Edit: the thumbnail shows Daken and Iceman. This post isn't about them but one of the links in the post features this panel. This is about GOTG. Other edit, I misattributed a quote. oops
Before the modern run of Guardians of the Galaxy comics started in 2008, there were the Annihilation events in 2006-2007, which basically brought the team together. (although some of them go way back, even before that)
The reason this is relevant, is that it also brought Nova, a previously earth-based character, into space, where he befriended pretty much half of the Guardians, most importantly Star-Lord and Gamora (who he's been in an on again-off again relationship with since then) The dynamic between the three of them can be very important, depending on which author you ask..
Like, these three have been close, but for the sake of the drama we are primarily focusing on the two guys.
They run into danger together, die for each other, get a joint memorial when they both "die," say "i love(d) him" and are just overall kinda touchy in the 2020 run. Very early on Gamora even jokes that she should be jealous. I won't go further into it, but it's... really not a stretch to interpet them in a romantic way, whether it was intended or not - although i believe it was intended in 2020, since somewhat independently of all this, it also confirms Star-Lord as being bisexual. (Here's a more detailed rundown but it isn't a mandatory read)
So anyway, tumblr got to shipping, as tumblr does. It's a small community. If you hang out in the tag for a few months you can learn every username. But there's some very strong opinions, as there tend to be in superhero fandoms in my experience.
We were all pretty excited when the Imperial event, written by Jonathan Hickman, was announced, with these two characters in the lead, since they got separated again in the (widely disliked) 2023 run of GOTG.
The first issue dropped early this summer, and right away people could feel that something was kind of off. Nova saod that the two of them only "kinda got along" and that since Star-Lord is "a criminal, last time he checked" he was apprehensive about helping him.
Star-Lord has less of an emphasised criminal background in the comics than in the movies, and Nova has historically been willing to rush into some seriously stupid, lost cause situations with him by his side. In the 2010 Thanos Sourcebook (which is meant to be written by Nova within the lore) it even says that he was his closest confidant, second in command, and that he's extremely guilty about the things he did wrong. (Paraphrasing since i lost the screenshot)
So already it was a terrible read on what their relationship is like.
People in the ship tag lost their minds. They were editing panels, overall complaining, and saying things directed at the author that i don't think the guidelines would allow me to repeat here.
Then in June, Tom Brevoort, editor on this story answered a question about this sudden change in their dynamic like this: "conflict is the engine that drives stories and I find nothing more boring than and detrimental to good and interesting interactions than everyone getting along all the time[...]"
On its face, this is true! You need conflict! However, conflict isn't done by just making two characters dislike each other out of nowhere. This could have been solved easily by just laying down why this is.
We quickly moved past this and returned to business as usual though, after accepting that this series is not really geared towards us. Some people still read along. At some point Nova said that they're both "too sensible" for something which is just not true, these men don't haveva sensible bone in their body, but that's nitpicking.
Then a couple weeks ago, the event ended. This would be cause for celebration but it ended in a way that makes one seriously reinterpet that answer from earlier.
Because at the end, instead of exposing the villians of this storyline with Nova, Star-Lord decides to take over the throne of Spartax from his father (different guy than in the movie) basically getting set up as a villian. As a response Nova blasts him into the wall and tells him to " keep his money and never call him his friend again*"
We should have known something like this'll happen, since it's already been known for months that the next solo series Nova will have will be about him experiencing financial issues, (again, welcome back 1994) which he previously told Worldmind wouldn't be an issue since he's got the prince of Spartax helping out.
As for Star-Lord, even beyond the relationship stuff I feel like he just wouldn't do this. From 1977, aka the first time his father, Jason of Spartax, appeared, he's wanted nothing to do with him or the throne. And this was before retcons and lore changes made Jason an asshole who tried to kill him multiple times.
Peter is, of course, capable of wildly morally grey acts, like mindcontrolling his team along with Mantis in 2008, but it was always, without fail, for some greater good, and he always felt horrible afterwards. He even put down his superhero persona out of guilt, twice. The fact that they even brought back his old helmet for the ending is especially annoying, because I can't help but feel like they want to reference this 2008 era but don't want to bring back that characterisation with it.
Where's the rest of the guardians? Idk. Gamora is with The Imperial Guardians which i haven't had the time to read yet. As for the others, idk??
So this is where we are rn. I feel like this is appropriate to post, since it's in the nature of superhero comics to always keep going, nothing is ever fully resolved unless it's like, decades old. Imperial is over, at least. Everyone I know is dissapointed with Jonathan Hickman and the rest of the creators, some going as far as to accuse them of deliberate queer erasure, except some middle aged dudes in a facebook group who have been holding a grudge against Star-Lord for 15 years. Crazy stuff.
