learning the job… and I think he can do it…but he’s gotta stop listening to the little fanboys and mindlsaves!
But the best really may be the hatred that Paty has for John Byrne:
Byrne has bounced back and forth from Marvel to DC for twenty five or thirty years… and you know why? Because he and his arrogance and mouth so disaffect people at one company that they tell him to get lost. So he goes over to the other company with his fan base and worksTHERE until he pisses someone important enough at THAT company and gets the boot there… then he goes back to the other company… who has by this time forgotten how Byrne can BE…and the dreary cycle starts all over again. And this has been going on for close to thirty years, now… Byrne burned his bridges at Marvel by sneering at Joey Qusada’s grief when his parents died…and Joey was CLOSE with his parents…and from what I hear, and understand, Byrne will get back in Marvel over Joey’s cold and rotting body!!! And rightly so! You cannot display that kind of arrogance and insensitifity to everyone else and get away with it forever. What goes around comes arougn and Byrne is overdue for a comeuppance…and the whole industry knows it. Hence the disrespect and snide remarks tossed at him or about him. He has earned them. He badmouthed Chris Reeve after his death and at that time I wondered why he was still working at DC. Everyone and his dog loved Reeve for not laying down and dying and fighting for quads everywhere and stem cell research to help those like himself who have lost all movility below the cervical vertibrae. And there are a lot of people, adults and kids, who would benefit from the things he was championing. He was a real hero… a real SUPERMAN… and Byrne badmouthed him, sneered at him and generally showed what the great God Byrne was made of…total shit. But it was no surprise for those of us in the biz that Byrne acted in such a cavaliere manner… it was Byrne as usual.
I basically don’t care about his highness…he really doesn’t exist for me except as he affects those I love… like Dave, Claremont and Magneto. and then… he attacks any of those…aTHEN he deals with ME! he is ALWAYS badmouthing Claremont ,whom he is wildly jealous of…and he is on my SHIT list… and you do NOT want to be on Paty’s shit list! I have an unerring kill instinct and the bloodthirstyness to cut you off at theknees when I am angry. I’m not a nice person when I am angry… no… WAIT.. that’s the hULK…
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAA
Oh, there is much more in the link, including some interesting observations on women in Marvel comics, why Axel Alonso is the anti-christ, and which current writers pass the Paty Cockrum test. You know you want to read it.
September 20th, 2006 at 8:19 am
BONKERS
And an utter arsehole - one of the fine upstanding ‘you have a right to hold an opinion contrary to mine but I will brand you an idiot for doing so’ breed of arseholes in modern society.
September 20th, 2006 at 8:30 am
I loved Morrisons run. There you go Paty.
September 20th, 2006 at 8:47 am
But she is right. Morrison’s X-run was horrible, and he hasn’t written anything good in five or six years, save Seaguy of course.
September 20th, 2006 at 8:48 am
So Paty is insane, right? There’s no way anyone can type such drivel without realising how crazy them come off. Right?
September 20th, 2006 at 8:48 am
Clearly Morrison had the unmitigated gall to approach the X-Men as characters and not as copyrights. And if Ms. Cockrum wants Joe Q. to treat the X-Folk and other Marvel properties like Disney characters, then she shouldn’t s raise the issue of characterization at all.
September 20th, 2006 at 8:53 am
I’ve known the Mindlsaves for years. They own a bagel place a couple of blocks from my house. I’ve never known them to be anything but the warmest, kindest shitpile huggers a neighbor could ask for.
September 20th, 2006 at 9:15 am
this can’t be a grown woman typing this … right?…. right?
September 20th, 2006 at 9:17 am
So the sorry state of Magneto begins and ends with Morrison?
Okay, Mr. Harras, you can come out of hiding now!
Back to the brainmines for this mindslave…
September 20th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Oh my God, I’ve just discovered that my entire existance has been a complete lie. I thought I was an Irish Jew, but I’ve now discovered that I am in fact one of the Mindlsaves. I must learn more about this culture.
I had thought that Grant Morrison saved the X-Men franchise by introducing new ideas and concepts to a (at the time) very tired franchise. His concepts are still being used, because they were great. He only made Emma Frost one of Marvel’s most popular characters, introduced one of the X-Men’s greatest foes (Cassandra Nova), etc.
Yeah, he did so much damage to Marvel.
And, it wasn’t Grant that ruined Magneto. That was done a decade earlier when they created a second X-Men book (Jim Lee doing art).
But, why let facts and logic ruin mindless rhetoric.
September 20th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah….right.
I think the “BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAA” is actually the scariest part of this. Either she’s joking or it’s not really her or she has totally gone off the deep end.
September 20th, 2006 at 9:49 am
I don’t agree with everything she says here, but I think I like her. She’s a little nutty and apparently has a set of brass ones.
September 20th, 2006 at 9:59 am
Thank you Graeme. Just… thank you. *wipes a tear*
September 20th, 2006 at 10:16 am
Wait, Morrison’s run was bigoted?
September 20th, 2006 at 10:24 am
Wow. Just…. f’n wow. She sounds about as crazy as every girl* I ever dated in high school.
*- Had I actually dated in high school
September 20th, 2006 at 10:40 am
I agree. GM wrote the book into a dead end, cut off many ties to past readers and the X-Men have still not recovered. I dropped the book near the end of his run, and can’t find any reason to pick it up regulaely.
September 20th, 2006 at 11:01 am
Joe: Cockrum’s rationalization has been (according to earlier posts on the subject) that since Magneto is Jewish and a Holocaust survivor, and Morrison wrote him as a pure villain bent on genocide (albeit high on Kick, which she’s ignored), Morrison’s being “bigoted” and “anti-Semitic”.
September 20th, 2006 at 11:15 am
Where do I sign up to become a mindlsave?
Do mindlsaves get oversized Magneto helmets as part of their uniform?
September 20th, 2006 at 11:23 am
I thought Patty was alright and kind of fun in that “crazy uncle” kind of way until I saw her signature. Yikes!
Magneto Rules!
Xavier drools!
Write support the Claremont Magneto! Cast a vote for complexity in characterization! And write to protest the adultery of Scott and Emma!!!
Write to Isaac Perlmutter , owner and CEO at
Marvel Entertainment Inc.
10 th floor
417 Fifth Ave.
New York, NY 10016
How old is she?
September 20th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
My wife is extremely smart, sane and competent, and yet at times I find my wife hard to get along with.
Can you imagine being married to the person who wrote those posts?
Pray for Dave.
September 20th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Mommy? I’m scared.
September 20th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Loved how she describes Ed Brubaker later in that thread.
“a relatively unknown writer of unproven talent”
Also, for the people who didn’t bother to read all of Morrison’s X-Men, Magneto wasn’t so much on drugs as he was being mind-controlled.
September 20th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
That’s…amazing.
I put on the Magneto helmet and get as wild eyed and irrationalas he made the Magster.
Lady, all that means is you’ll post some more breathless rhetoric on the internet.
Whew.
