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Assistant Editor's Comic Book Questions Thread
DJ Eebs
Moderator, Administrator admin
Moderator, Administrator admin
This thread, I've decided to give the assistant editors a chance to shine! But those guys are crazy, so...take all answers with a grain of salt!
This is the thread where you ask all your general comic book questions that don't quite deserve their own thread. Stuff like "what was the first issue the black spider-man costume appeared in" and "why can't oracle walk" goes in here.
Also, this is not a chat thread. If you don't have a question or an answer, well, this isn't the thread for you.l
This is the thread where you ask all your general comic book questions that don't quite deserve their own thread. Stuff like "what was the first issue the black spider-man costume appeared in" and "why can't oracle walk" goes in here.
Also, this is not a chat thread. If you don't have a question or an answer, well, this isn't the thread for you.l
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We don't know the status of her legs, but throughout Oracle's mini she was talking about her legs and, when the mini ended, the Darkseid magic used to heal Calculator's daughter had worked on every part of her except for her legs.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Okay, here's a question (that I asked right before the other question thread got locked): What the hell is up with Warren Ellis and Avatar comics? I'm a huge Ellis fan, and his Stormwatch runs got me interested in comics again when I'd gotten sick of Marvel/DC, and was really intrigued when I saw a whole shelf of "Warren Ellis' _________" Avatar books at my comic shop the other day. But most of the ones I read were just not up to his old quality levels, though Gravel was at least entertaining. What's the relationship between Avatar and Ellis and all these books they are publishing of his? I wasn't able to find much about their connection from either of their sites or Wikipedia.
Second: Which issues did Daredevil wear the red-and-blue armored suit in, and did he ever return to it? Yeah, I know most people absolutely hated that storyline and suit, but I'm not most people, and I remember that was the first time I ever liked Daredevil.
I will attempt to answer your second question. I know absolutely nothing about Ellis so I'll leave that to someone else.
As for Daredevil, I believe you're referencing the "Tree of Knowledge" arc. It ran from issue 326-332.
Here's an image of one of the covers. Is this the suit you were referencing?
He never returned to it, and I always liked it as well. See, Chichester and McDaniel wanted to make Daredevil a bigger name in the Marvel U, so they did the Fall From Grace Arc to set that up and give a clean slate for people to jump on board. New identity (Jack Battlin), new armor, tougher villains (since at the time the Kingpin lost his empire). Elektra coming back to life, that was an editorial mandate if I remember correctly, to add a butt kicking scantily clad female character to match WildCATS' Zealot.
Now, looking at the issues here to jog my memory the Daredevil issues from #319-332 and 336-342 those were good issues, and the Tree of Knowledge arc is something worthwhile to read now, as it dealt with the then newborn internet as a plot point. It's very heavy on the "hackerz" angle and has Hydra, Captain America AND Gambit in it. Like whoa, right?
Then Chichester and McDaniel were moved off the book, and DD became a bad book, part of the EDGE imprint. Matt fought a transgender villain (bodybuilding woman), had a breakdown (again) and was dressing up in the three different costumes he had up to that point until there was something with the Hand and everything got better after DD #350.
The design is still pretty good today, maybe black and red instead of blue and red:
Also, somewhat tying into your first question, Ellis wrote an issue of DD, #343. It was one of those reflective "what do I do when the darkness is around me" issues. Something for the Ellis completists out there.
Its basically the same issue as to why sometimes characters with black hair have blue hair. Its a color palate issue from the old newsprint era.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
The one-shot that came out last year, titled "Firebreak" was pretty good.
Were those Essential volumes written before Wolverine's origin had been established as well?
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
It was around the time Wolverine was crucified in Australia, if you've read those old Uncanny issues.
The Marvel Knights Wolverine and Spider-Man was pretty good for a team-up book.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Avatar also lets him experiment in other ways. Like a few years ago Ellis set up a miniseries there called Night Radio that was meant to give some writer friends of his more visibility and a leg up into the comics business but [strike]one or two[/strike] one of them never delivered their script and the thing didn't materialize.
- corrected because I don't want to inadvertently slander anyone's good name
http://marvel.com/catalog/?id=9676
Not sure if it'd be for everyone, but it's an interesting premise.
This has reminded me to ask something I've been wondering about for a long time.
What, exactly, do they mean when comic journalists and others say "four color"?
I've been looking back at golden age reprints of early Bats and Supes stories, and there are normally more than 5 colors per pannel. Is it mixed inks? What's the deal there?
It's called CMYK - that stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK. Those were, indeed, the four colors of inks used to make most comics (and most printed color art) back in the day. The way it works is you take photographs of the artwork using four different filters and make the printing plates based on those, so the ink is combined in certain ways at and varying strengths to create the colors you see on the final product. Like this (from the wiki article)
becomes these
Is that a Nazi shooting Wolverine?
If so, that's going on my back issue list.