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https://tombrevoort.substack.com/p/168-as-time-collects-its-toll
it wasn't hickman who said it, it was tom brevoort.
https://tombrevoort.substack.com/p/168-as-time-collects-its-toll/comment/126236524 also one of the comments hits the whole thing on the head.
Tom Brevoort is to blame for so much of what sucks in Marvel Comics
Brevoort is a pretty outspoken believer that the duty of a writer is to get a strong reaction out of the reader, and that even a very negative reaction is better than no reaction at all. I don't agree at all to put it mildly but then I'm by no means a creative professional either.
I work in the comic industry, only a degree or two of separation from him in industry terms, and the things I know but can't say on reddit (even anonymously) are grim.
I have the unpopular opinion that creators shouldn't be beholden to fan opinions, especially about things like shipping and stuff, but I also think there is such a thing as a bad creative fit and bad creative choices, and in my opinion those things both describe Tom Brevoort's current place at Marvel.
I think he is way too nostalgia driven to have any business running the X-Men line. His take works for something like the Avengers or FF which thrive on old school sensibilities. But the X-Men are the one Marvel franchise that has to move forward, especially following Krakoa.
Rant over I guess, lol
Yeah, it does not seem like a good fit.
Man I am REALLY interested in the "grim" Brevoort details though!!!
Honestly it really comes down to what seems like, from my perspective, a disconnect between the editorial and creative sides of the business.
Just for transparency, "grim" is my opinion. I don't work for Marvel and never have, and I am not a comic creator. I know for a fact that there are plenty of creators who are personally thriving at Marvel even when the quality of the stories is not appeasing fans, and definitely those who are reaching for their best work.
Fair enough thanks
oops shit sorry i'll edit it. i faintly remembered it having been said by an editor but i thought i had to have been misremembering because the post i linked mentioned writers
i'd be interested in more on this
as it doesn't seem to line up with OP's post
i just really didn't wanna be seen as the fujo girl who insists that her ship is "totally canon, you guys." I feel like i'd have caught some shit for that, since this is reddit, and especially since one of these characters is a lot more well known outside of the comics than the other... So i just left it as "not a stretch to interpet them as romantic" i may have been overthinking it.
If you click the link where i explain their relationship more on my tumblr, i read as a lot more sure about them being together lmao
no, having checked that I think you said the right things here. i'd read this as hinting at queer feelings, could go either way. like if peter is canonically bi what's stopping marvel from making a character many fewer people care about canonically queer?
anyway, very reasonable ship but explicit in text would be "i'm in love with him" not "i love him" these guys are gay for each other or very in touch with their feelings, happy for them either way
I feel like things such as this are a big part of why a lot of people, especially younger people, are increasingly abandoning superhero comics in favor of original graphic novels and manga. Since superhero comics are endless, with little in-story passage of time, no conclusions whatsoever, and an endless rotation of creatives, there's a sense of trepidation that comes with them that, when you least expect it, everything you liked about one run could be blown to bits by the next writer's whims.
That's what I've been feeling, anyway. I also work in a library, and I've noticed that when it comes to new graphic novels, we frequently order originals and manga, but VERY rarely Marvel or DC.
As someone who’s passingly interested in comics that’s pretty dead on
Also that the universe is so massive snd intertwined that it feels like you need a PHD to understand what’s happening
Like Robin can refer to at least a dozen characters, Miss Martian may or may not exist and half of Batman’s classic villains have turned face.
And while those are all DC examples I’ve gotta assume similar shit is happening in marvel but I’m not gonna spend time learning about the world to find out.
Literally the only way to enjoy any of this is to pick a few characters/teams and run with it. I'l never understand 100% of it and thats fine
Marvel is much, much less bad about this and it usually feels like creative teams at least... check in with each other? They don't, at least, tend to release two books in the same month that directly contradict each other about something.
And while there may be multiple characters to a Name, it's usually limited to 1-2 with the occasional situational specific pick-up or possible future pick-up. For example, Hawkeye is Clint Barton AND/OR Kate Bishop, depending. Or Wolverine is always Logan Howlett (when he's alive), sometimes his daughter Laura Kinney (X-23/Talon), and in possible futures sometimes his son Akihiro [Howlett?] (Daken/Fang).
Marvel comics have different problems than DC, including insane numbers of Events and a huge tendency for characterization to change significantly between different runs. (God, Immortal Hulk was so good and Cates' Incredible Hulk was so wtf.) Oh, and power levels jumping around in crazy ways. But DC's problems bug me more.
