tiberius
Signed Up: December 11, 2006
Last Login: 440 days and 16 hours ago
Name: Luke Karumanchery
Age: 28 Light Years
Gender: Male
Profile Viewed: 48 Times
Last Login: 440 days and 16 hours ago
Name: Luke Karumanchery
Age: 28 Light Years
Gender: Male
Profile Viewed: 48 Times
tiberius's Mania News
Better Than a Dream Vol.#01 - Dec 02, 2008
Heller Wants to Take ROME to Theaters - Dec 01, 2008
Here's Gambit! - Dec 01, 2008 Review: WANTED on DVD - Dec 01, 2008 Jackman's WOLVERINE yearns for Japan - Dec 01, 2008 Most WANTED Maniacs Giveaway - Dec 01, 2008 Flamboyant - Dec 01, 2008 Blade of the Immortal Vol.#19 - Badger Hole - Dec 01, 2008 Box Office: Families Give Box Office Thanks to FOUR CHRISTMASES - Nov 30, 2008 PLANET OF THE APES Prequel Invades Fox - Nov 30, 2008 Twilight's NEW MOON Sequel Begins in March - Nov 30, 2008 Del Toro Updates on HOBBIT Shoot - Nov 30, 2008tiberius's Last Comments
THOR #3 - Sep 18, 2007 - 10:16am
Now I have to get back to work (my coffee is getting cold), but I do need to respond quickly to the Sleeper. I didn't say "leave politics behind," I said let's forget politics for the "moment" while I chatted about the artwork. I understand that our individual politics will always mark how we see the world, but we shouldn't engage a medium like comic books with a solely political eye. When we do that we risk missing a great deal. Something that I think occured when Kurt wrote his review. To be clear, I despise the Patriot Act and everything it has done to the country. I am disgusted by the present REGIME and everything that it stands for...I think these kinds of views polarized against those in favour of the Bush administration is what made the CIVIL WAR series such a success. That being said, my political leanings didn't keep me from enjoying the ending of the CIVIL WAR. Everything in me wanted Stark to be imprisoned as a war Criminal and for the adminstration to back down as it did with the Mutant Registration Acts in the past. But ultimately, it was better storytelling this way. It was more powerful to usher MARVEL into a "Brave New World" rather than keep things the way they always were. Politics run through everything we do, say and think TheSleeper, but they don't have to paint everything about what we are and how we see the world. I am a staunch liberal and a democrat, I believe in Civil Liberties and Human Rights above all else, but I could still read a comic book with a PRO-REGISTRATION slant, if it had good storytelling and artwork. The politics of the writers don't define for me what I can and cannot appreciate. At any rate, that is my rant for the day. Cheers and have a nice day
Now I have to get back to work (my coffee is getting cold), but I do need to respond quickly to the Sleeper. I didn't say "leave politics behind," I said let's forget politics for the "moment" while I chatted about the artwork. I understand that our individual politics will always mark how we see the world, but we shouldn't engage a medium like comic books with a solely political eye. When we do that we risk missing a great deal. Something that I think occured when Kurt wrote his review. To be clear, I despise the Patriot Act and everything it has done to the country. I am disgusted by the present REGIME and everything that it stands for...I think these kinds of views polarized against those in favour of the Bush administration is what made the CIVIL WAR series such a success. That being said, my political leanings didn't keep me from enjoying the ending of the CIVIL WAR. Everything in me wanted Stark to be imprisoned as a war Criminal and for the adminstration to back down as it did with the Mutant Registration Acts in the past. But ultimately, it was better storytelling this way. It was more powerful to usher MARVEL into a "Brave New World" rather than keep things the way they always were. Politics run through everything we do, say and think TheSleeper, but they don't have to paint everything about what we are and how we see the world. I am a staunch liberal and a democrat, I believe in Civil Liberties and Human Rights above all else, but I could still read a comic book with a PRO-REGISTRATION slant, if it had good storytelling and artwork. The politics of the writers don't define for me what I can and cannot appreciate. At any rate, that is my rant for the day. Cheers and have a nice day
THOR #3 - Sep 18, 2007 - 09:12am
