We continue our talk with Greg Hatcher and dive into the world of comic books and beyond!
We reminisce about Marvel’s 1970s misfit superhero team, the Defenders, and an absolutely batshit tale from writer Steve Gerber that includes stolen brains, absurd body horror, elves with guns, and the soul of an evil wizard trapped in the body of a baby deer!
Plus, we look at the strange turn that comic book scribe Mark Millar’s work has taken in his new series Huck, which is a radical departure from his regularly shocking, cynical and violent stories.
We talk about fan entitlement and the ups and downs of finite vs. ongoing storytelling.
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I had the same thing happen to me with Doctor Who as Greg had happen with Captain America.
I’d heard of this show, and that it was science fiction, but I knew nothing about it. At the end of the episode, the character seemingly died, and I turned to my older brother and said, “What the hell was that?”
He told me that that was the end, that the Doctor was dead.
I didn’t watch an episode of Doctor Who for over a decade.
Do you remember which Doctor you saw die?
Oh, man, great, great episode – although now I guess there will never be a full-on RvsM episode dedicated to the Defenders (with Greg as one of the guests, naturally), which I was kind of hoping would happen at some point.
Anyway, though, totally agree with the awesomeness that is Gerber’s Defenders. About the Elf with the Gun, I don’t know anything about all of that later crap that you guys mentioned, but what I recall was that a few issues after Gerber left the book, the new writers had a truck run over and kill the Elf, just as randomly as he was apparently killing people himself. I’ve read somewhere that Gerber apparently thought that was hilarious.
On some of Gerber’s other work, I’d disagree slightly with Greg about his stories in Man-Thing, in that they were only occasionally humorous, and more often quite melancholy or just plain old gut-wrenchingly sad (I’m thinking of the excellent two-part ‘Dawg’ story in issues 9-10).
And Brother Voodoo wasn’t that bad, actually…
Just so you can all SEE what we’re talking about…
The cult of Bozo… http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WApi4310n_E/VNUnMLscnKI/AAAAAAAAhO4/SAeuOHhNBNQ/s1600/34.%2Bnebulon%2B8.png
Angey baby deer… http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ET4FOuDglQ4/VNUlrMsfFsI/AAAAAAAAhN4/lRYiG_ym8Rs/s1600/33.%2Bbambi.png
And Chondu, post-op. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M2Oj4WVWCzQ/VNUkhDrZg0I/AAAAAAAAhM4/vfV3VhX0Gv0/s1600/35.%2Bcover.png
Another thing that occurred to me on the topic of fans influencing creators and fan fiction, etc. While I generally agree with you guys, there is one rather recent exception to this rule: the Star Trek fan productions. Arguably the best Star Trek material being produced for the past 10 or so years – at least in terms of really good stories – is the ‘new’ TOS episodes from Star Trek Continues and Star Trek: The New Voyages.