Can I tell the Iceman story? At one point, when I was writing that X-Men trilogy, the cover art came in: An absolutely beautiful painting by Julie Bell that was going to be split in three with one part on each book. There was just one problem: "Why is Iceman on the cover? He's not in this story." "He's not? Well, it's too late to have the cover repainted." "Okay, I'll see what I can do." And that's why Iceman shows up midway through the second book!
Hel...the Warriors Three were based of Shakesperean arch types. I think even a cursory glance at Marvel's Thor would find the religious aspect was downplayed.
Yeah, I'm not exactly a fan of Marvel's Thor either, but from what I've seen in the TV shows and movies I always got the feeling that Marvel treated Thor and Asguard as aliens (along the same lines as the Shi'ar) with a higher level of technology and longer life spans and that some of our ancestors took them as gods. However, I have finished Carnage In New York, which, while it was interesting to see Carnage separate from Venom, I never really got that feeling that Carnage was anything other than a sixth-rate villain. But it was nice to see Reed Richards appear in the book, albeit in just a small cameo. I'm currently on Chapter 3 of Goblin's Revenge, and it is really easy to figure out that the Chameleon is behind the problems in some form, even if he hasn't been named yet.
It depends, really. That was Kirby's original concept, but it varies from writer to writer and story to story. Right now, for example, the MCU is tilted more towards the "sufficiently advanced technology" interpretation, while the comics are tilted more towards the "literal gods" interpretation.
From what I've seen, Marvel does tend to treat the various mythological pantheons as real deities or something close -- supernatural beings of immense power, spawned from the fundamental essence of the universe. Marvel even embodies the basic forces of the universe as humanoid characters like Galactus, Eternity, Death, and the Living Tribunal; it would be hard not to consider them deities of a sort. At the same time, it acknowledges the reality of the Judeo-Christian God, Heaven, and Hell. (And the Marvel Universe God looks just like Jack Kirby.) Basically, in Marvel, all pantheons are real, but are filtered through a science-fictional perspective, so they're kind of a secular take on gods -- really powerful supernatural beings that can create, destroy, and transform reality, but not something whose worship is being endorsed by the storytellers.
DC Comics isn't so different in this regard--the Endless from Sandman are part of the DC Universe, after all, and the War of the Gods crossover was predicated on such a premise.
I just finished "Goblin's Revenge" by Trek author Dean Wesley Smith. It was a really great book, with one exception---Carnage was a complete weakling in the book. The only other appearances of Carnage that I've seen have been his appearances in the 1994 TV Series, and I really found that compared to the 90's TV series, the Carnage in "Carnage In New York/Goblin's Revenge" Duology was less threatening than the TV version. Sure in the book there was the massive amount of blood spillage by Carnage, but he didn't feel as powerful as the TV Carnage in terms of being able to outmaneuver and be a real threat to Spider-Man
So I've been reading X-Men: Smoke and Mirrors by Eluki Bes Shahar, and so far it is a really great book (I'm on page 274 right now). This is one book that I would really like to see as a movie. And the storyline about the Ohio Mutant Conspiracy is a really fun story line. The one negative that I would have to say about the book is the cover: What is up with Gambit's white eyes? He almost looks possessed!
FYI, eluki bes shahar mostly writes as "Rosemary Edghill" these days, if you're interested in checking out any of her other books.
I'm probably not going to be reading any more of her books. While Smoke and Mirrors was great, unless she writes a Trek novel, probably her only other story on my to read list is It's A Wonderful Life from the Ultimate X-Men anthology, and any other Marvel novels that she wrote in the 90's/2000's.
I've currently got the X-Men/Spider-Man trilogy on order (I've received book 2, which for some reason seemed to be the most expensive of the three). But one thing I haven't been able to find out yet is where in the chronological run of the novels Adam Castro-Troy's "Gathering Of The Sinister Six" goes in order. There's no Chronology in the back of the book, and none of my other books chronologies have it listed.
I just got the Generation X (X-Men spin-off) book Genogoths in the mail today, so I'll be reading that soon. Do either of the surviving Ohio Mutant Conspiracy members play a role in the Generation X or any other X-Men or Marvel novel?
The Ohio Mutant Conspiracy was a group of Ohio high school age mutant that featured powers such as being able to reset time by 4 seconds, and having the abilities of a dog (super smell). Anyway I just finished Generation X by Scott Lobdell and Elliot S! Maggin. Unfortunately, the book was the worst of the 90's Marvel books to date. The cover art was the best part of the book. And the scenes with Skin and Synch really felt like they were in there just to get the book up to its required length. I've read Scott Lobdell's The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series of graphic novels and thought he did pretty good on those, but his prose writing leaves a lot to be desired.
^ It wasn't Scott's prose writing, it was Elliot's. Scott plotted the novel, and Elliot wrote the manuscript. We did that a bunch of times in the series, having a comics writer do the detailed plot outline and then someone else did the actual manuscript.
Either way, I'm just glad that I'm done reading it. Hopefully when I get to the next Generation X novel it'll be better.
Sorry, but... by what metric is Scott Lobdell a comics writer but Elliot S! Maggin "someone else"? Maggin was writing comics while Lobdell was in grade school. Or do you mean to say you got the writer of the specific comics the book was based on to do the outline -- in this case, Lobdell as the co-creator of Generation X?