OOTS #G003 - The Discussion Thread

[Sir_Leorik]

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One looks forward to the adventures of Lena in Cliffport with the Girdle of Masculinity-Femininity, though.

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I just feel we should be discussing the giant rats. Have they been rebooted too? Do they have shippers? Inquiring minds want to know!

On a more serious note, I really liked Clyde Caldwell's cover for "Gygaxian" #3. Great work, from a great artist.

Exactly! Didio's got a lot of his own micromanaging problems, but Harras almost drove Marvel into the ground, and now he's over at DC doing the exact same thing. Can we maybe get some pattern recognition going on here?

Not all the problems at Marvel at the time were Harras' fault. Marvel was heading for bankruptcy at the time, after Ron Perelman's financial shenanigans with the company's stock. There's an excellent book about Marvel's escape from liquidation at the hands of corporate raiders. The name escapes me at the moment.

But in terms of artistic choices, Bob Harras was responsible for plenty of bad decisions. He was also responsible for overseeing great storylines like "Age of Apocalypse", "Thunderbolts" and "Marvels" at the time, but there were plenty bad comics published at the time. The "Spider-Clone" fiasco, "Heroes Reborn", and the "Fantastic Four" issues where the Invisible Woman dressed like a '90's "bad girl".

[DaggerPen]

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I just feel we should be discussing the giant rats. Have they been rebooted too? Do they have shippers? Inquiring minds want to know!

On a more serious note, I really liked Clyde Caldwell's cover for "Gygaxian" #3. Great work, from a great artist.

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[BLUE]Perhaps they haven't been, and that's why the fight was so tough![/BLUE]

Yeah, it was a great cover.

Not all the problems at Marvel at the time were Harras' fault. Marvel was heading for bankruptcy at the time, after Ron Perelman's financial shenanigans with the company's stock. There's an excellent book about Marvel's escape from liquidation at the hands of corporate raiders. The name escapes me at the moment.

But in terms of artistic choices, Bob Harras was responsible for plenty of bad decisions. He was also responsible for overseeing great storylines like "Age of Apocalypse", "Thunderbolts" and "Marvels" at the time, but there were plenty bad comics published at the time. The "Spider-Clone" fiasco, "Heroes Reborn", and the "Fantastic Four" issues where the Invisible Woman dressed like a '90's "bad girl".

In truth, I'm not too familiar with Marvel, but I do know that Harras had a lot of problems at Marvel that are now also occurring at DC, while Didio rabidly defends every time they finally drive off a writer.

[Sir_Leorik]

In truth, I'm not too familiar with Marvel, but I do know that Harras had a lot of problems at Marvel that are now also occurring at DC, while Didio rabidly defends every time they finally drive off a writer.

As the EIC at Marvel in the mid-1990's, Bob Harras should definitely be blamed for the "Heroes Reborn" fiasco, but Marvel published a lot of great books at the time.

One anecdote that I remember about him from before he became the EIC, had to do with a controversial issue of Peter David's run on "Incredible Hulk". At the time, Betty Banner, Bruce Banner's wife, was pregnant, and PAD was planning for the fetus to be diagnosed with Gamma-Radiation in it's blood. I believe that PAD's script called for Betty and Bruce to discuss whether Betty should have an abortion or not, and although she would carry the baby to term, it would be a Hulk-like creature from birth.

Marvel's publisher and EIC refused to run the story and demanded that instead Betty suffer a miscarriage. PAD refused to write the story they wanted him to write. At the time, Bob Harras was the Editor on "Incredible Hulk", and he approached Peter David and offered to write the script for the issue in question, and PAD accepted. Harras wrote a gentle, tasteful story, that complied with what the publisher and EIC wanted, while keeping many of the plot threads of PAD's storyline. So he's not all bad as an Editor. But as an EIC, especially with a demanding publisher like Dan DiDio, I think he's in over his head.

[DaggerPen]

As the EIC at Marvel in the mid-1990's, Bob Harras should definitely be blamed for the "Heroes Reborn" fiasco, but Marvel published a lot of great books at the time.