Jonathan Hickman has never truthfully cared for any character's background, and he crudely forces them to fit into his mosaic, which oftentimes results in character assassination. This has always been the case, but I am still flabbergasted by the decisions made and allowed by editorial in this book, particularly the egregious treatment of Star-Lord and Nova AND Wiccan and Hulkling. Usually, female characters get sniped by Hickman's writing, but this time it's like he went out of his way to target the few prominent queer male characters. I know that stories are not written by optics, but this story is not even good in the first place, and when it comes to the Big Two, characters always come first, since they're rhe brands' bread and butter. I know that Tom Brevoort is an incompetent hack, but I never expected them to go out of their way and character asssinate/degrade/KILL the few prominent queer men in Marvel comics.
I tried to stay as neutral as possible but actually, this is the realest comment on this entire post. the dude wants to write his big status quo changing events but has 0 interest in characters whatsoeverrrr. nothing about krakoa left a mark on me in terms of characters despite having read most of it.
House of X/Powers of X is an amazing story. I absolutely loved reading it, and I still hold it as one of mine if not my favorite comic, period. But then you go on reading more and more of these characters' previous appearances, especially the stories right before the Hickman reset, and things start making little to no sense. He picks and chooses which character traits they should keep, which they should shed off, what their powers should be, what they should not be, and most importantly, what their relationships to each other are. I'm a fan of Jean Grey, who notoriously was forced back into a 60 years old costume, forced back into a love triangle (even if it was supposedly a poly relationship, which we all know is just smoke and mirrors) and depowered for the sake of "clarity", so I know all about Hickman's tendency to force a square into a triangle.
That's right, it goes in the plot hole!
Oh, this is goood 😭
I mean, I feel like to some extent the nature of Big Two comic writing is inherently forcing squares into triangles. The youngest well-known and iconic characters date back to the 70s and 80s, and have had dozens of different people writing them; whatever you see these characters as, is inherently going to be picking and choosing the stuff you like and politely ignoring the stuff you don't because otherwise you don't end up with sensible characterization for anybody.
Also I completely forgot to mention this, which is insane bc it's the most important point that you could make, but this is very much the editor's job lol. Editors ARE supposed to know most everything about the characters they are assigned, and then their job is to guide creatives through continuity. Marvel's editors haven't been good since... well ever, but nowadays it's seemingly worse bc they can't get a line of books to be cohesive with each other, let alone recall stories from 20 years ago.
I agree wholeheartedly! It's impossible to follow every character thread for every character, BUT Hickman ignores consistent characterization that's been on the page for decades! Cyclops quite literally denounced Professor X's philosophy and forged his own in the two decades prior to House of X, but when that book rolled around he was back to being the character of the...70s. Jean Grey went from someone confident in her powers and confident being alone immediately went back to Cyclops *and Wolverine, for the sake of regressing the character to her 90s personality (and 60s visuals, which is even worse). And there are plenty of other cases. It's not that he ignores some aspects of the character, he ignores everything BUT his idealized nostalgic version of the character.
it sucks that $$$ means even successful people can't (don't?) just write the stories they want with their own characters, they have to (want to?) strongarm existing popular continuities instead
I mean, at this point I'm not sure you can actually write these continuities without strongarming them to some degree, because they're elderly and there's been a shitload of different people with very different mindsets handling more or less any popular or notable character you can think of. It's actually pretty rare for a Big Two character to be rock-solid consistent, even in cases like Batman where the home office tries to actively enforce consistency, and you really need to be willing to leave some stuff on the table in order to get some sort of coherent characterization in your own writing.
Doctor Doom has been discussed here plenty as a character who basically makes no sense anymore because of the constant push-pull between "he's a psychopathic monster" and "he's a misunderstood good guy who just hates Reed," for example; if you're writing Doom at all, you have to pick one and ignore the other because they're extremely mutually exclusive characterizations, and then you're just feeding the mess.
e: Or, hell, Frank Castle, for a character who hits this problem despite being a significantly younger arrival to comics. Is Frank: a) a straight-up unambiguous good guy who's just violent, b) a complete sociopathic asshole who shoots jaywalkers in the face, c) a broken and deeply depressed man engaging in a very long, slow, and destructive form of suicide to lash out against a system that failed him on every level, or d) a literal supernatural force incapable of human thought? The answer is Yes, because he has been written as all four of those completely mutually exclusive things within the same fucking continuity.
Yeah I don't wanna bash it too much because it can be a lot of fun, but major comic book storytelling has a lot of issues
Yeah, his own original project, G.O.D.S. was a failure, and his indie work is not taking off 4 years into development, soooo he needs those money from somewhere, and Marvel is more than willing to pay for his vision. I don't mind him getting more work because he is talented, but for God's sake can the editors do their job and guide his hand a bit better when it comes to continuity?
Krakoa feels like it's interesting for the concept of X-Men, but really unfitting for THE X-Men, if that distinction makes like any sense.
What's worse, he seems to have this weird (but inconsistent) obsession with "putting the toys back in the box" at the end, and resetting the status quo so nothing his story did really matters.