Now, I'm going to hate adding a little sobriety to this conversation, but honestly, I think that sometimes these reviews get too lost in politics and grande analyses; so much so that we become utterly removed from the true heart and poetry of the comic book artform...or at least the promise of what it can be and sometimes (rarely) attains. I have been away from comics for about 20 years now and was completely suckered back in because of the CIVIL WAR series. I say suckered because I bought into the tie-ins and needless companion books (having a job is a great thing if you are a comic book fan...and much better way to afford the hobby than praying to find loose change behind the couch cushions at your's and all of your friend's homes :) The CIVIL war did a lot of things, it tied into the paranoid furor of the present day United States in the wake of 911. It tied into the dangerous and almost Orwellian nature of the Patriot "you're either with us or against us" Act, and it tied into something very very primal in every comic book fan...the secret dream of wanting to see your favourite heroes duke it out. Not that I'm a pro wrestling fan or anything, but the WWE figured this out a long time ago when they pit Hogan against the Ultimate Warrior - Hero vs. Hero sells. But in the Civil War, it was more than the usual comic book misunderstanding where handshakes and smiles brought everything back to normal with the turn of the final page. The Civil War changed the face or marveldom all together. Peter Parker is now running against time and fate in the "One More Day" arc in Spider-Man. Captain America is dead (?) and Tony Stark is struggling to walk a moral/ethical tight-rope that has landed him in most comic fan's bad books (a wonderful plot device because his battle with alcoholism, his questionable moral choices [i.e. dating the wasp and slapping his old friend Hank Pym in the face in the process] have always left him as a far more grey area hero, unlike the likes of Thor and Captain America to whom life is simple -- honour and loyalty above all [part of the reason that these two heros are in the select group of beings to have ever held and wielded Mjolnir). So I'm brought back to this issue of Thor. Straczynski and company have done what I consider to be comic book art and storytelling in its highest form. That being said, I've gotta be honest, it took me the first two issues to get into his new, "beefier" look (and I've gotta say, lose the skirt). But the story arc is magnificent as it send the God of Thunder across (what will hopefully be the globe and not just the US) the land in search of his lost family and Friends. Then their are the individual issue plots that work to drive the story. Straczynski and company could easily have had Asgard recreated into space ones again, but those times have changed, and how much more interesting to have it on the earth. How much more interesting to have Thor have to pay for the land. How much more clever is this as a plot contrivance that allows him to come face to face with Stark, the man who betrayed his friendship and his body. I've got nothing but respect for you Kurt, but you seem almost determined to devalue this story and the book as a whole because of your own political leanings and not for the product itself. Let's forget politics for the moment and talk about the artwork? The true mark of a beautifully rendered comic being the ability to understand the entire story without captions. Something that Coipel does with a finely tuned mastery far beyond his years. Not since the artwork of the late great John Buscema have I soaked up the imagery of a comic book with such joy. The light growing in the back of Thor's head as Ironman arrives is beautiful storytelling. Stark's walking around a aolemn and stone cold Thor is masterful. I could go on, but I fear Mr. Coipel might think I want a date or something :) You must be able to appreciate the rendering of the fight between Stark and one of Marvel's cornerstone heroes. Once or twice in the history of Marvel's Thor (of which I have always been a huge fan), he has made some reference to the fact that he generally tends to hold back, and this is a point made clear in this book. Another piece of movement that takes place here that you have missed Kurt. Here are the plot movements that have taken place in this comic alone: (a) This is the battle-hardened warrior version of Thor that we will be seeing in this series, not the sad sack 1980's Thor (b) He knows what Stark did with his DNA and that there will be a reckoning to come. (c) He has found at least one of his Asgardians and is no longer be alone (as Stark says "we know you're alone up in that place and we can take it if we choose") With every Asgardian that he finds, his army grows...will that have an impact on the Patriot ..uhmm, sorry, Registration Act. Will Stark, SHIELD and the US army be facing all of Asgard in the near future? But then, maybe I'm getting a little too lost in all the intricacies. Let's go back to me as a little kid reading my THOR comics and wishing I could be that good, and that brave