September 20th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Dan Coyle, the Magneto that was featured in Morrison’s run wasn’t Jewish any longer. They changed that with X-Men #1 and made him a Gypsy. His attitude in Morrison’s run was first introduced in that issue. It was also stated that his mind was altered, so he was never actually good.
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that Morrison would have preferred using that Magneto. He mutated Emma Frost because Joe Q wouldn’t allow him to bring back Colossus. So he obviously has a love for the characters. Plus, he’s always been good at putting toys back in their box so the next person can play with them (in his words). Any changes that remain, remain, because most fans, writers, artists, and Marvel itself liked it.
Personally, I thought Kick explained the complete personality change that Magneto experienced better then some bogus mind alteration.
September 20th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
David: I don’t remember Magneto being referred to as a Gypsy in Claremont’s post-Morrison Excalibur.
September 20th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
“the arc starts with New X Men 147 and runs to 150 and is the most stupid, vile and bigotted tirade in the history of comics.”
i’m just reading morrison’s new x-men run now. and i have THIS to look forward to?!
RAD.
September 20th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Dan,
He was in X-Men #1, that huge issue that Jim Lee drew. I remember this, because I was pissed about it.
I don’t remember what issue it was that stated that his mind was altered by Moira, but that’s the one which stated that he was never good.
September 20th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
If they ever make a Ma Hunkel Red Tornado movie, I hope they cast Paty Cockrum.
September 20th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
As somebody who just read the Mutant Genesis trade not so long ago, I can’t remember anything there that states that he was a gypsy.
As for Paty, she’s crazy, but she’s got some good points about Joe letting guys like Millar just run all over the place. The comment about his poker playing buddies being in charge is perfect. Considering how everything has gone with Civil War, characterization is being sacrificied for “Woah shit!” moments. She’s dead on on Byrne. As for Morrison, its obvious that Planet X is pretty much open contempt for the cyclic nature of X-men storylines, as he tells us here: http://www.popimage.com/content/grant20044.html
“The ‘Planet X’ story was partially intended as a comment on the exhausted, circular nature of the X-Men’s ever-popular battle with Magneto and by extension, the equally cyclical nature of superhero franchise re-inventions. I ended the book exactly where I came on board, with Logan killing Magneto AGAIN, as he had done at the end of Scott Lobdell’s run. Evil never dies in comic book universes. It just keeps coming back. Imagine Hitler back for the hundredth time to menace mankind. So, in the way that something like ‘Marvel Boy’ had that insistent ‘teenage hard on’ engine driving its rhythms, ‘Planet X’ is steeped in an exhausted, world-weary, ‘middle-aged’ ennui that spoke directly of both my own and Magneto’s frustrations, disillusionment and disconnection, as well as the endless everything-is-not-enough frustrations of a certain segment of comics aging readership. In hindsight, I think I overdid the world weary a little but, you know, my loved ones were dying all around me while I was working on those issues, so I’m entitled to a little stumble into miseryland. Fantomex’s line [he accused Magneto of speaking in cliches] summed up my own cynicism at that moment, definitely and seems justified by subsequent plot developments. In my opinion, there really shouldn’t have been an actual Xorn - he had to be fake, that was the cruel point of him - and it should have been the genuine Magneto, frayed to the bare, stupid nerve and schizoid-conflicted as he was in Planet X, not just some impostor. There’s loads of good stuff in Planet X - it’s just that miasma of bleakness and futility which hovers over the whole thing.
What people often forget, of course, is that Magneto, unlike the lovely Sir Ian McKellen, is a mad old terrorist twat. No matter how he justifies his stupid, brutal behaviour, or how anyone else tries to justify it, in the end he’s just an old bastard with daft, old ideas based on violence and coercion. I really wanted to make that clear at this time. ”
I like his new x-men run, but I don’t need some artsy fartsy post modern approach to explain to me what I already know about serial super hero comics.
September 20th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
Oh,dear god.
You shouldn’t have pushed MY Morrison button Paty. Here’s a response I posted in that very topic:
Mrs. Cockrum
I am an 18 year old Jewish person. Keep this in mind while reading this essay.
And I have read TONS of Grant Morrisons works. And I can say with absolute certainty that THERE IS NO TRACE OF BIGOTRY IN ANY OF THEM.
If you have ever read ANIMAL MAN #1-26, you would find that Grant Morrison writes some of the most intelligent and LOVING works I have EVER read. And I have read a LOT. But that’s not just it. You also seem to forget that Magneto in that story line WAS BEING MIND CONTROLLED. MIND CONTROLLED. As in that may as well have not been Magneto, since his mind was long gone, possesed by an evil sentient bacteria that probably caused the Holocaust. But you didn’t bother to actually READ it. You just glanced at it and LIKE ANY BIGOT, made an assumption based on appearence. And your reaction is just…immature. Seriously, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were only ten years old, based off that post. Not exactly a good message to send.
Oh, and if you ban me, and/or delete this message, YOU’RE NO DIFFERENT FROM JOHN BYRNE!
Sincerely, Matthew.
September 20th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
Wow. That stuff about Morrisson is pretty over the top, but some of what she asys about Byrne is easy to agree with.
“Dan Coyle, the Magneto that was featured in Morrison’s run wasn’t Jewish any longer. They changed that with X-Men #1 and made him a Gypsy. His attitude in Morrison’s run was first introduced in that issue. It was also stated that his mind was altered, so he was never actually good.”
Actually, the mind-alteration Magneto didn’t work, as revealed in Vol. 2 #3. So Magneto HAD actually reformed of his own free will, it just didn’t seem like it for most of that storyline. Go back and check it out.
September 21st, 2006 at 12:03 am
Someone is koo-koo for cocoa puffs…
September 21st, 2006 at 12:11 am
Here’s a thought, while Kevin Melrose is on the DL (feel better, Kevin), see if Paty’s interested in being a guest blogger. No I’m not kidding. She sure as hell has people posting on this piece.
September 21st, 2006 at 1:34 am
Honest… If Patty Cockrum and John Byrne ever faced off in a public debate, the universe would be destroyed by the sheer force of crazy…
September 21st, 2006 at 2:58 am
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA !!
September 22nd, 2006 at 12:38 am
…and Paty would win the debate hands down!
September 22nd, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Is Paty still authorized to post on a blog that’s about her?
September 22nd, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Okay, I think I understand the rules of this blog. It’s okay to badmouth creators and ex-Marvel staffers and quote them extensively (as well as out of context), but the people being badmouthed cannot post in their own defense.
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Debate? I thought you meant fight!
She’d still kick Byrne’s butt.
September 22nd, 2006 at 4:11 pm
Valerie, I just posted in the Nightscrawlers forum, but I’ll repeat it here:
It looks as if something in Paty’s comments tripped the spam filter, which apparently removed her posts and flagged her IP address.
We’re trying to figure out how to retrieve those posts and restore her ability to comment.