One anecdote that I remember about him from before he became the EIC, had to do with a controversial issue of Peter David's run on "Incredible Hulk". At the time, Betty Banner, Bruce Banner's wife, was pregnant, and PAD was planning for the fetus to be diagnosed with Gamma-Radiation in it's blood. I believe that PAD's script called for Betty and Bruce to discuss whether Betty should have an abortion or not, and although she would carry the baby to term, it would be a Hulk-like creature from birth.

Marvel's publisher and EIC refused to run the story and demanded that instead Betty suffer a miscarriage. PAD refused to write the story they wanted him to write. At the time, Bob Harras was the Editor on "Incredible Hulk", and he approached Peter David and offered to write the script for the issue in question, and PAD accepted. Harras wrote a gentle, tasteful story, that complied with what the publisher and EIC wanted, while keeping many of the plot threads of PAD's storyline. So he's not all bad as an Editor. But as an EIC, especially with a demanding publisher like Dan DiDio, I think he's in over his head.

Huh. That's interesting. He does sound like he might be a good editor, but as EIC... yeah, he definitely seems over his head at best.

[Unisus]

And now, after a "short" detour to Marvel and DC back to topic: ;)

Is it just me, or is the OotS-Comic in GM3 in a lower resolution than before?

[DeliaP]

I know that Joe Quesada gets a lot of grief thrown his way for "One More Day" ....

I'd assumed that V's reference to the marriage with Inkyrius being retconned out of existence was precisely a dig at Quesada and Marvel for "One More Day"

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Hey, I managed to bring it back to a reference to the comic!

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Spoiler tags are fun, aren't they?

[Sir_Leorik]

I'd assumed that V's reference to the marriage with Inkyrius being retconned out of existence was precisely a dig at Quesada and Marvel for "One More Day"

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Hey, I managed to bring it back to a reference to the comic!

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Spoiler tags are fun, aren't they?

Or it could be a dig at DC for retconning the marriages of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, Barry Allen and Iris West, Wally West and Linda Park, Olliver Queen and Dinah Lance, and possibly King Arthur "Orin" Curry and Queen Mera of Poseidonis and Tritonis (I'm not sure if that one got retconned or not). I think the only marriages that survived the nu52 were Apollo and the Midnighter and Buddy Baker and his wife (I don't remember her name ). I don't know if Ralph and Sue Dibny were still married in this continuity (or if Sue was murdered by Ray Palmer's ex-wife, who may have never married him), nor do I know if Garth Ranzz and Imra Ardeen (aka Lightning Man and Saturn Woman of the Legion of Superheroes) are still married.

Once upon a time women in the DCU needed to worry about being stuffed into a refridgerator; now they also need to worry that even if they survive to see their wedding day, it won't be retroactively annulled by a fickle publisher. Say what you will about Mephisto, he told the Parkers what would happen in very clear terms. As dumb as the storyline was, it was a story about Peter and MJ's marriage and whether they were willing to give that up to save Aunt May. Clark and Lois' marriage was dissolved thanks to a storyline about the Flash, and never got to say goodbye to each other.

As for Marvel, Reed and Sue Richards are still married, still have two children, not to mention all the other kids who have joined the Future Foundation and hang out at the Baxter Building, and get to have adventures. Wolverine is running a school for Mutants, dedicated to the memory of Jean Grey; he may not be married, but he's mellowed out quite a bit since "Incredible Hulk #181", courtesy of years of character development by Chris Claremont and many other writers. Luke Cage and Mary Sue's Jessica Jones' marriage is still going strong, and they have an adorable little girl, with an adorable au' pair (Squirrel Girl!). Deadpool might still be legally married to that zombie stripper from Saskatchewan -- does anyone know if they got divorced, or if he successfully killed her? Howard the Duck is still in a committed relationship with Beverly Switzler, despite the best efforts of Doctor Bong to break them up.