and that powerful. Make no mistake about it, comics moved me as a child and have some bearing on the adult I have become, my sense of morality, my notions of right vs. wrong...right down to my understanding of what we should strive to be. And a year ago, I watched IRONMAN, Mr. Fantasic, and Yellow Jacket to a lesser degree, rip one of my childhood heros apart. I couldn't say it better than Straczynski does in this issue, they defiled the memory of Thor in the act of creating the clone. They defiled his memory and betrayed his trust. Every fanboy out there, and particularly every THOR fans not only wanted, but needed to see a come-uppance for that act. And after more than a year of waiting, we finally have it. It was a spine-tingling thing to see Coipel's rendering of THOR as he became increasingly enraged and two steps away from his warrior madness. It was awe inspiting to read Straczynski's words as they crafted the tone of his voice building almost as thunderclaps echoing his fury. The again, as a comic book fan, it was just simply great to see the Mighty THOR live up to everything that we have known he is since he entered thye Marvel universe. Simply put, stark, with all his technology and planning, was ready for the old THOR, but this is a very different THOR and a very different problem for him and the PRO-Registration heroes to handle. Another subtle plot movement that developed in this issue. Reread this issue Kurt. And read it this time not through a political lens, but through the eyes of a comic book fan who just wants to get lost in artwork and storytelling. Read it as a fan who just wants to be there and watch it all unfold...and I think you may see what I see. A throwback to the real heart of what always made us Marvel fans to begin with... The Grandeur of it. I am a 38 year old professional. I have a job and a wife and responsibilities that reflelct my age and station in life. This COMIC, this single story of HERO vs HERO, brought me back to a time in my life when all I worried about was how many more cushions I would have to flip to buy the next issue...because I had to have it. All the best
Now, I'm going to hate adding a little sobriety to this conversation, but honestly, I think that sometimes these reviews get too lost in politics and grande analyses; so much so that we become utterly removed from the true heart and poetry of the comic book artform...or at least the promise of what it can be and sometimes (rarely) attains. I have been away from comics for about 20 years now and was completely suckered back in because of the CIVIL WAR series. I say suckered because I bought into the tie-ins and needless companion books (having a job is a great thing if you are a comic book fan...and much better way to afford the hobby than praying to find loose change behind the couch cushions at your's and all of your friend's homes :) The CIVIL war did a lot of things, it tied into the paranoid furor of the present day United States in the wake of 911. It tied into the dangerous and almost Orwellian nature of the Patriot "you're either with us or against us" Act, and it tied into something very very primal in every comic book fan...the secret dream of wanting to see your favourite heroes duke it out. Not that I'm a pro wrestling fan or anything, but the WWE figured this out a long time ago when they pit Hogan against the Ultimate Warrior - Hero vs. Hero sells. But in the Civil War, it was more than the usual comic book misunderstanding where handshakes and smiles brought everything back to normal with the turn of the final page. The Civil War changed the face or marveldom all together. Peter Parker is now running against time and fate in the "One More Day" arc in Spider-Man. Captain America is dead (?) and Tony Stark is struggling to walk a moral/ethical tight-rope that has landed him in most comic fan's bad books (a wonderful plot device because his battle with alcoholism, his questionable moral choices [i.e. dating the wasp and slapping his old friend Hank Pym in the face in the process] have always left him as a far more grey area hero, unlike the likes of Thor and Captain America to whom life is simple -- honour and loyalty above all [part of the reason that these two heros are in the select group of beings to have ever held and wielded Mjolnir). So I'm brought back to this issue of Thor. Straczynski and company have done what I consider to be comic book art and storytelling in its highest form. That being said, I've gotta be honest, it took me the first two issues to get into his new, "beefier" look (and I've gotta say, lose the skirt). But the story arc is magnificent as it send the God of Thunder across (what will hopefully be the globe and not just the US) the land in search