Ixnay by Night

On 10/7/2017 at 2:15 PM, Christian said:

Not a bad idea, since no one has topped the Moench 1980s run. Some of the more recent Moon Knight books haven't been bad though....Warren Ellis, Brian Wood, and Jeff Lemire writing the book. The Lemire run I would really recommend, especially if you're a fan of the Moench issues.

Moon Knight's up there as one of my favorite Marvel characters, but the 1990s were not kind to him while Dixon and later Terry Kavanaugh was writing his book.  Moench was indeed the best, especially with that sweet sweet Sienkiewicz artwork.  I will agree, though, that title run of Ellis, Wood, and Lemire has all been fantastic.  I even liked Cullen Bunn's short run, though it didn't hold up with the stuff surrounding it.  Here's hoping Max Bemis is able to keep the title's momentum going some.

I wasn't as much a fan of Michael Cray as the regular Wild Storm series, and I think that's totally down to all of the DCU characters that appear and are referenced.  Ellis DID do all that himself in Planetary ages ago, but just like most of the characters in that series they were approximations of Superman and Wonder Woman (outside of that JLA crossover special, of course).  Michael Cray straight dropping Green fucking Arrow into my Wildstorm souffle leaves a sour taste in my mouth, not unlike green apple.  Had it been some rough caricature of Oliver Queen, I would probably be more forgiving, because the take on the character has a nice twist.  I'm just too much of a Wildstorm snob, I suppose. 

Milligan's treatment of the women in the cast were my biggest problem with his run.  I didn't have any issue with Epiphany, she had her interesting moments and I liked her as a counterpoint to John, but Milligan seemed unsure of her as a character.  To shore up that she actually was super super I mean really super important guys, he trotted out Kit Ryan, Angie, and Gemma and did nothing but break them down to lift Epiphany up.  John wasn't interested in Kit, who was this boring normal woman, because now he was marrying a smoking hot 22-year old alchemist.  Angie was reduced to a walking fat joke who John wouldn't fuck no matter how hard she wanted or asked, and Gemma, holy christ was that character assassinated.  

Plot-wise, and even characterization of Constantine-wise, I liked a lot of Milligan's run.  I thought "India" was an interesting exploration of another culture, even if heaped with stereotypes, and some of his one-offs like "The Cottage" and "Suicide Bridge" were excellent.  I didn't mind Finn and I even thought the goofy trenchcoat arc had some charm to it.  That final arc, and especially the final issue, though, was nigh-unreadable.  Instead of doing something to celebrate the conclusion of a 300-issue run of a character, Milligan used it to focus completely on his own creations (Epiphany, Finn, Julian, Terry).  When those characters get more screen time in a final issue of Hellblazer than Chas, something has gone very wrong.  That last issue may very well be my least-favorite issue of the series, even more so than Mina's terrorist issue.  

Not to mention that the live-action show already did a rather loose adaptation of All His Engines, the one that slotted Felix Faust in as the villain of the story.  Given that they're doing a straight comic story adaptation with this animated series, I'm really surprised they didn't go straight to "Dangerous Habits".  Although, I suppose if you're wanting a story that's going to look good as an animated series, adapting one of Carey's more traditionally comic-booky stories would play better than a slow character piece.  Not like they're going to pick "The Fear Machine" to animate, 20 minutes of John roughing it in the wilderness, lol.

Still and all, I'm down for this animated series.

Yeah, I tried Legends of Tomorrow when the first season was airing and just didn't dig it at all.  My wife is a huge Flash fan, and she only begrudgingly watches LoT when its a crossover episode.  All that said, I'll definitely watch the Constantine 2-parter, because even if the show sucks I still really enjoy watching Matt Ryan as John.

Agreed, looks like it might be a pretty faithful adaptation of "All His Engines", and the animation looks quite nice.  

I've not read the comic, but that trailer looks absolutely batshit.  I always dig Chris Meloni in stuff, nice to see him getting to let loose in this.

I have a feeling that Jenny Sparks being a brunette is considered a "radical new change!" in his eyes, too.  Other than Cray and King, have there been any other race/gender flips in the series that I'm forgetting about?  I think I saw a cover solicit with a female Doctor (Authority not Who), that seems to stick out in my faulty memory lobe.

And yeah, that Colt/Gamora/Spartan stuff was so damn confusing, especially the way Alan Moore dropped it into the middle of a line-wide crossover with no build-up for foreshadowing at all.  "Fire From Heaven" was such a strange story.

