Topic: GENERAL COMIC BOOK THREAD (MANGA NOT ALLOWED)

[Align]

Interesting experiment.

[Flame]

So He became the hulk now? Either that or hes been workin out.
Or become cell buddies with Bane.

[Bueno Excelente]

The explanation to all of that is this:

When you put a really good artist working on a comic, AND writing it... it can go three ways.

The VERY GOOD WAY:


The really bad and incredibly stupid way:




...and the... the OH MY GOD THIS IS SO [tornado fang]ing HORRIBLE WHO EVEN AUTHORIZED THIS way:

[Flame]

Oh Jesus that face

[Pyro]

Can't. Unsee. 

Does anyone have any opinions on the Fury of Firestorm? Ye gads Yildray Cinar is really improving his art.

[Bueno Excelente]

Can't. Unsee. 

Does anyone have any opinions on the Fury of Firestorm? Ye gads Yildray Cinar is really improving his art.

Kinda meh. I dunno what is up with Gail Simone lately. She's usually awesome.

[Align]

Hm...

I was just thinking, compared to what supervillains do every other year or so, wouldn't 9/11 have been... ordinary? Was there a comic where a character (or better yet, done with multiple perspectives) reflected on that, and how war and peace went on even with metahumans around? How, though individuals may be weak, people still managed to reach this point - war and suffering included.
In an universe where such is applicable, it could also look at how humanity had progressed even before metahumans became relatively common.

Or would this be boring and trite?

[Bueno Excelente]

Hm...

I was just thinking, compared to what supervillains do every other year or so, wouldn't 9/11 have been... ordinary? Was there a comic where a character (or better yet, done with multiple perspectives) reflected on that, and how war and peace went on even with metahumans around? How, though individuals may be weak, people still managed to reach this point - war and suffering included.
In an universe where such is applicable, it could also look at how humanity had progressed even before metahumans became relatively common.

Or would this be boring and trite?

Kingdom Come.

DC's honestly good at giving heroes some scars after certain events and happenings. 52 has Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman quit for a year because they honestly think that after Infinite Crisis, the world is a more dangerous place with them around. Superman took a walkabout after seeing his planet be destroyed for the second time around. These things happen when it's a good narrative.

And yes, that's why Marvel's 9/11 comic was stupid. Because villains blow up half of New York every other week, so a single attack on a couple of buildings might have seem a really stupid thing to get excited over. It's good to pay homage, but it's stupid to destroy everything over it.

[Waifu]

I liked Kingdom Come and the 9/11 thing in Marvel is a wall banger compared to all the countless galaxies, dimensions and even the universe itslef that gets destroyed every other chapter.

[Bueno Excelente]

It's why I like Marvel Cosmic better than anything else. Because while superheroes are crying about their lives and endangering thousands of people by basically screwing up at handling their villains and whatever chaos they wreak on Earth through their mood changes, Cosmic is about saving the whole damn universe and DOING THEIR JOBS RIGHT. Without drama. Without moodswings, without any kind of personal life issues going haywire whenever it's the worst time.

It's space people fighting multiverse-destroying cosmic horrors that go beyond your wildest dreams. With a monophrasal tree on your left and a talking raccoon on your right. And knowing that each of them is worth a hundred of those Earth-dwelling so called "heroes".

[Pyro]

Kinda meh. I dunno what is up with Gail Simone lately. She's usually awesome.
[/quote

I was too busy looking at the art, but maybe we can (partly) blame Ethan Van Sciver for the writing deficiencies because he plotted it from what I understand.

[Bueno Excelente]

THIS JUST IN.

DAN DIDIO SUCKS COCKS IN HELL.

...JUST MAKE A [tornado fang]ing REBOOTED ULTIMATE LINE, OR FINISH YOUR OLD CONTINUITY. BUT DON'T. DO. THIS. [parasitic bomb].

God dammit, Final Crisis was one of the greatest stories of all time, and all of the Crisis events have served a precious purpose in every way, even though they weren't all stellar. Why, Didio? Why?

[Flame]

Guess that means no Power Girl.

[Bueno Excelente]

Guess that means no Power Girl.

Nope, Karen's there. Just that every important thing that happened in the Crisis events will be turned into something that happened in the hero's past and no epic stuff will have ever taken place in the past.


This is my way of handling this:

- ALL of DC's books are reboots and new things, all except for the Green Lantern universe books and Batman Inc.

- Green Lantern books don't appear to give a crap about the status quo because they all haven't changed a single thing. Events like Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night happened because of Crisis on Infinite Earths/Infinite Crisis, so yeah, all of that is maintained.