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:26 pm
sog…. relegated to SPAM… Oh, the shame!!! Oh, the degradation…
sigh.. well, I’ve been called worse…mostly by the posters here, it seems…
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA
sticks and stones, children… You people don’t even KNOW me… so I supopose I should explain a few things for those of you not quite erudite enough to figure it out. the things I say about the business end and editorializing I do is deadly serious. the BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA is said with tongue firmly planted in cheek.. this is a person who , in her teens, rode the hillsides of Maryland COSTUMED AS ZORRO!!! who spent sixteen years as a volunteer firefighter and EMT in upstate NY and who takes superheroing VERY seriously, if laughingly…
ok?…ok! NOW, CARRY ON… YOU AMUSE ME…
Paty
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:26 pm
Thanks, Kevin. Like to see some truth and justice here.
And Paty, good to see you back and bwahaha-ing!
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:06 pm
I’m not gonna blast you Paty because we all have tastes that are selective. But lets be truthful.
Chris Claremont is like the Evander Holyfield of comics. His best time is behind him and he gets some good wins over scrubs. But if ya put him in a huge main event he won’t do good and looks his age.
Claremont on low key books like New Excalibur ( on my pull list) and Exiles is where he’ll do his best work. Because its there he can use lower key characters like Juggernaunt and Captain Britian to tell stories.
His run on Uncanny was weak. The entire run wasn’t so solid and his plots dragged along. The Jamie Braddock arc dragged along for 2 years with little spots and nods towards it. What happened to that X.S.E plot Paty ? It dissapeared faster than that New Hellfire Club.
Its little shock that by #475 the people at Marvel pulled the plug. They realized CC could do better on lower books than this one. So they handed the Franchise to the guy hitting fucking HR’s on Daredevil and Captain America. Wise decision which saw the books actually increase in sales.
Of course people can blame Marvel Editoral for short changing Chris Claremont. But come on. Is it always gonna be those evil bastards at Marvel who are hurting the old guy ? Or is it that his grand epic stories no longer work on key books anymore ?
Now to Grant Morrison. Yes he did seemingly recycle some things from CC. But in regards to the failed Claremont 2000 run , Morrison’s is like a genuis. The entire run I enjoyed. I enjoyed it til #150. Those final 4 issues I agree with you on. They were a clusterf-ck.
So how did that magican Claremont redeem Magneto ? Well I won’t piss you off by saying that Claremont , Marvel and the idiots who approved that Genosha ” Excalibur ” book should have slapped themselves in the face for that . (I gave that 4 issues to impress me and dropped it for the horrible charactors and the fact Magneto skipped backwards to 1985 ! )
But the X-Franchise in 2001 tooks steps forward. They had Austen and Morrison delivering on the books. Hell Chuck Austen was even out doing Claremont by last count so how sad is that ? The man scorned beyond belief online can do that ?
The funniest thing I saw was my LCS guy who told me Claremont was Da Man in the 80’s. But since then his work has paled .
Claremont really sold me on his work on Fantastic Four. That run there to me was the best work he had done in years. Because his work in Uncanny twice and Exaclibur pales. His last run won’t even be remembered and do you want it remembered for the piss poor First Foursaken ?
September 23rd, 2006 at 12:27 am
Oh dear. Don’t get me going on what Claremont’s doing on Exiles. Or worse,what Austen’s done on Uncanny. Don’t get me wrong. I think some of Austen’s stuff is okay, having the potential to be good. But where it’s bad… hoo boy.
Claremont had a few moments even “back in the day” when I’d wonder, “Okay, what on earth was he thinking?” But in general, nearly everything I like about my favorite characters was written in by Claremont.
September 23rd, 2006 at 12:39 am
Not to worry, Paty. I’m spam now, too.
September 23rd, 2006 at 3:28 am
Since Chris came back to Marvel, he has been constrained, had his characters taken away from him as soon as he made them interesting and been shot down evry time he started to get his legs under him and build a fan base again.
chris tells long stories and weaves intricate detail… and when he is allowed his head, he runs with it and creates massive amounts of fans… a lot of hem women… which the boyos don’t seem to want near their precious books. How else could he sell two to five hundred thousand books every month consistantly for close to two decades?
Oh, and by the way… Claremont took Uncanny from tenth place to ninth and thence to SEVENTH place in the ratings…on his way up! where is it now? eighteenth place…not even in the top ten! OK… you gotta give a writer and/or artist at least six issues to get their feet under them when they take over a new venue…that is a given… at least it is understood by the pros… so giving Excalibur four issues when it was starting out with mostly new characters was not very wise… but hey, it’s your money and bias… so you missed a good batch of characters who were finding their audience when they were unceremoniously..once again… yanked out from under Chris. The book was begginning to coalesce under a very good female editor, Stephanie Moore, and where is she now? don’t get me started on women at Marvel…Chris works well with female editors… and Chris was bginning to get down to the nitty gritty we expected of him when the boyos got scared and yanked it for the god awful House of M debacle. Chris builds fanbase without the hype given to lesser talents.. he plugs along with good stories. He doesn’t need the hype….but if he had it, you would see his readership grow by leaps and bounds cuz he can tell a good story when he is allowed to. And if he were allowed to doo what he CAN do, he would put Marvel back into the top ten consistantly… and take tje X framcjose back to first place… as he was starting to do with Uncanny when they yanked it. That decision was stupid. You do not mess with a writer who is rising in the ratings and he had just gone from ninth to seventh place in those ratings.
So now, Civil War is in first place…and Marvel has hyped it to the skies…and that is probably WHY it is in first place… cuz Hype DOES work. Also, I understand, Marvel stacks the decks by sending more books than some retailers order and telling them that if they don’t take the extra books, that Marvel will take them off it’s distribution list…and we have this news from a retailer this was DONE to… so…Marvel can pick and choose which books it wants to do well. Now, Excalibur, Vol.2 was not hyped. It was barely mentioned. They didn’t want Claremont to do well or build a strong fan base with it…but he was doing so…without the hype and pushed sales.
this is the kind of interior politics that longtrime observers…of all kinds… have noted. And if you understand the complexities and ins and outs of the biz, it paints a very dark picture of what is happening at Marvel these days. I turely fear for the company I once loved so much.
Obviously, we will never agree on either Claremont or Morrison… so atempting to talk to you about it is a moot point. Suffice to say, that Morrison’s habit of starting out well and then devolving into chaos in his writing is a pattern he keeps repeating. You want to read inept and chaotic writing and say it is great…hey… that’s your business. Condolences.
All I can tell you is this… when storylines are cut short, dropped or truncated and warped out of any kind of coherency, it is not Claremont’s fault. he is given OKs for storylines, gets started on them and then is told to shorten or end them precipitously…with no time to do that logically or well. It is very frustrating for him and has everything to do with office politics.
Marvel is in chaos right now. anyone with an experienced eye and even a small knowledge of the biz can see that…and those of us who KNOW the business can see further into it. While we may not be privvy to all the details, cuz apparently they do rope and gag at least some of their creators…others are allowed toleak stuff they want leaked… seasoned observers can extrapolate some things from what we see happening with news releases, book ratings, missed schedules, disappearing characters or storylines and such. What we are seeing is a lot of hanky panky, illogical business decisions and crazyness there.
Every business has logical rules and ways of operating… and we are not seeing these happening at Marvel these days. The comics industry is a fragile thing… beautiful in it’s delicacy and complexity, but fragle as fine crystal. And right now, people who have been in the biz, know it and still love it, are dismayed to see a lot of shattering going on…to no good effect.
