The Official Vertigo Thread

[Mystirious]

Agreed

They cancelled it way too early

 

[The Morningstar]

All of Lapham's stuff gets cancelled too early. I don't get it, he's one of the best writers out there today.

 

[Mystirious]

It is so unfair

I hope Madame Xanadu gets another series or at least a mini sometime

 

[Tron Bonne]

Kind of an odd question, but I was kind of curious of something related to The Invisibles. I know it sold pretty well initially but dropped steeply nearly to cancellation (which I also believe is one of the reasons a lot speculate the last volume is so much short than the previous two). I was wondering when the drop came? Like, during what volume it started to slip and whether it was a gradual fall or a sudden drop. I tried to search for some information, never could find anything.

 

[Watchman]

Sales starting declining during volume 1. It's the reason why Bloody Hell in America has a much larger focus on the action. Volume 3's run was shorter on purpose. It was suppose to line up with the end of the millennium but it got delayed.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Okay, so it had sales problems even from the first volume, huh? I knew that the third volume was suppose to be a countdown to the millennium that got delayed, but didn't see how that aspect necessarily affected the length. Unless by the time he got around to scripting it and such, he saw there would only be 12 months left (which makes sense, though).

 

[Watchman]

Preview of Punk Rock Jesus

 

[Tron Bonne]

Well, I finished The Invisibles, but I don't know if I really got a lot much of that last volume. There was a ton of stuff going on, but I followed it fairly well for the first half. Though, once we got to the point with the meta-language and stuff, I got kind of lost. Most of the stuff with Helga and Mr. Six from that point on I just don't think I grasped at all. Like, for instance, was [blackout]The Invisibles and the Outer Church the same people? I'm guessing so since the Harlequins shifted into the Church's main people that Miles and Mr. Six saw when Dane entered the mirror. I guess with that, and when they flashed back to Mr. Six saying something like 'the conflict was a lie, this is a rescue mission', I guess I'm just not grasping how that is suppose to work. I'm guessing it was somehow preparing humanity for whatever happened in the last issue or something. Maybe I wasn't suppose to totally grasp it or something, but it came as a bit of shock when I never felt like the first two volumes were this difficult to grasp and follow despite the bizarreness and stuff that Morrison utilizes. I'll probably re-read it a little later and see what I think after it's settled for awhile.[/blackout]

And I didn't dislike it or anything like that. I enjoyed it overall I suppose, but I don't know, just really didn't feel like I got my head around it much at all.

 

[Watchman]

Spoiler

I hate to make this connection but it's in the same vein as the revolution was lie in The Matrix. Through the series we are told that the Outer Church would want to set up their universe of conformity and destruction of free will. It turns out that even identity that we have is our prison. People are locked in a specific identity and trapped inside fiction suits which dictate what role they are suppose to play in our universe. In this case the war between two opposing forces. The living information that fell from the above universe was fluid and ever changing not to be confined to a specific ideology. The head of John the Baptist is speaking the language of Babel is from the above dimension what ever you want to hear. A fluid language forming around each individual's thoughts. How is it that it is any different when the Invisibles tell us that the Outer Church is the bad guy? We are trapped in our definitions, labels, and language.

John-A-Dreams exemplifies this. He had step out of our universe and out of his fiction suit. Through the series he steps into new roles at a whim. He's the Harlequin, the aliens, the blind chess player, Mr. Quimper, and of course the Corrupted John-A-Dreams. It's like what Mason said, if Jules from Pulp Fiction looked at the camera and realized that he was all the characters from every movie played by an actor named Samuel L. Jackson..

Like Final Crisis Morrison continues the theme that the gods are extensions of human's traits and characteristics. They are manifestations of what we are. Mictlantecuhtli explains to Fanny that's what the gods are. King Mob invokes the Lennon Godhead. The Archons of the Outer Church like the gods of Apokolips are manifestations of our guilt, shame, hopelessness, doubt, prejudice, and hate. They are brought into this world by Sir Miles and Colonel Friday. The Invisibles are the same. They are not as terrible as the hell that the Archons would bring but they want to impose their viewpoint onto the world. In the final issue we are presented with a future with the Invisibles in a group that is a hybrid of the two. Invisibles Inc. Using their power and influence over the world to spread the message. Jack Frost final words to the reader is "Our sentence is up". Not just that the final sentence in the book but our "jail sentence" our identity and conflict.

And that's just some of the reasons why The Invisibles is one my favorite Vertigo series.

 

[SpideyInATree]

I was just recently debating on getting the first Invisibles volume the other night and I decided to go with Echo by Terry Moore. I think Invisibles will be next on my list.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Spoiler

I hate to make this connection but it's in the same vein as the revolution was lie in The Matrix. Through the series we are told that the Outer Church would want to set up their universe of conformity and destruction of free will. It turns out that even identity that we have is our prison. People are locked in a specific identity and trapped inside fiction suits which dictate what role they are suppose to play in our universe. In this case the war between two opposing forces. The living information that fell from the above universe was fluid and ever changing not to be confined to a specific ideology. The head of John the Baptist is speaking the language of Babel is from the above dimension what ever you want to hear. A fluid language forming around each individual's thoughts. How is it that it is any different when the Invisibles tell us that the Outer Church is the bad guy? We are trapped in our definitions, labels, and language.