of his lost family and Friends. Then their are the individual issue plots that work to drive the story. Straczynski and company could easily have had Asgard recreated into space ones again, but those times have changed, and how much more interesting to have it on the earth. How much more interesting to have Thor have to pay for the land. How much more clever is this as a plot contrivance that allows him to come face to face with Stark, the man who betrayed his friendship and his body. I've got nothing but respect for you Kurt, but you seem almost determined to devalue this story and the book as a whole because of your own political leanings and not for the product itself. Let's forget politics for the moment and talk about the artwork? The true mark of a beautifully rendered comic being the ability to understand the entire story without captions. Something that Coipel does with a finely tuned mastery far beyond his years. Not since the artwork of the late great John Buscema have I soaked up the imagery of a comic book with such joy. The light growing in the back of Thor's head as Ironman arrives is beautiful storytelling. Stark's walking around a aolemn and stone cold Thor is masterful. I could go on, but I fear Mr. Coipel might think I want a date or something :) You must be able to appreciate the rendering of the fight between Stark and one of Marvel's cornerstone heroes. Once or twice in the history of Marvel's Thor (of which I have always been a huge fan), he has made some reference to the fact that he generally tends to hold back, and this is a point made clear in this book. Another piece of movement that takes place here that you have missed Kurt. Here are the plot movements that have taken place in this comic alone: (a) This is the battle-hardened warrior version of Thor that we will be seeing in this series, not the sad sack 1980's Thor (b) He knows what Stark did with his DNA and that there will be a reckoning to come. (c) He has found at least one of his Asgardians and is no longer be alone (as Stark says "we know you're alone up in that place and we can take it if we choose") With every Asgardian that he finds, his army grows...will that have an impact on the Patriot ..uhmm, sorry, Registration Act. Will Stark, SHIELD and the US army be facing all of Asgard in the near future? But then, maybe I'm getting a little too lost in all the intricacies. Let's go back to me as a little kid reading my THOR comics and wishing I could be that good, and that brave and that powerful. Make no mistake about it, comics moved me as a child and have some bearing on the adult I have become, my sense of morality, my notions of right vs. wrong...right down to my understanding of what we should strive to be. And a year ago, I watched IRONMAN, Mr. Fantasic, and Yellow Jacket to a lesser degree, rip one of my childhood heros apart. I couldn't say it better than Straczynski does in this issue, they defiled the memory of Thor in the act of creating the clone. They defiled his memory and betrayed his trust. Every fanboy out there, and particularly every THOR fans not only wanted, but needed to see a come-uppance for that act. And after more than a year of waiting, we finally have it. It was a spine-tingling thing to see Coipel's rendering of THOR as he became increasingly enraged and two steps away from his warrior madness. It was awe inspiting to read Straczynski's words as they crafted the tone of his voice building almost as thunderclaps echoing his fury. The again, as a comic book fan, it was just simply great to see the Mighty THOR live up to everything that we have known he is since he entered thye Marvel universe. Simply put, stark, with all his technology and planning, was ready for the old THOR, but this is a very different THOR and a very different problem for him and the PRO-Registration heroes to handle. Another subtle plot movement that developed in this issue. Reread this issue Kurt. And read it this time not through a political lens, but through the eyes of a comic book fan who just wants to get lost in artwork and storytelling. Read it as a fan who just wants to be there and watch it all unfold...and I think you may see what I see. A throwback to the real heart of what always made us Marvel fans to begin with... The Grandeur of it. I am a 38 year old professional. I have a job and a wife and responsibilities that reflelct my age and station in life. This COMIC, this single story of HERO vs HERO, brought me back to a time in my life when all I worried about was how many more cushions I would have to flip to buy the next issue...because I had to have it. All the best
Comments/Responses