As well as the Daredevil issues you guys mentioned for the "armored" suit - thanks guys, that was indeed the arc I was trying to remember.
I work at a printing press, and this is how we do it. Sadly, we don't print anything cool.
Does anyone know what happened to No Hero? Did I miss it ending? I haven't had an issue in my box in several months.
Does anyone know the origin or history of the Annual issues of comics? I personally don't care for them. They throw off my numbering system of regular issues. It seems like an old and busted tradition from 40 years ago that just needs to be dropped. If they feel like they need to tell a bigger than normal story once per year, why not just pick an issue within the normal number system and make it bigger.
When Quesada first came on board as EiC, he wanted to get rid of annuals and just do 13 issues a year instead, and that made sense. But then late artists became the norm, so annuals came back to be that fill-in.
I agree they aren't really necessary, especially on a book like Ultimate Spider-Man, Bagley could have drawn the annual stories just fine, without having Mark Brooks do them.
Another question: remember how in New Avengers, one of the very first storylines was about S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who were double agents? And then the storyline sort of disappeared as we focused more on civil War and Secret Invasion and so on? What's the latest on that? I seem to recall seeing some sort of an org-chart that shows the relationship between S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA, but I don't remember: was S.H.I.E.L.D. depicted as part of HYDRA? If so, is that even possible? When was S.H.I.E.L.D. created, and when was HYDRA? Is it a big ol' retcon, or is there enough unwritten about the history of the two organizations to make this plausible?
Lastly: has S.H.I.E.L.D. always been public knowledge, or were they at one point a more secretive agency?
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Alright, well, most of my other questions still stand.
PS2
FF X replay
PS3
God of War 1&2 HD
Rachet and Clank Future
MGS 4
Prince of Persia
360
Bayonetta
Fable 3
DS
FF: 4 heroes of light
He goes over a lot of stuff about retailing, including the cost. He mentioned shipping costs in his most recent article about Cap #600, which might be of help to you.
Purely anecdotal, but comic shops get a lot of boxes on Wednesday from Diamond. My LCS gets about 10-15 boxes of just comics and trades a week, not including toys and models.
PS2
FF X replay
PS3
God of War 1&2 HD
Rachet and Clank Future
MGS 4
Prince of Persia
360
Bayonetta
Fable 3
DS
FF: 4 heroes of light
I assume that the head of SHIELD is appointed by the U.S. President, for a couple of reasons:
1) When Tony Stark, as head of SHIELD, wants to spy on Madame Hydra, he has to go as Tony Stark the civilian, on the grounds that he can't go there in his SHIELD capacity. Same with his inability to enter into Russian airspace acting in his capacity at SHIELD.
2) Norman Osborn is shown reporting to President Obama shortly after being appointed
3) Thor argues that Asgard is outside of SHIELD/SHRA jurisdiction, because it is not in America, but rather *above* America (now, it could be that Tony was simply not inclined to challenge this, since Thor beat him senseless prior to this, and vowed to show him the difference between a god and a man in a tin suit...)
The more that I think about this, the more that it does seem like it's been portrayed somewhat inconsistently, but especially from Civil War onward, it's been made to seem like an American organization. My knowledge of comics doesn't go nearly as far back as that of many people here, though, so others should be able to clarify that much better than I can.
The big reveal that
Tony Stark was appointed as Director of SHIELD directly after the Civil War, presumably by the president (was it the president that he made the promise to that he would hunt down Captain America?). Considering that, as Director of SHIELD, his job was largely to hunt down unregistered heroes (by American law), that does further indicate that SHIELD is an American organization.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
True, and it was Hill who requested that Tony take over SHIELD.
Its jurisdiction is basically the same as any other international organization. They were explained to be so omnipresent and active in Civil War because the U.S. government invited SHIELD in to supplement their own lack of resources (I can't recall who exactly began this line, but the implication was because of Iraq and Jesus... That's beside the point). In the last pre-SI arc Tony is preparing to send back some SHIELD agents who were killed and they were shown with their own countries' flags draped over the coffins. There were at least three different countries.
Anyway, two things:
1) SHIELD is a plot device. Because it's been so present as a matter of plot, it's gotten more exposure. But like the SHRA no one before Hickman (Well, in the last 30 years) seems to have really sat down and thought about it before they used SHIELD. But basically it can or can't do whatever plot demands of it.
2) There are literally like a dozen similar organizations in the 616 universe to SHIELD. So outside of the U.S. where HAMMER reigns supreme there are either other entities for SHIELD agents to have gone, the Howling Commandos PMC Dugan formed, and the WCA Mockingbird formed with other former SHIELD agents who'd been captured by the Skrulls.
Also the reveal that SHIELD was formed by HYDRA was on the last page of Secret Warriors #1. There was an interview with Hickman about it from one of this weekend's cons. But I skimmed it and didn't really care because fuck that book.