Shooter and the new Valiant

xodacia81 · Post by **xodacia81** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 1:07 pm

cjv wrote:
ManofTheAtom wrote:
slym2none wrote:Oh, boy...

-slym
Finally, the law of averages works!!

Someone was bound to agree with me!!
It's not that we don't sometimes agree with you, it's just that we don't agree with "I am always right, my interpretation/assumptions/characterization is the only correct way to look at things" .

Chris

Yep. MOTA is passionate but sometimes a bit overpowering in his passion and thus...the occasional ribbing.

Zaphod · Post by **Zaphod** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 1:54 pm

In comics, as well as other serial media, I've always found that a writer who categorically dismisses anything that was previously written by a previous writer isn't a very good writer. That is the struggle of writing a serial based story.

If someone took the time to write it, pencil and ink it, color it, produce it, sell it and if someone else took the time to buy it, read it and feel "X" about it...it deserves to be addressed.

The great writers are the ones who take *SQUEE* and mold it into gold.

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 1:55 pm

Except for VH2.

Despite ads to the contrary, they really were *SQUEE*.

Second_Death · Post by **Second_Death** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 2:34 pm

Daniel Jackson wrote:To tell you the truth Valiant wasn't "Valiant "shortly after Jim left. So trying to save issues and story lines that were sub par as well as the later books that got downright ridiculous doesn't appeal to me much. If most of the stories would have been worthy of pre unity status I would agree, keep the continuity intact. This is not the case though, so scrapping the garbage (and there is a ton of it) and starting again somewhere around Unity makes much more sense to me.

My first post in a while. Feels kind of noobish.

Defintely agree, DJ. It would be great if Jim or whoever could orchestrate new stories that could be of comparable quality to the preunity stories and pick up where those left off. Problem is, however, that our boys at VEI have paid a lot of money for all of the stories previously printed by Valiant/acclaim. If it were my investment, I would have a difficult time ignoring all of the post-unity material considering the volume of it.

Second_Death · Post by **Second_Death** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 2:40 pm

rictor wrote:Rich Johnston has made repeated references in Lying in the Gutters that there is a lot of internal strife about Shooter's return.

Shooter was brought back to boost Legion's sales and build excitement because next year is the Legion's 50th Anniversary, but a number of the editors are opposed to him being brought back. Reportedly, DC had considered bringing Shooter back a few years ago, but the editorial opposition prevented it from happening. It seems that this time Levitz and most of senior management at DC are sticking by Shooter and telling the editors to deal with it and keep it professional because DC is really hoping to return Legion to its former glory and shine a spotlight on the property.

Because so many of the editorial staff have issues with Shooter either from personal experience or just by reputation, and because Shooter is very open about his opinions, there is a lot of speculation that personal animosities will blow up and DC may be put in a situation where if they keep Shooter, they will lose some important editors.

If this is true, my message to the malcontents at DC would be....."GROW UP".

myron · Post by **myron** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 2:44 pm

I don't give a Sh!t who writes it as long as there is solid continuity and story with nice clean art...If that's big Jim, then yeah. If it isn't, it's someone new or old or whatever, yeah.

Know what I mean, Vern?

Second_Death · Post by **Second_Death** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:12 pm

Yup.

<img src=http://www.jimvarney.org/ernest.jpg width=300></img>

rictor · Post by **rictor** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 7:21 pm

MProyas wrote:In comics, as well as other serial media, I've always found that a writer who categorically dismisses anything that was previously written by a previous writer isn't a very good writer. That is the struggle of writing a serial based story.

If someone took the time to write it, pencil and ink it, color it, produce it, sell it and if someone else took the time to buy it, read it and feel "X" about it...it deserves to be addressed.

The great writers are the ones who take *SQUEE* and mold it into gold.

