Sperg about comic books here

[Puddleduck]

The thing about Whale Simone is that she's a trender. She'll jump on whatever social movement is currently popular in order to advance her career, but she's not really someone who is a true believer. For example, she talked a big game about feminism, but then you read her DC books and they were all T&A pandering. Its best to think of her as a Joss Whedon-type feminist: to Gail, women are nothing more than the shield she uses to defend herself from criticism.

I remember recently she got the trans community pissed at her because she did a joke in Plastic Man where he disguised himself as a woman but forgot to get rid of the bulge in his pants or something to that degree and that pissed them off. She apologized profusely, insisting that she was the bestest of best allies with the trans community but you can tell that she wanted to tell them, "Oh fuck off, it was a joke! Besides, how many of you actually BOUGHT the comic?"

I decided to read Batgirl because I liked her part of the Joker Death of the Family trade, and I will admit I was cautious going into from the beginning due to her reputation, but yeah I really liked it! There were a few bits when TwitterWokeness seeped through, and I think it was YBZ who pointed out the food themes which I couldn't un-notice haha, but I liked it enough to be pissed when basically everything Simone set up for the next writer was swept away. I couldn't even finish Stewart's run.
I'm on Bird of Prey now. starting with Gail's run, and I like it even more, enough to see why people didn't like Barbara's time as Oracle being erased - if Batman can have all of his history in the New52, why couldn't Babs?!
(decided to X-post into this thread, as it's more comicsy than gatey)

 

[Affluent Reptilian]

I'm suspicious that Hickman has read John C Wright's Count to Eschaton series. The hard sci fi stuff with the intelligence levels, the transformation of gas giants into logic crystal minds, the breakdown of networked machine intelligences due to conflicts in the composite parts, the absorption of civilisations as they climb the intelligence scale by still-more unfathomably ascended civilisational intelligences... Not that I have a problem with it - I really like those books (a lot of people hate Wright because he's super Catholic and conservative).

 

[MisterBee]

Moved from the Linkara thread:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=zNqnLk_CzN8
The new review is kinda fun. Linkara is mostly right this time around, but he's still stupid and slimy about it. Linkly is in his element here. Reviewing an obviously bad material and trying add his hot takes to popular opinions. He's right, a lot of people are written out of character and the banter ruins the mood, but that's, among other things, a popular critique of Tom King, so thanks for repeating everyone else.

Spoiler: Long autistic version for comicbook people.

So Linkara is obviously gearing up for Heroes In Crisis. Usually crossover reviews are voted, but this time Lewis "has a hunch that it's gonna win". He's that obvious about the voting being meaningless. And if you know anything about Linky you know why this is happening. It's because Wally West does like a half of a heel turn and turns out to be guilty at the end. Of course Linky can't let that injustice go, because he's a walking stereotype of an early 2000s fan, who thinks that Teen Titans should stay just the way they were in their 30s.
A better showcase of Tom King's problems would be his Batman run since it has all the same problems, but more detailed and covers more topics. But this isn't about reviewing or history, or industry It's about Lewis and his problems and his pain over his favorite characters.

Another new gimmick Lewis has now is condemning other people for attacking (i.e. criticizing) writers while also making excuses that allow him to shit on writers. This time he thinks that complimenting King for his Mister Miracle book will make it more even. For the record, Mister Miracle has all of the problems other King books have so complimenting it seems weird, unless you don't think anyone would actually read anything.

Linkara says that King writes similar to Grant Morrison. I'm a big Morrison-fag so it might sound spergy, but nope Lewis is super wrong here. If it tells you anything GM is the guy that wrote The Invisibles, early 90s Doom Patrol and All Star Superman. If it doesn't, then he's a bit weirdo but chill wierdo and a professional dude who respects his pears so much he would sometimes undo/streamline parts of his work to make it easier for the next writer to come in without any prompting. He's that clever guy who doesn't really like to act like the smartest guy in a room. King writers on the other hand writes like there was no people before or after him (like it's his personal imprint), beats you over the head symbolism and writes in an artsy "poetic" style. And if Grant sometimes fast-forwards it's because he thinks you can pick it all up based on dialogue, Tom chops his dialogue just to sound smart. Linky compares the two just because it's hard for him to read Morrison. But if you think I'm wrong that's ok. I am biased about GM.