Secret Wars was the defining event of marvel in the 21st century, they below up the whole universe. Then at the end they remade it almost exactly the way it was before and most people don't even remember that anything had happened!
Krakoa was by far the biggest status quo shift in x-history, and it's clear that Hickman's original plan was to reset everything with a Moira death at the end of his story.
They honestly just need to use him for alt universes from now on. Let him have his ooc versions of all the characters he wants, and he doesn't need to worry about returning to the status quo at the end.
I agree with most of what you're saying but definitely disagree with this. Moira dying and starting over would mean everything changed completely, not that everything is reset to the way it was before. In each of Moira's lives, the Marvel universe is radically different.
I just figured after that at the end they'd have one last moira reset (maybe with a memory wipe and post reset depowering?) and claim that everything that happened in the Krakoa era (and the rest of the original story he wanted to tell) was the AU and that this 11th life is actually 616. Basically undo the all the retcons from HoX/PoX where Moira was secretly working with Xavier and Magneto (and Sinister) all along.
Oh I see, hmm yeah that could have worked I think
It would have also messed with every other series that interacted with almost any mutant at the time. That'd have been 3 years retconned. 😬
Yeah, I personally don't think that was Hickman's plan but I can see where they're coming from.
I'm years behind on comics--what did he do to my Young Avengers babies? 😨
If you haven’t hit Empyre they’re basically back to where you left them.
Wiccan is gravely injured and Hulkling has to go back to Earth to save him (somehow).
I haven't looked to see what he's done to Wiccan and Hulkling yet, I'm too scared about it. 😭
They lost their empire and are basically back on earth without anything really to do.
Although, Billy is headlong his own series with Teddy as his secondary now (Teddy had his turn).
Could be worse, I suppose, but oof. Maybe one day they'll stop having to punch below their weights in story limbo.
A Billy series though! Finally!!
I liked Teddy as the Space Emperor... and they teased it for a REALLY long time (I remember hints in the original "Annihilation" in 2008!)
Too bad nothing ever really came of it.
Wiccan is gravely injured, and Hulkling and America have to go save him. Mind you, this happens off-panel. That's about how much respect he has for these two characters.
I've never liked Hickman's work, mostly for this reason. He gets a lot of credit and attention for big event comics and crossovers, but there's a real coldness to his characterizations and an overreliance on high concepts that don't fit established continuity and characterization; it's the proverbial mashing together of action figures by a kid who owns all the toys.
lol I wrote this big takedown of him here and then found this, which was even better and more elaborate. Well done.
This attitude annoys the hell out of me, Joss Whedon said that nobody is interested in a happy couple.
No, you just aren’t able to write a happy healthy couple in a mutually supportive relationship.
Both The Legend of Korra and Owl House managed it. Teen Titans managed it. 90% of those listed under Battle Couple manage it.
It’s just your poor writing and then blaming the audience for not liking your poor writing.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BattleCouple
I think a show that people always forget in this regard is Star Trek: TNG (actually most of them I guess).
There's conflict of course, but all of the main cast just like and respect each other. There's never any interpersonal drama, except if someone is possessed or whatever. There's tragedy and sadness sometimes, but the characters never stop loving each other. It's honestly kind of remarkable in how rare and refreshing it is.
My first thought too. TNG was much comfort watch during the pandemic because it was so nice to see smart people who are good at their jobs working together and listening to each other.
It kills me deep in my soul to hear people (I assume mostly younger folks now) gripe about TNG's "lack of realism" due to its absence of persistent relationship drama or how TNG "doesn't hold up because Rodenberry blocked them from having interpersonal conflict".
And I realize to these people, those criticisms make sense because they've probably literally never lived in an environment with healthy, well-adjusted professionals who talk through their disagreements, nor seen much media depicting happy, healthy relationship dynamics as anything but a death flag or setup for a soap-opera implosion.
To be fair, when we did get that persistent, interpersonal drama in DS9, it was the best the franchise ever got.
There's also the genuine mortal conundrum conflict. We can only save a doomed planet by violating the prime directive - do we? There's a potentially new lifeform that's about to destroy the ship, are we within our rights to defend ourselves and possibly wipe it out in the process?
People literally LOVE Morticia and Gomez Addams, and I can't imagine a happier, healthier couple than them. But they also have facets that make them unconventional and interesting, like Gomez' subversion in not being the typical dominant man in the relationship, or their shared strangeness. These people just don't know how to write positive interpersonal relationships that aren't the conventional, 'boring' surface-level relationships they think encompass all positive relationships.
And then the Wednesday show came along and did NOT understand this dynamic at all.
It was wild how the show kinda nailed most of the casting by looks but the writing just whiffed on the classic themes of the franchise.
I'm 100% convinced it wasn't an Addams Family project at all and they made them slap that brand name on
Oh yeah definitely. I think someone had the idea that it was adapted from some concepts for that Sabrina the Teenage Witch renewal that only partially got off the ground.