You make an excellent point. I think I was letting my personal bias on both the quality of the stories and the circumstances of Shooter's departure from the company cloud my judgment. A writer should always read what came before and build upon the stories rather than ignore them or immediately try to undo events that they resent because the character has been allowed to grow over the past 40 years and isn't 100% the same as the character was in their childhood.
I have every faith that a storyteller of Shooter's caliber could easily pick up Valiant at any point and turn it into something great.
I have gotten irritated quite often in the past few years because of people ignoring stories that I enjoyed. I hated that Dan Didio's answer to questions about Max Lod not being a cyborg any longer was, "Did anyone read that story? Did anyone like it?' That bothered me and I would not want to advocate the erasure of anyone else's favorite stories.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:56 pm

Second_Death wrote:
Daniel Jackson wrote:To tell you the truth Valiant wasn't "Valiant "shortly after Jim left. So trying to save issues and story lines that were sub par as well as the later books that got downright ridiculous doesn't appeal to me much. If most of the stories would have been worthy of pre unity status I would agree, keep the continuity intact. This is not the case though, so scrapping the garbage (and there is a ton of it) and starting again somewhere around Unity makes much more sense to me.
My first post in a while. Feels kind of noobish.

Defintely agree, DJ. It would be great if Jim or whoever could orchestrate new stories that could be of comparable quality to the preunity stories and pick up where those left off. Problem is, however, that our boys at VEI have paid a lot of money for all of the stories previously printed by Valiant/acclaim. If it were my investment, I would have a difficult time ignoring all of the post-unity material considering the volume of it.

I hear what your saying, but honestly though, how much of that post unity ilk would someone be willing to pay hard earned money to see reprinted? Other than die hard fans like us I can't see many doing that.The Harby book seems to be a huge success, but I just can't imagine reprinting the mediocre stories in hopes of luring people back to Valiant.

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:59 pm

Archer & Armstrong #3-12 = Post Unity

Second Life of Dr Mirage (which is hardly ilk) = Post Unity

Hall's Shadowman = Post Unity

Bloodshot = Post Unity.

Shall I go on, or do you get the point that not everything after Unity sucked?

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:06 pm

ManofTheAtom wrote:Archer & Armstrong #3-12 = Post Unity

Second Life of Dr Mirage (which is hardly ilk) = Post Unity

Hall's Shadowman = Post Unity

Bloodshot = Post Unity.

Shall I go on, or do you get the point that not everything after Unity sucked?

Since there is no shortage of any of those issues you listed. You would be far better off getting them from a back issue bin than buying an expensive HC.

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:12 pm

Daniel Jackson wrote:
ManofTheAtom wrote:Archer & Armstrong #3-12 = Post Unity

Second Life of Dr Mirage (which is hardly ilk) = Post Unity

Hall's Shadowman = Post Unity

Bloodshot = Post Unity.

Shall I go on, or do you get the point that not everything after Unity sucked?
Since there is no shortage of any of those issues you listed. You would be far better off getting them from a back issue bin than buying an expensive HC.

That depends.

A lot of people nowadays prefer the collected edition format due to being able to read it in one sitting as well as how much easier they are to storage then regular comics (at least in their opinion. I'm not sure I completely agree).

Another benefit to the new HCs is that they come with an extra story that you wouldn't get with the back issues.

You can just pretend that you paid 50 cents for the old stories and the remainder of the cost of the hc for the new story.

slym2none · Post by **slym2none** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 4:51 am

ManofTheAtom wrote:Archer & Armstrong #3-12 = Post Unity

Second Life of Dr Mirage (which is hardly ilk) = Post Unity

Hall's Shadowman = Post Unity

Bloodshot = Post Unity.

Shall I go on, or do you get the point that not everything after Unity sucked?

Oh? So, why did I lose interest soon after titles like Bloodshot and SLODM came out, and rolled my eyes at *SQUEE* like Secret Weapons and Psi-Lords, only to finally give up the ghost at Chaos Effect only because it was a convenient stopping point?

-slym

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:51 am

slym2none wrote:
ManofTheAtom wrote:Archer & Armstrong #3-12 = Post Unity

Second Life of Dr Mirage (which is hardly ilk) = Post Unity

Hall's Shadowman = Post Unity

Bloodshot = Post Unity.

Shall I go on, or do you get the point that not everything after Unity sucked?
Oh? So, why did I lose interest soon after titles like Bloodshot and SLODM came out, and rolled my eyes at *SQUEE* like Secret Weapons and Psi-Lords, only to finally give up the ghost at Chaos Effect only because it was a convenient stopping point?

-slym

No goat?

(

)

All I know, is that Dr Mirage kicked *SQUEE* when Layton and Chang were on it.

Their run on that title is like Shooter and BWS on Solar for me.

slym2none · Post by **slym2none** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:53 am

Heh... I never even knew "the Goat" existed until I found these boards.

I call it a feel for quality workmanship.

