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comics seem to have these things about them that, even while doing your best to "suspend disbelief," still irk (irk?) you.
name'em!
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me first!
it always seems to me that as soon as a character gets their powers (by accidental, cybernetics, magic, etc), they automatically are using the powers like they've had years of practice -- like they automatically know what t'do and how t'do it.
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That's not always the case...Hell, the Xavier institute exists for just that reason.
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I hate how no real drastic, permanent change can happen with any franchise character. Nothing ever progresses....it just holds steady around a certain null-orbit of an "era". And, if it does change, then, it simply slips back into the retreaded-familiar at some later date....
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Hal Jordan died....so did Ollie Queen.......for awhile.
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Quote:
PJP said:
.......for awhile.
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Quote:
Prometheus said:
I hate how no real drastic, permanent change can happen with any franchise character. Nothing ever progresses....it just holds steady around a certain null-orbit of an "era". And, if it does change, then, it simply slips back into the retreaded-familiar at some later date....
Most of those changes sucked.......Wait a sec. What all exactly do you mean by changes?
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Heroics irk me. You get powers and you're instantly going to save lives? No way. By comparison, most instantly wealthy people go and splurge. The new Firstorm title dealt with this, although with a somewhat silly resolution.
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1) Dumb excuses superheroes make to duck out on someone when there's trouble really annoy me. Why can't they just run off saying "I'm going to call the cops!" or "I'll get an ambulance!" or something like that?
2) In a lot of Marvel Silver Age comics, mainly the ones Stan Lee wrote, some of the characters' logic was rather...odd.
For example...
"Amazing Spider-Man #5" - Peter, Flash, and Liz hear Jameson on TV blast Spider-Man, and Flash sticks up for Spidey. Peter thinks to himself "I mustn't let them suspect me! I'll talk against Spider-Man!" and proceeds to bad-mouth Spidey, pissing everyone off.
Everybody thinks Parker is a wimpy bookworm. Why in the name of all that is holy would they have any reason at all to think he's Spider-Man? Why does Peter really think that his secret ID will be in danger if he sticks up for Spider-Man also? Why does he think bad-mouthing Spidey will cover his tracks? Why didn't he just keep his mouth shut?
Another example, also from SA Spidey - Robbie and Captain Stacy discuss Spider-Man, wondering why he conceals his idenetity. Robbie says "if people know who he is, maybe they'll trust him." It never occurs to them to think that if criminals knew who he was, they could kill him or his loved ones in his home. Fucking DUH!
I'm sure there are more examples of this, but none come to mind.
And what's with Lee having his women characters say "I'm just a silly female!"
Last edited by Darknight613; 2005-01-26 3:04 AM.
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"If Schumacher’s last effort was the final nail in the coffin then Year One would’ve been the crazy guy who stormed the graveyard, dug up the coffin and put a bullet through the franchise’s corpse just to make sure." -- From a review of Darren Aronofsky & Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One" script
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Quote:
Rob Kamphausen said:
comics seem to have these things about them that, even while doing your best to "suspend disbelief," still irk (irk?) you.
name'em!
Shitty artists and shittier writers.
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Quote:
MisterJLA said:
Quote:
Rob Kamphausen said:
comics seem to have these things about them that, even while doing your best to "suspend disbelief," still irk (irk?) you.
name'em!
Shitty artists and shittier writers.
Amen, brother!
Wait a sec ... who, in your honest opinion, do you consider shitty? Not as a slam, just want to compare notes.
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Quote:
Prometheus said:
I hate how no real drastic, permanent change can happen with any franchise character. Nothing ever progresses....it just holds steady around a certain null-orbit of an "era". And, if it does change, then, it simply slips back into the retreaded-familiar at some later date....
Hmmm... Let's test this theory. Barry Allen? Yup, he's still dead.
Me, I hate how in some books the hero has to explain his powers EVERY issue. Karl Kesel's Superboy issues are a prime example of this. "Blah blah tactile-telekinesis, blah blah tactile-telekinesis." If things needed explaining, just use that little introductory blurb that's on the title page.
Knutreturns said: Spoken like the true Greatest RDCW Champ!
All hail King Snarf!
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Quote:
ShazamGrrl1 said:
Quote:
MisterJLA said:
Quote:
Rob Kamphausen said:
comics seem to have these things about them that, even while doing your best to "suspend disbelief," still irk (irk?) you.
name'em!