If Marvel were breaking new ground, rising in the ratings, dominating the top ten or even twenty as they did of yore, you might say OK… new tactics and such are working. But Marvel only has two titles, or so, I believe, in the latest top ten… Civil War..which they have hyped into the next galaxy, and which is the big summer push… and Bendis’ New Avengers. OK Avengers fans are diehards who seem to have stuck with the book even after the Avengers Disassemble crap.. Bendis is also a good writer. But where is anything else Marvel??? Start scrolling down, man… Uncanny is in eighteenth place…from SEVENTH place where Claremont had it??? gimme a break!
There’s a lot more to this industry than most fans ever want to know about… and it all affects the books, the creators and even the fans more than they will ever know. The fans make up their little scenerios and reasons why this or that writer isn’t doing well…and because they don’t know the ins and outs of the biz, they can be waaaay off base. They just don’t have enough information to make competant judgements. I am trying to tell you what I know of the industry… that no one else will tell you…so you can understand a little better what is going on. You don’t want to hear it or believe me… fine. Bury your head in the sand and believe what you want. You can call me crazy or insane or demented or anything else… but I’ve been in the biz…I know it…and it hasn’t changed, except to get worse…and that’s from people who are still there and still talk to me about it. I wish it weren’t so… but when they say “Paty, you are bang on…” it saddens me so much. But it does not surprise me.
That’s all…
Paty
Oh, one addendum here… I do apologize for any misspellings or oddball capitalizations in my posts. I have a recalcitrant computer keyboard who has it’s own mind and doesn’t listen to me…and I AM legally blind, so I type what I type and thenhave to go back antry to proof it with one eye about an inch from the screen, with the upshot that a lot of glitches get through… You try typing blind…it ain’t easy… it is also why I rarely go to sites like this or forums…I just cannot take too much bright screen blasting into my eyes from an inch aeay. My nose and the screen have a very electric relationship going on sometimes…LOL… so, forgive the technical glitches, please…getting old sucks!
P.
September 23rd, 2006 at 3:55 am
Hey, Kevin… You wanna check your spamblocker again? Valerie just told me that now it is blocking HER!!! and I note that her posts have been deleted, too… so it is off it’s SPAMMISH rocker, it would seem…
thanx…
Paty
September 23rd, 2006 at 7:54 am
Hey, Kevin… You wanna check your spamblocker again? Valerie just told me that now it is blocking HER!!!
Thanks, Paty. I’ve retrieved her comments, and she should be clear to post again. Sorry about that, Valerie!
I won’t pretend to understand our spam filter, but it’s beginning to scare me. If it asks, “Would you like to play a game?” I’m out of here!
September 23rd, 2006 at 11:51 am
Thats a good spin on the numbers Paty. But heres the numbers according to Icv2.
June #474: Rank 23: 78,140
May: #473: Rank 17: 79,335
April #472: Rank 11: 79,157
March #471: Rank 11: 78,286
March #470 Rank 9 : 79,389
Feb. #469 Rank 10 : 79,039
Now thats only 6 months. By the time Claremont started his final arc the book started to drop. Because like a business Marvel saw that Uncanny’s numbers would fall with DC’s relaunches and all.
So by revamping and giving Ed Brubaker the Uncanny book heres his numbers:
July #475 Rank 11 : 103,993
July #476 rank 19 : 88,775
August #477 Rank 18: 89,225
So Ed Brubaker did his job. He sold more. This is what Marvel wanted. He came off a hot mini-series and they saw that he appeal to Generation Y/X and gave him the series. Thus far it seems to be working.
I gave the Genosha Excalibur enough time. The opening arc was 4 issues. But Claremont couldn’t lure me with his cast and his use of Magneto in that series. Its like he forgot the entire 1990’s periods and just had Magneto show up like he had been on Genosha island since he left the books in 1991.
If Chris Claremont had hype ? As I recall for Reload they did give him hype and plugged that his X-Treme X-Men was coming over to Uncanny . That he was gonna get to write Uncanny X-Men again. ( Its a shame though. I think they should have kept Austen on Uncanny and shifted CC to X-Men…but thats old news)
Civil War is hyped due to the fact its an Earth shattering Marvel Comics event. It effects the entire line and is geared to removing secret ID’s. I don’t agree with Peter Parker losing his secret ID but I’ll accept it over time I’m sure.
Well lets lay it down for Morrison and Claremont. The 2 had great starting points. And weak endings on the X-Men lately.
But judging from a run where Morrison dragged the Franchise kicking into the 21st Century , what happened to CC’s revamp after Reload ? Yes he lost Storm over time and his plot for the Hellfire Club was taken by Joss Whedon. But in that entire 30 issue run by CC lately what really is remembered ?
In Morrison’s arcs you at least remember things like the telepathic seduction Emma Frost used on Scott Summers. Or the sublime . Or Xavier coming out and claiming he’s a mutant.
Yeah , Morrison’s last arc ” Here Comes Tomorrow ” blew monkey balls. It sucked for me. I loved the art but my god it sucked. Him and Claremont should hold a contest on worst final arcs where they can debate First Foursaken and the Pheionix Egg !
Is there trouble at Marvel ? Ohh I’m sure its not some fairytale land at times. They do operate in choas at times as does DC. I’m sure the biggest choas is the late Hollywood writers books.
They do cator to Hollywood writers a lot. They allow Heinberg , Whedon , Smith and Hudlin untold time and bad work at times. Thats a key fault of Marvel.
But in Heinberg’s case , the man gets my props. He writes Young Avengers and I could wait months on it. Whedon does Astonishing X-Men and he gets my props as well. As he said he follows some of what Morrison laid down. ( You’d be happy to know Kitty Pryde is cleary his favorite in this)
Uhhh Paty I have the August IVc2 list and heres the top 10. Marvel isn’t totally destroyed by DC.
2. New Avengers #23 : 154,262
3. Wolverine Origins #5: 120,448
4. Astonishing X-Men #16: 120,371
10# Civil War: Frontline #5: 111,435
In the top 20 Marvel has 5 more books. Thats 9 books in the top 20. DC’s mainly there for *52 which is pretty damn impressive for a weekly.
Again I don’t hate Claremont but he cleary was replaced by a business decision. The summer comics wars were heating up , DC had relaunches and *52 lined up and they would dwarf what he sold. So they went with someone else to sell more books to compete.
September 23rd, 2006 at 3:03 pm
My, my… Civil War in TENTH place? wasn’t it in first for quite a while? New Avengers…yeah… Oh,yeah.. I forgot about Wolverine… sheesh… how could I have forgotten about the most overused character in the comics industry? New Avengers, in spite of the fact that I find Bendis a very readable writer, stayed in the top ten after the Avengers Disassemble crap simply because they brought in Spider Man and all the fans who will buy anything with Spidey in it… and Wolverine…same reason… to bolster sales during the chaos after the AD blitzkreig. And it worked, too…it’s still working despite the fact that neither of these characters BELONG in the Avengers. spidey’s a loner and Wolverine is the Multiple Man in disguise…he has to be and still be everywhere that he is appearing at the same time!
