Two things I'd like bring to your attention today. The first is one many of you may be familiar with already, but faithful reader/commenter GACN has suggested I remind everyone that the greatest source of free digitial Golden Age comics on the internet is GoldenAgeComics.co.uk. Not only can you find an amazing wealth of public domain comics at GAUK, but the messageboards are populated by the nicest fans of Golden Age comics you are ever gonna meet!
The other thing I wanted to alert Golden Age Comic fans to is the recently published Marvel comic The Twelve: Spearhead. This comic features some familiar faces from both the Golden Age and the Bronze Age.
While it induldges in a fair amount of Ultimate Universe styled Ultraviolence, it has quite a number of nice personal moments among the characters. Best of all, it's a self contained story (what a freaking brilliant idea - why isn't this done more often?)
I'll be honest, I wasn't a real fan of some of the JMS The Twelve mini-series. Some of it was interesting, but I find his take on modernizing Golden Age heroes seemed to follow the standard procedure of making them more grim and gritty - you get the feeling that if JMS had been the writer on M.A.S.H. then every episode would have been exactly like the series finale episode.
I'm not opposed to bleak stories but a steady diet of them starts to get boring.
Well, normally, all this would be introductory build up to today's free comics which would be related somehow. No chance on that as the Marvel stuff is not in public domain. However, I do have some awesome new scans I recently found. I think credit for these scans goes to either flatterman or X_Shadow, but I'm not entirely sure (the sfv file didn't have a lot of information in it...) If you know the original scanner of these issues, please drop me a line or post a comment.
[ Plastic Man 24 ]
[ Phantom Lady 01 - Ajax version ]
- Enjoy!
Some of it was interesting, but I find his take on modernizing Golden Age heroes seemed to follow the standard procedure of making them more grim and gritty
ReplyDelete*applause* *applause* *applause*
I liked the JMS updated spin on Rockman, Blue Blade, and the Laughing Mask. The Black Widow had some of the darkest GA stories you could ever want to find, and the update of The Witness made him a more interesting character.
That's 5 out of the 12. ;)
For the rest grim, gritty, tragic, the writing kind of just screamed Pathos, Pathos, Pathos, some at least slightly happier lives in the future would have been nice. For example: Captain Wonder's losing his family was just too much 'tragic irony inserted' considering all the heavy scenes with the other characters.
Never been a big Plas fan, but cool the Phantom Lady! :)
Thanks for pushing GAC! For myself Flashback Universe and GAC perfectly compliment each other & I frequent each site daily just to see what is new or ongoing. The readers of both sites will find much to enjoy about the other.
ReplyDeleteI found myself becoming a fan of 'The Twelve' series after its long break. 'The Twelve: Spearhead' is a great addition & proves (in my view) that Marvel's model for retro-Golden Age stories works. I hope people are following 'The Marvels Project' & the new 'Human Torch' series, as along with 'The Twelve', these three titles represent well thought out Golden Age retro/retcon goodness that will not be found at DC or Dynamite, imho.
@RKB - yeah, I liked some of the updates you mentioned as well - though I was a little appalled at how close the Rockman origin came to my M.A.S.H. analogy. When I was reading that issue, I had the feeling I had somehow inspired it with a comment on a messageboard. Silly I know, but then again, Bain is in Secret Six when I joked about putting him in the comic in a parody (that I know Gail Simone read because she commented on it.) so nothing's impossible...
ReplyDelete@GACN - Thank YOU for prompting me to get off my butt and make a proper banner for GAUK! :)
I agree with you about the new Golden Age projects coming from Marvel. I'm really enjoying them. I'd love to see something in a similar veing tackle the Bronze Age.