Basically the Marvel Universe is a happier place to live, IMO, than the nu52 DCU. Is it dangerous? Yeah, it is. After Hope restored the potential for mutant powers to millions of people around the world by channeling the power of the Phoenix using the wisdom of K'un L'un, Mutant/Human relations are at a new low. But this time Captain America is taking a stand against anti-Mutant predjudice, Wolverine is going after the Hellfire Club's Sentinel manufacturing plants, and Cyclops and Magneto have turned a group of X-Men into the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. (Um, that last part sounded better in my head. ) The Avengers are dealing with cosmic struggles, international super-terrorists, and street level crimes. Spider-Man has become more organized in his fight against crime in New York, having a squad of "Spider-Minions", and unleashing a horde of "Spider-Bots" to spy on ordinary citizens. He also shot a spree killer, earning a commendation from New York Mayor J. Jonah Jameson! (Um, actually that last part probably isn't a good thing. )

Meanwhile, the nu52 Justice League can't order lunch without having an all out brawl. The property damage that they cause while fighting super-villains is ginormous, and there's no one like Damage Control to clean it up. The only competent "hero" in the nu52 is apparently Lex Luthor, who formed his own Injustice League to fight the Crime Syndicate of Earth-3 because the Justice Leage are a bunch of chumps. At least Roy knows to run away when there are overwhelming odds.

(Yay! I managed to steer this rant back to discussing the comic!)

[DaggerPen]

I think the only marriages that survived the nu52 were Apollo and the Midnighter and Buddy Baker and his wife (I don't remember her name ). I don't know if Ralph and Sue Dibny were still married in this continuity (or if Sue was murdered by Ray Palmer's ex-wife, who may have never married him), nor do I know if Garth Ranzz and Imra Ardeen (aka Lightning Man and Saturn Woman of the Legion of Superheroes) are still married.

Not sure about the others, but Apollo and Midnighter's marriage did not survive the reboot. DC is officially anti-marriage. Like, literally, that was what they said after the Batwoman debacle broke - "We're not anti-same-sex marriage; we're just anti-marriage entirely."

But back to the comic! I haven't actually gotten the first two as of yet, because I am a broke college student and all, so I can't comment on the relative resolutions, but since it's probably relevant to those who have - Unisus, did you have a paper copy or a digital copy?

[DeliaP]

<long post about DC and Marvel that ends with> At least Roy knows to run away when there are overwhelming odds.

(Yay! I managed to steer this rant back to discussing the comic!)

Ah. OK. I'm not a DC reader (well, I used to read the Vertigo lines), just Marvel. A fact about which I now feel rather relieved!

[Sir_Leorik]

Not sure about the others, but Apollo and Midnighter's marriage did not survive the reboot. DC is officially anti-marriage. Like, literally, that was what they said after the Batwoman debacle broke - "We're not anti-same-sex marriage; we're just anti-marriage entirely."

Huh. I was sure that there were a few that survived DC's marriage culling (which is bloodier and just as annoying as the "Teen Titans: the Culling" crossover). Marvel let's their heroes have victories as well as defeats. Reed and Sue have been married for decades in real life (roughly a decade in comic time), Northstar got married recently, Herakles is technically still married to Hebe (daughter of Zeus and Hera, and cup-bearer to the Dodekatheon), and even the Black Panther didn't divorce Storm, he merely exiled her due to political reasons. (Namor was allied with the X-Men at the time that he flooded Wakanda using the Phoenix Force. Given that Wakanda is land-locked that is a really impressive feat for Namor, who usually can only flood coastal areas like New York or LA.)

I get the impression that Quesada was under pressure to terminate the Peter/MJ marriage but either due to his anti-divorce stance or some other reason he wanted the marriage annulled. Marvel heroes have gotten divorced in the past (Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne being a very prominent example) but that happened in the past under different EICs and publishers. The only Marvel character I know of to get divorced in the past few years were Deadpool and Satana in an issue of "Deadpool Team-Up". Satana had to get married to Deadpool in a Las Vegas chapel to avoid having her soul devoured by Asmodeus. She then got a quickie divorce and took half of Wade's shriveled up soul as her alimony. But I could be wrong.

But back to the comic! I haven't actually gotten the first two as of yet, because I am a broke college student and all, so I can't comment on the relative resolutions, but since it's probably relevant to those who have - Unisus, did you have a paper copy or a digital copy?

Right, the comic! We're supposed to be discussing the comic, not the other comics it is satirizing!

I got the digital copy, but I haven't noticed any problems with resolution. I'll take a more careful look this weekend, but I think any problems need to be addressed to the editors of "Gygaxian" or to RPGDrivethru.