Astonishing by Whedon I find very readable and enjoyable. And it looks by the nubers, that readership is rising… and we wonders, we does, how much of that is padded sales.
We shall see where Uncanny goes from here. I will give Brubaker a chance… same as I gave Morrison…but if I do not like what he is doing I will say so.Of course, if I like it, I will say that, too. I would love to pick up a Marvel book and really like it. While I didn’t like all of Austen’s work, I did love what he developed with Juggernaut…but he had some off the wall ideas, too…some of which never saw print..thankfully. Marvel is in flux right now… time will tell just how chaotic it is gonna get…who is gonna do what…and how it is gonna play out.
On another note…Maven of conspiracy theories that some at Marvel have branded me… I do need to reinforce my rep by noting that it has been brought to my attention that Valerie and I are quie possibly the only females…opinionated females.. posting on this thread.. and COINCIDENTALLY??? we are the only ones having trouble with the spamblocking device. Curious? Yeah… is the spamblocker a male chauvinist pig? Gee… I can see it kicking in on some of my posts cuz they are long… but Valerie’s??? gimme a break…
Hmmm hadnn’t noticed that we were the only two females… mostly cuz i don’t know all the internet posters and some merelly use initials…so they could be male or female… but the majority of posters here are male, so I will acceed that maybe we ARE the only two females here… which makes the spamblocker thing VERY suspicious, indeed. Others not having this problem..eh? what about it, Kevin? What’s happening here? Now, I don’t think YOU are at fault, Kevin… but you might want to look into who might be…cuz this is just TOO coincidental and the maxim is… there are no coincidences. Coincidnce is Mama Nature saying “Hey! YOU! Pay Attention!” While I am old, trusting and sometimes niave…right..I didn’t notice this little anomaly…but Val did after SHE was spammified, too… She is gonna be one HELL of a cop!. She brought it to my attention and we both sat with tongue firmly planted in Cheek and said “Well… isn’t THAT interesting…” And it is, too… so what gives, kiddo? Is anyone else being relegated to SPAMVILLE here? You go to post a comment and you get a note saying you are not AUTHORIZED to post… Kev says it’s the spamblocker.. whatever or whoever that is…Mr, Parkin, the head honcho assures me it is the spamblocker malfunctioning, too… but it IS interesting that the spamblocker targets female posters …seemingly exclusivly. Any of you boyos having problems with being SPAMIFIED???
Just wondering…cuz i had enough of that crap when I worked at Marvel…the anti female bias permeates the industry…and always has… but that’s another rant… a very valid one…
Anyway… I am just wondring… any GUY out there being spamified? It would really warm my heart to know guys have this problem, too…anyone?
Paty
September 23rd, 2006 at 4:32 pm
I think it’s coming alive, like the Danger Room … anyway, I made some adjustments to the general settings so it should be less harsh on comments. Dunno if it will work or not, but we’ll see.
We have had this problem before, with both males and females, but it’s usually once every three months rather than three in the same week (there was another person in another thread that was getting caught up in it as well).
And Valerie, I got your email … after I retrieved it from my email spam filter (seriously!)
September 23rd, 2006 at 5:54 pm
That Civil War is another mini-series book. Its called Frontline and from whats listed will run 11 issues. I honestly can’t see why people would buy it and all when they get the main mini-series.
I gave Wolverine: Origins 3 issues and I got bored by it. I suppose he still has his fans with how well that ongoing is doing.
I’m more of a DC guy execpt for:
Young Avengers
New Avengers
Uncanny X-Men
X-Men
Astonishing X-Men
New X-Men
New Excalibur
Daredevil
So I really can’t say Marvel’s in choas. I know DC’s got so many big things running and revamps and all. Last year I had a lot of DC’s work on my pull-list.
September 23rd, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Just a quick response to Chris at post #19, who said ‘pray for Dave’ with reference to living with Paty: she too is intelligent, well-educated, quick-witter and enthusiastic about her interests. She’s also inclined to be feisty and a bit eccentric. But I wouldn’t try to control her, even if I thought I could. We’ve been married for 28 years or thereabouts and most of it’s been a hoot.
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:38 pm
MOST??? MOST??? OK… well, most. I can’t argue that…there are times I have been off the wall and both Dave and my sis, Barb have tippytoed around me like I was a vial of nitro…LOL…
I do tend to get passionate about the things I love… like certain Marvel Characters…ahem… I mean, it was Dave who took the picture of me in the Magneto helmet… which usually resides in my room with it’s votive candle in front of it…but then he KNEW what I was like when he married me. I am about as upfront as it gets. what you see is basically what you get. If I say something, I believe it is true…and I try to get as much information as possible to back up my opinion. sometimes, because of the blind eyes this is hard to do…Blindness doesn’t, as Dave can attest, diminish my feist factor. for a while I was on medication that made me very zombie esque… probably a needed respite for Dave and Boo…LOL.. but we have adjusted the meds, and the feist of yore is back.
I see a lot of stuff happening in our industry that I need to speak out on while I am still above ground… basically because what I observed twenty five years ago has not changed except for the worst. Apparently I am not the only one beginning to observe. I recently heard about a news reporter who got interested in the comics because of the movies, I guess, and decided to see how many women were working in the industry in ANY capacity… and found, to her horror, that it was a boys club and that women were being kept out en masse. She blew the big media whistle, apparently … and stuff I have been saying at cons and in posts for the past twenty five or thirty years is now out in the open and the companies are being embarassed… and rightly so. will it change anything? wil the companies seek out the female writers and artists out here just waiting … hopelessly… for a chance? I ain’t gonna bet the rent on it… but I would love to see that happen, cuz I think it would open the door for a market that is just sitting there in the hundreds of thousands waiting for sometning they can relate to to read!!!
Dave is the most mild mannered of guys… Clark Kent has nothing on him…LOL…I am feisty, a former firefighter, hunter and horsewoman… we go together very well… He draws superheroes…I am one…or was one before I became blind. I have always said that being a firefighter is as close to being a superhero as you can get… and not get shot at! LOL… He used to snuggle into the warm covers when the fire alarm went off in the middle of a cold, sleety night and I had to jump outta bed, pull on my turnout gear and run out into the freezing cold to rescue some drunk who had rolled his pickup… or fight a fire devouring someone’s house. As I turned the air blue with curses…cuz I really didn’t want to go out in that mess… but duty called… he would grin merrily and say “Have fun, honey… you wanted this, didn’t you?” Evil man…he has his ways of getting even, y’know…
LOL
Paty
September 23rd, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Paty this isn’t to be mean or try and start a flame war over Magneto’s background of all things. But as someone who had a Gypsy background why is it wrong that he can’t be a Gypsy ?
They too went thru the Halocast as well as the Jews . Is there something really wrong in making him a Gypsy thats bad or is it you wanting to keep him of Jewish descent ?