Linky, like many, unironically believes that Geoff Johns "forced DC " to adjust their reboot. Sure, Geoff came up with how to do it, but forcing them? Not really. If you look at the time frame they were testing the waters for that readjustment way earlier. After the interest for reboot dialed down they did two stories one after other: one was about the future and was this reboot on steroids and the other was banking on old and nostalgia, The later won and months later Rebirth officially starts. But for whatever reason fanboys love to act as if Geoff fought everyone in the Royal Rumble for this or was publishing it in a secret underground cave. As autistic as it sounds that's a legitimate reputation Geoff has because his name is attached to a lot of retcons and reboots, but that's because he's DC's "cleanup crew", who they ask to do those things because he's good at making connections not because he's some secret rebel fighting evil editors when Reddit calls for him.

Speaking of editors. Even though this is all Tom King and Limkara doesn't like editors, here he acts like editors should've stopped him. So, which is it Lewis?

Tom King at times writes like a 12 year old, but sometimes, rarely, he has a great character moment between two characters just talking that knock it out of the park. Batman 36 and 37 were my favorites out of his run.

Him and Snyder were maddeningly mediocre throughout their time on Batman, with 1 or 2 good character moments and a sea of meh. 'The Gift' was an idea that should've been shot down, but since it was as consequential as a noncanon imaginary tale, it just gets a shrug from me, not rage.

 

[Odets]

Tom King at times writes like a 12 year old, but sometimes, rarely, he has a great character moment between two characters just talking that knock it out of the park. Batman 36 and 37 were my favorites out of his run.

A lot of people say that he has moments, but to get to those moments you still have to sit through that pre-teen writing style. That's like if Linkara's story segments had occasional conversations about information control taken straight from MGS2. Cool but doesn't line up with the rest and doesn't save anything.

 

[MisterBee]

A lot of people say that he has moments, but to get to those moments you still have to sit through that pre-teen writing style. That's like if Linkara's story segments had occasional conversations about information control taken straight from MGS2. Cool but doesn't line up with the rest and doesn't save anything.

Tom King at least responds positively to criticism and isn't a raging cunt.

 

[Odets]

Tom King at least responds positively to criticism and isn't a raging cunt.

How does that relate to anything? Might as well said "at least he's not a 50 year old bachelor"

 

[Water-T]

As autistic as it sounds that's a legitimate reputation Geoff has because his name is attached to a lot of retcons and reboots

Geoff Johns is the new John Byrne, and it's why he was DC's go to guy when the sales of Green Lantern was in the toilet and they needed someone to get rid of Kyle and bring back Hal without pissing off Kyle fans and absolving Hal of his crimes as Parallax. He already did a bang up job of tackling the extensive, messy history of the Justice Society and Infinity Inc in JSA and making sense out Hawkman's various past lives and incarnations.

Since Rebirth was an attempt to retcon the Nu52 retcon, getting Geof to clean up DiDildo's mess was a no-brainer.

 

[MisterBee]

How does that relate to anything? Might as well said "at least he's not a 50 year old bachelor"

You compared his writing to Lewis's. So I compared how they deal with criticism

Geoff Johns is the new John Byrne, and it's why he was DC's go to guy when the sales of Green Lantern was in the toilet and they needed someone to get rid of Kyle and bring back Hal without pissing off Kyle fans and absolving Hal of his crimes as Parallax. He already did a bang up job of tackling the extensive, messy history of the Justice Society and Infinity Inc in JSA and making sense out Hawkman's various past lives and incarnations.

Since Rebirth was an attempt to retcon the Nu52 retcon, getting Geof to clean up DiDildo's mess was a no-brainer.