[DaggerPen]

Marvel let's their heroes have victories as well as defeats. Reed and Sue have been married for decades in real life (roughly a decade in comic time), Northstar got married recently, Herakles is technically still married to Hebe (daughter of Zeus and Hera, and cup-bearer to the Dodekatheon), and even the Black Panther didn't divorce Storm, he merely exiled her due to political reasons. (Namor was allied with the X-Men at the time that he flooded Wakanda using the Phoenix Force. Given that Wakanda is land-locked that is a really impressive feat for Namor, who usually can only flood coastal areas like New York or LA.)

Didio literally said "Heroes shouldn’t have happy personal lives" in an interview a few months ago. Exact quote. DC has gone all-out in its commitment to portraying an unrelentingly miserable universe.

Right, the comic! We're supposed to be discussing the comic, not the other comics it is satirizing!

I got the digital copy, but I haven't noticed any problems with resolution. I'll take a more careful look this weekend, but I think any problems need to be addressed to the editors of "Gygaxian" or to RPGDrivethru.

I mean, the resolution in my copy looks fine, but it may have been higher-resolution in other versions, I'm not sure.

[Sir_Leorik]

Didio literally said "Heroes shouldn’t have happy personal lives" in an interview a few months ago. Exact quote. DC has gone all-out in its commitment to portraying an unrelentingly miserable universe.

It's completely idiotic. To go back to Marvel for a moment, take Daredevil, a character who's been through so many up and down periods in his life. At various times the Kingpin has reduced Matt's life to nothing by targeting his friends and loved ones. But Matt had no friends, if he had no relationship with Karen Page or anyone else, if he and Foggy didn't have a successful law practice for the Kingpin's cronies to blow up, then there couldn't be a story. The hero needs to be happy if the story is about the villain targeting the hero's source of happiness.

I know we keep going back to "One More Day", but if Peter didn't have a beloved Aunt May, who had raised him since he was a little boy, after his parents were murdered by the Red Skull on a mission for the CIA, and if he wasn't married to a wonderful and supportive wife like MJ, then Peter and MJ accepting Mephisto's offer wouldn't have angered the fans. Here are three fictional characters (Peter, MJ and Aunt May) that the readers cared about, and two of them were betraying their principles to save the third. Without the "happy personal lives" of these characters, the story wouldn't be so controversial. The same holds true for "Superior Spider-Man"; Doc Ock has fooled almost everyone of Peter's friends and loved ones, along with his comrades in the Avengers. If we weren't apprehensive about what SpOck might do, would anyone read the book? (Not to mention that Dan Slott is a great writer!)

Without DC's heroes having "happy personal lives" who are DC's villains going to stuff into refridgerators? Major Force hasn't murdered anyone's great-aunt since 2010!

[Porthos]

I'm going to try to drag this back to the actual context of the comic.

One of the things that was said in it was:

: Only if the kids who read our old adventures grow up to take control of the industry. Then they'll reboot us again to match their memories.

Yes, Elan. But which kids are we talking about here? After all, the much maligned One More Day storyline WAS because 'kids rebooted the industry to match their memories'. In this case, the 'kid' being Joe Quesada, who wanted Spiderman to be more like it was when he was a kid (at least that's the story I heard).

More generally, once fandom reaches a certain size or age "what it wants" can be entirely incompatible with itself. Take Batman. A large part of what happened to the character in the 80s/90s when it was reinvented were people entering the industry 'taking back' the character to its roots. But what about the people who grew up on/enjoyed the Silver Age Batman? What happens should they ever take over?

NOTE::: I'm staying out of the whole commentary about the alleged Grimdark nature of the current DC because I honestly haven't a clue on it, having stopped reading those comics ages ago. I'm more commenting on the general point of 'kids taking over' being a bit more complex than Elan realizes.

In fact, when I read Elan's line I didn't take it as a specific indictment of DC proper (though knowing how much Rich likes certain DC characters, perhaps I should) and instead took it as a commentary of reboots in general. In the movie industry alone, franchises are rebooted with some degree of regularity. Star Trek and Spider-Man are two of the more notable recent examples that have sparked controversy within fanbases. But even things like the Dukes of Hazzard remake launched controversy.

Then there are TV reboots like BSG.

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"I believe I have changed gender" indeed.

