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Jolene00Negative said:
Paul 4 Life! All Hail Paul MJ's one true Love! (not really, but they had some fun) (calling him a self insert representing Wells divorce and bitterness is a wild take though. If that were true Paul would have more of a personality)

I love Exceptional X-Men, Kitty and Emma in Chicago teaching a couple of new mutant teens? Fun stuff!
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Yeah, Exceptional is also solid.
 
JakeEkiss said:
Legit never seen someone prefer Mojo and Arcade to Sinister and Apocalypse. Let your freak flag fly. I dig all four of them for different reasons.

See, this I think is an issue with the medium. There's hardly a comic villain around with more than 10 years of backstory that I don't think has been either completely defanged by overuse (and often being reformed), or marginalized to the point of absurdity. But that's a function of the monthly perpetual release schedule. I kind of take all comic villains as how I feel about them conceptually and in context of their best bits, rather than taking every story of theirs in continuity because, well, they basically all get watered down by their worst depictions if we take it all in.

It's the thing I mentioned either here or another thread when comparing Nimrod to the Borg. The Borg, first two, even three times out the gate with the TNG crew, fantastic baddies. Once they become recurring on Voyager they lose any semblance of threat. And it's just how they're treated. You could make the Borg cool again today, but you can't treat them like a villain of the week. You gotta be disciplined enough to use them sparingly and to give them big shit to do.

I think the same is true of sentinels. One thing that drew me into the Powers of/House of books was the Sentinels felt threatening immediately. Hickman sets up this ticking clock of how much time before someone creates a Nimrod, and how once that happens it's all over. Then he sets up bigger stakes about the deep time and AI vs organic life. And even without Nimrod, that first mission to the Mother Mold kills the entire team. That's pretty good. Feels very Days of Future Past.
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That was a major part of my gripes when it came to Hickman’s run is that he set up the initial stakes to be so high when he kills off the entire team thanks to the sentinels, but in the next panel we see Charles Xavier prancing around a bunch of eggs that are hatching out clones of his team like this is something out of The Wizard of Oz, and then immediately after that, all the mutants are living in a hippie commune and somehow they are prepping for the inevitable Phalanx takeover 3000 years from now. And don’t get me started on X of Swords because wtf was that hot mess??? Temporal doorways, magical totems, swords used as keys, Betsy’s transformation and of course Apocalypse has kids that are his real horseman…‍ too many egregious 180° turns for one story


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JakeEkiss said:
Legit never seen someone prefer Mojo and Arcade to Sinister and Apocalypse. Let your freak flag fly. I dig all four of them for different reasons.
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Mojo is legitimately one of my favorite comic book villains. I love him so much and he doesn't get NEARLY the credit he deserves (from the writers) as a legit threat.

I'm an Apocalypse fan (I pre-ordered the stupid MTO figure because I'm an idiot), but I also have a lot of problems with the 'undefeatable villain' archetype. ONE enemy that is presented to us in a way where almost no combination of our heroes together can beat them is terrifying but also boring. Apoc shows up and it's like 'well, I hope they sorted out a MacGuffin that can temporarily delay him or send him to another dimension or something because they CAN'T beat him.' It's great once in a great while, but that means he's not a villain that should be popping up very often at all. You literally can't have an apocalypse every few years or it becomes more of a minor disaster.

Sentinels are great because they're easy to alter to the needs - whether you want one crazy powerful one, a few big scary ones, or lots of ineffective but overwhelming ones. I really like the recipe of one sentinel for every two or three X-Men being a challenge but not exceptionally dangerous.
 
Damien said:
Mojo is legitimately one of my favorite comic book villains. I love him so much and he doesn't get NEARLY the credit he deserves (from the writers) as a legit threat.
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Mojo is just fun. And he can operate in different modes simultaneously. He can be silly slapstick and body horror at the same time. And he's just weird. A slug dude with spider legs from a TV dimension. What's not to love?
 
JakeEkiss said:
Mojo is just fun. And he can operate in different modes simultaneously. He can be silly slapstick and body horror at the same time. And he's just weird. A slug dude with spider legs from a TV dimension. What's not to love?
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My point.
And, kind of like a Juggernaut or whatever, I think his power level has shifted back and forth over time, so you can really play with how powerful is he actually. I kind of like the idea that he's crazy and funny and weird and slapstick, but also actually crazy powerful where it would take the team to bring him down if they actually had to and could get to him.

Don't forget he can also, if he wants, tap into psychological horror, given the scenarios he can cook up for the spectacle of others. Good characters literally suffering existential crises on screen for the amusement of an audience. Mojo has so much barely-explored potential.
Also, Longshot and Shatterstar are some of the best ancillary characters in the X side of the Marvel Universe, and I will brook no argument.
 
JakeEkiss said:
Legit never seen someone prefer Mojo and Arcade to Sinister and Apocalypse. Let your freak flag fly. I dig all four of them for different reasons.
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Oh Arcade is easily one of the best villains in Marvel comics. Bar none. He's such an irredeemable little shit, and his gimmick of hitman that uses murder amusement parks? So comic book it rules!