I was a big fan of AHS up through Coven, but I couldn't make it past the halfway point of Freakshow.  I heard good things about Hotel, and the series is sitting there on Netflix for me to revisit, I just haven't found the time.

The gender flipped character didn't bother me as much as the changes he made to Spartan/John Colt, who is now just "Generic Ellis Protagonist" instead of a cool, alien android/CEO.  Still on board for the ride, I'm enjoying it despite the glacial pace, but now I'm starting to wonder if that's just because I love the Wildstorm characters so much.  

Jason, that post....that image...

Well played.

3 minutes ago, dogpoet said:

The story I've heard (and this might just be a much younger and snottier Mark Millar trash-talking his competition), is that Ennis got it over Smith because he out and out stated that there was no way in hell he would even consider wasting his time writing Doctor Fate* if he wasn't offered Hellblazer...

 

What's the issue with Chaykin? Wouldn't you like to see Constatine in either a much sharper suit (or black leather) beating the shit out of people in between overdesigned splash pages of gunfights? Nobody in comics does flamboyant dandies like Chaykin, after all, and he's got the correct political slant and a nasty sense of humour as well.

 

*(aka Scarab, it seems)

Just not big on Chaykin, he's about the last creator I would want touching Constantine.  Especially if he was on art as well, because John would suddenly have black hair and a cleft chin.  Put him on a Nick Necro ongoing series, however, and I would indeed be achin' for some Chaykin.  

Yeah, can't really argue with kid logic, lol.

On 9/28/2017 at 4:17 PM, seventhcircle said:

twirly guy :D

can i get a high-res picture of that shelf?

i want to see whats in your library :)

That pic came from Facebook, which was uploaded from my phone.  I'll see if a straight download from my phone gets me a higher-res image when I've got some free time.  Unfortunately, my library isn't much to look at these days, tight money times necessitated me selling most of my collection.  

On 10/2/2017 at 8:43 AM, Lou K said:

Batman Jammies!!!!!!!!

He has gravitated toward Batman as his favorite, well, anything.  He watches a steady stream of Batman: The Animated Series, which as good as it is is starting to wear thin for our family, lol.  He also loves the Hulk and Ghost Rider, who he calls "Eyes" because he heard the character say "Look Into My Eyes" one time when he was a baby, lol.

On 10/1/2017 at 7:52 AM, dogpoet said:

I don't know about that: given Robinson's approach to Starman (and the Scarlet Witch, the Shade and most of his other work for DC) wouldn't he be likely to construct his story for Constantine by raking through the past continuity rather than coming up with something new? He even took approach that for his work at Wildstorm, and there was what, three year's worth of backstory for him to mine at the time?

Diggle doing that seems to be the main objection to his stuff (besides it being like Carey, but not as good), so maybe getting in somebody else with a reputation for constructing stories by dredging through back issues wouldn't be the best move there? (Also, I don't think Robinson has done much horror stuff, has he? It doesn't suit his approach to story telling at all.)

Those are some really good points, Robinson does tend to mine the past of his characters, and that was one of the more damning aspects to Diggle's run.  I'd counter, though, with the notion that Diggle's continuity dredging wasn't what made his run so forgettable, it was that he regurgitated past minutia while simultaneously sacrificing character moments for plot mechanics.  I don't think Robinson would do that, because in his better works like Scarlet Witch and especially Starman, he grounded the series in heavy character pieces while also laying down all of the plots for his endgame.  Robinson would bring the character's heart and humanity back, instead of just sending him on neverending quests.

Or he'd write something like Justice League: Cry for Justice and make me look like a fucking idiot for suggesting him in the first place.  It's a toss up.   

Jason, you summed up my thoughts on the Diggle run almost to the letter.  It wasn't so much the call backs and constant springboarding off of old continuity, it was that the humanity seemed to be leeched from the series.  There was that podcast that was released for Hellblazer's 25th anniversary that had a round table interview with Delano, Lloyd, Milligan, and Diggle, and listening to that really informed where Diggle was coming from as a writer on the book.  He was a Hellblazer fanboy, particularly of Delano, and he kept saying "Jamie, did you know I did this in my run?  I brought back the Golden Boy?  I had him drinking gin n' tonics again?"  Delano kind of brushed it all off, but you could tell that Diggle was very proud to have brought back all of that past stuff.  Unfortunately, I think all of those plot mechanics really sucked the life out of Constantine as a character.  Like you said, Jason, that bit at the end with John and Chas was a real breath of fresh air for the series, and I hated that Diggle couldn't have done more of THAT during his run.  Who knows, though, maybe Diggle had more in him than I'm giving him credit for, his run was chopped halway through and according to him had some really heavy editorial pushback.