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Now maybe Rich did mean this to be a knowing wink/jab at DC. OTOH, perhaps, to paraphrase the words of Tolkien, maybe this strip was applicable, not allegorical.

I mean, the resolution in my copy looks fine, but it may have been higher-resolution in other versions, I'm not sure.

The resolution of the PDFs are great, IMO. I think Unisus might have been talking about the print version. If so, there it looks a little 'off', I think, because of the non-glossy nature of the paper.

It's not bad, really, just not quite what I am used to.

[BlackDragonKing]

It's completely idiotic. To go back to Marvel for a moment, take Daredevil, a character who's been through so many up and down periods in his life. At various times the Kingpin has reduced Matt's life to nothing by targeting his friends and loved ones. But Matt had no friends, if he had no relationship with Karen Page or anyone else, if he and Foggy didn't have a successful law practice for the Kingpin's cronies to blow up, then there couldn't be a story. The hero needs to be happy if the story is about the villain targeting the hero's source of happiness.

I know we keep going back to "One More Day", but if Peter didn't have a beloved Aunt May, who had raised him since he was a little boy, after his parents were murdered by the Red Skull on a mission for the CIA, and if he wasn't married to a wonderful and supportive wife like MJ, then Peter and MJ accepting Mephisto's offer wouldn't have angered the fans. Here are three fictional characters (Peter, MJ and Aunt May) that the readers cared about, and two of them were betraying their principles to save the third. Without the "happy personal lives" of these characters, the story wouldn't be so controversial. The same holds true for "Superior Spider-Man"; Doc Ock has fooled almost everyone of Peter's friends and loved ones, along with his comrades in the Avengers. If we weren't apprehensive about what SpOck might do, would anyone read the book? (Not to mention that Dan Slott is a great writer!)

Without DC's heroes having "happy personal lives" who are DC's villains going to stuff into refridgerators? Major Force hasn't murdered anyone's great-aunt since 2010!

I really haven't been happy with the whole Superior Spider-Man thing. It seems like a lot of spidey's closest friends are conveniently away and the folks who could SEE Otto sitting in his head have conveniently not come to call or found it suspicious that Spock avoids anyone who can read minds like the plague these days. Otto has Peter's memories (some of them, anyway, but his decision to flush the rest to kill the echo-pete hasn't had any major consequences so far), but he doesn't ACT like Peter. Hell, he barely TALKS like Peter, and Spider-Man has been wildly out-of-character for everyone that knows him with no question beyond "maybe he was a Skrull?" raised.

I just find it very odd that the Avengers don't find anything unusual that a guy whose motto for a while was "NO ONE DIES" (even Massacre and his ilk) suddenly starts brutalizing villains much weaker than he is, dismembering his enemies, frigging executes a villain he's defeated, and then hideously tortures another of his enemies and leaves what's left of him as a warning to others.

I don't really see why nobody been finding it odd why Peter Parker is suddenly an extremely aggressive, egocentric douche with no sense of humor or how Spider-Man switched from one of the more morally upright heroes in the Marvel universe to a goddamn psychopath after Doc Ock died. If this thing with Venom doesn't blow SpOck's cover by showing everyone his true colors, I don't know what will.

[The Giant]

Regarding the resolution issue, it should be the same resolution as always, but the font is awful—small and dark and hard to read. I've been experimenting with fonts in the magazine because I think it's time to put Comic Sans to pasture, but this one looked good on screen but awful in print. I'll switch it again next issue.

Why does this thing have zero publicity? It's like Rich is ashamed of it.

The main reason I don't promote it is that they never tell me when it's coming out. I finish it months ahead of time, and one day, I see a thread on my message board of people talking about my strip, and by that point, it's been out for weeks and I have more pressing things to talk about. It was similar to the launch—they swore me to secrecy, and then one day I suddenly found out that the story broke weeks prior and the magazine was already on sale.

I also was really uncertain about where and how to point people to the site to buy the issues, because up until recently they only sold subscriptions, not individual issues. I see that's fixed now, so maybe if they let me know when issue #4 is coming out in advance, I can promote in for them.

[SavageWombat]

I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't the only one who saw the absolutely vicious digs at the comic industry in this strip.

So that's a "yes" then.

[Taelas]

The resolution really is much lower in the PDF, at least.