I'm tired of Johns getting this much goodwill from a 20 year old JSA run. Want to know what he did with hawkman? Same thing every hawkman writer did before him; keep the shit he liked and ignored the rest. Hell, hawkmans continuity wasn't even that fucked up until some idiot decided hawkworld was in continuity.

And what he did with parallax was sloppy and fanboyism. He even retconned arisia's age because he couldn't live with Hal Jordon having a character flaw.

Johns had a known history for ignoring continuity and inserting fan theories. I've seen at least one instance where he wrote a book's writers his own pet theory, the writers tell him he's wrong in the mail section at the end of the book, only to years later write said character and decide "gee, now my theory is right!"

 

[Odets]

You compared his writing to Lewis's. So I compared how they deal with criticism

Wasn't really comparing. Just wanted to show how one detail can't save everything.

Geoff Johns is the new John Byrne, and it's why he was DC's go to guy when the sales of Green Lantern was in the toilet and they needed someone to get rid of Kyle and bring back Hal without pissing off Kyle fans and absolving Hal of his crimes as Parallax. He already did a bang up job of tackling the extensive, messy history of the Justice Society and Infinity Inc in JSA and making sense out Hawkman's various past lives and incarnations.

"Brought in" is the key word. He wasn't "fighting for characters and honer" because "he's the only one who cares" like many people legitimately believe. He's the guy who can connect the dots and sort stuff out and that's how he's used in the company.

Since Rebirth was an attempt to retcon the Nu52 retcon, getting Geof to clean up DiDildo's mess was a no-brainer.

Dude, you gonna do this autistic Reddit thing when everything bad is Didio and only Didio? Come on.

 

[Water-T]

I'm tired of Johns getting this much goodwill from a 20 year old JSA run. Want to know what he did with hawkman? Same thing every hawkman writer did before him; keep the shit he liked and ignored the rest. Hell, hawkmans continuity wasn't even that fucked up until some idiot decided hawkworld was in continuity.

And what he did with parallax was sloppy and fanboyism. He even retconned arisia's age because he couldn't live with Hal Jordon having a character flaw.

Johns had a known history for ignoring continuity and inserting fan theories.

Concerning his retcon of Hawkman, taking out what didn't work instead of adding on made a lot of sense, Then he filled in the blanks by connecting Khufu to Katar Hol via Thanagarians crashing in ancient Egypt.

As for Hal, I think retconning Arisia's age was a smart move, because having a hero sexing up a teenage girl is not a good look. It was clumsy, but better than pretending it didn't happen or using a tired trope like mind control.

I kind of agree that Hal's heel turn via possession by Parallax was a cop out, but considering it led to awesome stories like the Sinestro War and Blackest Night, I'm willing to give it a pass. Plus he turned Guy Gardner from a one dimensional asshole into a jerk worth rooting for.

Dude, you gonna do this autistic Reddit thing when everything bad is Didio and only Didio? Come on.

DiDio wasn't the only reason DC is floundering (the guy running the Vertigo imprint screwed it into an early grave, for example), but he's certainly one of the biggest reasons.

 

[Y2K Baby]

Lol, nerds ITT.

 

[MisterBee]

Concerning his retcon of Hawkman, taking out what didn't work instead of adding on made a lot of sense, Then he filled in the blanks by connecting Khufu to Katar Hol via Thanagarians crashing in ancient Egypt.

As for Hal, I think retconning Arisia's age was a smart move, because having a hero sexing up a teenage girl is not a good look. It was clumsy, but better than pretending it didn't happen or using a tired trope like mind control.

I kind of agree that Hal's heel turn via possession by Parallax was a cop out, but considering it led to awesome stories like the Sinestro War and Blackest Night, I'm willing to give it a pass. Plus he turned Guy Gardner from a one dimensional asshole into a jerk worth rooting for.


DiDio wasn't the only reason DC is floundering (the guy running the Vertigo imprint screwed it into an early grave, for example), but he's certainly one of the biggest reasons.

