Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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| Image by Tumisu from Pixabay |
Here we are again, once more confronted with a feature that never stops, never tires and will never relent nor regret.
It's the one in which the first person to comment gets to decide what's to be tonight's topic for debate.
That topic could be anything which exists within the sphere of human existence.
Or even inhuman existence.
Therefore, feel free to post your comment and get the ball rolling as it has never rolled before.
Posts
25 comments:
All other things being equal (equal!) which team would you find most interesting to read : JSA or JLA or Seven Soldiers of Victory or All Winners or Avengers? Or Lord Snooty and his Pals :)
CH
Thanks for the topic, Charlie.
Of those, I would always go for the Avengers.
From the list it would be the Avengers for me as well. Possibly the Legion of Super-heroes if I could add my own team .
What about the Bash Street Kids, Charlie?
It's The Avengers for me too on account that I've never read the others (except Lord Snooty).
Nothing beats Jim Shooter's first Avengers run ( outstanding writing; outstanding art; outstanding inks.) So, Avengers for me, too!
Phillip
I’m gonna go with the All Winners Squad, but only if the stories took place in a “Continuity Be Damned” WWII, featuring Timely’s “Big Three” plus Bucky and Toro. I know, it sounds like I’m describing The Invaders, but no, I’m really not. As fond as I am of that comic, it never really conveyed the thrill I get from gazing at those stupendous Alex Schomburg covers from the Golden Age. For me , The Invaders comic tried too hard to reconcile the historical WWII and the Gung Ho/Anything Goes spirit of the early comics.
And I could totally do without The Whizzer and Ms. America and the Liberty Legion and Union Jack and the Kid Commandos. The Destroyer could drop in as an occasional guest star, that’d be all right. And the Golden Age Vision.
b.t.
But ….
I suppose a steady diet of Subby overturning battleships, Torch and Toro burning thru Stukas, and Cap and little Bucky machine-gunning the crap out of everybody might get kinda boring, so as a certified Marvel Kid (R.F.O., K.O.F.) — guess I’ll go with The Avengers.
Charlie: what, no Defenders? No Champions? I mean, I wouldn’t vote for ‘em, but it would be nice to at least have the option…
b.t.
Dudes- Charlie did NOT intend to limit the scope of teams! The Invaders, Defenders, The Marvel Family (Fawcett), Bash Street Kids, The Howling Commandos, DCs Society of Super Pets, Legion of Rejects… whatever floats one’s boat, turns one’s crank, spins one’s hat… Now go get ‘em tiger!
Charlie has an eternal nostalgic yearning for JSA. Probably formed via mid-1960s JSA - JLA team ups annually and theiir WW2 JSA stories in subsequent 100-page GIANTS!
The characters, being often just human like Dr. Midnight, Wildcat, Atom, Black Canary, Sandman were somehow more endearing? Realistic? Plausible?
And BOY COMMANDOs from WW2. Some of the best damn patrioic art ever by Kirby, on those covers!
That dude could set the mood for war even 30 years later with the LOSERS!
CH
I also have a sentimental fondness for the JSA. When I was a little spud I would read every comic I got my sticky little hands on. DC was bringing back All-Star Comics, and I was confused as to why there were two Green Lanterns, two Flashes, etc.
Also Superman showed up, and he was older for some reason.
It took me a long time to dope it all out, the Earth-1 Earth-2 thing, but that was part of the fun.
It just made me more curious!
I swear, the first time I saw Wildcat in the All-Star reboot, I thought he was some sort of evil Batman.
He got mind controlled by the Fiddler and punched out Hawkman.
That was another thing-two Hawkmen.
Those titanic team-ups between the JLA and JSA were fantastic!
M.P.
Hey Charles! Hope you're doin' good. I'll check out Boy Commandos. And yeah, his run on the Losers was great!
Worth a look, if there's anybody who hasn't seen it!
M.P.
The All-New, All-Different X-Men were a huge improvement on the frankly boring original X-Men!
Gosh! How could Charlie forget Xmen Teams!!! How many were there including spin-offs!
Charlie did like various old XMen issues e.g., the Neal Adams ones. Don Heck ones were painful.
Truth be told Charlie liked a lot of the WW2 -era teams besides DC’s and Timely’s. BLACKHAWKS, DAREDEVIL AND THE LITTLE WISE GUYS come to mind. They had excellent art and solid storytelling.
Just for gits and shiggles, I googled “List of Marvel super-teams” yesterday — there were so freaking many, I had to bail about half-way through the “Bs”. Not even kidding!
b.t.
And the lists aren't even particularly complete, b.t. I looked up the one of Marvel teams and organisations on the wiki, and gave up once I got to 'B' and saw it didn't include the Black Musketeers. Poor research!
Anyway, I'd probably have to go back to when I was a little scrote to decide on a fave team, as generally it would depend very much on who was writing and drawing the comics. So back in the first half of the 70s it would be the Justice League over Avengers. Come on, you can't beat the JLA/JSA crossover set on Earth X, with the Freedom Fighters!
But if you asked me later, say about Grant Morrison MBE's JLA v Kurt Busiek's (roughly contemporary) Avengers, I would say... who cares? Warren Ellis' Authority was better than either. And that wasn't as good as Alan Moore's Top Ten.
Best 40s team was the Top Ten spin-off Forty-Niners. Yeah, I know, it's a bit of a cheat going for a modern period piece, but still.
-sean
PS To be clear, what I meant by going back to the first half of the 70s is that that was when the characters were the main attraction in comics. After that, for me it was the creators (eg I was never that interested in Daredevil - sorry Phillip - but I liked Frank Miller's run a lot).
- sean
I agree with my Out' pal M.P. about a lot of the appeal of the JLA/JSA being the whole Earth-1/Earth-2 thing. Nowadays everyone goes on about multiverses, but back in the first half of the 70s alternative universes were a pretty rarefied concept.
The Earth X crossover was like Phillip K Dick's 'Man in the High Castle' for kids!
Somewhat surprised not to see any love here for the Defenders. Particularly from the South Dakota branch of the Blue Oyster Cult fan club...
-sean
*my oul' pal M.P....
#@*∆ autocorrect!
SEAN - i think you got at the crux of my motivation for the question and expressed it perfectly.
Though today I have a huge nostalgia for the justice society of America, at the time I was reading them I was roughly 11 years old? I just really found the characters themselves more interesting than the others on the spinner rack at the time like the avengers or JLA.
So answering my own question, lol, all the other things being equal, like the quality of the art and the story I would still prefer to read a JSA comic because I simply find the characters more quirky and interesting.
Sean, have you ever considered checking your comments BEFORE you send them?
Sean - Maybe I'm a 'creators man', too. After all, on Miller starting, Daredevil lost interest for me!
Phillip
Has to be Avengers for me, especially the lengthy run from Englehart to Shooter. Great stuff, great characters, great art (usually). But also a big fan of the Fantastic Four ( a group, do they still count in your assessment Charlie?). New X-Men was tops, too; and loved Defenders. What can I say, I loved all the Marvel groups!
Obviously Fantastic Four and for a variey of reasons.Those initial 102 Kirby issues set a standard and not just longevity but quality.They probably peaked from 35 -67 and that is a 3 year continuous peak of artwork and ideas,not just a couple of issues.The entire Marvel universe(mainly) emerged from the single title...it is a high water mark the,I believe, will never be matched!
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