h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't actually remember but I do know this and have something about it somewhere so i'll dig this out and pass it along to you so you can pass it along to whoever wanted to know, off the top of my head i think he went mental and the other heroes not having the stomach to kill their onetime friend and ally, buried him at the bottom of a big bloody hole. Sorry to do this out of the blue but I was following a long trail of comic related threds and ended up on your space and read the question and just had to stick my nose in. I'm quite good with old super-hero stuff so if you ever need a hand you can just send a message. BTW H2G2 is lovely I don't know who is in charge but you must tell someone what you're doing so tell them that the community here is just lovely. It has quietly made a dull week positively sparkle as I roamed from entry to entry investigating Ninjas, Spagetti Junction, and why you don't turn on your fridge after you've moved it.

Bye for now

Cheers Stu, I'll pass that on to Jar Jar next time I catch up with him... glad you like the site, there's a fair bit of comicky related stuff on here... I tend to come at it from the point of view of the movie adaptations, but I do read the books as well.

(30's not so bad... at least the 30th birthday pressies tend to be an improvement on the year before...)

I'm not sure I could get away with writing "bloody big hole" in my guide entry!


This is the original Torch right?

It is indeed the Original Android guy. It was actually some sort of gangster or mob boss called Moroni or Morelli who sealed him underground, with the logic of "No air = No fire" and there he stayed until released. You have the rest of the rather confusing life of the poor bloke so i'll stop there.

This is as well as his original creator, who I recall sealed him up for similar reasons once the tiny fact of the incendiary flaw in his nature became apparent?

Apparently so, on the other hand David, self-proclaimed font of all Fantastic Four related knowledge was making it up when I asked him. The creator sealing him up sounds alot more plausible but didn't he do that to the poor chap before he became a hero when his experiment went all wrong. I am most confused!!!

Professor Horton sealed him up just after he was built and then educated him by earphones, or something. My knowledge of this is derived solely from Busiek and Ross retelling it in Marvels!

The Marvel Directory stuff I pointed HBP to sounds like the real deal. To be honest I think that like most Golden Age characters the first Torch has been sort of superceded by his replacement(s) - see also Green Lantern, Flash, etc...

But they just love to bring them back as side characters and misguided villains which run paralell to the more recent characters and in the process wreck their continuity. Love the DC Golden Age stuff my first ever comic was All-Star Squadron in the early eighties, the issue had practically every golden age hero in it at a big meeting. I was utterly spellbound.

Do you read the current JSA book? Because I think you might like it; it has characters from all the DC generations in it, a nice mix of new and classic. The only glaring omission (most of the time) is the Spectre, who hasn't been in it much - but hopefully that'll change once the whole Hal Jordan issue gets sorted...

Stick to Jar Jar, Awwie

'Tis HPB not HBP...

I was reading it(actually buying it, I still read it when it's quiet in the shop) it's ok but it never really lived up to what it had the potential to be. Some of the characters (Flash, Green Lantern/Sentinel,Hawkman and Hourman)in the team are my favourites from my youth and I just find myself so disappointed at the lack of substance to it. I think I'm just a bit spoiled by the other DC comics I read Green Arrow continues to be excellent, Identity Crisis is actually superbly written, Adam Strange looks like it could be quite fun and the DC:New Frontier Mini-series was a spectacular view of the silver age heroes. So JSA's a bit of a damp squib. Did you read the Starman series by James Robinson, he did with that what I feel DC should be trying to pull off with the JSA now.

If you had a proper handle and not three unpronounceable consonants... I think we've had this discussion before, JJ...

Anyway, comics, yes: currently I pick Ultimate X Men, Punisher, and She-Hulk from Marvel (try to keep up with the other Ultimate lines through tpbs, did I mention Mark Millar once read my palm?), Green Lantern, JSA, JLA (ailing rapidly), and Green Arrow from DC, and LXG from ABC whenever it puts in an appearance. To be honest with you most of them have been on the order since forever, only Green Arrow, Punisher, and occasionally She-Hulk and JSA are genuinely exciting books... well maybe UXM is too...

I've read some of the Starman tpbs and sort-of know the character from his appearances in other titles. I meant to start collecting it properly but you know how things can be sometimes...

*boos for the DC bunch*


How exciting do you mean exiting?

This rabid DC-phobia does you neither credit nor good, Jar Jar.

By 'exciting' I mean they're doing genuinely interesting, involving and unusual things within the comic-book medium. Which half the time means the book's probably going to get cancelled quite soon, but never mind...

It's not rabid!

I just don't like the titles and especially don't like the company's approach to art submissions.

The latter thing seems slightly obscure to me (and BTW that's not a request for you to enlighten me!). There's a lot of Marvel titles (not to mention Dark Horse, Image and Wildstorm titles) that I don't care for but I don't go around booing the company's name...

I don't go around booing the company name. When the company's name comes around I boo. 'Tis an opinion.

Sorry, is this the 1 minute arguement or the full 5 minutes?

I just meant that both Marvel and DC produce a very diverse range of books and booing the whole publisher just on principle just strikes me as odd.

Example?

I don't like Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, JLA, Green Lantern, The Flash... (Yes I'm aware five of those are in the JLA...) I don't like DC's output.

I'll admit the Teen Titans cartoon version of Beast Boy is growing on me but if I don't like what I've seen coming from DC I'm not going to go into specifics except that I don't like DC.

Point me toward anything I might find interesting and I'll look it up.

I can go into Marvel if you want. Reading through the Essentials if I see any more stories with Sub-Mariner and Ka-Zar/Sabu I'll probably go sane. And I feel (1960s) Reed Richards is a sexist, arrogant, egomaniac.

Well... with Marvel, in the mainstream continuity alone you've got two books like the new She-Hulk and Garth Ennis' Punisher, which are worlds apart in tone and style.

DC's always been more diverse than Marvel anyway. I'm not that familiar with a lot of their current output but a few years back they were doing books like Challengers of the Unknown, Young Heroes in Love, and Aztek all at the same time, and if you didn't like any of those you probably wouldn't like comics full stop...