September 23rd, 2006 at 10:25 pm
Oh… and for those of you who donn’t know what a “hoot” is… it’s an old timy term for “a rollicking good time” or somesuch. You know..laughter, gaiety, fun and games…LOL… mostly Scrabble… which we need to get back to playing. It has gone by the board… no pun intended… since we moved… but we need to return to the intrigue, the erudition and the backstabbing of cutthroat Scrabble!!! we don’t DO video games… we’r old… we do BOARD games!
LOL
Paty
September 23rd, 2006 at 11:22 pm
Heh… richard… talk about juggling the numbers… I noticed you stopped your accounting strategically at Febuary… but it was January that Claremont hit seventh place in the ratings. Immediately after the ratings came down, the announcement that he was off the book…and the raings did a juggling dance for a coupe of months…then he became ill at a con in Italy, and the news went out that he would not be writing the later issues and that is when you see the large decline in the ratings. He wasn’t writing it. Numbers went down. Meanwhile, there seems to be an influx of readers.. probably caused by the movies…and books that were only selling say about ninety or ninety five thou to be in first place are now selling over a hundred thou and climbing… an influx of readers is good… The movies will generate interest in the books if the characterizations of the books match the characterizations of the movies that spawned the interest in the first place. which is, I guess, what spanwned the reload of several years ago.. It spun off the vast discrepancy between the sympathetic Magnero of X 2 and the abomination of the supposed Magneto of Planet X. Not only did the Planet X debacle enrage longtime comic Magneto fans, but people coming in from the movies to find more stories with Magneto in them were horrified by this raving nutball depicted in the books extant at the time. Bad mojo for Marvel.Bigtime. thence to the “Reload” which only lasted until the heat from Planet X was off and they looked around and said “Whew… doged THAT bullet… ” and went back to what they wanted to do anyway.
In any event, Claremont was taking Uncanny UP in the ratings… until he was illogically booted and then his illness put paid to his writing of the issues that showed decline in Uncanny’s ratings.
And yes… the blind eye didn’t see the whole Civil War FRONTLINE designation. More than one Civil War book? Oy Veh! I am told it does not really interact or have much to do with the main Civil War title…which didn’t even appear this month… and may be later and later in appearing because, as I understand it, the illness of mark Millar… the writer.
the gracious forbarence of Joey the Q with regard to the helth and welfare of his writers and artists is, I believe, unique in an industry which equates deadlines and revenues with nearness to God. while Joe is funny sometimes… he DOES have a gentle heart and cares about his creators.Editors in Chief are usually hard hearted… but Joe seems to be amazingly different in this regard. He is to be lauded for this, as too many in the biz don’t seem to care about the creators…but obviously Joey does. Ihope this doesn’t come back to bite him in the ass, cuz Civil war not being in the top ten for however long the hiatus, created by Millar’s illness, is gonna hurt Marvel’s revenues…the bottom line that is always looked at by the POWERS THAT BE!
Joe is a good man… he knows that change in the industry is inevitable… but i think he also knows that a good part of the revenues are from long time readers who are hanging on hoping that their favorite characters will be restored to them in some kind of resemblance to the characters they have loved for decade. Joe has to walk a fine line beween those clamoring for change and the stable bread and butter older fans who form the eonomic stability of the company.He has to protect the integrity of corporate-owned characters…while trying to seek out new pathways and new readers for the future. He stands stalwartly between corporate interests and creators…and the brickbats are flung at him when things go wrong…from both sides. I do not envy him that job!
spouting off as I do, I have occasionally had people …who agree with me…LOL… say”Paty, youshould be Editor in Chief!” To which I say, and I hope the board will pardon my candor here… “NO F***ING WAY!!!”
Joey was given a mess to try to straighten out after the Harras regime ended. He got off to a rocky start and some of the worst of it.. like Planet X…wasn’t entirely his fault. He was stilllearning a very difficult job and he had interference at the time in the person of jemas…who seemed bound and determined touserp his position and run everything… with the upshot of things getting more and more chaotic… and that was just what outside observers could see and understand. None of us knew all the details of the interior mess, the politicalmaneuverings and such that obviously went on. But Joey survived and has been learning the job and trying to do the best job he can with all the opposing factions that he can deny are there, buty are obviously there anyway. Hang in there Joey. But DO understand one thing. while the creators are real people, and yes, their lives mean a lot to their fans… it is still about the characters. They will survive when all the creators are dust.
who wrote the first Robin Hood story? do we know or really care? no… most people don’t. But they DO know Robin Hood and what he stood for. the characters are icons… what they stand for is more important than those who tell their stories ..in the long run. Creators come and go…Icons… characters… remain.
We shall see what is gonna happen as Alonzo’s new regime takes over the X books.
Marvel is in flux right now.. and it can go up or down…and a steadyhand by Joey may be the key.Carry on, Joe… we are watching…and i, for one, am rootin’ for you… cuz i do think you are a fair man and can do the job.
Paty
September 24th, 2006 at 12:02 am
In response to Richard, no nothing wrong with being Rom. There’d be nothing wrong with Mags being Rom, either, except for the crucial fact that it was previously established that he was Jewish, and most likely Polish.
It’s like coming out of nowhere and insisting Kitty Pryde is an Episcopalian of English extraction.
I also wonder why Gypsy upbringing is so common among Marvel characters. Doom, the Maximoffs, Nightcrawler, et cetera. It seems that any Marvel character who grew up on the fringes of European society was raised by Gypsies. Can someone say stereotype? Oh yeah, and Nightcrawler was raised by a sorceress, to boot.
Please. If you want to be offended, you can find enough grist for that in some of the very books we read without reading stuff into Paty’s posts that she did not write.
September 24th, 2006 at 12:02 am
I don’t do flame wars, richard…
why must he be a gypsy when he started out …once Claremont started developing him beyond the non development of Stan’s depiction… as a Jew!? Yes, the Gypsies were a persecuted people too.. but so were the jews. Dr. Doom is a Gypsy.. he is a villain/adversary. You want all the major villains/adversaries to be Gypsy??? why? you got a real hate on for Gypsies?
why does Magneto’s established heritage need to be changed to that of a gypsy? It was a bad decision that even Harras regretted.. a big mistake… that he had corrected in a later issue where the false identity of Erik Lensherr was exposed. Marvel made a mistake in the gypsy thing and corrected it. why must people insist on the MISTAKE being irreversible canon?
The attempt to change Mags from jewish heritage to gypsy was pure…if botched…bigotry. But then bigotry is usually botched and found out. It is always too blatant. I mean, everything about Unlimited 2 was wrong. Do you honestly think a woman how was raped by nazis, brainwashed and then rescued by her fellow Israelis and Xavier would work with a German soldier… possibly of the very type that raped her… to capture one of her saviors??? do you not understand women that much? the whole story was stupid from the get go and the attempt to subvert the jewish identity of Magnetto ws only one element of that stupidity.
It was established in canon that Magneto spent years in Israel… something a gypsy woudn’t do… It was established in canon that he worked for probably Mossad … as well as the brits…in capturing and returning to Israel war criminals and expatriated Nazis. Only jews work for Mossad… it’s a rule … only Jews are sonderkommandoes…as we know from canon that Magneto was.
