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Since you brought it up, and I forgot to mention this, as a curiosity...

In 93, when Vertigo kicked off, Green Arrow was one of the DC books with an "adult content" label that was originally potentially going to be included in the Vertigo imprint, before they opted against it.

 

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1 hour ago, vodou said:

Yes. The King of all Retcons, all others weak (at best) in comparison.

Moore pulled off perhaps an even more impressive retcon earlier with MIRACLEMAN. Overall, I prefer ST to MM, but fair is fair!

This has nothing to do with market value, just stating my personal collecting preference: I would rather have a prime Bissette/Totleben ST cover over a Byrne X-MEN cover. I know for many this is near "Sal Buscema is an all-time top 5 artist" level of insanity, but I prioritize Moore/Bissette/Totlebeb ST and Miller DD over X-MEN. I may be a minority of one amongst '80s fans in this. Buying the books off the stands at the time, ST and DD made much more of an impact on my reading than X-MEN. Even now, I will revisit ST and DD every few years. I haven't had the same desire to re-read Claremont/Byrne X-MEN at all.

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1 hour ago, Bronty said:

I get it, but revamping GL to point out that he cares about the purple skins and not the black skins, while an admirable story on its own, is not the same level of reinvention as taking an existing character and revealing he has been dead for over a decade and is just a plant with his memories.....   ST21 was next level in every way (thumbsu

Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) was a pretty radical character reinvention at the time. But we aren't talking about the scale of reinvention or reinterpretation, or of the retconning. Just that it wasn't unprecedented. 

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19 minutes ago, Nexus said:

Moore pulled off perhaps an even more impressive retcon earlier with MIRACLEMAN. Overall, I prefer ST to MM, but fair is fair!

This has nothing to do with market value, just stating my personal collecting preference: I would rather have a prime Bissette/Totleben ST cover over a Byrne X-MEN cover. I know for many this is near "Sal Buscema is an all-time top 5 artist" level of insanity, but I prioritize Moore/Bissette/Totlebeb ST and Miller DD over X-MEN. I may be a minority of one amongst '80s fans in this. Buying the books off the stands at the time, ST and DD made much more of an impact on my reading than X-MEN. Even now, I will revisit ST and DD every few years. I haven't had the same desire to re-read Claremont/Byrne X-MEN at all.

Wolverine was also, incidentally, a prime example (pre Moore) of taking a relatively minor character and providing a radically retconned back story and mythology. Which is one reason why I referenced the X-Men in my examples above. 

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5 hours ago, ESeffinga said:

For certain. If Moore hadn't done what he did, chances are near 100% that none of the rest of it ever would have happened.

This isn't true. Marvel Launched Epic a decade before Vertigo, not to mention Image was emerging as a major competitor. It is highly likely Vertigo would have launched regardless. They had to, in order to attract and keep talent.

Edited by PhilipB2k17
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2 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

This isn't true. Marvel Launched Epic before Vertigo, and it is highly likely Vertigo would have launched regardless. They had to, in order to attract and keep talent.

It is according to Neil Gaiman as he told me as much, back when it happened. Who’s your source?

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7 minutes ago, ESeffinga said:

It is according to Neil Gaiman as he told me as much, back when it happened. Who’s your source?

Gaiman wouldn't necessarily know what was going on when DC asked Karen Berger to launch the Vertigo imprint for all of their mature readers books. I'm sure he gives Moore the credit for opening the floodgate for British writer invasion of American comics in the 1980's, though. But a lot of those guys were already on the radar of American editors, and in fact had been writing books for DC already. 

Edited by PhilipB2k17
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20 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) was a pretty radical character reinvention at the time. But we aren't talking about the scale of reinvention or reinterpretation, or of the retconning. Just that it wasn't unprecedented. 

Agreed re Oliver.   

St21 - The scale was unprecedented is the point.   

He went from an amalgam of human and swamp to

pure plant with human memories

to, more specifically, elemental force of nature in later issues.    

He went from amalgam of Alec Holland and some swamp mud to ... godlike creature that could affect the growth pattern of a leaf in Namibia

 

Edited by Bronty
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1 minute ago, Bronty said:

Agreed re Oliver.   

St21 - The scale was unprecedented is the point.   

He went from an amalgam of human and swamp to

pure plant with human memories

to, more specifically, elemental force of nature in later issues.    

He went from amalgam of Alec Holland and some swamp mud to ... godlike creature that could affect the growth pattern of a leaf in Namibia

 

Let's not discuss what Jim Starlin did to Adam Warlock, then. 

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3 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Let's not discuss what Jim Starlin did to Adam Warlock, then. 

Yeah fair point.    I have to agree that scale wise that's the same thing, roughly.

However, ST21 is flat out the best retcon of all time.   I guess that's why I want to attach these superlatives to it... because honestly, what a ground breaking, unbelievable book.   It deserves every accolade it gets and then some.

Edited by Bronty
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13 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Yeah fair point.    I have to agree that scale wise that's the same thing, roughly.

However, ST21 is flat out the best retcon of all time.   I guess that's why I want to attach these superlatives to it... because honestly, what a ground breaking, unbelievable book.   It deserves every accolade it gets and then some.

Oh I am not disputing how great the storyline is. Frankly, I never got into it myself. I heard about it at the time, and bought a couple of issues, but it didn't do anything for me the way it did others. I was not really a horror guy, and still am not. But it obviously was very important to a lot of people. 

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3 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Oh I am not disputing how great the storyline is. Frankly, I never got into it myself. I heard about it at the time, and bought a couple of issues, but it didn't do anything for me the way it did others. I was not really a horror guy, and still am not. But it obviously was very important to a lot of people. 

That's the thing. It's really only "horror" on its face. Underneath that there are some well-crafted philosophical, existential, and deep-rooted "meaning of life" type themes that are mined for maximum effectiveness. 

Take this issue for example, issue #28. It was from an issue where Sean McManus filled in on the art chores. On its most basic level it's about Swampy discovering that he's maybe not Alec Holland underneath it all, but the themes are ones of regret, and the ghosts of the past that can haunt us all, and never being able to move forward until we "bury" them. On this page that's just what he's doing, both literally and figuratively, he's burying the ghosts of the past and Moore pens "let us hope that it is deep enough."

 

Super verbose breakdown here: https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=511587

 

SwampThing28pg21.thumb.jpg.0be1cdd5653ec5234b6dd09fcc281db6.jpg

 

Edited by comix4fun
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16 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

That's the thing. It's really only "horror" on its face. Underneath that there are some well-crafted philosophical, existential, and deep-rooted "meaning of life" type themes that are mined for maximum effectiveness. 

Take this issue for example, issue #28. It was from an issue where Sean McManus filled in on the art chores. On its most basic level it's about Swampy discovering that he's maybe not Alec Holland underneath it all, but the themes are ones of regret, and the ghosts of the past that can haunt us all, and never being able to move forward until we "bury" them. On this page that's just what he's doing, both literally and figuratively, he's burying the ghosts of the past and Moore pens "let us hope that it is deep enough."

 

Super verbose breakdown here: https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=511587

 

SwampThing28pg21.thumb.jpg.0be1cdd5653ec5234b6dd09fcc281db6.jpg

 

DAA0BFF5-0C27-40E5-89E1-58BBF9693C4F.gif.ff17e52c6eac947a55bb574ea5b49e89.gif

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1 hour ago, ESeffinga said:

I was thinking it was more tl/dr.

 

Well, there were no pictures....and no emojis...but I made it through!

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