It's almost 100% someone going "Let's make Wicked but with teens" and found Wednesday was available.
Also how they had lightning in a bottle when it came to an excellent WLW ship, and they repeatedly torpedoed it over and over with the most boring het relationships possible.
It was more than a bit strange how aggressively they kept torpedoing the Enid/Wednesday relationship considering the onscreen chemistry those two had. Reeked of the same kind of fear that prevented Finn and Poe from sharing screentime in the later Star Wars sequels.
it feels like this guy doesn’t understand that narrative conflict can still happen between characters who like each other and get along well
Nailed it!
YES. I was just coming here to say this. It drives me crazy that some writers think you need constant conflict within a relationship, ANY relationship, to make things interesting. That’s exactly the sort of attitude that killed shows like Veronica Mars. You can absolutely write a story where the main couple is solid and all the conflict comes from outside their relationship (be it platonic or romantic or familial), and it can be fascinating if done correctly. But all these half-assed losers can’t grasp that.
This! But also you can have conflict between people who love each other and want good things for each other. They can still have different priorities and struggle with different things at the same time! Conflict doesn’t need to mean “these people don’t like each other”.
Um. What? Where is the happy healthy couple in a mutually supportive relationship there? Korrasami didn't happen on screen until the last 30 seconds. Before then, mako/asami, mako/korra and korra/bolin are all disasters.
The only happy functional couple were Zhu Li and Varrick, and even that had a hiccup in season 4. But I definitely would not use LoK as an example of happy or healthy couples.
Bolin/Opal might be it? Or Tenzin/Pemba? ( I can’t remember the name of his wife which goes to show her level of involvement in the story) Hard agree though, one of my biggest issues with LoK on rewatches is the endless relationship drama.
I wouldn't call Bolin and Opal a happy healthy couple since they were barley together in Book3 and they spent most of Book 4 apart because Bolin was working with Kuvira
But those relationships are basically background relationships. I think it's different when you're talking about your protagonist and I do actually think that 'happy couples' are boring - there needs to be some kind of conflict. It doesn't always have to be relationship drama, but it takes being iconic couple on the level of Superman and Lois Lane for people to be happy about reading about a couple just being happy together for the most part.
There needs to be conflict for any story, but the conflict doesn't have to be interpersonal between the couple. If both characters are interesting in their own right and the situations they are in are interesting, then I don't see why that wouldn't work.
I did say that:
But even conflict that is not relationship drama is still not going to read as sunshine and roses, like Chidi forgetting Eleanor in Season 3 of The Good Place. And for a lot of fans, they don't want ANYTHING to get in the way of their fluff (while not understanding why the relationship stops taking center stage / one of the couple stops appearing / no one is writing about either of them).
I think a lot of this had to do with the fact that a ton of love interest characters aren’t really designed to be interesting outside of the potential for them to BE love interests.
There’s a lot of stories where if there is a sequel the main couple will be going through relationship drama since the usually female LI didn’t really have much going on for her outside of the protagonists interest in her. So the writer still has to devote time to writing a character who has already served their narrative purpose.
One that comes to mind is MJ from the Sam raimi Spider-Man movies. Her whole thing was being Peter’s LI he was longing for but after they get together she doesn’t really have much narrative potential. So they spend the third movie on the outs to give her something to do before being kidnapped again.
Just because someone is in a happy supportive relationship doesn't mean that their life is boring or without conflict. It is perfectly possible for a decent writer to portray a protagonist with a difficult, conflict filled life that doesn't include constant conflict with their significant other.
I hoped that came through when I said “I couldn’t remember a characters name.” I do think you’re underselling Opal, she’s definitely not a main character but I think it’s unfair to call her a background character.
Background relationship, not background character. Maybe 'side' could work better. But, the point is, they are not characters whose conflict is needed to drive interest, like the protagonist.
My vote would be Tenzin and Pema, particularly in season 3. It's just a few scenes, but it counts imo. Plus Korrasami didn't 'happen' until the very end but they were pretty ride-or-die once the Mako triangle got dropped and like...the letters
But I know people disagree on how clearly set up the latter relationship was
Joss Whedon? The guy who created Wash and Zoe? That Joss Whedon? Weird.
Willow and Tara?
Uh, do you remember how that ended? That was Whedon's point. All of Willow's relationships were solid, then ended abruptly to cause drama.
But they were happy and people liked the relationship until he killed Tara. They weren't a high conflict relationship, and the whole reason Willow went dark was because she loved Tara so much.
Yes, which is the point. She was killed simply to cause drama. Whedon never keeps a couple happy, that's the point. It's either all drama all the time, or it ends tragically. It's in Buffy, Angel, Firefly (what happens to Wash and Zoe?), his X-Men run and hell, it's even in the second Avengers movie (Widow and Hulk).