Shitty artists and shittier writers.
Amen, brother!
Wait a sec ... who, in your honest opinion, do you consider shitty? Not as a slam, just want to compare notes.
Devin Grayson, Denny O'Neil, (although I think that worthless fuck retired) Geoff Johns for fucking up The Avengers so badly, the writers who worked on the Marvel Knights version of Captain America, Joe Kelly, Judd Winick, Ron Marz (sort of) probably more that I can't think of at the moment.
The art in comics has gotten a lot better over the years, but there used to be some terrible artists on the fifteen hundred Batman books a decade ago.
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Denny O'Neill, I believe, is semi-retired. He wrote a 3-issue JLA arc between Kelly's last arc and between the abominable Tenth Circle by Byrne and Claremont. If you want pain, read O'Neill's JLA story. It makes Tenth Circle look like Rock of Ages.
Knutreturns said: Spoken like the true Greatest RDCW Champ!
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The crappy paper quality on some titles.
The rising cost of monthlies. Which isn't so minor if you're cheap like me.
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One of mine is when a comic gets a new artist and they draw the characters so differently you don't know whose who. Or when a comic has too many characters.
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the fact that most franchise characters have had way too many adventures for the number of years we're supposed to believe they've been active. for example, if you look at their runs, supes and bats would have to have shit happening to them HOURLY for everything to make sense.
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Batman being such a total prick to everybody, all the time. Just once I'd like to see him try that 'get out of my city' routine with Superman and have him heat-vision fricaseed.
Of course, once would be enough.
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Quote:
Wednesday said:
the fact that most franchise characters have had way too many adventures for the number of years we're supposed to believe they've been active. for example, if you look at their runs, supes and bats would have to have shit happening to them HOURLY for everything to make sense.
In my view, Dick Grayson should have been Batman decades ago.
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Dave : Amen! My point entirely. Quote:
King Snarf said:
Quote:
Prometheus said:
I hate how no real drastic, permanent change can happen with any franchise character. Nothing ever progresses....it just holds steady around a certain null-orbit of an "era". And, if it does change, then, it simply slips back into the retreaded-familiar at some later date....
Hmmm... Let's test this theory. Barry Allen? Yup, he's still dead.
So are Uncle Ben and Bucky. What's your point? At what stage are any of these franchise characters? And, by that I mean, the big guns....Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the like. I'll give you Flash. Barry Allen died in Crisis back in 1985....twenty years ago. Twenty. Within the twenty years he's been dead, how have Batman and Superman progressed in any real, lasting fashion?
Answer: Not at all.
That's my point. Batman is still exactly the same.......even though Dick Grayson has grown at least ten or more years since. Superman does not change. Period.
This is all very stagnant and boring to me, knowing that, if nothing else, these characters cannot be altered in any real form that takes them outside the parameters of their copyrights, or, movie tie-ins.
That's what irks me about comics...
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But...Superman is married!
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Superman got married, though, which has totally stuffed up the entire dynamic with the franchise's chief supporting character, Lois Lane.
I think this is what DC fears in changing its key properties. The main example of this is the editorial decree eliminating Son of the Demon from continuity. The biggest irrevocable change in Bat history (Bats and Talia have a son) and its erased by editors. Infuriating. Its silly and pointless. Batman's war on crime would not have been affected if he had a son he was aware of, and it would have particularly impacted upon his relationship with Ra's.
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Quote:
Dave said:
In my view, Dick Grayson should have been Batman decades ago.
In my view, if that happened, I'd stop reading the comic.
I think you and Pro are being a bit too critical in this department.
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Quote:
Pariah said:
I'd stop reading the comic.
Didn't you already stop reading Batman?
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Yeah. But at least with Bruce Wayne, there's still a chance I'll buy it again.
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Quote:
Dave said:
Superman got married, though, which has totally stuffed up the entire dynamic with the franchise's chief supporting character, Lois Lane.
Not to mention they were simply trying to keep up with the TV series when they were doing that... in fact, the Wedding Special came out the same week the Wedding Episode aired. "Oh, look! It's the same as the series! Let's buy lots of Superman comics!" They didn't marry Superman in '92 (and killed him instead) because they didn't want the Lois/Clark relationship to be that different from the then new series (and Mike Carlin himself admitted that).