Why is it important to YOU to cling to this false identity? How many Gypsies do we NEED in the Marvel Universe? Wanda and Pietro are part Gypsy..their mother was gypsy…their father was Jewish…Magneto from the inception of his backstory was Jewish. It is that simple.
Personally, I am not Jewish so I don’t much care… but I know and respect the feelings of Jewish people who CARE A LOT. He is theirs! they love him. they understand him and where he is coming from…cuz they’ve been there. There is no need to take away his Jewish identity as Harras tried for ten years to do. Why did he do that? You tell me. Stan loved what Claremont did.. and Stan created Magneto.
If someone came in and tried to change Doom’s backstory and make him a jew, would you accept that? of course you wouldn’t. Same thing for Magneto. He was Jewish to begin with and there is no good reason for him not to retain that ethnic identiey…except bigotry. NONE! but ya know something? There are still a lot of people out there who NEED for him to be Gypsy… because they cannot stand for this charasmatic, powerful beautiful man to be jewish. and it is nothing but bigotry.
that’s all…Jews were persecuted far worse than Gypsies in the Holocaust…more of them died… so let’s have equal representation here, OK? Doom is gypsy. Magneto is jewish.
Paty
September 24th, 2006 at 12:54 am
Heh… richard… talk about juggling the numbers… I noticed you stopped your accounting strategically at Febuary… but it was January that Claremont hit seventh place in the ratings. Immediately after the ratings came down, the announcement that he was off the book…and the raings did a juggling dance for a coupe of months…then he became ill at a con in Italy, and the news went out that he would not be writing the later issues and that is when you see the large decline in the ratings.He wasn’t writing it. Numbers went down.
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My post:
Claremont wrote up til End of Grays. Bedard wrote the final arc with him. He went from Claremont’s plan and if that First Foursaken was a pure Chris Claremont plan he needs to file that in the box with the Neo and the Crimson Pirates from 2000.
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Paty : Meanwhile, there seems to be an influx of readers.. probably caused by the movies…and books that were only selling say about ninety or ninety five thou to be in first place are now selling over a hundred thou and climbing… an influx of readers is good… The movies will generate interest in the books if the characterizations of the books match the characterizations of the movies that spawned the interest in the first place. which is, I guess, what spanwned the reload of several years ago..
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Which is good. But X3 here came out in May and its clear that #475 was an anniversery issue , hyped as a creative team change and this helped it sell a whole lot better than the final months of Claremont’s run. ( plus #475 came out in July while X3 had its main movie run in May)
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Paty : It spun off the vast discrepancy between the sympathetic Magnero of X 2 and the abomination of the supposed Magneto of Planet X. Not only did the Planet X debacle enrage longtime comic Magneto fans, but people coming in from the movies to find more stories with Magneto in them were horrified by this raving nutball depicted in the books extant at the time. Bad mojo for Marvel.Bigtime. thence to the “Reload” which only lasted until the heat from Planet X was off and they looked around and said “Whew… doged THAT bullet… ” and went back to what they wanted to do anyway.
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Richard :
Its said Morrison was gonna take part in Reload. He was relunctant to put the characters back in spandex but was going to play his storylines out which he started and put them in spandex.
So in all likelyhood had Morrison stuck around we wouldn’t have seen that foolishness by Marvel who can’t decide what Xorn is or who was there. Odds are he would have gave permission to bring Magneto back to someone in the company.
The only problems with bringing Magneto back so soon was the whole ” We’ll fucking show him ” stance it seemed to take. Instead the character suffered worse. Good intentions on bringing Mags back. Bad exacution though. Because the situation ruined what fans had expected of this character since the 1990’s. When Claremont wasn’t on the character.
Which is the problem. I think Chris approached the character as the same one he left in the 80’s/90’s. But that character no longer was the same and his attempt was like a whole F-U to the fans who came on during the 90’s and Morrison.
Part of me feels had CC waited and made Magneto the main mastermind behind House of M that would have really clicked with fans. Instead Magneto became an even sadder figure in the Genosha Excalibur. Not someone the newer fans wanted to see and it led to resentment by a lot . ( My LCS group called it the ultimate Claremont piss on fans strategy. The more angry vocal ones who would come in on a Wednesday would try and talk people outta buying Excalibur. I really didn’t give a crap since I dropped the series at #4 so I’d watch and shake my head .)
Heat with Bill Jemas was what its been rumored that led Morrison to leave for DC. Jemas was assigned elsewhere not long after as some kind of punishment for that. Because he let a golden goose who had brought such big things to Marvel go and they really backed into a corner with Reload.
Because they needed someone BIG to replace a Grant Morrison. So they went out and got Joss Whedon and to appease the Morrison fans and to keep that fanbase Whedon pledged his run would be a sequel to Morrison’s in a way.
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Paty :
In any event, Claremont was taking Uncanny UP in the ratings… until he was illogically booted and then his illness put paid to his writing of the issues that showed decline in Uncanny’s ratings.
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To be fair I’ll go back to his whole run.
#444: 112,129 ( Rank 5)
#445: 98,660 ( rank
#446: 96,961 ( Rank 7)
#447: 95,838 ( Rank 9)
#448: 94,708 ( Rank 6)
#449: 93,839 ( Rank
#450: 101,506 ( Rank 5)
#451: 97,498 ( Rank 6)
#452: 92,051 ( Rank 10)
#453: 89,952 ( Rank 9)
#454: 87,411 ( Rank 7)
#455: 88,920 ( Rank
#456: 86,676 ( Rank 10)
#457: 86,365 ( Rank 12)
#458: 85,299 ( Rank
#459: 83,547 ( Rank
#460: 82,457 ( Rank 12)
Continuing in next post. 461-464 was House of M tie-in issues so sales will be up for it.
September 24th, 2006 at 1:13 am
( Those smilies are Ranks at #8 for Uncanny )
461: 91,221 ( Rank 9 )
462: 91,125 ( Rank 10 )
463: 87,610 ( Rank 11 )
464: 85,885 ( Rank 13 )
465: 84,271 ( Rank 5 )
466: 82,825 ( Rank 10 )
467: 81,282 ( Rank 9 )
468: 79,808 ( Rank 7 )
469: 79,039 ( Rank 10 )
Ok Paty yes CC sold near 100,000 it appears on this chart. But 2 of those issues on correction are part of House of M. So that helped. His starting arc helped him and the #450 arc helped.
But then a slow fall. I can see why they went elsewhere at #475.
Look I really wanted a reason for why you wanted him to be Jewish. I accept it. The whole situation is that there is a negative stereotype for Gypsies.
The best one is the Dick Grayson one which I enjoyed. Seeing his ancestory brought in was a nice touch by Devin Grayson. I enjoyed that.
That whole topic wasn’t to start a flame war. I’m just glad people had a valid reason for wanting Magneto to be Jewish. ( I forgot Dr.Doom was raised as a Gypsy wierdly…)
September 24th, 2006 at 1:23 am
Valerie : Please. If you want to be offended, you can find enough grist for that in some of the very books we read without reading stuff into Paty’s posts that she did not write.