To Whedon, a happy relationship is just a set up for a tragic ending for a major dramatic twist. A bad relationship is just a set up to regular drama during a story. He doesn't do happy, well adjusted couples. It's either drama all the time or a set up for tragedy. Hawkeye and his family are the only exception I can think of and even then, they're a secret that only Natasha and Fury knew about. What happened in Endgame wasn't written by him.
Admittedly, I haven't seen Dollhouse, so it could have a happy, well adjusted couple I don't know. However, in the vas majority of his works, he uses relationships purely as a vehicle for drama, with Hawkeye and Agent 13 as the only exception. Even then, that could just be Marvel stepping in because they wanted to continue to use them. Or maybe not, but it makes the only exception to his "relationships are a path to drama."
I've hate watched dollhouse for a podcast, the relationships in that show, and the things whedon does for drama, are horrid. Some really reprehensible shit, the most violent scene in the show is brutally murdering a woman moments after she starts a relationship. In general, you should assume dollhouse has every bad thing about whedon cranked to 11.
I did watch part of the first season, but noped out after a couple of episodes. I was pissed the Sarah Connor Chronicles got canceled in favor of Dollhouse.
I'm not surprised it was his worst aspects made manifest. It seemed fetish-y right from the start.
It's a show that dared to ask "Is a company that subjects vulnerable people to sexual assault and physical violence good or bad?" and decides the answer is somewhere in the middle with absolutely no justification.
I've enjoyed a lot of Dollhouse, but "healthy relationships" is basically the opposite of the show's premise and vibe.
Knowing what Whedon was actually like makes a lot of his shows make SO much more sense. It was always pretty clear his "I am a MALE FEMINIST!" ranting was a smokescreen for something but most people just assumed it was "he was sleeping around with Eliza Dushku", not the depths of what it was.
Wait, I thought that it was that. Like, I heard about the casting couch stuff, and I assumed it was just him sleeping around with Eliza Dushku, but I always suspected it was more. There was that rule about Michelle Trachtenberg not being alone around him which sounded sketchy as hell, but as far as I know, I never heard anything beyond the casting couch shit. Did more come out?
The Trachteberg stuff mostly, but also the endless affairs on his wife and constant manipulation
Didn't that relationship have an ongoing plot where willow was rewriting Tara's memory to make her a better girlfriend?
He killed wash.
Their conflict was she wanted to expand their family and do more moving forward. Add he wasn't having it do to their lifestyle.
In the end he was right. He died.
Even Alyson Hannigan's own next major role managed it, for the most part.
I think what some writers miss is that it's not conflict that drives stories per se, but contrast. Sure, conflict can drive a story, but if everyone's fighting everyone all the time then there's not really a lot of contrast between the relationships each person has with each other, and you can't really glean much out of it or even enjoy the story all that much. It's just conflict mush.
You need a reason for conflict, and that's why you need contrast in your characters, or environment, or whatever. And not just contrasting characters, but contrasting character interactions and relationships as well- characters who love as well as fight, or who just don't care about each other, or who are like, work friends but not friends friends (and usually to be able to do so you gotta write your characters with like, depth and agency and goals, which helps push the story too.) And in turn, that contrast is what tends to lead to conflict, and story, and whatnot.
Conflict is a factor that drives stories though. The actual misunderstood part is that conflict doesn't automatically equal "The characters don't like one another." Conflict can come from characters who like one another who just have different viewpoints, or as you said contrast. Or conflict can just come from reaching a goal. Conflict comes in many forms, and we need to stop defaulting to conflict means the group must fight and people can't be happy.
I think you're hitting the same thing from a different angle, tbh. I think of conflict like the wind; the contrast between the high pressure and low pressure zones is what creates it. If there's no pressure differential, there's no wind. You can try to mimic the wind- flap your hands or use a fan or whatever- but it's not gonna feel the same. Likewise, you need an environment (IE setting, characters, relationships. situation) with areas of contrast as a foundation you build conflict upon. If you try to make a conflict without that foundation, it's going to come out forced.
Like in your examples; If two characters like each other but have different views? Those viewpoints are where they contrast. If a character is trying to reach a goal, conflict usually comes in the form of an obstacle of some sort. If it's environmental, usually it's due to something like the character being pulled out of a setting they're used to and into one they're not, or the setting they're used to changing into one they're not. Either way, the unfamiliar as compared with the familiar is what's used as the basis for conflict. If the conflict comes from other people, again, it's different viewpoints where the contrast between them is what gets drawn upon for conflict.
It's not a perfect framework- internal conflicts in particular tend to not need it as much- but it works for a lot of the basic foundation.
No, conflict does drive stories. There has to be some kind of conflict for there to be a story. That conflict can be very, very minor, but it’s always there.