Matt Wagner, yes please.  Howard Chaykin, no, not so much.  

Speaking of John Smith, I was reading back through the Sean Phillips art book a few weeks ago, and it had a lot of talk about Smith and Hellblazer.  Apparently, the Smith/Phillips team almost had the gig post-Delano, but the decision ultimately went to Ennis instead.  Issue # 51 was taken from the series outline/proposal that Smith had submitted to Berger.  I'd have really loved to see that run happen, personally.

Spurrier, yes, definitely.

Ditto for DeMatteis, whose long been one of my favorite comic writers.  I really enjoyed that first issue of Justice League Dark that he wrote, that had John being manipulated by the House of Mystery, and thought he had the character's voice down really well.  It was too bad that he had to slog through that "Blight" crossover, which soured me on his JLD run as a whole.  Still, though, I agree that he'd likely have one really great Hellblazer story in him.

So, in the hypothetical storybook fantasy that sees DC resurrecting Hellblazer as yearly Vertigo OGNs, or whatever format you'd like in this dream scenario, who would be on your short-list to produce some material?  I'd honestly like the first to be an anthology, a la issue # 250 w/o the Christmas theme, that brings back all the old creators for one last short story.  Delano, Ennis, Jenkins (absolutely Jenkins!), Carey, extend the invite to Ellis and see if he bites, even Azzarello and Milligan.  Let Sean Phillips, Leonardo Manco, Marcelo Frusin, any of the other classic artists that are still around all produce some work for it.  

Then, the next year you hand off to a new creative team to tell their one Hellblazer story.  Who's on the short-list?  I'd like to see Paul Cornell take a swing, then let cats like Kieron Gillen, China Meiville, and James Robinson (likely an unpopular choice for most, I'm sure) take their turns.  Al Ewing would be another good one, I think.  What about on art?  My dream artist for the series has always been Charlie Adlard.  Throw down some dollars and get Bill Sienkiewicz to join up for a volume.  

I recently did a re-read of Hellblazer starting with Diggle's run, through to the end of Milligan's, and up through the DCU Constantine runs.  I'll be interested in your takes on Diggle and Milligan, because going back years later and reading them kind of changed my opinions on some of those stories (especially Milligan, whose run I hadn't read since it was first running).  I've said before that I think Mina's run is the weakest, mainly due to the absolute failure of how "Red Right Hand" ended, and how the pacing was so off throughout the run as a whole.  Plus, she turned in what was probably the worst issue of Hellblazer proper with that London terrorist/Map story.

Are you planning on reading through the DCU/New52 stuff as well?  

I'm a big fan of James Robinson's work, Starman is probably my all-time favorite comic series (and I have this weird love for his Justice League run), but I just have zero desire to read Wonder Woman.  I DID enjoy Robinson's Scarlet Witch series last year, though.  I just wish he'd work on more characters I actually care to read about.  I've mentioned it here before, but I'd honestly like to see him take a crack at Hellblazer at some point, even if just for one story.

Picked up issue # 14.  While it didn't grab me as tightly as the previous issue, it was still really good.  Having gone so long without a decent Hellblazer fix, this one just feels right on so many levels.  If Seely can stick the landing next issue, I'll be really happy.  Artwork was pretty ace, too, nice and gritty without sacrificing storytelling or clarity.  Nice use of mythology, a plot that's engaging, and a really nice bit of magic in a pub.  

This story gets a thumbs up from me, here's hoping # 15 continues the trend.

I will say, though, both covers for this issue were awful.  I'm not a fan of Seely's art as much as his writing, and the Yasmine Putri cover wasn't much better.  I don't know what it is with Putri, sometimes she has some really solid cover work for the series, other times John looks like a 12 year old playing dress up.  Very strange.

Here's Johnny scaling my bookshelf like it's goddamned Mount Everest.  

The only part of Legacy that I enjoyed was Jason Aaron getting to write Ghost Rider again, the rest was just underwhelming as hell.

Wasn't there a Constantine/Wonder Woman team-up story recently in some Rebirth anthology special?