[ SECRET POST #2245

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2245 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 098 secrets from Secret Submission Post #321.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 3 4 - come on, troll with a little more subtlety ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

He's nuts. Also, people bring this point up to him loads of times.

BUT he generally doesn't condone actual genocide or murdering of what he believes to be innocents. Most of the crap he did before the modern era was actually impersonators. Well, technically, the writers did write that arc about how the imposter was actually Magneto with the assumed identity of Xorn, but then it was revealed that Xorn was real and it was Xorn pretending to be Magneto, but then another writer retconned it so that it was Magneto who was disguised as Xorn disguised as Magneto.

I think. It's been a few years.

[(Anonymous)]

another writer retconned it so that it was Magneto who was disguised as Xorn disguised as Magneto

Wait, what?

[kaijinscendre]

This is why I don't read comics.

[(Anonymous)]

The key, frankly, is to just let stuff like this slide over you. With dumb deep-continuity retcons like this, it mostly doesn't matter what dumb shit some new editor has thought up. It's much more about finding a book or a story or a writer you like and following that, rather than trying to get some kind of comprehensive view of the whole thing, because a lot of that stuff can get pretty dumb.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that knowledge of these retcons and the recondite continuity of the Big Two isn't necessary to get enjoyment out of comics, even Big 2 comics.

[(Anonymous)]

So it's like the new Doctor Who, is what you're saying.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's pretty much like all Doctor Who.

[kaijinscendre]

But where do you even know where to begin? What is something you should read and what is something you can avoid?

[(Anonymous)]

Right now is a great time to get into comics, Marvel has started new series and I think DC is also. I am particularly enjoying the new Hawkeye series, about Hawkeye when he's not superheroing.

[(Anonymous)]

Hm, yes, I take your point.

I think the thing to do is, one, find people or communities that you trust and bug them for recommendations, or just gank things that they're obviously hyped about. Find writers that you like and read what they're doing. Try and get into the thing with more stand-alone series, instead of the big tentpole series - most of the insane continuity and crossovers and that is going to come from your big-name books (your Amazing Spiderman, your Avengers, your Incredible X-Men, your Fantastic Four), not so much from your smaller, more standalone things. And, more than that, just don't sweat it if you're reading something and there's elements of backstory you don't immediately understand, because they probably don't matter too much.

I definitely get why it can be hard, and it's definitely something the Big 2 publishers have a lot of blame for. But I don't think it's impenetrable if it's something you want to get into, and there's plenty of cool people reading comics out there who can help you out (as much as there's also a ton of terrible, terrible sperglords)

tl;dr but this may help if you're interested in the old continuity

[dethtoll]

I don't really bother with Marvel, but I find there's two approaches to reading DC -- and no, I don't mean the New 52, because that still brings a lot of baggage from the old continuity. That being said, the old continuity has a set beginning point -- publication dates of late 1986, because that's where DC rebooted after the Crisis on Infinite Earths. (The exception is Legion of Superheroes, which was set in the future and did NOT reboot, which caused continuity problems because that particular continuity had visits from a Superboy who no longer existed. DC would resolve this problem with the Zero Hour event in the early 90s.)

Both approaches start off the same: pick a superhero to be your central focus. In my case, Batman, though Superman would work just as well. Both these characters serve as the backbone of the DCU, and much of what went on throughout 25 years of continuity involved them in some way. Personally, I'd recommend against Superman, because he doesn't really start to get interesting until the 2000s.

The first approach is to find a "recommended reading list" -- to go with my example, Batman has several torrents with collected material. This is almost exclusively going to be focused on that particular hero, and it's going to mostly ignore the ongoing monthly storyline in favor of big events and "best issues." It doesn't really care about canon, so you'll see stuff like The Dark Knight Returns. If you're just looking to get into a hero casually this is a good place to start, and it's how I operated for quite some time.

The second approach is to find a character chronology, and follow that. This is a more involved method, because it means you're effectively following the character through the rest of DC continuity and reading the character's monthlies no matter how bad they get (Doug Moench/Kelly Jones made reading the "Batman" monthly almost excruciating for a period of time in the mid to late 90s.) In other words, it's like being a faithful comics reader, but you're doing it at the pace you can read the comics rather than in the span of years, since the comics are already out and available to you. This has the added bonus of going through the major crossover events, everything from Legends to Blackest Night. I say "bonus" not because these events are good (many of them are not, early-90s shitshow Bloodlines being probably the worst) but because they serve as gateways into getting into other characters, like I probably never would've gotten into Justice League International (the best Justice League) if not for the somewhat interesting Legends event, and if not for JLI, I never would've become a fan of Guy Gardner, and if not for Guy Gardner I never would've gotten into Green Lantern and become a fan of Kyle Rayner.