This does not mean that your characters have to be cunts to each other all the time, though.
There are a million and one slice of life mangas that have no conflict at all.
Are we talking shows with happy couples that are together before the ending of the show? I'm not sure Teen Titans counts in that case.
Did Legend of Korra manage it? I remember that show being relationship drama all the way down.
Booster and Beetle in DC, over and over again comes to mind.
The most tragic couple in comics and they're not even a couple.
Tvh, thats notbjust a Whedon thing ”Every happy family us the same but every unhappy familybis unhappy in its own specialcway”
Simone Weil, French philosopher.
All of three shows listed got cancelled. Firefly, Joss Whedon's show, also had a happy couple in major role, which also got cancelled. Maybe Whedon is simply speaking from professional experience of the often arbitrary on-the-ground realities, not making an ideological or purely theoretical argument.
Owl House got cancelled because of Disney moving away from serialised shows,
and not at all homophobia. Nothing to do with there not being enough relationship dramaHickman ignoring a character's established history in order to tell the story he wants?
What's next? Tom King kills dogs?
Nothing more iconic in US comics than an overhyped big name who couldn't be arsed to read a wiki coming in and ignoring established characterisation and world building to put their stamp on things.
Ah, the great American past time.
Oh and now comics are $12 each instead of just 25¢ like when my dad is a kid. So why should I pay to read your comic when you can't be bothered to even half ass a comic book?
Listen, I don't want to sound like a shill but I can and do read a lot of $4 comics for $10/mo on Marvel Unlimited.
Yes, Hickman, overhyped, sure thing. Definitive Fantastic Four writer of the last 20 years. Definitive Avengers writer of the last 15. Tbe the guy who did East of West. Overhyped, yup.
i cant tell you if hes overhyped or not (i mean, other than this i've only read the krakoa era from him. it was ok but didnt leave a mark on me) but i can tell you that he kinda missed the mark here. idk a lot about them so i didnt include it in the post but fans of hulkling and wiccan are also annoyed at him rn
Oh no, the 12 fans of Hulkling and Wiccan are mad. Hickman's career is in shamble rn
Rude
Not as rude as your previous deleted comment
I deleted that out of self-restraint, whats your excuse?
Lmao "self-restraint." More like you posted some dumb shit and got so embarrassed by your own words lmaoooo.
Pro-tip for Hulking and Wiccan fans, use this energy to buy some comics to show support instead of being so insufferable online, then maybe your fave would be more relevance in the future
Whats with the weird feeling of supremacy bud
People can like comics that you don’t and be upset if a writer fucks it up
And that writer writing some other characters well doesn’t affect that
Yea people have the rights to be upset and wrote a long ass post complain about fiction characters, and I have the rights to make fun of them for that. Especally if they are from insufferable fandom like Wiccan and Hulking. The only character that can't get popular despite getting the MCU boost, due to how toxic their fans are lol
One of the biggest "damning by faint praise" I've seen in a while.
Sounds like you're hyping him up to me, man.
Yes, being one of the three writers in history to approach the main X-Men book with something of a vision does that. The greatest Marvel writer of the 21st century I find deserves some hype.
we are literally discussing one of his biggest fuckups here please read the room
To you it’s a fuck up, to me it’s a bold story breathing some life into a line that sells like it contains anthrax while also being good.
you understand I'm not required to like something that i consider ooc, just because your favourite writer made it? You don't see me arguing with people in the comment section who said that they *did* like it. At least someone had fun. No need to get pissed off about it.
I’ll make a point that that’s Morrison, not Hickman.
good for you, man
I'm not crazy strict when it comes to ships(especially since ship fandoms can be the worse at times), but reading how they decided to go against a lot of their long established lore feels...wrong....
These things in comics make me wish there were people looking at what editors and writers are doing wrong and just go "that's a terrible idea..."
Omg a post about MY niche comic book ship? Amazing!
I haven’t been reading Marvel comics for years, but I still follow #riderquill on Tumblr. Usually it gets a post like. MAYBE once a month. If that.
When Imperial dropped it suddenly got like 20 posts in a day. Small time numbers compared to other ships, but a big impact for this little one.
And I saw when the ending dropped recently because of the new activity, too.
It’s a real bummer, because there were a number of Hickman runs I really loved back in the day. Really does have suck to have the weight of their friendship entirely disregarded, though. Like even if they don’t get together romantically, they are ride or die for each other.
Hickman is now absolutely infamous for rewriting characters ENTIRELY, as in creating entirely new characters simply named after the ones he's using, with the same designs. Parts of his FF did it, and 95% of his Avengers cast were nothing like the characters they were named after. His X-Men run largely did the same thing. This did not surprise me. There is nobody in comics worse for "keeping things consistent with what came before" than Hickman, who has his own stories in place, can't find anyone who would buy them, so keeps getting Marvel work so he can swap those marketable characters' names to his own stuff.
fire write up
Give thanks that Hickman didn't the Legion of Super-Heroes title.
unfortunately bendis did, and however much you dislike Hickman he’s a far better writer than that guy
I mean, he did. He just called it "The Avenger" instead.