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Wow in all that I wrote you said I read something into her posts. You need to calm down online because nothing in my post was intended to start a fight.
I asked her a question and forgot Nightcrawler and Dr.Doom were raised by Gypsies in the Marvel Universe. Thats honest. It wasn’t to call Paty a racist or any other garbage.
I asked it and accepted her answer. Because she gave details into the characters past. Thats enough for me to accept that and know that she isn’t like that.
I’m sorry if you thought I was jumping on her or putting words in her mouth. I just asked a honest question.
September 24th, 2006 at 1:59 am
Um….did I answer it?
I’m sorry, richard…the blind eye got very lost in all that stuff you just posted…
sorry…
did I answer your question about Magneto’s heritage?
Just wondering…
Paty
September 24th, 2006 at 2:17 am
Yeah …I tried to seperate your replies and all. I wish the Blog had a quote fuction. That way I replied to all that in a way.
September 24th, 2006 at 2:19 am
Re Paty’s comment #53:And about her tendency to be ultra-enthusiastic against my laid-backedness (is that a word?!?): I would hve to say that Paty is like Lois Lane crossed with Lex Luthor. LOL
September 24th, 2006 at 2:38 am
sorry…
It is sorta my fault, I guess…
I am legally blind…had a stroke to my optic nerves about seven years ago. to read stuff, whether it is books, comics or email, I have to put these huge coke bottle glasses on, close one eye…the right one cuz, like the Egyptian God Horus, the magickal eye is the left one…LOL… and bring my eye to within an inch or so of the screen/book/comic. Now, books and comics do not glare white into the eye, causing, after a while, a form of snow blindness. If you want to get a hint of how hard it is for me to read these forums, close your right eye then put your left eye about an inch from the screen of your monitor… your nose should almost touch the screen… unless you have a big nose…LOL…then take your left forefinger and black out the center of your left eye vision and read around that blacked out area with your peripheral vision…and you willhave an idea how hard it is for me to read forums like this… which is why I do not go to them too often…or, indeed, do much research on other venues. I do like Nightscrawlers, since Ihave the old format which has a dark blue background with light, high contrast lettering and I can read without overtiring the eye with the snowblindness of this blog’s white page with black print. The lettering here provides a bit of porblems, too as it is sans serif and tends to run together in gray blocks of illegible smudges…even at h large type mode…
so if I don’t gt to all your points, I hope you will forgive it…don’t ever go blind..it sucks.
On another front…HEY KEVIN… the spamblocker GOT Dave!!! At least we know it isn’t targetting just girls, now…LOL
Paty
September 24th, 2006 at 4:58 am
Here is a clue for Paty with regards to sales and the place of a book in the top 20: they are only slightly connected.
Books can go down the charts while up in readership at the same time.
From a post above:
April #472: Rank 11: 79,157
July #476 rank 19 : 88,775
September 24th, 2006 at 11:02 am
On another front…HEY KEVIN… the spamblocker GOT Dave!!!
This thing is going to be the death of me.
I rescued his comments, Paty. Thanks.
September 24th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Well the ranks to me had Claremont stayed on and did a 79,000 raedership point for Uncanny #476 would have put him at #23 on the latest sales chart. So he would have slid down.
Theres like 12 books that did over 100,000 on that chart. Justice League of America notched over 200,000 !
So in those 13 spots its clear Uncanny came in at 89,000 this month was in a battle . I’m sure they knew to give the X-Books a shot they had to line up something big for them to compete and they did.
September 24th, 2006 at 11:56 am
Just to let you know, Richard, I was being perfectly calm. However, usually, when I read, “This isn’t meant to start a flame war,” I read it like “I’m not sure I want to start a flame war, but I probably will anyway.”
It’s like, “No offense, but…” followed by an offensive remark. You need to be careful how you come across before posting anything that smacks of falsely accusing someone of racism.
Be that as it may, I agree with Paty that there is more than enough real racism in comics to make me not so calm, like automatically deciding someone outside the mainstream of European society must be Gypsy or raised by Gypsies, playing up every stereotype about that culture in the process.
It’s not the easiest thing in the world, but it is still possible to research the language and cultures enough to write Gypsies as people rather than as stereotypes or cardboard figures in other characters’ backstories. (And I never understood why Nightcrawler’s first language would be German rather than Romany.)
Still, the first thing I’ve noticed to go when quantity and meeting deadlines is emphasized over quality is research, then careful editing, then the quality of art.
September 24th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Kevin, this may be absolutely none of my business, but are you running a separate spam blocker program like Akismet or using WP’s built-in spam function?
I just use WP on http://www.4thletter.net, and while I’m sure that we don’t get a tenth of the traffic you guys do, it works very well. I’ve found that adding a long list of phrases to the comment moderation list (there’s a list on the WP site, and there’s a couple other choice ones I added myself) will let all spam go straight into moderation, and anything that makes it into moderation that isn’t spam can be quickly found and approved.
Sorry if you already know all of this. Just figured I’d toss this out there.
September 24th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
A friend of mine who moderates a very active list, said they had trouble like this because their spamblocker was kicked off by certain words inherent in the program. Some of these had to do with the stupid Homeland security… some had to do with rabid moral language blockers…such as you couldn’t say a$$wipe without puting in the dollar signs for the “S”es.. One wonders if the work asassination would kick it off…LOL…if this is spamblocked, I will let you know and we can note that that is one of the letter combinations that kick it off. LOL…Actually that word could be kicked by two different criteria, couldn’t it? Maybe you guys should try what mr brothers suggests…
LOL
paty
September 24th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
Re Paty’s consistent spamblockinng–last time she was trying an experiment, using words that might be likely to kick off a homeland security-sensitive program or a right-wing clean language morality program. Anf who knows–my use of the terms ‘homeland security; or ‘right wing’ and ‘morality’ might set it ff too.
Dave Cockrum
September 24th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
Yeah… guess what? both of these were blocked and had to be put back on by the mods…thank you Kevin or John, or whoever…our experiment worked! spamblocker is firmly inthe hands of the amoral right and the government…
LOL
paty
September 24th, 2006 at 10:09 pm
my friend and her group… a very LARGE group, indeed, used to use words they wknew would set off Unka’s eyeballs and snoop factors with exceeding regularity..LOL… their spamblocker had been nutered to ignore cuss words, but Unka was constantly snooping on them so they consistantly used words they knew would trip the sensation meters in DC… and I don’t mean the comics company, either…LOL…They would use their thousands of posters to flood Unka with those words as a protest for being spied on and they hoped the snoops got tired of snooping… to no avail cuz their chain was being yanked with great vigor!
I give them an A for effrt…LOL the K G B is alive and well and living in the good ol US of A…
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA…
Paty
September 26th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
I love this blog.
If I ever write X-Men, I’ll need to remember this.
October 7th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
This is the reason I would never take a job in the field of comic books. I gave up reading comics regularly in 95 and today only passingly try to keep up with the changes. The constant reimaging and rewriting of a character’s personality as well as the history leaves me bored. I understand the economics of keeping a “trademark” character and title going but at what point does all of the “tweeking” bleed the character of meaning and purpose.