-slym (doesn't need to explain that he's a pre-Unity guy)

Cyberstrike · Post by **Cyberstrike** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:41 am

ManofTheAtom wrote:
slym2none wrote:
ManofTheAtom wrote:Archer & Armstrong #3-12 = Post Unity

Second Life of Dr Mirage (which is hardly ilk) = Post Unity

Hall's Shadowman = Post Unity

Bloodshot = Post Unity.

Shall I go on, or do you get the point that not everything after Unity sucked?
Oh? So, why did I lose interest soon after titles like Bloodshot and SLODM came out, and rolled my eyes at *SQUEE* like Secret Weapons and Psi-Lords, only to finally give up the ghost at Chaos Effect only because it was a convenient stopping point?

-slym
No goat? ( )

All I know, is that Dr Mirage kicked *SQUEE* when Layton and Chang were on it.

Their run on that title is like Shooter and BWS on Solar for me.

The Second Life of Dr. Mirage was a great concept but at best it was an average title.
Even at it's best it is was still no where good as Solar, Man of the Atom #0-#14 IMHO, now if Valiant had a writer the caliber of Alan Moore, Jim Shooter, Peter David, or even Jay Faber (writers who focus on the characters and drama and not the action/science/mystical aspects) then Valiant would have a classic.

I don't think many people here would buy a Second Life of Doctor Mirage hardcover to justify the cost of producing one. Now maybe if VEI were to release it as a series of low cost digest sized TPBs it might sell. To be quite honest however I don't think that every Valiant series deserves a hardcover.

xodacia81 · Post by **xodacia81** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:49 am

I think the first 12 issues of Dr. Mirage were very fun stuff and the artwork was amazing, as Chang was obviously enjoying his work. I mean, Carmen was an utter goddess. But, a HC? I don't know. I think that the first year could certainly see a reprinting, but it was a minor to middle title in the old days.

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:01 am

Cyberstrike wrote:The Second Life of Dr. Mirage was a great concept but at best it was an average title.
Even at it's best it is was still no where good as Solar, Man of the Atom #0-#14 IMHO, now if Valiant had a writer the caliber of Alan Moore, Jim Shooter, Peter David, or even Jay Faber (writers who focus on the characters and drama and not the action/science/mystical aspects) then Valiant would have a classic.

I don't think many people here would buy a Second Life of Doctor Mirage hardcover to justify the cost of producing one. Now maybe if VEI were to release it as a series of low cost digest sized TPBs it might sell. To be quite honest however I don't think that every Valiant series deserves a hardcover.

I thought that DM was one of the few Post Shooter books that strived to adhere to the notion that it took place in a real world setting, specially with how it handled the relationship between Carmen and Hwen.

I hope they do an hc, DM was one of my favorite VALIANT titles

siren3-4 · Post by **siren3-4** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:18 am

rictor wrote: I have gotten irritated quite often in the past few years because of people ignoring stories that I enjoyed. I hated that Dan Didio's answer to questions about Max Lod not being a cyborg any longer was, "Did anyone read that story? Did anyone like it?' That bothered me and I would not want to advocate the erasure of anyone else's favorite stories.

Max Lord was a cyborg ??? What storyline was was that ???

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:19 am

siren3-4 wrote:
rictor wrote: I have gotten irritated quite often in the past few years because of people ignoring stories that I enjoyed. I hated that Dan Didio's answer to questions about Max Lod not being a cyborg any longer was, "Did anyone read that story? Did anyone like it?' That bothered me and I would not want to advocate the erasure of anyone else's favorite stories.

Max Lord was a cyborg ??? What storyline was was that ???

80's JLA

Zaphod · Post by **Zaphod** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:32 am

rictor wrote:
MProyas wrote:In comics, as well as other serial media, I've always found that a writer who categorically dismisses anything that was previously written by a previous writer isn't a very good writer. That is the struggle of writing a serial based story.

If someone took the time to write it, pencil and ink it, color it, produce it, sell it and if someone else took the time to buy it, read it and feel "X" about it...it deserves to be addressed.

