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#61
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Popularity shielding brought him back.
(I maintain that they should've just taken the Batman Inc idea and have a Bruce / Damien book and a Dick / Tim book, but I understand why licensing kinda dictates that you only have one Batman and one Ro... okay, forget that last one.) |
#62
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This might be an admission that stops people from taking anything I have to say seriously ever again, but I kind of hate "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" It is a comic where Superman just stands around and watches all of his friends and allies die to a "serious" reinvention of a ridiculous villain. It is just a parade of characters stretching back to Superman's creation being killed while Superman does nothing but moan about how all of his friends are dying.
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#63
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#64
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#65
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Kingdom Come's premise is basically that the 90s were SO EXTREME that they made Superman give up. Which is kind of terrible, and kind of hilarious, and Gog is just a big asshole, but as far as Alex Ross-drawn Justice League comics go it's at least nowhere near as terrible as Justice. Now THAT'S some garbage.
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#66
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Identity Crisis is the ranked as the worst comic story ever on War Rocket Ajax's Every Story Ever list.
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#67
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It's not even that it's technically all that bad... Though it's certainly not good either. It's just so gratuitous. Dragging beloved characters through the mud until the grimdark makes them impossible to enjoy ever again.
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#68
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Does the option still exist? I thought that finally ended like a year ago, with 2 more comics in the same universe rising to take its place, as per the curse.
A- Technically isn't his name just "Batman" with Beyond referring only to how it's the future? B- Doesn't that totally not jive at all with the basic fundamental history of why Batman was lacking in friends and sidekicks and had need to rope someone else into the suit in the first place? (Spoilers for something way better than anything this thread's talking about) |
#69
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I'm on the cutting edge! |
#70
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#71
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But I like the whole premise that they were going with back then, namely that the JLA wasn't as infallible as they had been made in the Morrison era. I love Morrison, but at the end of it they basically shrugged off an assault from an entity more powerful than God, and there needed to be corrective actions taken. While the Dr. Light stuff was completely unneeded, the series set up a lot of neat plot threads (Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman being on completely different pages about how to deal with the rest of the JLA's actions to start with) that looked like they were going to be resolved well until Johns went insane and we got Infinite Crisis as a result. Shit, that period might have been the only time Wonder Woman's truly been well-written in character's existence. That's really the breaking point between the old DC and the mess it is now. The whole regressive storytelling trend starts when Johns dredges up COIE for no good reason at the end of the first issue of Infinite Crisis, and the great "legacy of the hero" setup that they'd spent years painstakingly constructing fell apart very quickly after that. As I've said many times before, I'm almost positive Johns was replaced by an evil clone right before he started writing Infinite Crisis. It's the only thing that makes sense - the guy who wrote Flash and JSA isn't the guy who wrote everything since then (shit, don't get me started on Batman Earth One or we'll be here for hours) |
#72
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(One other thing: I totally forgot that when Waid took a sabbatical to write JLA Year One, he got replaced by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar for about a year. That's the stretch when Flash races Sonic. Those are also the only Mark Millar-written comics, other than Superman Adventures, that I don't actively hate.) If you want something cheaper to pick up, try and figure out exactly which issues of Detective Comics Paul Dini wrote and grab all of those. That's really great stuff, and Dini kinda-sorta wrapped things up at the end of it. Oh, forgot another great late-90s DC comic: Hitman. You should all read Hitman. Last edited by Sven; 07-09-2015 at 07:38 AM. |
#73
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My favorite after Hitman: Xer0, described by Christopher Priest as "the Apollo 13 of my career" due to editorial jackassery at every possible level, but still, it is the best comic ever made about espionage, assassination, brotherly love, romantic love, individual identity, racial identity, the moral dimensions of violence as a political tool in a complex world, and AAA league pro basketball.
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#74
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"The Old Dog" alone makes Hitman the best thing DC put out in the late 90s.
Don't read Preacher. |
#75
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#76
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Both stories also ended with the day being saved by an exceptionally toyetic suit of Batman-armour.
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#77
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Ennis's dislike for superheroes that aren't Superman comes through quite clearly in JLA/Hitman.
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#78
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Ennis has a child's faith in Superman, making him one of two people on this planet I trust to write a good Superman story.
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#79
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The whole Knightfall era reads much better as a four sentence summary* than when stretched over a year's worth of comics. On the other hand, that era basically launched all the great Batman family titles, so we got some good stuff out of it. And it was a damned good hit piece on everyone who wanted Batman to be like the Punisher... especially the Batman / Punisher team-up that came out right in the middle of that era that's a really subtle burial of both characters. (The sequel, after Bruce is back in costume, is a legit good book, with JRJR art and Batman basically kicking Punisher's ass without breaking a sweat) * - Batman breaks his back. New guy takes over. New guy goes nuts. Batman comes back and shows him the error of his ways, the end. Quote:
(I wouldn't say TWO; I'd say... four. Stern, Jurgens, Morrison, and Ennis. Four-and-a-half if you count Millar but restrict him to the animated version.) Last edited by Sven; 07-09-2015 at 10:46 AM. |
#80
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Oh, and to take you back to the start of the thread: there's a damned good reason that DC used that version of Starfire. Because this existed. It basically turned into Young Justice at the end, which was pretty great.
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#81
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I think it's very telling that most of the movies and TV shows don't seem to adapt current DC runs, aside from the most recent animated films. Arrow comes closer but doesn't count since they based the New52 Arrow off the show, right?
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#82
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As we were talking in the other thread, Waller was a New52 copy, but... yeah. Flash especially has the feel of late-90s DC, just with Barry (who is basically Wally, but we've all agreed to call him Barry because Johns will come to our houses with an axe if we don't). Arrow certainly FELT like New52, but I think that was because New52 and Arrow were both consciously ripping off the Nolan movies.
Although the most recent Batman animated feature was a Court of Owls story. But then Batman was probably the character least changed by the New 52 in the first place, so.... |
#83
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I'm of the opinion that the real problem with superhero comics is never-ending plot escalation. This is a common problem with any serial stories that have any degree of drama - the need to constantly up the stakes start resulting in weird mistakes in tone, where everything is miserable, the characters come across as assholes (they have to make mistakes to generate conflict), and any minor successes are necessarily erased to keep the plot rolling.
I think that's why reboots are so attractive to the makers of these things, but the big problem I've noticed is that the escalated tone often carries over at least a little bit. I know this isn't the whole of the story, but I think it's at least a facet. |
#84
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#85
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The big guns are like Sherlock Holmes at this point: there will always be people with new takes on the essential elements of the character. Editorial's job is to just keep throwing new takes at the wall until something sticks, quickly cull the ones that don't, and then ride the ones that do until you can't ride it anymore.
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#86
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Iron Man
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#87
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Jude Law would actually still make a good Batman, to boot.
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#88
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Clint Eastwood needs to play Batman at least once, even if it's just like in some kind of Elseworld story, while he still can.
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#89
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Jude Law as Dick Grayson-as-Batman would really do it for me, but I think he's too old for that now.
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#90
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Someday we'll get a live-action Batman Beyond... some day... |
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