Hawkman: every writer did that. The mess was only created when some idiot decided hawkworld was continuity.

Arisa: the retcon itself was clumsy as fuck. Same with the parallax retcon. The additions of the multiple new lantern corps and boom, you have the single writer that did the most damage to the Green lantern mythos in the last 50 years, emerald twilight included.

Guy Gardner, you're pretending the Warrior series never existed.

People who are fans of Johns always go back to this supposed golden, cancer curing jsa run... That it turns out goyer has a co author credit on.

So, who do I think deserves more credit? The Hal Jordan fanboy that can't deal with past continuity without massive retcons or the dude that wrote the Chris nolan Batman trilogy?

 

[Odets]

DiDio wasn't the only reason DC is floundering (the guy running the Vertigo imprint screwed it into an early grave, for example), but he's certainly one of the biggest reasons.

What early grave? More than 20 years is a fine lifetime. Many die in their 10s. Not to mention that the last wave of Vertigo was cancer, with only people who cared being folks like Zoe Quinn who did it only to put something on their resume and to vent about Trump. It was begging to put itself out of it's misery

 

[Water-T]

Hawkman: every writer did that. The mess was only created when some idiot decided hawkworld was continuity.

Arisa: the retcon itself was clumsy as fuck. Same with the parallax retcon. The additions of the multiple new lantern corps and boom, you have the single writer that did the most damage to the Green lantern mythos in the last 50 years, emerald twilight included.

Guy Gardner, you're pretending the Warrior series never existed.

People who are fans of Johns always go back to this supposed golden, cancer curing jsa run... That it turns out goyer has a co author credit on.

(I'm sure we are starting to derail this thread, so if the mods want to ship it over to Sperging About Comics, go for it)

Hawkman: I agree that Carter Hall/Katar Hol's history was pretty OK before Hawkworld, but writers trying iron it out after Zero Hour just made things worse. Johns did a good job making sense of it all, IMO.

Arisia: I do agree it was clumsy as fuck. Parallax, to a degree. But damaging the mythos? Come on.

Gay Gardner: I did read this Warrior series. It was fun for the first dozen or so issues, until editorial meddling pivoted it towards making him XXXTREEEM! like almost every other 90s character, like whiplashing from the "spikes and leather" look in #17 to the gold armor next issue, then becoming a pseudo Indiana Jones, followed by the red metal bodysuit and then getting the alien shapeshifting powers. On top of that, they killed off Ice around that time, and she brought out the best in Guy.

I will agree that Johns could have done a much better job explaining why Guy lost his alien powers aside from, "Oh well, looks like he rejected his alien side. Now let us never speak about this again"

What early grave? More than 20 years is a fine lifetime. Many die in their 10s. Not to mention that the last wave of Vertigo was cancer, with only people who cared being folks like Zoe Quinn who did it only to put something on their resume and to vent about Trump. It was begging to put itself out of its misery

Vertigo unofficially started with Hellblazer and Sandman in the late 80s, but wasn't officially it's own label until around the time Preacher started in the early 90s. It was the last wave that you mentioned which killed the line. The honcho running the label decided to let Quinn and other NPCs infect it with cancer like Goddess Mode and Border Town. If they had gotten good writers like Morrison, Millar, and Ennis instead, it would still be alive today.

 

[MisterBee]

(I'm sure we are starting to derail this thread, so if the mods want to ship it over to Sperging About Comics, go for it)

Hawkman: I agree that Cater/Kater's history was pretty OK before Hawkworld, but writers trying iron it out after Zero Hour just made things worse. Johns did the best making sense of it all, IMO.

Arisia: I do agree it was clumsy as fuck. Parallax, too. But damaging the mythos? Come on.