- Batman Inc has already had its status shaken by Catwoman knowing Bruce's identity in #1 and not knowing it in Catwoman #1, so let's just say that it fits into the old continuity. Not only that, all events of Morrison's saga have happened partly because of Final Crisis. So yes, still fits into the old continuity.

- Action Comics is basically the prologue of All-Star Superman, as Morrison has said several times.

- All other books, good titles and bad titles, just belong in the new continuity.

[Flame]

Nope, Karen's there. Just that every important thing that happened in the Crisis events will be turned into something that happened in the hero's past and no epic stuff will have ever taken place in the past.

Whyyyyyyyy.

[Pyro]

It's been a while since I read the rules but I'm going to x-post from my blog and hope I'm not breaking them. It sums up my feeling on the imminent cluster-[tornado fang] I see DC getting itself into with the New 52.

Looks like the first month of the much-hyped “New 52” relaunch has come and passed and the results look promising with Justice League going through four printings but only time will tell if DC comics can maintain this momentum. For my part, I’m not very pleased with how it turned out for a number of reasons; the foremost of them being how abrupt the news arrived. I started May 31, 2011 believing that Flashpoint—the event series that preceded the New 52—was going to be an “Age of Apocalypse” scenario where everything would go revert back to the previous continuity upon it conclusion. I was mistaken in that belief; on the pages of USA Today I read that DC would reboot their characters and I felt betrayed as a loyal fan and customer.

Long-running titles like Action Comics, Detective Comics, and recently renumbered Wonder Woman and Adventure Comics were going to be going back to number one or canceled in the case of Adventure. A tactic Marvel made famous to boost the sales of their titles of their more iconic characters because everyone knows how collectors love new number ones. Then “all” their characters would undergo a “complete” reboot, note the quotation marks because I quickly learned that would not be the case. Over the interim three months I learned that the Batman and Green Lantern would have their respective histories intact, albeit highly condensed, because the former is a cash cow for DC Comics and the latter is Geoff Johns’ baby and to hell with consistency if it interferes with his plans. As if things couldn’t get more confusing, events like “Blackest Night”, and “Brightest Day” still happened as shown despite DC rebooting several many key characters (like Hawkman and Firestorm.)

This is what I like to call the “cherry-picking” method of retconning where the author “reboots” their universe but picks certain storylines to integrate into their “rebooted” universe. Trouble is that a reboot means you start from scratch to avoid all the baggage from the previous continuity and to explain it only opens more plot contrivances. Take the reboots of Superman and Wonder Woman after Crisis on Infinite Earths; though both characters got a complete reboot two other titles, Legion of Super-Heroes and New Teen Titans continued business as usual except Superman was never a number of the Legion and Donna Troy/Wonder Girl appeared before Wonder Woman. To make things even more confusing, Wonder Woman’s membership in Justice League of America became null and void yet all their adventures still happened, except Black Canary took her place as a founding member. (Since when did BC bench press girders and tie her enemies in a lariat again?) That’s not even delving into the absolute messes that Legion of Super-Heroes and Hawkman became after the post-CoIE universe became once it turned into a rampant retcon fest,

How does this tie into the “New 52?” you may ask. My point is this: either ALL the stories before Flashpoint happened or they did NOT, there is no “SOME.” It simply jars me to read that nothing happened in Green Lantern post-Flashpoint and we get an “all-new, all-different” history for Fury of Firestorm that begins in present time when the character played a key role in Brightest Day. Is Dan Didio going to try to pull a fast one on me and replace him with another character as DC Comics’ editorial tried with Wonder Woman and Black Canary twenty years ago?

Ugh. The very thought of it gives me a headache.

Something tells me that DC Comics wants to do a complete reboot but their no editorial will to rein in the big dogs (I’m looking at Geoff Johns) and the coordination need is well beyond their means. Hence the audience is stuck with another half-hearted attempt and a major migraine that a life preserver-sized aspirin cannot fix. There is nothing wrong with the core concept of their characters but they cannot decide on what direction they want to take with their characters. After so many false starts with Infinite Crisis, Countdown, Blackest Night, among so many others, it feels like Dan Didio is jerking the fandom’s chains for short-term and negligible gains and I—as a longtime fan—had enough of it.

Please be gentle on me. 

[Bueno Excelente]

It's been a while since I read the rules but I'm going to x-post from my blog and hope I'm not breaking them. It sums up my feeling on the imminent cluster-[tornado fang] I see DC getting itself into with the New 52.

Please be gentle on me. 

Agreed on pretty much EVERYTHING you said. Lemme just make my things.