This also explains why they made the bizarre decition to turn Metropolis into "The City of Tomorrow" (does anyone remember it's supposed to be futuristic now?): they were simply trying to make it exactly like the one in the Animated Show. Not only that, they also changed an enjoyable and interesting but already convulted Supergirl into a clone of the one showed in the Animated Series, making her even more convulted and not enjoyable at all.
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Quote:
Prometheus said:
Dave : Amen! My point entirely.
After re-reading your post, I've realized your point and mine are one in the same. I'm not original.
Another thing that irks me (and this is actually related) is that most changes comic book companies ARE willing to make to their characters are done only to put those characters in line with their movie and TV counterparts. Clark Kent's marriage to Lois Lane, organic web shooters, etc. Not all of these changes are bad, of course, but it seems DC and Marvel are more than willing to do just about anything to their characters if it has the slightest chance of reducing confusion for the new readers a movie or show may bring in.
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If you keep an eternal status quo (like you're need to if you refuse to make the characters grow up in order to keep them profitable) you're doomed to eventually degrade the stories into lame repetitive shit with no value at all. That's only common sense. You got the exact same fucking character and surrounding for twenty fucking years... of course it's gonna get lame, I'd be surprised if it didn't!
In my view, you either keep a believable, consistent continuity that works as one big story (I'm sorry to those who try to replace voids in their life pretending comics are like real life too... but the fact is they're supposed to be stories and that's the only way they can have any merits), or have no continuity at all and simply concentrate in the individual stories without caring if this or that contradicts anything else.
Right now DC has neither: their "continuity" is a joke (even a 12 year old can see it's full of holes, even if they try to fix it every ten years), and what's sad is that (at least back when I read mainstream comics) they put so much focus into that little ridiculous confusing mess they like to call a continuity that they have entire issues devoted to it. Do it right or don't do it.
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I think Mxy, Wednesday, and Dave have all summed up my point exactly. 
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DC's new plan to launch a bunch of mini-series in (probably) a short time span. Damn you DC.
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I was so looking forward to Sovereign 7 until I found it its 7 mini-series complimented by 2 bookends. Basically, it's a 30 part series, and I just don't have the budget to add another ongoing to my list.
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Quote:
I'm Not Mister Mxypltk said:
If you keep an eternal status quo (like you're need to if you refuse to make the characters grow up in order to keep them profitable) you're doomed to eventually degrade the stories into lame repetitive shit with no value at all. That's only common sense. You got the exact same fucking character and surrounding for twenty fucking years... of course it's gonna get lame, I'd be surprised if it didn't!
In my view, you either keep a believable, consistent continuity that works as one big story (I'm sorry to those who try to replace voids in their life pretending comics are like real life too... but the fact is they're supposed to be stories and that's the only way they can have any merits), or have no continuity at all and simply concentrate in the individual stories without caring if this or that contradicts anything else.
Right now DC has neither: their "continuity" is a joke (even a 12 year old can see it's full of holes, even if they try to fix it every ten years), and what's sad is that (at least back when I read mainstream comics) they put so much focus into that little ridiculous confusing mess they like to call a continuity that they have entire issues devoted to it. Do it right or don't do it.
Mxy, this makes pure sense,
I think the owners of DC's properties show too much conservatism driven by the fact that they don't make money out of the comics, they make money out of the licensing.
So although Superman might look better with a goatee and short sleeves, little kids won't be buying a lunch box with sme goateed guy with a Superman symbol on his chest. They can't mess about with the visual appearance of the character too much (eg. Superman's mullet eventually got short again and WW's short hair got long again). Batman will never have the full face mask Rob would like to see - at least not permanently.
This doesn't mean that Dick Grayson can't take on the mantle - he'd be wearing the same costume. I don't think DC really think about that.
It would be easy to have Dick mimic Bruce's personality: marry him to Starfire or whoever, have her have a kid, have them both shot dead by gangsters - voila! a war on crime.
I'd think they'd have to kill off Bruce, too, to make sure that he could not come back and take back the role.
Huge evolution in the character - they'd get global press coverage. Boost sales.
And at the end of the day, they'd still have a grim faced Batman to put on lunchboxes.