* If you don't know, Green Lantern is a position rather than a single superhero, and the old continuity had 4 humans wearing the ring: Hal Jordan the White Wonder, Guy Gardner the Asshole Lantern, John Stewart the Black Architect, and Kyle Rayner the Funny Artist. For a while the Lanterns ceased to exist as an organization following the Emerald Twilight arc and Kyle was the sole Green Lantern for many, many years.

[dethtoll]

This is why I don't read Marvel comics. DC does this shit far less often and not half as ridiculously.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah but DC sucks and is terrible >:[

DC does plenty of crossovers and stuff too, they just mostly don't get back too far beyond the, what, the late 80s? Unless Grant Morrison is writing the thing. I don't know, I think it's a matter of each to their own taste, and I've always been much more of a Marvel fan personally - I just find their stories much more appealing and, I guess, human. It's all good though.

[dethtoll]

I can't stand Marvel. The only character who is interesting to me is Tony Stark, and the only time he's written well or consistently is in the movies.

[(Anonymous)]

Seriously? Marvel isn't perfect, but their continuity is nowhere as big a clusterfuck as DC's is (with all their Crisises, and now all the stuff with the New 52, etc).

[dethtoll]

You don't actually read DC comics, do you?

---

Edit: I'm sorry. That was douchey of me. But claiming Marvel's continuity isn't as convoluted as DC's is outrageous. It's true that some of their characters have had continuity issues -- I think they actually gave up on Hawkman after 10 years of trying to sort that shit out -- but Identity Crisis and Final Crisis are not continuity reboots and Identity Crisis wasn't even a major event, it was just a lead-up to Infinite Crisis. Crisis on Infinite Earths was the major 1986 reboot, yes, and Zero Hour was a "soft reset" in the early 1990s, but the timeline was mostly left alone for another 15 years until Infinite Crisis. The only thing I'd say is a clusterfuck is New 52 because they didn't throw everything out from the last continuity.

[childings.livejournal.com]

I think it's so weird that people prefer Marvel over DC or vice versa when so many writers and artists work for both companies

They're both equally good/shitty

[(Anonymous)]

It's just the Big 2 that do this. Other comics from other publishers aren't as stupidly convoluted and don't have an imaginary reset button.

[(Anonymous)]

I think there were actually three different writers involved - I don't think Morrison ever actually retconned the Xorn thing, I think other people came in to do it.

(And the original 'Xorn is actually Magneto' plot is still the real one in my heart at least) (God I loved that arc / Morrison's whole run on X-Men)

[(Anonymous)]

The whole idea of Magneto as Xorn was interesting, too bad Morrison had to ruin it by making Magneto a drug-using fascist herding people into crematoriums.

Kudos to Marvel for retconning it fast.

[insanenoodlyguy]

The real answer is always "writers" but Magneto has been written as fucked up before as well.



Though while fairly racist, I don't think he's particularly facist.

[(Anonymous)]

How is that page comparable at all to Magneto herding humans into a crematorium?

[(Anonymous)]

In that page he's in South America hunting Nazis, only to have the CIA show up and try to kill him (and murder his girlfriend) because he killed a Nazi who the CIA wanted to recruit. This is him giving up on working with the system or non-mutants at all (although he does in fact do so later, in Israel). He's using the language of his oppressors and it's meant to be tragic.

Thanks for this post

[raspberryrain]

Thanks for posting this. This story pretty much explains Magneto's motivations (as twisted as they have gotten in all the stories written for years before and years after it).

[(Anonymous)]

but then another writer retconned it so that it was Magneto who was disguised as Xorn disguised as Magneto.

Wait, I thought Magneto was disguised as some other guy who was disguised as Xorn disguised as Magneto? Xorn's twin brother or something?

[(Anonymous)]

then another writer retconned it so that it was Magneto who was disguised as Xorn disguised as Magneto.

I think you might be getting things mixed up. The last time Planet X was brought up, in Uncanny X-Men #534.1, they just reiterated that the Magneto who destroyed New York was an impostor.

It was editorial that decided to retcon that storyline, and since they're currently having Magneto act as a hero/anti-hero and not a full-out villain, I don't think they'd go back and change that.