Plus he slots in great for any hero, he's not exclusive and that rules.

Sinister is just a weird creep into eugenics, but he's a campy weird creep. So that goes a long way.
 
Damien said:
My point.
And, kind of like a Juggernaut or whatever, I think his power level has shifted back and forth over time, so you can really play with how powerful is he actually. I kind of like the idea that he's crazy and funny and weird and slapstick, but also actually crazy powerful where it would take the team to bring him down if they actually had to and could get to him.

Don't forget he can also, if he wants, tap into psychological horror, given the scenarios he can cook up for the spectacle of others. Good characters literally suffering existential crises on screen for the amusement of an audience. Mojo has so much barely-explored potential.
Also, Longshot and Shatterstar are some of the best ancillary characters in the X side of the Marvel Universe, and I will brook no argument.
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shattertar's cool cause his sword? it's two swords Thats twice as cool as one sword
 
I guess this is proving the point but I've literally never heard of Betty Kane in 30+ years of being Batman-adjacent.
 
Stoopid_Sandwich said:
Who created Mr Sinister and Apocalypse? Was that Louise Simonson?

Also I’ve gone on record with this before but I feel like the sentinels have been and always will be an escalation joke. “Oh the X-Men clearly dispatched 5 of these towering robots? Well here’s 20,000of them plus a Mastermold. *thumbs nose* neener neener!”


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Jolene00Negative said:
Of course the flipside of the hot take is:

Avengers also don't have many good villains.

You've got Ultron, and, uh....well the Masters of Evil seem fun in theory, but there's a lot of dorks in their ranks
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I have to assume you're thinking here is for villains who have only been developed as foes for the entire team, instead of those that were established in other books to face specific members? Like, you're not counting Loki, since he'd be thought of as a Thor villain, primarily (even if he was the whole reason the team came together) If you're using that criteria, it whittles down the "Avengers" foes considerably, since the entire concept of the book was for a team of heroes to band together to fight a threat that a single hero couldn't face alone. When you start to include those characters like Loki, Red Skull, Skrulls, Hydra, Serpent Society, Zodiac, Morgan Le Fey, etc., then the Avengers rogues are pretty damned good. If you're discounting all of those because they started off as foils individual heroes, then you're really paring it down, and I'm not sure I'd agree with such an approach.
Jolene00Negative said:
Paul 4 Life! All Hail Paul MJ's one true Love! (not really, but they had some fun) (calling him a self insert representing Wells divorce and bitterness is a wild take though. If that were true Paul would have more of a personality)
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It's not really a wild take though...in fact I'd say that is the general consensus when it comes to Paul. I didn't know anything about Wells when Paul made his debut, but it was pointed out in several places shortly thereafter, and it really makes sense. I don't think his lack of personality discounts that, as I don't think Paul is supposed to BE Wells, but rather represents the "other guy" he was left for. Wells self-insert in the story is actually Peter Parker, and the Paul/MJ relationship is the situation he is forced to deal with.
Jolene00Negative said:
I love Exceptional X-Men, Kitty and Emma in Chicago teaching a couple of new mutant teens? Fun stuff!
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I may have to check this one out. The only X book I'm currently reading in trades is Simone's Uncanny, which I have really enjoyed so far.
 
TheGillMan said:
It's not really a wild take though...in fact I'd say that is the general consensus when it comes to Paul. I didn't know anything about Wells when Paul made his debut, but it was pointed out in several places shortly thereafter, and it really makes sense. I don't think his lack of personality discounts that, as I don't think Paul is supposed to BE Wells, but rather represents the "other guy" he was left for. Wells self-insert in the story is actually Peter Parker, and the Paul/MJ relationship is the situation he is forced to deal with.

I may have to check this one out. The only X book I'm currently reading in trades is Simone's Uncanny, which I have really enjoyed so far.
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Yeah, I misspoke. Thank you for interpreting.

Also, not a lot of comic shop dudes I know knew this, but Wells was married to Heidi Gardner on SNL, and they were both Groundlings. Just trivia.

And yes, give Exceptional a shot.
 
TheGillMan said:
When you start to include those characters like Loki, Red Skull, Skrulls, Hydra, Serpent Society, Zodiac, Morgan Le Fey, etc., then the Avengers rogues are pretty damned good. If you're discounting all of those because they started off as foils individual heroes, then you're really paring it down, and I'm not sure I'd agree with such an approach.
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Look, I love Serpent Society, but like...I don't care what writers try, they are not a believable threat for the Avengers. it's like this bit from Uncanny X-men. they're goobers and I love them


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Hydra and Red Skull are more like Arcade, in they are not exclusive to the Avengers, same with Loki.

Morgan Le Fey I'd give you, Zodiac....I got nothing for Zodiac other than he's not Kang, and Kang is kinda lame.

Like, I'm all for a Masters of Evil team-up, but I don't think it's really ever been done well in the comics like it was in Avengers Earth's Mightiest heroes, or Marvel Ultimate Alliance.


Anyway, Wells run was easily my fave Spidey run in a long while. And Al Ewing on Venom was a delight too, but he is a coward for breaking mj and paul up immediately.
 
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