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Quote:
I'm Not Mister Mxypltk said:
If you keep an eternal status quo (like you're need to if you refuse to make the characters grow up in order to keep them profitable) you're doomed to eventually degrade the stories into lame repetitive shit with no value at all. That's only common sense. You got the exact same fucking character and surrounding for twenty fucking years... of course it's gonna get lame, I'd be surprised if it didn't!
Mxy, that's a rather myopic viewpoint. You, yourself, say its only story that gives the comics any merits. To declare that absolutely everything in a setting that's been static for a prolonged amount of time would make nothing but bad stories sounds totally ignorant when taking into mind that the interest in that setting and the characters it has all depends on the writer.
Quote:
In my view, you either keep a believable, consistent continuity that works as one big story (I'm sorry to those who try to replace voids in their life pretending comics are like real life too... but the fact is they're supposed to be stories and that's the only way they can have any merits), or have no continuity at all and simply concentrate in the individual stories without caring if this or that contradicts anything else.
And would you agree that the current lack of either is the fault of the writers and not the system of comicbook writing itself?
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Quote:
Dave said:
So although Superman might look better with a goatee and short sleeves, little kids won't be buying a lunch box with sme goateed guy with a Superman symbol on his chest. They can't mess about with the visual appearance of the character too much (eg. Superman's mullet eventually got short again and WW's short hair got long again). Batman will never have the full face mask Rob would like to see - at least not permanently.
Have you ever taken to mind that these ideas just might suck?
Not to insult any of you or your opinions, but I personally wouldn't wanna see some of these suggestions, and I don't know how you can fault the readers other than you (who, FYI, are not just "little kids") for making their opinion known about their favorite character. I mean, DC's a business, and just because the writers don't have the ability to work with what they're given, it doesn't mean you all of a sudden nitpick these li'l image gimmicks.
Quote:
This doesn't mean that Dick Grayson can't take on the mantle - he'd be wearing the same costume. I don't think DC really think about that.
I can tell you exactly why Grayson wouldna' work as Batman. Wanna hear it?
No origin.
And this:
Quote:
It would be easy to have Dick mimic Bruce's personality: marry him to Starfire or whoever, have her have a kid, have them both shot dead by gangsters - voila! a war on crime.
Doesn't begin to cover the original Batman's motivations. It seems more like its mocking them.
Quote:
Huge evolution in the character - they'd get global press coverage. Boost sales.
Not the same character.
Furthermore, Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent are apart of those images. They're like totally ingrained on the heroes' origins. I mean, who doesn't know their alter egos. That should give you a clue as to why the purely external image argument doesn't hold firm.
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Quote:
Pariah said:Mxy, that's a rather myopic viewpoint. You, yourself, say its only story that gives the comics any merits. To declare that absolutely everything in a setting that's been static for a prolonged amount of time sounds totally ignorant when taking into mind that the interest in that setting and the characters it has all depends on the writer.
Think about it: how come things have gotten progresively lamer the further we get away from Crisis? Because they're set in the same status quo, and you can only make the same status quo work for so many years in so many hundreds of ways. The most interesting stories in the comics where this is most evident (Superman and The Bat-Man, because, unlike other comics, you got four or more stories every month draining up your possible ways to make something interesting out of the status quo, rather than one story per month like Flash or GL) are stories where the status quo has been shaken for a while (Reign of the Supermen, No Man's Land), and that's not a coincidence (of course, it doesn't always work, as stories like the Electric Superman saga prove).
Quote:
And would you agree that the current lack of either is the fault of the writers and not the system of comicbook writing itself?
A bad writer's a bad writer... but when almost every superhero book out there is lame repetitive shit you gotta start wondering if perhaps the problem lies deeper into the formulaic system every one of thse books has in common: that is the preservation of a practically static status quo for literally decades.
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What's ironic is that the same lack of subtansial change mainstream comics lack is what they use to market books. Pretty much every death is hyped as definitve, every temporary status quo rattle is assured to be definitive... how many times have we read the words "The Bat-Man will never be the same after this!!!!", "this saga will shake the DCU to its core!!!!", "in this issue: the final fate of Captain Asscock!!!!!!", etc.
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Quote:
I'm Not Mister Mxypltk said:
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Pariah said:Mxy, that's a rather myopic viewpoint. You, yourself, say its only story that gives the comics any merits. To declare that absolutely everything in a setting that's been static for a prolonged amount of time sounds totally ignorant when taking into mind that the interest in that setting and the characters it has all depends on the writer.
