Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Tebowmania sputtering in New Jersey, hoping that Fifth Harmony wins X-Factor USA 2012, or getting excited for Anchorman 2’s December 2013 release, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
I’ve always liked Deathstroke. He was always one of the most bad-ass villains in the DC Universe. He’s cold and calculating, but has a sense of honor (which you don’t find in mercenaries these days). From his numerous showdowns with the Teen Titans to his sheer awesomeness in Identity Crisis to the start of his latest book, I’ve been a fan. And then Rob Liefeld entered the picture….
Even at the height of his popularity in the ’90s, I was never a Liefeld fan. His art — ridiculously large shoulders, squinty eyes, and pointy hair — just bugged me. When he took over Deathstroke in May 2012, his art still bugged me. He made Deathroke look like Cable with a different color palette. His renderings of Lobo and Zealot were even worse. That said, I was prepared for the art because he’s been drawing that way for decades. What I wasn’t prepared for was his mediocre writing. The early proving-myself-all-over-again issues of Deathstroke were replaced by wham-bam action. The thoughtful start was replaced with vapid mayhem. Liefeld’s issues of Deathstroke made me stop buying the book.
(To be fair, there are a lot of rumors about DC’s editors pissing off writers by not giving them creative freedom and often asking for last-minute rewrites. It’s entirely possible that Liefeld wrote some great stories that were mangled by the editors.)
The good news is that Liefeld has left DC. Hopefully Deathstroke will regain the mix of cerebral writing and visceral action that made the early issues so much fun. Looking back at my negative comic-book experiences of 2012, Rob Liefeld ruining Deathstroke for me tops the list.
Now it’s your turn! What were your least favorite comics of the year?
Don’t know alot about the comics that came out this year, but here is a TERRIBLY wrong commercial:
http://youtu.be/XIKv1AXUmOk
What’s wrong with it? Mr. & Mrs. Claus like to get their freak on, just like we do. The only difference is that they probably have elves do the camera work and editing.
-M
Because she says “don’t watch it in the sleigh”. Unless you think she means “break your magic one night time-table to stop for 20 minutes in a motel or Walmart restroom”, then what she means is “make sure you toss one out in some poor kids living room”.
It’s the subtext.
So what does the wife in the preceding S3 commercial mean when she says, “Don’t watch it on the plane.”?
“Wait until you get to your hotel instead of exposing yourself to other passengers while risking getting tazed by Homeland Security”.
However, her eyes in that video say “If you cheat on me while on your business trip, I’ll castrate you. Be happy I’m giving you this to keep your randy ass temporarily satisfied while you go make MY money”.
I am terribly, terribly disappointed in the way the “Ultimate” Marvel universe is going. It’s bad enough that they butchered every single hero/team/storyline, but a lot of the stories feel so forced, contrived and just plain … sucky! They even took the one thing in the whole universe that wasn’t sucky (Spider-Man) and killed him off in an anti-climactic spectacle that made no sense and replaced him with an elementary-school level child that has absolutely no motivation other than “oh noes! Spider-Man died and I could have done something about it.”
What a piece of garbage this is all turning out to be.
Gha! And don’t even get me started on the whole “Reed Richards is evil (or is he?)” thing…
-M
Totally agree on the new Ultimate books. I just can’t get into any of them and loved the first few years of the Ultimate Marvel Universe. The solution, of course, is to make Bendis write everything.
On top of being a terrible comic book artist, Rob Liefeld is a douche. I loved his New Mutants run in the early 90’s. Got the chance to meet him at a show in Annapolis, Md, in 1991 or 92. Couldn’t have been a bigger POS.