The two first issues were around 50 megs in size, whereas the third is around 25.

[The Giant]

The resolution really is much lower in the PDF, at least.

The two first issues were around 50 megs in size, whereas the third is around 25.

Huh. I don't have any of the PDFs, I was only going on the printed versions. I don't suppose anyone would be willing to open issues 2 and 3 side-by-side at the same magnification and take a screen shot?

[Porthos]

Huh. I don't have any of the PDFs, I was only going on the printed versions. I don't suppose anyone would be willing to open issues 2 and 3 side-by-side at the same magnification and take a screen shot?

It's your copyright, so sure.

Spoilered (one panel from each comic):

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Not sure if that really helps since any dpi is going to be set because of the screenshot I took and not because of the inherent quality of the comic. Though as I look at it, the one from Issue 3 does seem to be softer.

For background purposes, when issue #1 first went out, Gygax Magazine first sent out a lower quality PDF but then after feedback sent out a higher quality one for Issue 1 and then later for Issue 2. As I check, Issue 3 is back to the lower quality resolution (≈25 meg versus ≈ 50 meg). No idea why, though.

[The Giant]

Wow, that is really noticeable. Ugh.

I have no idea why they would try to switch back to the lower resolution. It's not like it costs them anything. If I had to guess, I would guess someone forgot and used the wrong PDF export profile. But who knows.

[Porthos]

If I had to guess, I would guess someone forgot and used the wrong PDF export profile. But who knows.

Probably. It got sent to DriveThruRPG after the print copies started arriving in people's mailboxes, which was unsual for them.

I just fired off an email to TSR Customer Service to let them know about this. They've been pretty good about addressing this sort of stuff, so maybe they'll be able to address it without it costing them too much money on the DriveThruRPG end (I have zero idea how it works over at DriveThruRPG, so I don't know if they're gonna have to pay for people re-downloading their product or not).

Given it's the weekend and the Holiday Season, I don't know when my email will actually be looked at, though.

I'll update this thread when/if I get any news from them.

[Dr. Gamera]

I finish it months ahead of time, and one day, I see a thread on my message board of people talking about my strip, and by that point, it's been out for weeks and I have more pressing things to talk about.

I promise that I've started the three Gygax magazine threads on the same day as I've first received the three Gygax magazine issues, in whatever format I've received them in first. However, there's obviously no way for me to tell if other people are receiving their issues well before I do -- and in the case of the first issue, other people certainly did, as I didn't attend the unboxing in NYC or anything.

[Sir_Leorik]

I'm going to try to drag this back to the actual context of the comic.

One of the things that was said in it was:

: Only if the kids who read our old adventures grow up to take control of the industry. Then they'll reboot us again to match their memories.

Yes, Elan. But which kids are we talking about here?

***cough***Geoff Johns***cough***

Johns is the most guilty of retconning the nu52 universe to match the pre-Crisis universe (after a fashion), which is weird because some of his best pre-nu52 stories have been retconned out of existence in the process, including his entire run on "Teen Titans" and "Justice Society of America".

After all, the much maligned One More Day storyline WAS because 'kids rebooted the industry to match their memories'. In this case, the 'kid' being Joe Quesada, who wanted Spiderman to be more like it was when he was a kid (at least that's the story I heard).

I think that the publishers were urging that Peter and MJ break up. They'd already been separated before during Straczynski's run, and then got back together (thanks to some timely relationship advice Captain America gave them, after he and Spidey saved Doctor Doom from separatist assassins at Denver International Airport). Quesada allegedly has strong qualms about divorce and wanted their marriage annulled. Straczynski was a willing co-conspirator, but something happened in the end and JMS ended up taking his name off the last issue of "One More Day".

More generally, once fandom reaches a certain size or age "what it wants" can be entirely incompatible with itself. Take Batman. A large part of what happened to the character in the 80s/90s when it was reinvented were people entering the industry 'taking back' the character to its roots. But what about the people who grew up on/enjoyed the Silver Age Batman? What happens should they ever take over?

NOTE::: I'm staying out of the whole commentary about the alleged Grimdark nature of the current DC because I honestly haven't a clue on it, having stopped reading those comics ages ago. I'm more commenting on the general point of 'kids taking over' being a bit more complex than Elan realizes.