Gay Gardner: I did read this Warrior series. It was fun for the first dozen or so issues, until editorial meddling pivoted it towards making him XXXTREEEM! like almost every other 90s character, like whiplashing from the "spikes and leather" look in #17 to the gold armor next issue, then becoming a pseudo Indiana Jones, followed by the red metal bodysuit and then getting the alien shapeshifting powers. On top of that, they killed off Ice around that time, and she brought out the best in Guy.

I will agree that Johns could have done a much better job explaining why Guy lost his alien powers aside from, "Oh well, looks like he rejected his alien side. Now let us never speak about this again"

So you agree his retcons are sloppy, and he only cowrote this mythical JSA run with David Goyer, but he still deserves accolades? Lol

My biggest issue with how johns does retcons is they aren't retcons to fix technical issues in the story. Instead, they are retcons because he is personally offended as a fan of the character. Dan slotts retcons are not much better either because he does the same thing

 

[Water-T]

So you agree his retcons are sloppy, and he only cowrote this mythical JSA run with David Goyer, but he still deserves accolades? Lol

No, i'm not saying Geoff Johns is God, but given the tangled mess he was given to deal with, he did a much better job than most writers would have done. He managed to handle both of JSA's runs in the long term and add to the mythos without creating more continuity snarls. He used Alan Moore's long forgotten additions to the GL mythos (Mogo, Qull and the Inversions, the Black Mercy) and incorporated them in a way that worked.

But hey, just my opinion.

 

[Odets]

Vertigo unofficially started with Hellblazer and Sandman in the late 80s, but wasn't officially it's own label until around the time Preacher started in the early 90s. It was the last wave that you mentioned which killed the line. The honcho running the label decided to let Quinn and other NPCs infect it with cancer like Goddess Mode and Border Town. If they had gotten good writers like Morrison, Millar, and Ennis instead, it would still be alive today.

I took the official late date for the sake of an "early grave" argument. It's sounds even stranger if counting from Sandman.

Why stop there? "If only they had Alan Moor and Stan Lee there!". Has it never crossed your mind that none of those people cared at that point? That the reason Zoe was there was because she was the only one willing to go there? The checks aren't fat enough to neglect a job on which you can write whatever so why weren't they there?

This is exactly the same commentary Lewis provides. "Something-something editors = bad. Was it his fault? Meh who cares".

 

[MisterBee]

Personal hot take: The current comic culture of celebrity writers ruined the industry. Whenever you see a book hyped by the industry, it's because of the writer being a big name or the main character is a black gay transsexual overweight hispanic. When the company spends that much money to hype your name and for your exclusive contract, the editor is less likely to push back on your stupid ideas, like, say, Brian Michael Bendis's stupid shit.

 

[Water-T]

I took the official late date for the sake of an "early grave" argument. It's sounds even stranger if counting from Sandman.

Why stop there? "If only they had Alan Moor and Stan Lee there!". Has it never crossed your mind that none of those people cared at that point? That the reason Zoe was there was because she was the only one willing to go there? The checks aren't fat enough to neglect a job on which you can write whatever so why weren't they there?

This is exactly the same commentary Lewis provides. "Something-something editors = bad. Was it his fault? Meh who cares".

Comparing me to a sperglord like "Mr. I want to fuck the green M&M"? You wound me, sir!

But seriously -you are right that a lot of people didn't care at that,which led to Vertigo resorting to hiring Quinn and other carriers of CancerAIDS because controversy was the only thing they had left. If DC gave a fuck and offered decent paychecks to good writers like Warren Ellis, Vertigo would still be alive. As someone who has been reading comics since the 80s, it disheartens me to see Vertigo go from a label that gave us Preacher, Hellblazer, Swamp Thing, Transmetropolitan, and The Invisibles to badly drawn garbage written by sex pests blaming everything on white people and Chelsea's shit attempt to copy/paste Neuromancer and Snow Crash.

 

[AnOminous]

How does that relate to anything? Might as well said "at least he's not a 50 year old bachelor"

You could just say "Mark Waid" and get the same message, although Mark Waid is closer to 60 than 50 and well on his way to dying alone.