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Richard Callaghan
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 July 2005
Posts: 343
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| Posted: 12 August 2005 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | 1
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Sorry if this is an old one, but how exactly did you feel when the Johnny-Alicia relationship was effectively "ret-conned" out of history by Tom DeFalco with the "Alicia was a Skrull" plotline?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132279
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| Posted: 12 August 2005 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | 2
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Undoing the Johnny/Alicia relationship was, of course, the prerogative of any writer(s) who followed me on FF. My only complaint: I wish the writer who did it had not chosen such a clumsy and "comic-booky" (in the worst sense of the term) way of doing it.
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Richard Callaghan
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 July 2005
Posts: 343
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| Posted: 12 August 2005 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | 3
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I agree... the DeFalco/Ryan run was the nadir of the book for me (and the one that eventually saw it cancelled)
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Bill Lukash
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1762
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| Posted: 12 August 2005 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | 4
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Now I really liked Paul Ryan's work, and some of the stuff DeFalco did,
so I'll defend them to an extent. Lets be frank, anyone following
Byrne would have had a problem. It was over 10 years before Byrne
breathed life back into the FF after Lee and Kirby left. The book
is due for another turn around, but JMS ain't it. Lets not
forget the stuff immediately after JB left was not very good,
either.
If I were EIC, I'd have Landronn on that book faster than you could say
Johnny Quick's magic formula. I'd love to have JB, but he is
unwilling to go back to that old pasture. I think I'd have Dan
Slott write because he "gets" comics. I know it woudn't do any
worse than the current version, and it would certainly bring in older,
fed up readers who quit the book long ago. Maybe Steve Rude
annual too...and it would be part of the mythos..not some throw away
story.
I'll get off my soapbox.
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Richard Callaghan
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 July 2005
Posts: 343
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| Posted: 12 August 2005 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | 5
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I thought Walt Simonson was good, but too brief... Englehart wasn't great, but I think in retrospect he's better than he seemed at the time... after that there have been one or two nice issues, but nothing really sets alight. Authorative Action was good from Waid, but the rest of his stories didn't really do much for me.
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Eric Kleefeld
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4422
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| Posted: 12 August 2005 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | 6
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I'm going to say I agree with undoing the relationship, but am also sad it
had to reach the point of doing it so drastically.
Allow me to explain. Johnny and Alicia dating while Ben is away, that's
some soap opera goodness. However, Johnny marrying Alicia took it way
too far, ruining three characters in the process and deeply altering them
from the model set up by Lee and Kirby.
Johnny dating Alicia, even continuing to do so when Ben got back, would
have been fine. A later writer could always break them up, eventually
have Ben and Alicia reconcile, and next thing you know we're back on the
original model; it's that whole illusion of change thing at work.
But having Johnny and Alicia marrying meant a return to the old model
would have to involve either undoing the marriage through retcons or a
divorce, and I'm not sure Johnny and Alicia as divorcés is such a good
idea. So I guess a return to the old model had to involve a retcon.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132279
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| Posted: 12 August 2005 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | 7
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Worth noting, I suppose, that by the time I left the FF I had reached a rythm with the characters that I was literally making it up as I went along. Letting the characters "tell" me where the stories were going to go, with very little actually plotting out beyond the issue I was working on. General ideas of where I needed to end up, but nothing specific.Because of this, I did not know when I left if I would actually have had Johnny and Alicia get married. I suspect not, but I don't know for sure. The characters themselves had not yet "told" me the way it was supposed to go!
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Richard Callaghan
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 July 2005
Posts: 343
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| Posted: 12 August 2005 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | 8
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I enjoyed the progression of it... the characters still seemed to be ageing at that stage, instead of having a setting on their youth (particularly Johnny) as they would later do.
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Steve Horton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3574
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| Posted: 12 August 2005 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | 9
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Recently, I got really close to being signed by a big comics company. Some of the things they were going to ask me to do was plan way ahead, figure out the story's structure, write detailed outlines and plots, do a series bible, etc, etc. That's so not how I work.
I prefer to make it up as I go, like you mention. I don't like knowing too much about the story I'm about to write. Takes some of the magic out of it.
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Bill Lukash
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1762
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| Posted: 12 August 2005 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | 10
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I agree with you, Eric.
I know why Ben elected to stay on the Secret Wars world, but I always felt bad for Alicia.
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Eric Kleefeld
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4422
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| Posted: 12 August 2005 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | 11
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The model of the Ben/Alicia relationship that I've gleaned from the FF
comics I've read (admittedly little compared to some others around here)
is of a mutually acknowledged but nevertheless unrequited love. If Ben
became normal and was confident he could stay that way, he would ask
Alicia to marry him. But until such time as he feels sure he could be a
human husband to her, he feels he is not worthy of her and she does not
deserve the burden of being his wife.
But let's say for a second we could play Uatu and look into an alternate
world where he proposes as the Thing, anyway. She would accept without
hesitation; it's something she's waited for ever since FF #8. The obvious
physical incompatibility means there would be no sexual consummation,
but that would still be fine by her. It might be much like the last page of
the latest DP. Simply making a home with him, going to sleep and
knowing he would be there next to her in the morning, would be
marriage enough for her.
edit: Thanks for the prior agreement, Bill. Hope you agree with this
point, too.
Edited by Eric Kleefeld on 12 August 2005 at 7:00pm
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Rich Abreu
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 537
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| Posted: 12 August 2005 at 7:47pm | IP Logged | 12
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It would be one thing to end the relationship, but its another thing to "undo" it, making like it never really happened and the emotion invested in it was a waste of time. That is a trend in comics that I think is too easy and turns off alot of civilians to comics.
Edited by Rich Abreu on 12 August 2005 at 7:48pm
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