Batman has had so many different incarnations since 1939 that there should be no problem with having Batman stalk gun smugglers one issue, match wits with The Joker the next issue, and then fight space pirates with Green Lantern and Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) in an issue of "Brave & the Bold". What happened to Batman in the 1980's and 1990's can be summed up in two words: "Frank Miller". The success of "The Dark Knight Returns" led to Miller being given free reign to write Batman's post-Crisis origin in "Batman: Year One".

And from then on the fans demanded a darker more brutal, Batman, more like the Punisher than like Superman. So the Bat-Editors decided to say "You want a Batman who's more like the Punisher? We'll give you one, and hope you choke on him!" Hence "KnightFall", where Bane deduces Bruce's secret, breaks down Batman's resolve, and then breaks into Wayne Manor, beats Alfred and then breaks Bruce's back. Bruce, in a moment of weakness, turns to deprogrammed religious assassin Jean-Paul Valley to be the new Batman; Jean-Paul reveals that the deprogramming didn't work. Bruce is healed by getting to "know" a psychic healer, and trains with Lady Shiva in order to reclaim the mantle of Batman from Jean-Paul, who is now wearing Bat-armor, complete with Optimus Prime Bat-Helmet. Bruce drives the nutjob deep into the Batcave, forcing Jean-Paul to remove his armor, until Jean-Paul's huddling on the floor, surrounded by bats, Batman's voice echoing through the cave.

"Knight-Fall", "Knights-Quest" and "Knights End" were all conceived of and mostly written by Denny O'Neill who'd been writing Batman since the late 1960's. The Batman fans who took over the character and did a reboot at the time weren't comic book creators, but Bruce Timm, creator of "Batman: the Animated Series", along with Paul Dini and various writers, artists, voice talents (including Mark Hammill, a major comic fan who became voice of The Joker) on the show.

I really haven't been happy with the whole Superior Spider-Man thing. It seems like a lot of spidey's closest friends are conveniently away and the folks who could SEE Otto sitting in his head have conveniently not come to call or found it suspicious that Spock avoids anyone who can read minds like the plague these days. Otto has Peter's memories (some of them, anyway, but his decision to flush the rest to kill the echo-pete hasn't had any major consequences so far), but he doesn't ACT like Peter. Hell, he barely TALKS like Peter, and Spider-Man has been wildly out-of-character for everyone that knows him with no question beyond "maybe he was a Skrull?" raised.

I just find it very odd that the Avengers don't find anything unusual that a guy whose motto for a while was "NO ONE DIES" (even Massacre and his ilk) suddenly starts brutalizing villains much weaker than he is, dismembering his enemies, frigging executes a villain he's defeated, and then hideously tortures another of his enemies and leaves what's left of him as a warning to others.

I don't really see why nobody been finding it odd why Peter Parker is suddenly an extremely aggressive, egocentric douche with no sense of humor or how Spider-Man switched from one of the more morally upright heroes in the Marvel universe to a goddamn psychopath after Doc Ock died. If this thing with Venom doesn't blow SpOck's cover by showing everyone his true colors, I don't know what will.

Spoiler: Superior Spider-Man

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The Avengers did find it unusual and called SpOck on it, demanding he submit to a complete physical. Otto was insulted at the insinuation (boy does he have an ego!), and the Avengers (with help from Ghost!Peter) took Otto down. They ran tests which confirmed that Spider-Man wasn't a Skrull, replaced by a Space Phantom, under the control of the Purple Man, the Controller or the Puppet Master. The Avengers put Spider-Man on probation and warned him to watch it. The Black Widow told SpOck that she suspected his change in behavior was a result of the death of Silver Sable during "Ends of the Earth". So the Avengers didn't completely drop the ball, but none of the Avengers who tested SpOck were scientists (neither Iron Man nor Giant Man were present, which SpOck lampshades).

[Armitage]

I also was really uncertain about where and how to point people to the site to buy the issues, because up until recently they only sold subscriptions, not individual issues.

I am a bit surprised about this statement.
I bought the print version of #1 individually, and since #2 have bought digital versions of all issues individually.
So in my experience, there never was a time when Gygax Magazine was only available on a subscription basis.