My main problem with it, is this. DC could have had many ways to solve this situation. They could have done what Marvel did with the Heroic Age and simply finish all of the main plotlines in order to put the status quo completely solved and begin a new starting point for any reader. They could have finished their main storyline with a BIG BANG and made an epic ending for each and every single one of the heroes, and explain the new status quo in detail, like they did in Crisis on Infinite Worlds, in which they erased all worlds and simply made a brand new one, explaining all of the changes in detail just so people wouldn't be confused. But they didn't. They could have finished the BIG storyline that's been going on since the DCU was created. The big one, everything, they could have had Morrison write up a Finaler Crisis and put all of the heroes with a big fat happy ending, just so they could start a whole new universe, completely independent, completely new and fresh. But they didn't.

No, instead, they left all of their stories and arcs mid-way, they left things unsolved, characters who had only recently gained quite alot of character and personality like Supergirl, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Power Girl... they're all GONE. None of it mattered, none of it was worth anything, every single bit of it was erased in an event in which the main plotline was creating a whole new universe then running away and unmaking it when the [parasitic bomb] hit the fan. We never got to hear what happened to Blue Beetle. If the Flash ever got what the Mirror Master's big mirror was for. Kid Flash got erased. Wally got shot in the head and probably never became the Flash. Clark and Lois never happened. We never got to know what Booster Gold was chasing, who was the mysterious figure in his base. We never got to know what happened to Superboy's relationship in the end. Or what happened to Terra. Was Bane's plan to go back and kill Batman after Secret Six still in place? Barry's not married anymore, but has he ever dated with Iris? Seeing as Teen Titans is just starting now, did ANYTHING EVER HAPPEN with the junior heroes? Ever? Besides from [parasitic bomb] Starfire can't remember?

It's a badly thought clusterfuck, whose only good purpose is to reboot good comics which could have simply come out otherwise like Action Comics, Wonder Woman, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Resurrection Man, Justice League Dark and All-Star Western. All of which could have existed WITHIN the old universe, except for Superman, which could have been easily retold with minimal changes.

[Pyro]

I think this guy said it even better than I did... and in a Boston accent no less: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/4132-Continanity-Rebooted

[Bueno Excelente]

I think this guy said it even better than I did... and in a Boston accent no less: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/4132-Continanity-Rebooted

I don't like Movie Bob, but he makes a good point.

And he forgets to mention the fact that comics are always rebooting and setting up new storylines, so he could have just said "Start at the beginning of any author's run." or "buy any collected edition", so they're not turned off by starting in the middle of Blackest Night or something.

Also, I hope this reboot doesn't affect Batman punching schoolgirls in the face.

[Waifu]

 

[Psycho Yuffie]

The New Ultimate Spider-Man has been okay. It's still very much in the introductory phase, but I feel like the pacing might be a little slow. Two issues are out and still no Spidey? Plus, the new Spider-Man is a junior high kid. I'm not sure if Marvel is attempting to attract a younger demographic, but there's something that needs to be said about young super heroes: it's too damn easy for them to get caught up in meaningless sub-plots.

"Oh, my goodness! I need to save this guy, but the dance is in five minutes!!"

"Oh, my goodness! My super powers are being used as a metaphor for puberty!!"

"Oh, my goodness! I need to study for my test tomorrow, but I need to stop my evil clone from ruining my social life!!"

[Bueno Excelente]

The New Ultimate Spider-Man has been okay. It's still very much in the introductory phase, but I feel like the pacing might be a little slow. Two issues are out and still no Spidey? Plus, the new Spider-Man is a junior high kid. I'm not sure if Marvel is attempting to attract a younger demographic, but there's something that needs to be said about young super heroes: it's too damn easy for them to get caught up in meaningless sub-plots.

"Oh, my goodness! I need to save this guy, but the dance is in five minutes!!"

"Oh, my goodness! My super powers are being used as a metaphor for puberty!!"

"Oh, my goodness! I need to study for my test tomorrow, but I need to stop my evil clone from ruining my social life!!"

I dunno if you've read the first issues of Ultimate Spider-Man way back when they came out, but the story is actually supposed to mirror the older issues. He discovers his first power in the last page of the first issue, and it goes from there.

Plus, he was seen in Ultimate Fallout already.

[Protoman Blues]

I've actually been really enjoying the new Ultimate Spider-Man comic.

[Bueno Excelente]

GOD DAMMIT, DANIEL.

TWO CHARACTERS DISFIGURED IN TWO COMICS? GOD DAMMIT.

On the other hand...



Marry me, Lemire.

[Protoman Blues]

Supes is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo SMUG!