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I don’t even know what to say. Part of the reason that I even took the time to comment on Kurt’s review is that it was less a pot-shot at Tim Janson’s review, than it was an assessment of the comic from his own perspective. This will be my final post on this thread and I hope to cover some of the opinions that I have either not understood, or down right disagreed with. Firstly, to TheSleeper, by your own admission, you haven’t even read this comic. Opinions are great when they are informed, when they are not, they generally tend to be problematic. Case in point your argument that being politically in line with the writer of a given comic would somehow improve my enjoyment of the experience is so clearly flawed that I don’t even know where to start. In fact, I won’t start. I will suggest you read (or re-read) some books like Moby Dick, God of Small Things or even again, Brave New World, to discover that the joy of reading literature or fiction comes in many respects from losing yourself in a world of fantasy. You don’t have to believe in the fantasy or ascribe to the writers philosophy to enjoy it. That being said, you haven’t even read the comic, so I won’t waste any more time on your arguments. Secondly, to Shadowprime, I’d like to highlight a couple of your statements and address them collectively: (a) This issue of THOR is designed to pander to a certain audience. It is a simplistic turn right out of pro-wrestling...bring in the "bad guy" and let the good guy make him grovel so the audience can feel good. And if that floats your boat, great. I won't be buying a single book whose sole point is to make Tony Stark crawl. This issue is far from simplistic in either storytelling or in artwork. IF that is all you saw in it, I would suggest a closer scrutiny of THOR’s expressions throughout the issue. Look at Stark’s face as his mask is ripped off. Part of what Marvel has done in and through the CIVIL WAR and its aftermath, is try to draw storylines that tell the tale of the individuals involved in the arc. There is no way to justify a number of Stark’s actions in the WAR, whether we are taking about the cloning of THOR or the manipulation of the stock market. Regardless of one’s political leanings, Machiavelli taught us all that the ends cannot and must not justify the means…a lesson that Tony Stark seems to have forgotten in his quest to save the world from his vision of the future. This is far more than a simple beat up the bad guy comic. And suggesting that anyone who enjoyed it is somehow simple or easily pleased is just plain condescending. (b) I would have less of an issue with the CIVIL WAR and SRA storylines if the Marvel writers had the guts and skill to REALLY delve into the Pandora's Box they chose to open. … Don't hold your breath. Way too complicated and challenging for this crew…We aren't stupid, or detached. We turned to the MU for a celebration of something (brace for corniness) noble and inspiring. I resent the loss of all that. So you want all the complexities (which you say the folks at MARVEL are too simple to do properly) but you also want to keep celebrating something noble and inspiring. Yeah…OK. Pick a side, any side. You are the perfect example of the critic who critiques for the sake of critiquing. Nothing makes you happy? You’re like the reporter in the play Inherit the Wind…everything is gris for your mill, and you don’t put two words together unless its to blow something up. Your comments remind me of the constant stream of criticisms that drop out of the mouth of the comic book guy from the Simpsons. It’s not the marketplace at work Shadowprime, it’s a team of writers and artists trying to give us something to read that brings us back to the heart of the story: Two Old Friends who have fought their way to hell and back (literally) together, who have one more fight yet to go. If I’m not mistaken, this is just the build up to something even bigger. Now this is for everyone who actually read the comic and reread it over again because you loved it so much. In the scene where THOR has Stark by the throat and actually explains the possible ramifications of his hubris in coming to him with ultimatums, it harkens for me back to a line in Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer’s Illiad. When the Mighty Apollo comes down to the battlefield to confront Diomedes who fancies himself Godlike in Battle and actually threatens the Gods in the process. Apollo says: “Take heed, give back son of Tydeus. And strive no longer to make yourself like the god’s in mind. For never the same are the breed of God’s who are immortal, and men who walk groundling!” Pope left me with chills running down my spine then, and the folks behind THOR #3 did it once again. If you haven’t picked it up yet, do it folks. You won’t be sorry.