Think about it: how come things have gotten progresively lamer the further we get away from Crisis? Because they're set in the same status quo, and you can only make the same status quo work for so many years in so many hundreds of ways. The most interesting stories in the comics where this is most evident (Superman and The Bat-Man, because, unlike other comics, you got four or more stories every month draining up your possible ways to make something interesting out of the status quo, rather than one story per month like Flash or GL) are stories where the status quo has been shaken for a while (Reign of the Supermen, No Man's Land), and that's not a coincidence (of course, it doesn't always work, as stories like the Electric Superman saga prove).
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And would you agree that the current lack of either is the fault of the writers and not the system of comicbook writing itself?
A bad writer's a bad writer... but when almost every superhero book out there is lame repetitive shit you gotta start wondering if perhaps the problem lies deeper into the formulaic system every one of thse books has in common: that is the preservation of a practically static status quo for literally decades.
Mxy, that entire post labels an old setting impossible to work with.
And that's not true. Period.
Your argument makes the implication that the old setting itself is all to blame for the shitty stoylines from the past six years--BUT! You're not really taking into mind the fact that the most recent writers signed on around that time. I could make the valid argument that they are to blame.
I just want to know if you accept this as a possibility. That's all.
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The conscience of the rkmbs! 15000+ posts
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The conscience of the rkmbs! 15000+ posts
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I'm Not Mister Mxypltk said:
What's ironic is that the same lack of subtansial change mainstream comics lack is what they use to market books. Pretty much every death is hyped as definitve, every temporary status quo rattle is assured to be definitive... how many times have we read the words "The Bat-Man will never be the same after this!!!!", "this saga will shake the DCU to its core!!!!", "in this issue: the final fate of Captain Asscock!!!!!!", etc.
This I'll agree with.
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devil-lovin' Bat-Man 15000+ posts
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Pariah said:Mxy, that entire post labels an old setting impossible to work with.
And that's not true. Period.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make good stories out of an old and tired status quo we've seen for twenty years, I'm just saying it's a lot, a lot, a loooot more unlikely that we'll see good stories now in those books than it was ten or twenty years ago.
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Your argument makes the implication that the old setting itself is all to blame for the shitty stoylines from the past six years--BUT! You're not really taking into mind the fact that the most recent writers signed on around that time. I could make the valid argument that they are to blame.
I just want to know if you accept this as a possibility. That's all.
Then let me take the 90's Super-writers as an example to disprove that: Ordway, Kesel, Jurgens, L. Simonson, Stern, etc., working with a five year old setting made wonderful stories. Pretty much the exact same people, working with a ten year old setting made hit and miss stories. The exact same people (they even brough back Ordway and Stern), working with a fifteen year old setting made one good story a year. The most drastic example is Roger Stern, who didn't make one damn good story in his Man of Tomorrow run, and this the same man that wrote what I consider to be the best issues in the whole Action Comics series. One could argue it's just the man losing it, but the same thing happened to all the other writers.
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Joined: Sep 2003
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The conscience of the rkmbs! 15000+ posts
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I'm Not Mister Mxypltk said:
I'm not saying it's impossible to make good stories out of an old and tired status quo we've seen for twenty years, I'm just saying it's a lot, a lot, a loooot more unlikely that we'll see good stories now in those books than it was ten or twenty years ago.
*shrug* I still think it would depend on the writer. But as long as you're not saying it's impossible.
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Then let me take the 90's Super-writers as an example to disprove that: Ordway, Kesel, Jurgens, L. Simonson, Stern, etc., working with a five year old setting made wonderful stories. Pretty much the exact same people, working with a ten year old setting made hit and miss stories. The exact same people (they even brough back Ordway and Stern), working with a fifteen year old setting made one good story a year. The most drastic example is Roger Stern, who didn't make one damn good story in his Man of Tomorrow run, and this the same man that wrote what I consider to be the best issues in the whole Action Comics series. One could argue it's just the man losing it, but the same thing happened to all the other writers.
Aside from Kesel, I'll agree with some of that, but the past writers have more palpability than the new ones today. I mean, the most famous writers today haven't been making "hit or miss" material. It's a bit more severe than that. Until like half a decade ago, Dixon, O'neil and such made some good stuff. After the first year with the writers like Rucka and Grayson, things have continuously gone downhill. Their entropy has been much faster acting than the former writers.
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