The great writers are the ones who take *SQUEE* and mold it into gold.
You make an excellent point. I think I was letting my personal bias on both the quality of the stories and the circumstances of Shooter's departure from the company cloud my judgment. A writer should always read what came before and build upon the stories rather than ignore them or immediately try to undo events that they resent because the character has been allowed to grow over the past 40 years and isn't 100% the same as the character was in their childhood.
I have every faith that a storyteller of Shooter's caliber could easily pick up Valiant at any point and turn it into something great.
I have gotten irritated quite often in the past few years because of people ignoring stories that I enjoyed. I hated that Dan Didio's answer to questions about Max Lod not being a cyborg any longer was, "Did anyone read that story? Did anyone like it?' That bothered me and I would not want to advocate the erasure of anyone else's favorite stories.

Precisely. You'll never be able to please everyone. For example I've only read bits and pieces of pre-unity stuff simply based on the fact that I don't own any of it. Of the stuff that I have read, it is some good stuff. But the Valiant I became interested in was all Unity and beyond. I was out of comics by mid-94 completely just because my favorite run was A&A 1-12 doesn't mean that what came after should be categorically dismissed.

Doesn't necessarily mean it has to be addressed either but to attempt to erase it from existence is arrogant, sloppy and lazy.

I'm still for Valiant leaping off with a Crisis-like event to attempt to amalgamate the universe into a cohesive universe to move forward with. Don't begin with any titles, but a mini or maxi series (much like Unity 2000 seemed to be) to give the readers a "state of the union" address.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 10:45 am

Cyberstrike wrote:
ManofTheAtom wrote:
slym2none wrote:
ManofTheAtom wrote:Archer & Armstrong #3-12 = Post Unity

Second Life of Dr Mirage (which is hardly ilk) = Post Unity

Hall's Shadowman = Post Unity

Bloodshot = Post Unity.

Shall I go on, or do you get the point that not everything after Unity sucked?
Oh? So, why did I lose interest soon after titles like Bloodshot and SLODM came out, and rolled my eyes at *SQUEE* like Secret Weapons and Psi-Lords, only to finally give up the ghost at Chaos Effect only because it was a convenient stopping point?

-slym
No goat? ( )

All I know, is that Dr Mirage kicked *SQUEE* when Layton and Chang were on it.

Their run on that title is like Shooter and BWS on Solar for me.
The Second Life of Dr. Mirage was a great concept but at best it was an average title.

Totally agree, in fact I actually liked the concept that Acclaim had for Dr. Mirage over the VH1 version. It's just too bad it never saw print.

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 10:46 am

Daniel Jackson wrote:
Cyberstrike wrote:
ManofTheAtom wrote:
slym2none wrote:
ManofTheAtom wrote:Archer & Armstrong #3-12 = Post Unity

Second Life of Dr Mirage (which is hardly ilk) = Post Unity

Hall's Shadowman = Post Unity

Bloodshot = Post Unity.

Shall I go on, or do you get the point that not everything after Unity sucked?
Oh? So, why did I lose interest soon after titles like Bloodshot and SLODM came out, and rolled my eyes at *SQUEE* like Secret Weapons and Psi-Lords, only to finally give up the ghost at Chaos Effect only because it was a convenient stopping point?

-slym
No goat? ( )

All I know, is that Dr Mirage kicked *SQUEE* when Layton and Chang were on it.

Their run on that title is like Shooter and BWS on Solar for me.
The Second Life of Dr. Mirage was a great concept but at best it was an average title.
Totally agree, in fact I actually liked the concept that Acclaim had for Dr. Mirage over the VH1 version. It's just too bad it never saw print.

Sure it did, it's called Dr Strange and was published by Marvel.

No, wait, sorry.

It was called Tomb Raider and it was published by Top Cow.

Wait, I did it again.

It was called The Batman Adventures and it was published by DC.

Zaphod · Post by **Zaphod** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:38 am

Well find me an original premise in literature in the last 50 years and I'll find you...ummm, I guess well read.

I don't imagine it is a huge stretch to understand that everyone's Valiant experience was/is/has been/will be different.

Thats why when it comes to restarting Valiant there isn't one clear cut resolution.

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:40 am

MProyas wrote:Well find me an original premise in literature in the last 50 years and I'll find you...ummm, I guess well read.

I don't imagine it is a huge stretch to understand that everyone's Valiant experience was/is/has been/will be different.

Thats why when it comes to restarting Valiant there isn't one clear cut resolution.

Accidental imitation of a work of literature is one thing (no one-individual can be expected to read every book, watch every movie, be aware of every play, etc, etc).

Clear-cut plagiarism is quite another.