John-A-Dreams exemplifies this. He had step out of our universe and out of his fiction suit. Through the series he steps into new roles at a whim. He's the Harlequin, the aliens, the blind chess player, Mr. Quimper, and of course the Corrupted John-A-Dreams. It's like what Mason said, if Jules from Pulp Fiction looked at the camera and realized that he was all the characters from every movie played by an actor named Samuel L. Jackson..

Like Final Crisis Morrison continues the theme that the gods are extensions of human's traits and characteristics. They are manifestations of what we are. Mictlantecuhtli explains to Fanny that's what the gods are. King Mob invokes the Lennon Godhead. The Archons of the Outer Church like the gods of Apokolips are manifestations of our guilt, shame, hopelessness, doubt, prejudice, and hate. They are brought into this world by Sir Miles and Colonel Friday. The Invisibles are the same. They are not as terrible as the hell that the Archons would bring but they want to impose their viewpoint onto the world. In the final issue we are presented with a future with the Invisibles in a group that is a hybrid of the two. Invisibles Inc. Using their power and influence over the world to spread the message. Jack Frost final words to the reader is "Our sentence is up". Not just that the final sentence in the book but our "jail sentence" our identity and conflict.

And that's just some of the reasons why The Invisibles is one my favorite Vertigo series.

Spoiler

Okay, so, John-A-Dreams was the Harlequins and the Outer Church Archeons and the aliens and all that? Well, I definitely didn't pick up on that at all. I do remember the chess player mentioning he was John, so I just assumed he had taken a different form or was using his psychic abilities to mask himself with Jack or something. I picked up on the gods aspect during the first volume with Fanny's story, seemed pretty obvious that's what the Mictlantecuhtli was implying.

So, Invisibles, Inc. are all about spreading this idea of non-identity, then?

Well, I'll guess I'll definitely have to re-read through this again. I really didn't pick up on some of that.

 

[Watchman]

Spoiler

I wouldn't say that John-A-Dreams is the Archeons but those are more manifestations of our negatives emotions created by people like Sir Miles that wish to be trapped in the prison of our dimension. The John-A-Dreams identities come from Barbelith whose members swear that he plays most of those roles. I believe it's in those companion books that were released for the series but I haven't read them. I'm going to have to re-read this series there is just so much mind-****ery.

 

[yenaled]

This talk us making me remember how mind blowing reading the Invisibles for the first time was. I'm going to have to rediscover it.

 

[Tron Bonne]

It's not been officially solicited, but Amazon has a listing up for Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe Edition coming out for November. The list price is $22.99, which is kind of steep for 4 issues, but Amazon has it marked down to a much more manageable $16, and it may drop between now and release.

http://www.amazon.com/Flex-Mentallo...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302978912&sr=1-1

 

[Watchman]

It's still better than paying more than double that for a single issue of the series. I'm just psyched that it's finally coming out.

 

[Mystirious]

I'mma pre order it today if I can

 

[Tron Bonne]

Don't you already own it?

 

[Mystirious]

I'm buying the graphic novel as a present for someone

 

[Tron Bonne]

Oh, cool

 

[Mystirious]

Yep they really dig Morrison so I am hoping they like it

 

[Tron Bonne]

More in potential reprints for Vertigo Resurrected that won't happen just to reprint more Hellblazer, here's a short series called User by [FONT=verdana,][SIZE=-1]Devin Grayson[/SIZE][/FONT]:

http://www.popmatters.com/comics/user.shtml

Sounds like a pretty interesting premise, pretty common stuff at this point, admittedly, but could be solid.

 

[Watchman]

No, no, no! John Constantine to potentially return to the DC Universe.

Well **** a duck.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Hm, I have doubts on that rumor. If DC planned that, why would they let Vertigo keep that licenses when they took all of the others? And Constantine was never all that firmly rooted in the DCU like Swamp Thing was. He would've been if that Twilight of the Superheroes story had happened, but since it didn't, he was always kind of on this fringe that never really crossed over. And I don't get the way they connected that to that Lois Lane Flashpoint mini at all

The only way I see that happening is if they had a Punisher and PunisherMAX situation.

 

[Watchman]

Looks like it's confirmed.

Some things that worried me is that Madame Xanadu was cancelled when she "returned" to the DCU and Swamp Thing's tentative series was ****canned when he was pulled back in. I'm not sure how well Hellblazer's sales are but I hope this doesn't spell doom.

Like you said this could work in a Regular Punisher/Punisher Max way but the same could have been said about Swampy and Xanadu. Also, the chances of him being written being a one note ass are pretty high.

 

[CrimsonMist]

Looks like it's confirmed.

Some things that worried me is that Madame Xanadu was cancelled when she "returned" to the DCU and Swamp Thing's tentative series was ****canned when he was pulled back in. I'm not sure how well Hellblazer's sales are but I hope this doesn't spell doom.

Like you said this could work in a Regular Punisher/Punisher Max way but the same could have been said about Swampy and Xanadu. Also, the chances of him being written being a one note ass are pretty high.

I dont have too much of a problem with Swamp Thing being tied to the DCU, because he was for a long time. Constantine, I'm not so sure about. Would it be interesting? Yea, as the few times he's interacted with the rest of the DCU(especially back when he was originally created), it's been cool.

I just hope DC gets good writers on these characters, and I don't mean Geof Johns. The idea of him writing Swamp Thing is just kind of...wrong.