Honestly I would kill to have Hickman on legion of superhero’s
Yes, by god the horror of the first good Legion of Superheroes comic since Legion of the Three Worlds. Ye gods, imagine a book with a concept and a vision.
This has just reminded me that I never found out how Hickman's Avengers run actually ended, because I bailed on it after what felt like seventeen years.
Something interesting I noticed about Imperial was the ‘normal’ swearing. No D’asts, Flarks, or Blue Blazes…
I always think it's corny but then it feels wrong when they don't do it
As a die hard Nova fan I am so glad that Hickman chose to use him in the story in the way he did because it gave me Jed MacKay working on an ongoing Nova book which is FUCKING RAD.
But maaaaaaan did Hickman let me down with Imperial, it really just felt like Hickman just wanted to put his favorite Inhumans back on the table (and honestly fuck em they suck).
Al Ewing’s work with Nova is definitive and the way that Peter, Gamora, and Rich all care about each other I felt was a great way to have your synergy and eat it too. I’m not typically a “shipper” but I love them as this throuple who is kind of all too fucked in the head to be healthy about how they feel.
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The way Rich blamed himself for getting Pete “killed” because he went to the guardians for help and how he should have just went on the suicide mission by himself fueling his martyr complex is just so fucking good
Meanwhile i stillcfeel weird about Gamira not being with Adam, not invested realky but just… weird
Tbf I don't think Adam's been in a main continuity comic since 2019
Oh hey, a post about one of my niche interests.
I quite liked Imperial TBH and think it’s a pretty fun direction to take Quill, in the vein of the theme Hickman goes back to: The mistakes people make to be more than fallible human. I think the conflict set up is interesting, that this intergalactic union is built on a lie. I’m interested in where it goes, and the payoff to Nova being very unhappy with T’Challa and Quill’s cover up “for the greater good”.
Also I fucking love Maximus The Mad and can’t wait to see him again. Imperial became great when he showed up.
Yeah I walked away from the story fairly satisfied with the space opera I was given. No one else at the shop I go to seemed to have this negative of an impression like I'm seeing here, so I'm kinda surprised.
Yes as an Inhumans fanboy I was quite happy with Imperial, but I do feel for the Nova and Quill fans out there
I can really see how it could be fun!! but it really came out of nowhere, at least for me
For a second I thought this was going to be about Jean M Auel’s earths children series and that train wreck of a last book of hers.
I've never heard of this series so i looked it up. I'd be curious about what happened, if you want you could make a post about it! :)
Very brief overview. First 5 books 2 main characters are unique for monogamy and a respectful, loving relationship in a world where it’s fine to have sex with anyone or have multiple mates. Last book guy cheats with his ex that is a bully and girl cheats with the town drunk who also bullies her.
Some men can't write romance well and they'll give every excuse under the sun before they just admit that.
Yeah but his particular man didn't even try 😭
I wouldn’t say Hickman is “overhyped”, his Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-men runs are seminal works that deserve all the praise they get. But even good writers have misses and Imperial is certainly a miss, Nova & Star-Lord being so OOC is but one of many flaws with the book.
Once people start calling a writer 'good' that writer must then be perfect at all times
I don’t know about this particular author or series, but as someone who used to be really into DC comics (a while ago at this point), this sort of seems par for the course for comics. Characters are made OOC all the time, depending on the writer. That being said, the community reaction is typically the same too. The only difference this time is the OOC characters are a fan-favorite non-canon ship, which always has the most hardcore fans.
Is there anything that separates this from the other decades of “my favorite comic got a new writer and now it’s OOC/stupid things happened”?
I guess no lol
Writing characters out of characters has always been a thing, you could argue right the way back to Bob Haney and his dubious ideas about continuity. Indeed, some of the most beloved runs have taken characters and twisted them to fit the story being told.
You could point to how Justice League International took Boost and Beetle, and Fire and Ice, and turned them into beloved versions that still show up today. Or for a more modern equivalent, Tom King has been doing it for a while; his version of Supergirl is now going to be turned into a movie!
What percent of posts on this sub are re: gay shippers who get upset at people not following their headcanon? It feels like a lot
Agreed lol. Tale as old as time tbh.
Hickman is the last writer i’d call overhyped. In a world where Tom King, Tom Taylor, and Geoff Johns exist that is a ridiculous opinion to have.
You're not even the first person to independently say i called him overhyped. I didn't. Where are you all getting this from? It's not even the point of the post. I just said this event did something i'm invested in badly.